A Jet Tour Through James (Part 3)

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Pastor Mike Abendroth, A Jet Tour Through James (Part 3)

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What do you call this, kids?
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The Bible. What are some other names for the Bible? God's Word?
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Good. The Gospel? The Words of Jesus? Nice. Maybe if I just said the
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Scriptures? How many books are in the Bible? It's a book, but it has other books in it.
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How many books in the Bible? Sixty -six. Good. The Bible is divided into two sections, the
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Old Testament and the New Testament. How many books in the Old Testament? Can I get a forty -five?
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Close. The Old Testament is thirty -nine, and so sixty -six minus thirty -nine.
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How many in the New Testament? Somebody said earlier. Yep. Twenty -seven. Twenty -seven. Nice. And they all, twenty -seven in the
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New and twenty -seven, thirty -nine in the Old, talk about one thing. They have one subject. What's the subject of that book called the
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Bible? What does it teach us about? Jesus. Okay, Jesus. Perfect.
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Even the book of Esther, that doesn't even have the word God in it, teaches us about God.
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One of the things you can do, parents, that I think it's a good exercise, is when you're studying a book of the
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Bible, have the children write down everything they learn about God from that book.
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So if you're in 1 John and you learn something about God, you write that down, and pretty soon you start to think,
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I've learned a lot about who God is in this one particular book. I did that lesson myself, and I'm not even a kid.
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I learned in one book that Jesus is God, Jesus is Lord, God is generous,
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God answers prayer, God rewards, God cannot be tempted by evil,
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God gives perfect gifts, God is a Father, God is light, God never changes,
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God is sovereign, God regenerates, God is righteous, God is glorious,
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God chooses, God is one, God justifies, the
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Holy Spirit is jealous, God is gracious, God is opposed to the proud,
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God draws near, God exalts, God is the lawgiver, God is the judge,
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God alone saves, God alone destroys, God is the Lord of hosts,
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Jesus will return, Jesus is near, the Lord is full of compassion, the
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Lord is merciful, the Lord heals, and finally number 33, the 33rd thing
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I learned from the book of James about God is that the Lord forgives sin.
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Isn't that amazing? In the book of James that is almost top -heavy with commands and laws to guide us, there's all these things we can learn about God, and that's really the function of the preacher is to teach you and remind you what can we learn about God today and how can we live in light of that.
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So if you have a Bible, turn to the book of James, that's shorthand for the epistle, our letter to James, and so the
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Spirit of God is using James, Jesus' half -brother, to write to churches, not just back then, but for today, because God's word is powerful, it's
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God's breath as it were, as you breathe this out, and so it's important for not just people in the old days, but for us as well.
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Transcendent truth from the Bible, what does the Bible teach us? And so we're in the book of James, kind of coming from a long series on Luke, and we'll get back to Luke, but James is a book written to help you live the
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Christian life. Remember last week I talked about a code, it's the family code.
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When you're in the family of God, by faith alone, trusting in Jesus, there's a certain way you should live, and when you live that way, it's good for you, it's good for your neighbor, and it honors
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God. It doesn't mean you live this way to get salvation, because you'd have to be perfect to get to salvation, because Jesus is the only perfect one, and it doesn't mean you stay in the family by being good or obeying the law, but since you're in the family, it's like conduct befitting an officer, an officer should have certain conduct that befits him or her.
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And so James is the first book in the New Testament that was written while the events of Christ's life and death and burial and resurrection have happened.
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You heard me say this the last two Sundays that we've met, and that is, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus has happened, but those books,
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Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have not yet been written, they're written later. And so in God's providence, in His sovereignty, the first book that He has written for the
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New Testament church is James. We know all about Jesus, there's some people who are still alive that have just seen
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Him ten years ago, so how do I live now that I'm a Christian? Do I have to have a bunch of Israelite laws of ceremonies and civil things?
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How do I really live? Jesus has suffered a death for my sins,
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He never sinned, He was literally buried, showing that He died and that He was raised from the dead and now
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He's ascended into heaven and He prays for me, He prays for you, He's your advocate,
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He's your mediator, that in fact God has worked everything together for good, even the death of Jesus, the beloved
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Son, and in light of that, how do I live? I'd say to my children regularly, you're an ebendroth, so live like one.
