Genuine Obedience

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Scripture Reading and Sermon For 07-25-2021 Scripture Readings: Psalm 40, Titus 2.11-14 Sermon Title: Genuine Obedience Sermon Scripture: James 1 Guest Minister: Brian Solomon

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Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 40. Old Testament Scripture reading this morning is
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Psalm 40. I waited patiently for the
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Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.
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He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the
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Lord. Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie, who have multiplied,
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O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us. None can compare with you.
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I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told. In sacrifice and offering, you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear.
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For in offering and sin offering, you have not required, and then I said, Behold, I have come.
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In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart.
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I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation. Behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know,
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O Lord. You have not hidden your deliverance within my heart. You have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation.
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You have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation. As for you,
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O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me. Your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me.
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For evils have encompassed me beyond number. My iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see.
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They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart fails me. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me.
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O Lord, make haste to help me. Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether who seek to snatch away my life.
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Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt. Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me,
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Aha, aha. But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. May those who love your salvation say continually,
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Great is the Lord. As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me.
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You are my help and my deliverer. Do not delay, O my God. New Testament Scripture reading this morning is found in Titus, chapter 2.
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We'll be reading verses 11 through 14. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for your blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great
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God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
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You may be seated. Today, Brother Brian Solomon is going to be ministering the word to us.
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Brian, you remember, works with Capitol Ministries, ministry to the legislators of our state.
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Brian was here in February ministering the word of God. I told him, last time
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I saw you, you were on television because that Sunday, for some reason, I don't know if it was quarantine or I was sick or something was wrong with me and I had to stay home and saw him on television.
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Brian's going to come and minister the word. I'm anticipating God's blessings as he brings that word to us today.
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So, Brian. Well, good morning.
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Good morning. We're going to be in James chapter 1 this morning. So, if you have your copy of the scriptures, digital or otherwise, go ahead and find your way to James chapter 1.
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We're going to be doing a little bit of water skiing through James this morning. We're not necessarily going to do a deep dive on three or four verses.
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We're going to take the whole chapter as a collective piece and see what the
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Lord might do with his word this morning. As Pastor Tim said,
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I'm involved with a ministry called Capital Ministries and our aim is just to take the gospel of Jesus Christ into various capital settings and point legislators and political leaders toward Christ and to disciple those who do claim the name of Christ in those places and so,
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I think since I was here last, some neat things are taking place in our state capital here in Columbus.
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Our Bible study numbers have tripled since January which is a fantastic thing.
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It's been awesome to watch the Lord at work. One of our insiders, as we call them, in order for our ministry to work, you have to have an insider and an outsider.
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We are the outsiders. We're not part of the capital community. We need a regenerate, born again, follower of Jesus on the inside who would sponsor our
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Bible study and then invite their colleagues to come and so one of our insiders in January said,
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Hey, Brian, why don't you come on down to the capital? The newly elected freshmen are going to be getting settled into their new offices and I'd be happy to walk you around and just introduce you to some of the new freshmen coming in.
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Well, it was at the end of January that that happened and all of the
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COVID restrictions were in full effect and the state house, both on the House of Representatives side and Senate side had limited the legislative aide and capital staff in -person work days.
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Many of them were still working from home and so the legislative aides were only allowed to be in the office one day a week and so here you have all of these newly elected legislators and other legislators moving offices.
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They're doing all of it themselves. They have no entourage. They're moving their own binders, their own books, their own office equipment.
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It was a sight to behold. I wish you all could have seen it. Work was actually taking place. It was amazing.
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You all know the opposite of progress is, right? Congress, right?
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So it was nice to see some progress happening in our state's capital. Anyway, so you have all these folks getting settled into their offices and our insider, his name is
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Reggie Stoltzfus and he loves the Lord. He and his wife own a wood truss company up in northern
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Ohio and he walked us, Lord bless him, office to office on the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th floor of the
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Reif Tower and just vouched for my ministry partner and I because when two guys were walking around with Bibles in hand, we're obviously misconstrued as maybe
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Jehovah's Witnesses or something else. And so it was great that somebody would vouch for us and I think that the
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Lord's emboldening of Representative Stoltzfus to be willing to walk us office to office and vouch for us was one of the things that saw our ministry grow.
