#256 Introduction to the Book of James

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This is East from West, discovering God's amazing grace through the teaching of His Word. Welcome to our first broadcast of the new program brought to you by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.
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Find out more information about our ministry at eastfromwest .org. Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabriel Hughes.
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Thank you, Becky. And greetings, everyone. Join with me, if you will, by opening your Bible to James chapter one.
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And today we're going to begin a study of the book of James. How we want to start out is by reading verses one through 27, the whole first chapter.
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Then we're going to go back and talk about which James exactly is the author of this book. We'll also talk about the backstory behind the book and some of the things we will expect as we continue this study.
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But first of all, James chapter one. And let's begin with reading. James, a servant of God and of the
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Lord Jesus Christ to the twelve tribes in the dispersion. Greetings. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.
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For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
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If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given him.
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But let him ask in faith with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
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For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double minded man, unstable in all of his ways.
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Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away.
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For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass. Its flower falls and its beauty perishes.
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So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.
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For when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
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Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
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But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
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Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.
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Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the
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Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
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Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.
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For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
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But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.
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For he looks at himself and goes away, and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
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If anyone thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.
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Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
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Very powerful chapter we just read there, and a lot of things going on. That is because the book of James is written in a sort of proverbial way, as the
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Proverbs are written. Some have referred to it as the Proverbs of the New Testament. So as you would read the
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Proverbs in the Old Testament, so James is full of his own Proverbs. There's a use of a
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Greek form of satire going on here called a diatribe, and perhaps that is a word you are familiar with, using irony, humor, or ridicule to expose a person's vices, and that is exactly what
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James is out to do here. Some of the linguistic characters that we're going to see over the course of the letter include imaginary dialogues.
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So there will be Q &A, James will ask a question and answer it himself as though he's having a dialogue with a person.
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There's also apostrophe, which is not the punctuation, but rather addressing others as though they were actually there.
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Again, that kind of goes with the imaginary dialogue. Also everyday metaphors, James will draw from nature, and we've seen him do this already in the first chapter where he talks about the flower falls and its beauty perishes, so also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.
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We saw that there in verse 11. James also uses allusions to people of the past.
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We'll see that further as we go on in the letter. He refers back to Abraham. There's also some very harsh addresses here, and we saw one in verse 22 where he says, be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves, and we'll see heightened contrasts over the course of the letter as well.
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By the way, that direct command that he makes there in verse 22, that's referred to as an imperative because he's making a direct command, be doers of the word and not hearers only.
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There are over 50 imperatives over the course of the book of James, so some very direct commands here given to us by this author, and who is that author?
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Who is the James that we are talking about? There are several Jameses mentioned over the course of the
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New Testament. Is that the plural form of James, Jameses? Am I all right with that? It could be
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James, the brother of John, the son of Zebedee, James, the son of Alphaeus, also one of the 12, or James, the half brother of Jesus.
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Yeah, it's that last one who is most likely the author of the book of James. It could not have been
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James, the brother of John. James and John were referred to as the sons of thunder. John is the one who wrote the
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Gospel of John, also first and second, third John and the book of Revelation. So why did his brother not contribute to any of the
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New Testament writings? Well, because he died very early on. We read about his death in Acts chapter 12, very early in the beginning of the church, and he died by the sword.
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So it's very unlikely that he contributed to any of the apostolic writings. Then there's James, the son of Alphaeus, who is also one of the 12 apostles, but very little was known about that particular
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James. It's more likely that this James, as he identifies himself at the beginning as somebody who would have been a recognizable name, is a name that appears with greater frequency over the course of the
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New Testament. And that would be James, the half -brother of Jesus mentioned in Matthew 13, 55,
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Mark 6, 3, Galatians 1, 19, where Paul refers to him as James, the Lord's brother, also in 1
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Corinthians chapter 15. And Jude identifies himself as the brother of James at the very beginning of Jude's letter,
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Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James. So it's very likely that Jude and James were kind of a tandem thing when it came to the spread of the gospel.
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James could have been identified by Jude, and Jude identifies himself as a brother of James. In fact, when you go back to the book of Matthew, I'd already mentioned
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Matthew 13, 55. I'm going to begin in verse 53. When Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there and coming to his hometown, he taught them in their synagogue so that they were astonished and said, where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?
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Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers
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James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?
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Where then did this man get all of these things? And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.