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This is what the ebendroths do. This is what Christians do, by the grace of God, they do what
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James is directing them to do. Now the greatest book
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I think that's ever been written on sanctification or holy living outside of the Bible is a book by Walter Marshall, and he said to live a holy life you've got to know these things, here's some things you have to know.
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You have to know that you're forgiven and reconciled to God, forgiven by God and to be reconciled by God, because if you're not you'll just strive to be right in God's eyes, so to live a holy life you have to rest assured that you're saved by grace and that you're a child of God.
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He also said to live a holy life you have to know you have an eternal future with the Lord.
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You've got a happy eternal future with the Lord, so you can live now full bore, you can live all out, full throttle now, because heaven awaits.
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And he also says to live a holy life you have to know that you have strength to do what the
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Bible says you're to do. And so we know that because Jesus when He left the disciples
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He gave them the Holy Spirit that the Holy Spirit might dwell in them and might dwell in us, yes by faith, so we actually have the power to obey now.
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And here in this book of James it's fast, I almost said it's furious but it's not, it's pace is furious, it reminds me of, it's about ready for springtime in my mind and so I don't know how many people like roller coasters, it's like a kid's sermon.
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People like my age we don't like roller coasters anymore, I always wondered why grandpa when I was a kid grandpa never went on roller coasters or spinny rides, for four days
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I'd be going like that. Here's the book of James, it's like when you first get in the roller coaster and you're going up the roller coaster and so you can hear that clicking sound, do you remember it?
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Click, click, click, it's just pulling you up and you're getting up to the top anticipating this swoosh down and around and you're just so excited and you might raise your hands and you know that perfect spot where it's going to take a picture of you so you make the funny face, they didn't have those when
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I was a kid. The anticipation of who we are in Christ reaches the crescendo and James starting in verse three downhill he goes in the roller coaster and it's just one rapid fire thing after another, it's direct, it's authoritative and it's good for us.
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And James starts saying you know if you were a Christian here's how I want you to live, for your good, for your neighbor's good, and for God's glory.
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I want you to count it all joy when you're in a trial, remember that when he says in chapter one, he goes on to say
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I'd like you to make sure you never say God tempted me to do something, because God doesn't tempt,
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He only gives good gifts. Think about your salvation, think about your regeneration. I want you to be a doer of God's word,
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God's word isn't just to be analyzed, it's to be obeyed. That's chapter one verse twenty -two, you're flying down this roller coaster and you're thinking how do
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I live my life, especially when I'm in troubled times and he says in chapter two verse one remember don't be partial, all these things are easy for us to disobey and they don't come naturally or else why would
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God give us a command? Count it all joy doesn't come naturally, blaming other people comes naturally, being lazy comes naturally, showing partiality comes naturally, but God doesn't want us to do any of those because we're children of the
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King, we have a different father, we're not ruled by Satan any longer. He goes on in chapter two verses fourteen and following saying for Christians there's going to be fruit, the
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Spirit of God produces fruit in your life and we saw last week, I think I was very convicted,
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I think probably you were as well, that the tongue needs to be tamed not by us but by God, that we have to be careful what we say because the tongue is very destructive on the negative side and it's very uplifting on the positive side.
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To repeat, here's what I want you to remember about every New Testament command and law. It's not a law that's floating out there in the ether abstractly, here's a law, love your neighbor as yourself, laws and the law giver have to be thought of together.
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One of the keys in holy living is simply this, the law is given by the law giver, the
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Father has given me the law, it's not just some law that's out there floating around in space, it's from the hand of the
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Father and fathers on earth, sinful fathers, mothers on earth, sinful mothers give their children rules to help them, to guide them, to protect them.
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They're not rules to say you know what, if you do these you're my kid, you're my child, no no, they're rules to say you know it'll go well with you if you do these things.