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And so we never ask for the opportunity to open the
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Ohio House or the Senate in prayer but we've been able to earn favor in the side of the clerk's office both on the
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House side and the Senate side and so about a dozen times this spring I had the opportunity to open both the
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House and the Senate in prayer and they appreciate
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Brian Hansen, my ministry partner and I because we don't hijack that moment with politics necessarily.
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We tend to highlight an attribute of God, a portion of Scripture and then pray the
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Gospel of Jesus Christ over those bodies of deliberation. One of the first times
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I prayed last year in the Senate, the Senate President asked me, he says, Pastor Brian, how long do you plan on praying?
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I don't know. A minute or two? He goes, oh, okay. I said, why do you ask?
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He said, well, we had a woman from India come in in the last session and she prayed for a half hour.
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Evidently the parliamentary rules is whoever has the floor at that time, it's theirs.
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They can have it for however long they want it. And so we are mindful not to abuse that privilege but certainly pointing people towards the
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Savior. And we're grateful for opportunities like that. I'll just share one other thing before we jump into James 1.
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In our last Bible study, is at the end of May, we had the opportunity to bring our
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Capital Ministries leader from India in. I won't say his name because the message is going to be on YouTube at this moment or later.
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But this man has been pointing Indian lawmakers, parliamentarians to the
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Lord and recently made it out of India with his life. He had nine murderous attempts on his life just this spring alone.
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He and his wife have four children, three of whom are at Cedarville University right now.
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One of them is a graduate. Grace Baptist Church in Cedarville supports this man as a missionary.
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And we had the opportunity to invite him to challenge the lawmakers in May.
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Now, May is a crazy time in our state's legislature. The last box that the lawmakers tick off before they go on their summer break is that they've got to pass the budget.
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And so you have every lobbyist and every person who's wanting their little slice of the pie filling the hallways of the statehouse and trying to get a lawmaker and bend his ear or her ear to try to get a little bit of room on the state's budget.
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And there's a number of things that needed to be done before they could go on break. Well, this man came in and gave a charge to the lawmakers out of Psalm 119 and encouraged these members to lead in such a way that would be pleasing to the
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Lord, to be bold and courageous. You see, this man, his grandfather was commissioned by the imams in Saudi Arabia to take the good news of Islam over into Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India.
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And so as he went, he did that, and his father then did that as well.
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And this man, this Indian man, was sharing his family's story with the lawmakers, and he said, you know, one brave Christian stood in front of my father and shared with him the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And my father was gloriously converted. And see, in Islam, there's a three -step method to win somebody back to Islam once they've moved away from their faith.
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The first step is they'll flatter the man or woman with lavish gifts. And he said, my father was given all sorts of gifts, bribes to come back to Islam.
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And he said, no. Step two is they try to win you back through marriage.
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And they would bring woman after woman after woman for this, for his father to marry, to bring him back into Islam.
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And he said, no. And so step three then is they kill you. And his family was under such intense persecution, they ended up changing their last name.
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But he, his father, grandfather, of course, are direct descendants of Muhammad.
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And so to consider how the God of the universe, who is mindful of you and I in this moment, and nothing escapes his care or notice, saw fit to redirect that family tree and is now using this man to advance the gospel football in India and in other places.
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This man's wife is the daughter of a Colombian diplomat.
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And if the Lord would put this on your heart, we're doing some back -channel diplomacy right now.
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We're trying to install this couple to be our capital ministry's representatives in the UN. And Secretary of State, former
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others are trying to help us with some of that. So I share all of that, again, to encourage you that much of what you see on the news is not real.
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And there's a lot of things that are happening that God's hand is on. And the sovereign king of the universe is on the throne.
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And he is directing the affairs of men. Well, we've been studying James with our lawmakers this spring.
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And James chapter one this morning represents some of what we have been walking our legislators through in the state house.
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And like I said, we're going to do a little bit of water skiing. And so I would encourage you to fasten your seatbelt.
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There's a lot of ground to cover here in just this first chapter of James.
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Before we go too much further, let's pray and ask for God's help in rightly dividing this word of truth.
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Father, we give our time to you. We declare our dependence upon you.
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And we confess that we can't do anything apart from you. And so even as we seek to study and interpret and apply your word here, we know that we can't do this on our own.
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We need your help. There is a lot of truth packed in here.
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Lord, in many areas of our life, we have been unwilling to bring it under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
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And it has not conformed into the person of Jesus. In fact, there are many areas in our life that are just in flat out rebellion.