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So there we have some of the names of Jesus siblings mentioned there, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas, who would have been
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Jude. That is another variation of the of the of the name Judas, James and Jude, brothers of one another.
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And so James would be the author of the book of James, the half brother of Christ.
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So why does he not identify himself this way at the beginning of this letter? Because surely that's a very prominent title,
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James, the half brother of Jesus. Well, because James authority doesn't come because he was the half brother of Jesus.
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As a matter of fact, over the course of Jesus's entire earthly ministry prior to his death and resurrection,
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James did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah. He thought he had a
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Messiah complex, but did not believe that he was the promised Messiah. Now, Mary knew it.
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Mary knew because Jesus was virgin born, so she knew exactly who he was. But his brothers and sisters didn't understand that and they didn't believe it.
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You know, there's a possibility that his brothers and sisters believe, just as some of the other Jews did, that Jesus was conceived in sexual immorality.
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They knew that Mary had gotten pregnant before she was married to Joseph and Joseph was not the father.
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And we actually see some glimpses of this in some of the exchanges that happen in the
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New Testament between Jesus and some of the Jews in John, chapter eight, beginning in verse thirty nine. They answered him.
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Abraham is our father. And Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works that Abraham did.
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But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what
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Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did. And they said to him, we were not born of sexual immorality.
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We have one father, even God. They're taking a poke at Jesus with that statement, claiming that he was born in sexual immorality because Joseph was not his father.
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Now, we know by the revelation of the scriptures that Mary had conceived by the Holy Spirit, that Jesus was not from the seed of Adam, but it was from the
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Holy Spirit that he was conceived. And so he was born sinless and lived a sinless life.
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No one is able to do that, only Christ, because he was virgin born.
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But there's a possibility there that Jesus's own half brothers and sisters did not really believe that he was the
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Messiah. In fact, probably believed, as most of the Jews did, that he was born in sexual immorality.
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It wasn't until after Jesus died and came back from the grave that his siblings, who were previously skeptics, became believers themselves.
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And we read about this from the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, 1st Corinthians, chapter 15.
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Paul says, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preached to you, which you received in which you stand and by which you are being saved.
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If you hold fast to the word that I preached to you, unless you believed it in vain, for I delivered to you as of first importance what
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I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas and then to the twelve.
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Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
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Then he appeared to James and then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me, for I am the least of the apostles unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.
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And in fact, Paul was the last to be appointed an apostle. There would be no others appointed after Paul, as we understand that list of succession that he gives there in 1st
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Corinthians, chapter 15. Continuing with this understanding, I want to go to Acts chapter one.
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This is Acts one beginning in verse twelve. So this is right after Jesus had ascended into heaven.
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It was forty days after he had risen from the grave. Verse twelve. They returned to Jerusalem from the mount called
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Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying.
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Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus and Simon the
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Zealot and Judas, the son of James. Quite a few Jameses are mentioned there. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers.
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So there you have the mention again of Jesus's half brothers who previously were skeptics and were now believers because they had seen the risen
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Lord. As we go on there in that section of the book of Acts chapter one, it mentions that the company of persons in all was about one hundred and twenty.
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That was the very first church, the first grouping of believers, one hundred and twenty in the upper room waiting for the coming of the
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Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. They were devoting themselves to prayer together with even some of the women who were present there and the half siblings of Jesus.
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So this is the identity that we have of the writer of this book, James, in the
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New Testament, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I want to come back to this question once again.
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Why is it that James does not identify himself as the half brother of Christ?
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That would be a pretty prominent title to call yourself the half brother of Christ. Why is it? Why does he just refer to himself as James, a servant of God and of the
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Lord Jesus Christ? Because he was a very humble man. James did not have his authority simply because he was a half brother of Jesus.
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That's not where his authority came from, because he was somehow related to Jesus, nor did he want anyone to think that his authority came about that way, but rather he was appointed by God.
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He was appeared to by Jesus, as is talked about in first Corinthians chapter 15.
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He was among the 120 that were gathered there in the upper room and was the leader of the church in Jerusalem, as we read in Acts chapter 15.
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So there were various other reasons why James had the authority as a teacher that he did. And one of those reasons was not because he was related in the flesh in some way to Jesus Christ, the risen
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Lord who had now ascended into heaven and was seated at the right hand of God. He did not want to assert his authority in this way.
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As a matter of fact, the apostle Paul says to Timothy at the beginning of his first letter to Timothy to have nothing to do with myths and endless genealogy.