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Here's the easy life, here's the right life, here's the righteous life and so when it comes to James we're seeing that there are laws given, amen, but they're from the hand of the
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Father. Never disassociate laws and the law giver, the
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Father and the one who gives the law. Okay, we're ready to go? How many books in the
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Bible kids? I didn't say this
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I don't think last week, James is written almost you could think of like a sermon, it's written for public reading, it's like James had a bunch of sermons and he just took the extracts of the best of James and put them together and it's called the
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Epistle of James and it sounds just like Jesus because James would know what
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Jesus taught on the Sermon on the Mount, the Mount of Olives and others. Very very fast -paced book, wonderful book,
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I think it was the first book of the Bible I ever taught, I hope it's not my last.
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Remember the, is it the Winchester House in California, remember the gun magnet and she as long as she builds on to her house she thought she would stay alive, remember that?
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Weird people live in California I want you to know, the sane ones hunker down in New England and the free birds move to California, what does it have to do with anything?
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I don't know but I think I'm going to be preaching Luke for the next five to ten years, as long as I preach through Luke we stay alive.
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I said before I think that there were fourteen main groupings of direction and laws from the lawgiver in James and I've just reviewed the first six and so now we're going to work on number seven and it's found in chapter three verses 13 through 18 and every one of these of course is going to remind us of Jesus because Jesus counted all joy,
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Jesus never blamed the father in trials, Jesus was a doer of God's Word, Jesus was not partial, he loved people,
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Jesus' faith had evidence, Jesus guarded his tongue and now number seven out of fourteen, knowing the resurrection is true, how do we live?
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James says I want you to be wise and I'll ask the question, are you wise?
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Is wisdom just reading Plato and Socrates and Aristotle? What's wisdom?
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Let's find out, this is vintage James. Who is wise, chapter three verse 13, and understanding among you, by his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.
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Now sometimes the Greeks would be thinking it's philosophy and mental things that go on that's going to be wisdom but the
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Jewish mind, the Hebrew mind would think about logic and philosophy that's true but it had to have street application, it had to have shoes on the ground, it wasn't just theoretical it was very practical and so if you want to show that you're wise
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James doesn't say just talk a lot about philosophy and metaphysics, no you're going to show it by your life, by his good conduct, there it is in verse 13 again, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.
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And now he gives kind of an illustration of bad wisdom first, if these things are in our lives then we can tell we're not being wise,
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I'd like to be wise, you want to be wise chapter one verse five, when we're not wise we're to pray to God for wisdom and he gives us wisdom, this bad wisdom fruit is found in verse 14, you can say you're wise but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts do not boast and be false to the truth, that's going to show that I'm not really that wise after all even though I know classical
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Greek, that I know Aristotle, verse 15 you can hear this is like a pastor preaching, this is pastor
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James, this is not the wisdom that comes down from above but is earthly, unspiritual and demonic, so you see what he's doing when you see the tree that fruit comes from and if the fruit is jealousy and rivalry and envy and bitterness well that's not from above,
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God's not going to give that, that comes from a different realm, that comes from an earthly realm, an unspiritual realm, a demonic realm,
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I want to run from that, I'm sure you do, when I read that I think what churches in the
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New Testament sounded like that, Corinth certainly, I don't want wisdom that's pertaining to demons, verse 16 for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there's basically going to be chaos, look at it again where jealousy verse 16 and selfish ambition exist there will be disorder and every vile practice, you see because once there's wisdom from above given but then not accepted or acted upon anything and everything goes, if I'm not going to be controlled by God's wisdom
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I must be controlled by my own wisdom, the world's wisdom, demons wisdom and every evil thing comes about, but James has got the right answer as well, if the wisdom that doesn't come from above is earthly and demonic and unspiritual when
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God gives wisdom and there's fruit, what's the fruit of that wisdom? Verse 17, this is really good, but the wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere and a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace, that's what
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I want, that's what God wants for you, that's what you want, now we live in a world where it's almost peace at all costs, this is the verse by the way that if anyone comes to you and says we need to get rid of doctrine in order to be ecumenical because the