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Lord, as we walk through James chapter one, I pray that you would help us to maybe confront some of those areas in our life.
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And by way of your spirit, you would help us as we seek to be more like your son
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Jesus and a little less like ourselves. So Lord, bless our time together in Jesus' name.
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Amen. Well, a couple of contextual items.
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It's always good Bible study to understand the context in which the book is written.
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One of the great pitfalls for many Christians is that they'll dive into God's word.
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They'll flip through and do their morning devotions. And what am I going to study? Right here.
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And they'll take a piece of scripture out of its context and build a whole doctrine around that for the day.
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You know what that's called? It's called a cult. And so we definitely don't want to be guilty of any sort of heresy or any sort of cult practice.
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So understanding the context in which this epistle is written frames for us the content of the epistle itself, and then that helps us stay on track.
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All right? So a couple of cursory comments about this letter of James. James identifies himself in chapter 1, verse 1.
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But which James is this? Will the real James please stand up? There's different options that we could choose from.
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Is this James the disciple? There are other James mentioned in the book of Acts.
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No, this James is the half -brother of Jesus, and he was actually an unbeliever during Jesus' public ministry, according to John chapter 7, verses 2 to 5.
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James saw the risen Christ in 1 Corinthians 5, 7. The apostle Paul details that account for us.
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James was present at Pentecost, according to Acts chapter 1, verses 12 to 14.
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And the apostle Paul recognized James, the half -brother of Jesus, as a pillar of the
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Jerusalem church, according to Galatians 2 .9. James actually had the final word at the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15.
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If you remember, that council of Jerusalem met. They were finding their way through the church's first major theological problem.
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That problem was, could Gentiles truly be saved, apart from the
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Old Testament sacrifices and circumcision and things like that?
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Of course, James had the final say. He said, yes, yes, Gentiles can be saved.
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They are part of this new family of faith, this ecclesia, this called -out assembly.
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Now, there's no mention of the council of Jerusalem as it's described in Acts 15.
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Found in this letter of James, that council of Jerusalem took place sometime between AD 48,
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AD 50. And so in terms of framing the date of this epistle, we could say that this can actually be, or excuse me, accurately dated sometime between AD 44 and 48, which makes this epistle,
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James' epistle, the earliest book of the New Testament. And some of you are like, you mean the
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New Testament's not written in chronological order? No, it is not. It's not. And so James, the earliest book of the
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New Testament, draws on two major sources to inform this letter.
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And so if you were to spend some time walking through this epistle in James, you'll say, wow, that sounds a whole lot like the
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Sermon on the Mount. Or hey, you know what, that sounds a whole lot like the book of Proverbs.
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And you'd be right. James draws on those two sources to inform a lot of the content found in this letter.
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Now, the book of James is as much a lecture as it is a letter. Even though it opens with the customary salutation of an epistle, it lacks some personal references that are common in many of the
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Apostle Paul's letters. He doesn't mention anybody by name, necessarily. He speaks of this dispersion, these messianic followers of Jesus who have been dispersed through the
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Roman Empire. Dispersed, no doubt, by the work of Saul of Tarsus.
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James is writing to these who are going through great difficulty. This so -called epistle was obviously prepared for public reading as a sermon to the congregations that the letter was addressed.
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The tone is clearly authoritative, but not necessarily autocratic. James includes 54 imperative commands.
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What is an imperative command? It's a do this. It's a call to action.
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It's a call to obedience. And there are 54 of these imperative commands, lest we might be confused or give ourselves an out.
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These aren't suggestions. They are imperative commands.
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Do this. There's 108 verses in James, 54 imperative commands.
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That's an average of one call to action, every other verse. James' style is both energetic and vivid.
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It conveys profound concepts with crisp, well -chosen words, short, pithy, proverb -like statements.
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The sentences are short, simple, direct. So hopefully you brought your steel -toed boots this morning.
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He uses many metaphors, similes. And then at times, he incorporates a touch of poetic imagination.
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In fact, this book of James probably has more figures of speech, analogies, and imagery from nature than all of the
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Apostle Paul's epistles put together. All of its exhortations, rhetorical questions, and illustrations from everyday life give this little epistle a lot of spice.
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Now, it's well known that Martin Luther had problems with this book.