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So there were plenty of people out there who tried to establish their importance by talking about who they were related to.
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And James did not want to have his authority associated in that way. He was the leader of the
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Jerusalem church. He was appointed by Christ to share the gospel. Some would argue that James was perhaps an apostle based on the qualifications needed for a person to be an apostle.
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He would not have been one of the 12. But if you go with some of the more liberal estimates of apostolic appointment,
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James was perhaps an apostle. But if you go with the most conservative estimates, there were only the 12 plus the apostle
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Paul. So only 13 apostles total. We have James's authority established as having been appointed by Jesus Christ himself, not because he was related to Jesus, because they shared the same earthly mother, but because he was appeared to by the risen
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Lord. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes in the dispersion greetings.
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Now, we're not going to get to much of the lesson here or much of what James is offering in terms of commands through this first chapter.
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We're just getting through the this first verse, understanding who James is and who is being addressed by this letter as well.
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The 12 tribes in the dispersion could be referred to could be referring to the 12 tribes of Israel having been dispersed out from Jerusalem, as had happened fairly often during the course of the
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Roman exile. So as the Roman Empire was in charge, there were times when Jews got moved to this place or this place or this place.
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And so because they had been dispersed from Jerusalem, it could be that those who were those who were of the kinsmen, the 12 tribes of Israel, is who it is that James is referring to.
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But it could also be that this is metaphorical, that all of us who are in Christ are now considered exiles on this earth.
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We've all been dispersed out. So those who had received the gospel at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost and then had gone back to their homes and the churches had started up in the various regions because of those who had returned back to the place from which they had come.
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They had shared the gospel with Gentiles. And then you had mixes of Jews and Gentiles together in the same churches growing together in one body.
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So this could be metaphorical to refer to anybody who was a Christian who is an exile on this earth and and are strangers and aliens in this world awaiting for the coming of the kingdom of God.
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Peter makes a very similar statement in one of his letters in 1st Peter, chapter two, beginning in verse nine.
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But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood talking to the church, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
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Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
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Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh with which wage war against your soul.
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Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify
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God on the day of visitation. And my brothers and sisters, that is each one of us.
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We are all exiles, strangers and aliens in this world. We are not meant for this world.
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We are not going to remain here. But all of us anxiously await a heavenly kingdom looking not for fulfillment in this world, but rather that we would do all things to the glory of God until the day of his return.
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And so as we have received this charge, both from James today and also from the apostle
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Peter, may we count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.
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For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
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And it is there that we will pick up again next time with verses two, three and four in the book of James. You can already get that sense of the way he speaks and kind of kind of like proverbs.
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As a matter of fact, this was shared with me by one of my elders at the church,
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Chris Solano. He said that when Alcoholics Anonymous first began, before it was known as AA, it was called the
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James gang because it was based on the book of James. James speaks very directly to an individual, even though James is writing to a group of people, the twelve tribes in the dispersion.
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It's very clear that he's speaking as though addressing each and every individual Christian in their walk of faith.
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So this text was going to be used as one of the root texts in Alcoholics Anonymous, along with First Corinthians 13 and the
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Sermon on the Mount. But just along the way, eventually it went from being the James gang to Alcoholics Anonymous.
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But pretty interesting tidbit, a little bit of trivia for you there, as we will begin a study of this and receive some of the direct commands spoken into the life of every
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Christian to understand how we must live as exiles in this world. Let us pray together.
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Our Lord God, we thank you for what it is that we have read today from the Apostle Paul, from the Apostle Peter and also from James.
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I pray that you would guide us and lead us in these things. These words would be written on our hearts that we would desire to please you with every good work and everything that we do.
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Let it be to the glory of our great God who grows us and perfects us in Jesus Christ, our
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Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen. This has been
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East from West, a production of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Five days a week,
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Monday through Friday, we offer a half -hour daily Bible study through this program. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday is a
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New Testament study. On Thursday we look at an Old Testament book. And on Friday we take questions from the listeners.
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Subscribe to the podcast or find other ministry resources at our website, eastfromwest .org.
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On behalf of Pastor Gabe and our church family, my name is Becky, hoping you'll join us again tomorrow as we continue our study of God's Word.
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East from west to me, maybe I try too hard to see.
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If water turned to wine, or another burning bush, type of sign.
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How can it be your forgiveness lifting me? And of what
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I do confess, this throne as far as east is from the west.