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Lord's church is one and it's peace at all costs, this is the verse you go to, this is the verse that in your mind you should be thinking peace is good, but I can't say doctrine doesn't matter to get the peace, now some doctrines are tertiary that is they're not even secondary, they're lower on the list and we can have fellowship with infant
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Baptist or believers Baptist or did somebody just say amen,
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I was just looking up Raleigh, I'll pay you a dollar later, but it's first pure then peaceable, so doctrine matters, truths matter, we don't just say you know what the wisdom from above is first peaceable then pure, no it's first pure then it's peaceable and so if you're a wise person go back to verse 13 again, who's wise in understanding among you, if I ask the question with James in verse 13, who's the wise one at church, are the elders the wise one because they're in leadership or the gray haired one, are they wise because they have gray hair, where's the wisdom found in the church, you look for people that are like this, they're pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
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By the way when you see those people at BBC, glom on to them, that's Nebraska talk for grab hold, don't let go, listen to them, watch them, learn from them, wisdom, was
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Jesus wise, what if I ask the question of Jesus, are you wise in understanding, I'd never ask the question,
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Peter might ask the question but I wouldn't, listen to some of these verses about the wisdom of God because remember everything that James is calling you to be and to do, you can see in the life of the
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Lord Jesus, he's essentially saying be like Christ, you're in him, be like him and because of him you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, 1
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Corinthians 1, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, Colossians 2, 3, in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, was
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Jesus pure, peaceable, gentle and the list goes on, we know the answer to that question, well if you think that one is convicting, let's go to number 8, worldliness found in verses 1 through 10 of the next chapter,
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James chapter 4, jet tour through James, what's the Christian code, how are
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Christians to live knowing that they've been forgiven, justified and one day glorified, number 8, avoid worldliness, for your good, for your neighbor's good and for God's glory, a warning against worldliness,
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I think some preachers say this is the toughest part of James, the most convicting part of James, what does he say, asking more questions like he did in 3 .13,
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what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you, is it not this that your passions are at war within you, you desire you don't have so you murder, you covet and obtain so you fight and quarrel,
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I mean it's just like machine gun rapid, you don't have because you don't ask, you don't ask, you don't receive because you wrongly ask to spend it on your passions and then ouch verse 4, you adulterers, the family code of Christians is to not be worldly, to not be hedonists,
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I read an article the other day on how to be miserable, you can get anything on the internet, how to be miserable, here's the answer, think about yourself, talk about yourself, use
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I as often as possible, mirror yourself continually in the opinion of others, listen greedily to what people say about you, expect to be appreciated, be suspicious, be envious, be sensitive to slights, never forgive a criticism, trust nobody but yourself, insist on respect, demand agreement with all your views on everything, sulk if people are not grateful to you, never forget a service you have rendered, shirk your duties if you can, do as little as possible for others, who's wise in understanding chapter 3, let's see the fruit, now this is bad fruit, what causes quarrels and fights among you?
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It's hedonism, if you look at verse 1 and 2, sometimes count how many times you see the word you,
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Y -O -U are your, fights among you, is it not this that your passions are within you, you desire, don't have, you murder, you covet, you fight, you don't have, you don't ask, talking about miserable, and by the way, it's within a church, what's it say at the end of verse, the first question, what causes quarrels and fights among you?
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I think of Philippians chapter 4, remember Paul had to urge Syntyche and Euodias to live in harmony with the
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Lord, you know, it's like that old classic story, the dad sees the kids fighting in the backyard and he calls the kids in, what are you doing?
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Playing church, sometimes when you shake hands before the service to greet people, in the old days they would call that what?
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It wasn't called greeting, it wasn't called spreading COVID, I'm just kidding, but they call it, you'd greet people before the service, right hand of fellowship, that's not bad, passing the peace, you pass the peace, and you'd meet people before the service and you'd say, peace be with you, especially if you weren't getting along with somebody, you'd find them and just say, peace be with you, you know, we're just going to cover that, we're not going to deal with it, peace be with you,
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I read about a church where the pastor tried to get that done and to just say, you know what, let's just have the passing of the peace and before the service, everybody says, peace be with you, and the church could not stand it, so they fired the guy.