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Martin Luther, one of the great fathers of the Protestant Reformation, he struggled with this book because of James' emphasis on Christian conduct.
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Luther, coming out of Catholicism and its emphasis on works, and falling in love with this message of grace, this gospel of grace, that we've been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
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James feels like a return to works. Luther, finding life in Paul's epistle of Romans, goes to James and says, hold on here, there's a lot of emphasis on conduct.
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And I think Luther missed the point of what James was doing. James' epistle isn't necessarily meant to help people see how to become a
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Christian, but rather how to live like a Christian. So, Paul and James could be like two sides of the same coin, just looking at our
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Christian life from a different vantage point. Professor Walvard of Dallas Theological Seminary says this of Martin Luther and his characterization of James.
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Luther called James a right straw -y epistle. But Walvard says it's only straw -y to the degree that it is sticky.
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There are enough needles in this haystack to prick the conscience of every dull, defeated, and degenerated
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Christian in the world. Here is a right stirring epistle, designed to exhort, encourage, to challenge, convict, to rebuke and revive, to describe practical holiness and drive believers to the goal of faith that works.
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James is severely ethical and refreshingly practical, aiding the
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Christian in developing patterns of life that are characterized by genuine obedience.
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Genuine obedience, as opposed to inauthentic obedience. If you can transport yourself back to third grade for a moment, and of course there's always that kid in your class that was seeking to hijack the teacher's plan for the day.
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And the teacher, if you can imagine this, was calling little Johnny in the back to do something that Johnny didn't want to do.
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You see, Johnny was standing up out of his chair, and the teacher says, Johnny, I need you to sit down. Johnny says, no.
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The teacher says, Johnny, I need you to sit down. No. Johnny, this is the last time
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I'm going to ask you. Sit down. Fine. Johnny sits down, crosses his arms, says, but I'm standing up on the inside.
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Hopefully that's not a characterization of your obedience. Unfortunately, it's mine.
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And as I look over my shoulder this week even, and think about the innumerable failings in my own
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Christian life this week, I have exalted my desires and my wants over and above Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith.
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You see, when we think about genuine obedience, it's really easy to come to James chapter 1 with a satellite dish.
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Y 'all still know what a satellite dish is? Anybody use those anymore? We've got wireless routers?
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Satellite dishes. We receive a signal, but we've got to orient that satellite dish right, right?
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So we've got to catch that signal. But sometimes we think about obedience, or this topic, and we listen with the satellite dish in the sense that we've got to direct it at somebody else.
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Boy, my kids need a little help understanding obedience. Boy, my wife could handle a little bit of this.
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Or so -and -so in the room could really use a good dose of preaching on obedience this morning.
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The reality is, is that all of us need it. Every one of us. Chuck Swindoll writes in his book,
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Strengthening Your Grip, he writes of an account that he and his wife had and some friends with an astronaut.
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He writes this. He says, My wife and I had the pleasure of spending an evening with former astronaut
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General Charles M. Duke. All of us in the room sat in rapt fascination of the man, or excuse me, as the man, told of the
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Apollo 16 mission to the moon, including some interesting tidbits related to driving the rover, the lunar vehicle, and his actual walking on the surface of the moon.
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We were full of questions, which General Duke patiently and carefully answered one after another.
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I asked him, I said, General, once you were out there on the moon, weren't you free to make your own decisions and carry out some of your own experiments?
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You know, kind of, sort of do as you pleased. Maybe stay a little bit longer if you liked? The general smiled back.
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He said, sure, Chuck, if we didn't want to return to Earth. He then described the intricate plan, the exact and precise instructions they were given, the essential discipline, the instant obedience that was needed right down to the split second.
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By the way, he said that they landed somewhat heavy when they touched down on the moon.
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Now, he was referring to their fuel supply. They had plenty left. Guess how much?
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One minute. They landed on the moon with 60 seconds of fuel remaining.
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Talk about being exact. I got the distinct impression that a rebel doesn't fit inside of a space suit.
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Whoever represents the United States in this space program must have an unconditional respect for authority.
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Friends, you and I, the measuring stick for the kind of respect that we have for our great
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God and Savior, Jesus Christ, is marked by our obedience. Our obedience.
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And so is the obedience that you have, is it genuine? Or are you like Johnny in the back of the classroom?
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Let's turn our eyes to James, and let's go ahead and just, we're going to do a once -over through James 1, and then we're going to pull out some observations, offer some interpretation and application as we go.
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So fasten your seatbelt. We're going to get moving and grooving here. All right, James chapter 1, verse 1, James says this.
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James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes in the dispersion.
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Greetings. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of various kinds.
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For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. If you're in the habit of underlining in your
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Bible, maybe just mark steadfastness, for it shows up several times here.
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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 if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to 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 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, and so will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.
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Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which
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God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted,
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I'm 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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And then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.
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Verse 16, Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and 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 first fruits of his creatures.
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Knowing 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 one's self unstained from the world.
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God uses trials to grow us. According to verses two to four,
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James is leading this group this dispersion who's been scattered about, no doubt by the murderous threats of Saul of Tarsus, and James has the audacity to tell them, count it all joy when you face trials of many kind.
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It's been said of trials that we're either coming out of a trial, we're in the midst of a trial, or we're about ready to go into a trial.
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Trials are part of this broken world that we live in. Pastorally, I think
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I'd have a couple black eyes and a missing tooth if every time I came to somebody who's going through a trial and said, hey, count it all joy when you face trials of many kind.
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While it's true, and for those of us who are coming out of a trial, in a trial, about ready to go into a trial, this does frame the trial for us.
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This helps us to see that God's hand is on us. That God isn't somehow taking a nap while we're going through our trial.
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But rather the sovereign God, the one who we sung about this morning, sovereignly cares for us in the midst of trial and ordains these trials for our growth, for our good and His glory.
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Trials aren't just difficulty that we are meant to walk through in and of themselves.
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No, they produce something. James says that these trials produce steadfastness.
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It's a military term that indicates this soldier on the battlefield who is immovable.
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Stand firm. So if you can think about that Navy SEAL over in Ramadi or someplace where the bullets are just flying by them and it's an incredibly intense moment and that SEAL isn't going anywhere.
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There's steadfastness there. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trial of many kind for these trials produce steadfastness.
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And there's a blessing to the one who remains steadfast in the midst of this trial.
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And then moving on into verse 5, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given to him.
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That sounds like a proverb, doesn't it? Short, pithy, proverb -like statement,
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James. But notice James inserts that proverb, that statement, that very true proverb right in between two essential things that you and I face as followers of Jesus in this broken world.
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Trials, and then he begins in verse 12 to talk about temptation.
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So when should we ask for wisdom? Well, this is a fantastic promise for the believer.
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That wisdom can be found and God grants it to those who ask in faith. But trials and temptations, when we face those, that's a great time to ask for God's wisdom.
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Lord, help me. I am hemmed in by time and space and my own desires betray me.
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Father, would you empower me by your Spirit to have wisdom to know how to move in this moment.
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God grants wisdom to all who ask for it. It's important that we think about trials and temptations through this thing that God gives us to sustain us, to lead us, to help us be steadfast.
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So, God uses trials to grow us, God grants wisdom to all who ask for it, and temptations are a reality in this broken world.
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Verses 12 to 15. James says, Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which
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God promised to those who love him. Verse 13. Let no one say when he is tempted.
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Notice, James says if he is tempted, but when he is tempted.
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Let no one say when he is tempted. I'm 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's lured and enticed by his own desire.
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And then desire, when it's conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it's fully grown, brings forth details.
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A pastor friend of mine tells a story of when he was a boy. His parents had left for the evening and his older sister, who was much older than him, was to babysit him while mom and dad were having a date night.
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And older sister says, okay, Brian, it's time to go to bed. And Brian said, no, I'm not ready to go to bed.
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She said, oh yeah, this is when mom and dad said you need to go to bed. And he said, I'm not going to bed. She said, you're going to bed. I'm not going, you're going to bed.
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She picks him up and carries him upstairs and he's flailing around and he ends up grabbing her hair and rips out a whole chunk of hair out of her head.
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Of course, yeah. Of course, she's screaming. And in that moment, he knew that he had messed up and he's in big trouble when mom and dad get home.
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So he begins to rehearse his story. He's got plenty of time to game plan for when mom and dad come home.
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Well, mom's the first one into his room. She's already debriefed with big sister.
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She says, Brian, what did you do? I don't know, ma.