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Now, I don't know if that's just anecdotal, but it brings the point in, this kind of thinking must not be in our families, must not be in our neighborhoods, but it can't be in the church either, this is the
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Lord's church. Galatians 5, if you bite and devour one another, take care lest you be consumed by one another.
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And so, to get our attention, he's in verse 4, you adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
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Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Now, it's almost bicycle riding time again, and what
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I like about spring bicycle riding outside is there's not too many bugs, not too many wasps, not too many other things.
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I used to ride a motorcycle a lot, so you could taste certain bugs, and many bugs taste like celery, and you just hit your teeth and you chew them and you're like, that tastes like celery to me.
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And I don't know if it's on the keto diet or not, but it doesn't really matter. I've also had on bicycle wasps fly in my mouth and sting my mouth repeatedly on the inside because I'm in such a shock, they're stinging my mouth.
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If I wasn't in shock, I'd instantly crush them with my molars and just spit them out like Bruce Lee.
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I was trying to think of Chuck Norris, but I couldn't remember his name. This stings, this hurts.
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I don't think anyone, and I look around at a lot of godly people, I don't think we're, all of us are prone to deal with worldliness, and hedonism, and self, and pleasure, and everything terminates on us.
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That doesn't sound like Jesus, that doesn't sound like love God and love neighbor. And you say, but the third great commandment is love yourself.
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I have to learn to love myself in order to love others. You must love your neighbor as yourself. Friends, that's such a lie.
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It's the perfect lie. No, when the Bible says love your neighbor as yourself, it means you already love yourself.
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We love ourselves. And to the degree we love ourselves, we should be loving other people. Using language of Israel's unfaithfulness to God, he says to people in the church, don't be adulterers.
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No, he says, you're adulterous people, because the world is slipping in. Remember Demas having loved this present world, he deserted.
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Do these verses resonate? Do not love the world nor the things in the world, for if anyone loves the world, the love of the
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Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life is not from the
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Father, but it's from the world. The world is passing away and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God abides forever.
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First John chapter two, verses 15 through 17. Instead of being a friend of God, like Abraham, people that live for self or hedonism, desire hedonism, enemies of God.
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Verse five, or do you suppose it's to no purpose? I mean, it is for a purpose that the scripture, he's not quoting a verse here, but the scripture generally says in the
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Old Testament, it teaches this theological truth. He yearns jealously over the spirit that he's made to dwell in us.
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Is there any hope for us, we that struggle with worldliness? Yes and amen.
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Verse six, but he gives more grace. More grace than what? Than my desire to be worldly, my desire for lust, the pride of life.
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He gives more grace. Somebody should write a song, grace greater than all our sin.
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Yes. Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
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And so when we struggle with hedonism and me -ism and the unholy
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Trinity, me, myself, and I, verses seven through 10 help us.
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And I could summarize this with one word and that's repentance. 10 commands here, but they all summarize, they could all be summarized with one word to repent.
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Submit yourselves to God, resist the devil, he'll flee from you. Draw near to God, he'll draw near to you.
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Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double -minded. Be wretched, mourn and weep.
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Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he'll exalt you.
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I wonder how many of us this morning just say, Lord, we're just too focused on self and the world.
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Please forgive me. Number nine, found in verses 11 and 12,
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James circles back and now he's talking about judging other people. All right, we're going through the book of James, jet tour, hitting the highlights, 54 imperatives, 108 verses, learning a lot about God.
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And now we come to this grouping here, this ninth grouping out of 14, found in verses 11 and 12.
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And you're going to see the word brother and judge a lot. And you're going to see the word law a lot.
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Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother, judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law.
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But if you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law, but a judge. There's only one lawgiver and judge.
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It is he was able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? See how many questions in chapter three, verse 13 and chapter four, verse one.
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And here, good questions. That's why it sounds almost like a sermon. Here he says,
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I don't want you to speak down against one another. And he uses a word that's pretty harsh and it's all -inclusive.
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Any negative word about someone else, that's the idea. In church,
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Christians in church, it might be true about the person, but it's done in such a way that the person receiving that down speaking has a different view about that person now.
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It's the kind of language that you're talking to somebody else in church and you're trying to get them to negatively think about the person you're talking about.
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He's like, we're in the same family. We can't do that. I'm not asking for an answer, but just more rhetorical.
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I wonder why it's easier to jump to negative conclusions about people than to assume the best.
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And that probably has to do with the Roman sin still dwelling in us. Needless repetition of faults, exaggeration of faults that are real, criticism, accusations, judgmental attitudes, minimizing others' virtues.
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Now, when I was younger, we had a comedian and the comedians did not have to be politically correct like many of them have to be now.
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I'm surprised there's any comedy in the world. But when I grew up, we used to go watch a guy named
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Don Rickles. How many people know Don Rickles? All the geriatric people raise their hand.
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I went to Las Vegas once and they sat me in the front center row of Donald Rickles and I thought he's going to call me up on stage and just obliterate me.
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So the whole time I just sat there like that. And Don Rickles was smart, but he would bull those people with his words.
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And people would laugh. Arkin Hughes said, most people think it's okay to convey negative information if it's true.
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We understand that lying is immoral, but is passing along damaging truth immoral?
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It almost seems like a moral responsibility to do so. I don't think
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I, and if I don't do it, probably many of you don't do it as well. I don't think speaking negatively about people is very serious of a sin.
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I now know in light of this, it's a very serious sin. We're just talking about someone. I mean, the
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Royal law back in chapter two was love your neighbor as yourself. And when we talk about people in this negative sinful way, and we're not talking about church discipline and we're not talking about dealing with sin or something like that, but it means we don't care what
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God says and we're above God's law. That's what James is saying here. God has law. Love your neighbors yourself.
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Don't speak down against people. Well, I don't care what God says because I'll do what
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I want. I'm now a judge of the law. I never gave the 10 commandments to anybody.
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They were given to me. They were given to you. If I could give the commandments on Sinai, then maybe
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I could say some things. And lastly, for today, number 10.
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And this one, it's not that I've been waiting for this one, but this is, I mean, it's hard enough to be repentant when it comes to worldliness, to be gentle when it comes to right wisdom.
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But this one here, it strikes. But it's for our good.
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Think about it in verses 13 through 17. The Christian family code is this number 10, to think rightly about the future, to think rightly about the future.
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There's no crazy sexual sin in this section. There's no crazy blasphemy in this section.
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There's no crazy division of a church in this section. This section here is simple and it's essentially forgetting
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God, planning like there's no God, living like there's going to be no
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God even when we're Christians. Come now.
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It's softer, can't you see? Instead of you're an adulterer, here, okay, come now.
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Let's reason together. You can hear Isaiah almost. Come now, you who say. And we all say it.
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By the way, what are you going to do tomorrow? What are your plans tomorrow? Today or tomorrow, we'll go to such and such a town, spend a year there, trade, make a profit.
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Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? Answer, you're a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
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Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.
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As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do, plan with the
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Lord in mind and fails to do it for him, it's sin. We're not even talking about gross sins here.
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We're just talking about it's sin to just forget God in our planning. Is it okay to plan?
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Is it okay to have a daytimer? Is it okay to have a planning, five -year plan, ten -year plan?
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Of course, we should plan. But we should plan thinking the
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Lord could intercept my plan anytime He wants. The Lord can change my plan anytime He wants. Those of you that go through trials, you know, it just takes one phone call and all of a sudden your whole life has changed.
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Everything you had planned to do the next day, you're not doing anymore because some of the trial has come up.
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Hey, shouldn't this guy be commended? Hard work, planning, sharpening the pencil, trying to figure this stuff out to make some money to provide for the family.
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Matter of fact, if you don't provide for your family, you're worse than an unbeliever. Taking God for granted is not something we should do.
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We get so busy. We're planning our trips, what the summer will bring.