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The devil made me do it. Without missing a beat, mom says, well,
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Brian, we're going to have to spank that devil right out of you. Oftentimes when we make mistakes or we just flat out sin, we're prone to either blame the devil or blame
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God sometimes and we've missed the mark and we haven't correctly diagnosed the source of our sin, the source of our temptation.
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See, the devil doesn't make us do anything. I think sometimes in our
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Protestant, Reformed, Evangelical circles, we're guilty of either making too much of Satan or too little of him.
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Satan is not God. Satan is bound by time and space.
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God is not. Which is to say that Satan is not omnipotent and he is not omnipresent.
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Scriptures tell us where Satan is. Scriptures tell us that he is accusing the brethren day and night.
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Hey, God, did you see Brian? Boy, he's screwed up again. Hey, God, did you see that?
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And Brian turns 46 this year. Is he ever going to get his act together? When is he going to get it together here?
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He's been doing the same stuff since he was a teenager, God. Look at him. And Jesus intercedes for us.
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God says, know him. Brian's mine. Bought with the blood of my son
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Jesus. Let no one say that God tempts him, but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
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Friends, we've got to stop shifting the blame. Have you ever noticed when you tell stories about yourself, you're either the hero of the story or the victim?
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Have you ever noticed? Maybe you haven't noticed. Maybe you had a look in your rear view and think about all the stories that you've told about yourself recently and think hard.
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When we talk about ourselves, we're either the hero of the story or the victim.
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I was either awesome. Man, everyone was against me. I only failed because of them.
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Friends, spiritually, when we think about temptation, we've got to stop thinking about ourselves in terms of hero -victim, but rather be real with ourselves as to what is actually going on.
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We have desires, many of them good, but sometimes we elevate those good things and make them ultimate things, and all of a sudden we're idolaters.
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Or we enjoy things that God has put parameters around. I love food.
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I can't love food too much, then I'm a glutton. I love sleep. I can't love sleep too much, or I'm a sloth.
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I love work. I can't love work too much, or I'm a workaholic, and my family suffers.
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If there's too much attached to any desire that you have, you're in danger of giving in to temptation.
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Temptations are a reality in this broken world. God doesn't tempt us. Rather, we are the true source of temptation and sin, and sin leads to death.
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And then that takes us right into this hinged section in James chapter one. Verses 16 to 18, we see
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James' presupposition that hangs over this entire epistle, and that's that those who are reading this epistle are already followers of Jesus.
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This is a letter written to those who have embraced Jesus by faith. James, in all of these imperative commands that he lists out in chapter one are only doable when a person has repented of their sin, savingly believed on Jesus.
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The spirit of God has taken up residence in them, and then empowers them to fight and war against those temptations, to uphold and lead towards steadfastness in the midst of trial.
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Only then is a follower of Jesus able to live out some of these imperative commands.
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A person apart from Christ, that is to say, if you have not come to a place or point in your life where you have savingly believed in Jesus Christ, you have repented and renounced your old life, and you have fallen at the cross of Jesus, acknowledge that God sent his son
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Jesus to be the propitiation for your sin. Friend, if that is not you, you can't do what
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James is calling you to do. And if you try to do what James is calling you to do, it will be an exercise in futility.
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And at some point you'll say, it just doesn't work. And you'd be right. Apart from Christ, this doesn't work.
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Verse 16, Don't 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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This idea of we are a kind of firstfruits, this is in reference to this new birth or our regeneration.
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It's not, as James is using this as a figure of speech, he's not saying that we are created in the
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Genesis sort of creation. Rather, James is specifically speaking to our salvation that he has made us a new creature at the moment that we have embraced the truth of the gospel.
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So we are a kind of firstfruits who have been brought forth. Brought forth by the word of truth, which is synonymous with the gospel.
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So we are a kind of firstfruits who have been brought forth through the gospel because of his will.
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The fact that God gives good gifts speaks to the goodness of God. It's who he is.
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One of God's attributes is goodness. God's will is therefore subject to his character.
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He is good and that's why we can trust him. We can trust him in his call of salvation for all who repent and believe in him because he's good and loving and desires all men everywhere to come into the saving knowledge of his son,
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Jesus Christ. But the fact that God is good in all that he also,
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God is good in all that he calls us to do. I .e., these imperative commands. God is good in them.
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And because he's good in these commands that he is leading us through in scripture, it fuels our trust in him to take him at his word.
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We should obey in him. We should obey not because we're fearful of an impending lightning bolt but because God is good and he desires good for us.
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When I obey out of a spirit of thankfulness and delight in carrying out of his will,
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God is glorified. When God is glorified, I'm satisfied. 1
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Corinthians 10 .31 Whether therefore we eat or drink or whatever we do, do it all to the glory of God.
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However, if my obedience is born out of duty or legalism, it's empty and akin to those empty sacrifices of the
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Old Testament that the Israelites offered. In the spirit of Johnny, I'm standing up on the inside.
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Here's my lamb, God, but I'm a rebel inside.
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Externally, I'm going to do what I want to do. Internally, there's been no transformation. We should obey because God is good.
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It fuels our desire to want to obey. Moving on in James 1 .19
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-21, we see another one of James' short, pithy Proverbs. Verse 19.
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Know this, my beloved brothers. Let everyone or 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. Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to become angry.
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An observation that's been made through the years is that God has given us how many ears? Two ears.
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And how many mouths? One mouth. So we should listen twice as much as we speak, right?
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Because when we speak, we get ourselves in all sorts of trouble. And when we speak before we've listened, oh boy, get the shovel out.
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We've just been digging ourselves a hole. Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to become angry.
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Why? Because man's anger doesn't produce the righteousness of God.
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Anger fails to yield the righteous life that God desires for us.
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The goal to which this epistle is committed. Anger here is to be thought of as this deep internal feeling of hostility toward another.
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I've told this story, my kids are tired of hearing me share this. I've used this illustration several times. But as a kid, my dad drove truck for FedEx, actually still does.
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Lord willing, he'll retire this year because he needs a couple new knees and his body is failing. And so drove truck all those years and so we would have family dinner at 8 o 'clock every night.
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So we'd sit down to eat. We're starving, by the way. And I'm the oldest of four boys and we're sitting down for dinner.
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And of course, at some point in the meal, every meal, somebody would spill something.
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Somebody would knock a glass of milk over or something. Something would get spilled.
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And it had been a long week of work for my dad. Well, we finally sit down to eat. We're all starving and sure enough, one of us boys spills something and my dad slams his fist on the table and says, every meal, every stinking meal.
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Nagasaki just happened in our kitchen. Quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to become angry.
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Sometimes those anger, that anger comes out and bursts. I told my kids that story and then we did a
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FaceTime. My kids were younger at the time and we did a FaceTime with my parents who were in Colorado and one of my girls says, says, hey grandpa, every meal's a stinking meal.
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He's like, oh no, you messed it all up. You didn't get it right. Verse 21,
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James calls for us to put away certain things and it's a pathway of sorts for us.
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That we are to put away filthiness and rampant wickedness. What is it that hijacks our obedience?
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That's when we're holding onto stuff. Holding onto stuff that doesn't fit within this Christian life that we're supposed to be living out.
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Lost my spot. Okay, therefore put away all filthiness, rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.
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The Greek word for filthiness here is riparia which means moral filth. In the
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Old Testament, this word is actually translated excrement or dung.
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So James is essentially urging Christians to put away any moral crap that they're tolerating in their own lives because it stinks.
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And everybody knows it except for you. The Greek word for rampant means abundance of or a surplus of and wickedness means evil, depravity, malice or a general sense of badness.
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James is saying that characteristically there should not be an abundance of badness in the life of a believer.
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Why? Because the believer's committed to obedience. Genuine, authentic obedience. Verse 21,
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James says that we are to receive this implanted word with meekness. The word of God is to be ingrown or inborn rooted in the fertile soil of our soul.
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It's the word of God that can save and transform sinners. However, this word needs and must be received with a humble heart and then dwelt upon.
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A humble heart. The word of truth must be received with humility.
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And all of us would say okay. But the self -righteous in the room says why wouldn't
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God want to use me? I'm awesome. You mean that there's areas in my life that I need to bring into confirmation to the person of Jesus Christ?
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What are you talking about? I'm amazing. Now on the other end of the spectrum we've got the self -loathing in our midst and they're like oh man.
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I'm not good enough. Why would Jesus want to save me? Why would he want to use me?
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I think both are wrong. But especially the self -righteous because they miss this whole point of humility.
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You see when we receive the implanted word of truth humbly and our hearts have that fertile soil boy obedience takes off.