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This isn't for believers in the family, but the idea is here. You can hear the words of Jesus. In this parable, the land of a certain rich man was very productive and he began reasoning to himself saying, what shall
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I do since I have no place to store my crops? And he said, this is what I'll do. I'll tear down my barns, build larger ones, and I'll store all my grain there and my goods.
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And I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come.
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Take your ease, drink, eat and be merry. But God said to him, you fool, this very night your soul is required of you and now who will own what you have prepared?
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So is the man who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Planning is good, but understanding all our plans are subordinate to the
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Lord and his sovereign plan. The world wouldn't say this.
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The demons wouldn't say this. Unspiritual people wouldn't say this. Wisdom from below wouldn't say this, but Paul would say this.
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I will return to you again of God's will. And he set sail for Ephesus. Paul said,
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I will come to you soon if the Lord wills. And later in chapter 16 of first Corinthians, I hope to remain with you for some time if the
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Lord permits. I read this this week and thought, even the way
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I communicate on email and texting, if the
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Lord wills, if the Lord permits, it's not just a throwaway word, especially
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Methodist, like Calvinistic Methodists, like George Whitefield, they would sign their names and just before they signed their names, instead of sincerely or what would be some other ways you could sign something?
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Pardon me? Best regards. Once I was having trouble with a car dealer and I couldn't get my money back that they had promised me and I had talked to my
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New York lawyer friend and I had him write a letter to the car dealership and I've been working with them for months and they just wouldn't give me my five hundred dollars back and my lawyer wrote them a letter, this
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New York City lawyer, and he wrote at the end before he signed his name, govern yourself wisely.
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Within two days I got my money. They would just write D, the letter, and the letter
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V. And it was Latin for Lord willing, God willing. I want to do all these things and we even taught our children when they were younger, if dad makes a promise or mom makes a promise, we will try to go out of our way to keep that promise.
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But sometimes the Lord has other things and if we have to submit to the Lord's providence, we will. It's just a reminder that we're living in light of God, a sovereign
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God, and every breath and every moment is from His hand.
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Do you think that'd be a good way to live? Do you think that's bad of God to say, I want you to live in light of my presence?
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I want you to know I'm a light and I'm a shield. I want you to know I'm the God of Psalm 27.
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Would you just live that way? Do you think that's bad of God to say? Or do you think that would alleviate all kinds of anxiety, all kinds of fear, all kinds of trouble, if we would just live in light of a
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God who's sovereign? I think we know the answer.
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Sounds like Jesus. Did Jesus ever say in his prayers or in his life, your will be done?
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I think we know the answer. We have a few left, but we're going to save for next time.
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How many books are in the Bible? Well, there are 66 books. How many books talk about God, the triune
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God, the Father, Son, the Spirit? The answer is 66. And if you say to yourself,
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I'm going to start going through books of the Bible, I've got plenty of time, Lord willing.
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See what I did there? If I wouldn't talk about pride of life,
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I'd say I'm pretty proud of myself for thinking of that. What can
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I learn about God that's good for me to know so I can live in light of that? Christianity isn't love
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God and love neighbor. That's not the essence of it. Christianity is Jesus loved
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God and loved neighbor. Jesus died for our sins and was raised from the dead. Jesus perfectly obeyed.
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Jesus is the living one. He gives us his spirit. And in light of all that, so that we can adorn the gospel, so that we can shut the mouths of our adversaries, so that we can have assurance, so we can live out of gratitude, we want to obey.
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And when you think about whether it's worldliness or wisdom or planning the future,
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God is so good to just tell us these things so we do the right thing. So we don't have to learn the hard way. What can you learn about God from James?
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That he loves you enough to say, in light of my salvation, this is how the world will go well with you.
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Live in light of my grace. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for this word. I stand convicted with the congregation.
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And we would ask that you would help us to be more wise and understanding. That you'd help us to be less worldly.
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That you'd help us to talk properly to one another. And about one another.
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And that we would not be boasting about tomorrow. If the Lord wills, we'll live and do this or that.
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So Father, help us. We thank you that you gave us this law. It's a good law.
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It's a holy law. It's a law that gives you honor. And we want to do that.