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One pastor asked the question what's the best way not to be hungry at Thanksgiving dinner? Well the answer of course is to be filled with other things.
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Eat bread. Similarly when we sit down to feast on the word of God we find that our hearts don't really want to eat.
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Our hearts are filled with other things. How long is this pastor going to keep going? I'm starving.
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Our hearts are packed with TV programs. Disney Plus and Netflix. The internet.
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Money. The stock market. Our jobs. Family anxieties. The riches of this world.
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Essentially our hearts are so packed with everything except for the longings of God. So what's crowding out?
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This implanted word? Stuff. Stuff. And then
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James moves into this pastoral exhortation in verses 22 to 25.
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But be doers of the word. Sounds like obedience. And not hearers only deceiving yourselves.
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For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer he's like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror for he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
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But the one who looks into the perfect law the law of liberty and perseveres being no hearer but forgets but a doer who acts he will be blessed in his doing.
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It's not sufficient to receive the implanted word only one must respond to it in act of obedience.
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The command is clear do not merely listen to the word do what it says. One must become or keep becoming a doer of the word and not just a hearer.
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But be careful of self -deception according to verse 22. If hearing does not lead to doing if study does not result in obedience if attendance at worship service doesn't lead to a righteous life then the word of God has been mistreated and we're deceiving ourselves about the reality of our own relationship to God.
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Self -deception is the worst kind of deception. One way that we ward off self -deception is by looking at the gospel.
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23 to 25 for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer he's like a man who looks intently into his natural face in a mirror for he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he is like but the one who looks into the perfect law the law of liberty the gospel of Jesus Christ the one who looks into the gospel is a doer.
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James is actually making a reference to the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount Matthew 7 verses 24 to 26 where Jesus says everyone then who hears the words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock.
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Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them or does not do them will be like a foolish man who builds a beach house.
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The words and works of Jesus Christ bring life and blessing to all who believe. Look to them. Why do we look to them?
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Because the proof is in the pudding according to verse 26 to 27 for if anyone thinks he's religious and doesn't bridle his tongue but deceives his heart this person's religion is worthless.
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You claim to have faith? You claim to be a follower of Jesus? Really? Is your life marked by genuine obedience?
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Well, how do I know? Well, James gives three markers that we can evaluate ourselves on.
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So James becomes pretty specific in this section. What does it mean to do the word?
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Well, three areas of obedience are singled out in this section. James identifies our personal behavior i .e.
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the things that he or she says, social concern, being mindful of the widows and the orphans, and then he says don't be conformed to this world.
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Maybe another way of saying that Paul says in Colossians 3 don't look to earthly things fix your eyes on things that are above.
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Be wary of the sins of the tongue. Care for widows and orphans. And don't be conformed to this world.
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Three areas to evaluate your own self. How are the words that you're speaking?
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Are you mindful of social issues? Now, gotta be careful with this one. Being so close to Cedarville University I have seen a trend over the last 15 years where we have regenerate, saved followers of Jesus coming out of the university and they are throwing themselves into activism and have moved absolutely away from evangelism.
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So they love activism they don't love evangelism. And James is saying hey look, both our proclamation and our demonstration has to be rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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So we do need to have a social concern. But it can't be devoid of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh and by the way the things that you say the way you say them they matter.
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So we've got to be really careful there. Genuine obedience.
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The Apostle Paul essentially sums up what James is calling us to do in Titus 2.
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We read it this morning. Paul writes to Titus he says,
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For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people. Amen. Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.
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To live self -controlled upright and godly lives in this present age. Sounds like obedience.
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Waiting for a blessed hope. The appearing of the glory of our great
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God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
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Who are zealous to obey. May that be true of us this week.
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Let's pray. Father thanks for your word. So much here in James 1.
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But as we have moved quickly through this passage this morning I pray that you would by way of your spirit be stirring in our hearts a renewed desire to be zealous for good works.
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A renewed desire to obey. A renewed desire to war against our own flesh.
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To put sin to death in our members. To learn to love the things that you want us to love.
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Lord help us with our tongues. Help us with the words that we say and how we say them.
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Lord give us a heart for the brokenness that is all around us.
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And Lord help us not to pursue worldly passions over and above you. Lord this thing called obedience is pretty tough to do.
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Apart from your help. And we need your help. So we pray for it in the name of Jesus. Amen.