Books of James & Jude - James Chapter 1 review
James; Jude · Roger Henderson · Mar 31, 2013
James & Jude, No. 12
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926347287825

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, well we've come to the review session, and what I typically have done in the past is just kind of take, you know, we had about eight or nine sections we divided chapter one into. Well, Jim, can I get you to read the first four verses for us? You bet.

James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad, greetings. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Alright, so basically I just kind of developed some questions on each of these sections, and then actually in these first two sections, actually I kind of rearranged it a bit to group the section that explicitly talks about trials and temptation, and I added a bunch of charts that we've actually seen before from my brother Hal. And so hopefully this will kind of help. And I think chapter one is just such a key passage on understanding trials in the Christian life, and what they're about, and how we're to handle them. How does scripture want us to handle when we have difficulties?

And where do they come from? There's all kinds of questions that come up. So hopefully we'll be, we've talked about this a lot in the last several months, since the first of the year actually. So I'm going to kind of skip over the very first part, and then James introduces himself. And just kind of skip down to the starting of verse 2. So my first question is, how can we consider it joyful when we encounter trials in our lives? So if you've been here before, you probably, if you haven't been here a lot, or if you know from James, so what are your thoughts?

This is not, I'm not looking for a rigorous answer. I'm just looking for actually what you've learned or what you think about this. And then we'll try to fill it in with what we've been teaching. When we discussed it in class, in the lesson, We basically came to the conclusion that it wasn't the joy of having a trial, but the joy of knowing that God was there and had a purpose in it. And so looking at the results, sort of like at the end of Hebrews, looking to Jesus, the author and completer of our faith.

Great, great. Good, Al. You got a star there. My wife teaches elementary school, and she gives stars out, and I had stars. You didn't bring any? I'm sorry. We can draw a happy face on my resume. That's right. But actually, what's really cool is so many times, and I'm at fault, so many times you'll look at verse 2 and you'll say, how can that be?

And amazingly enough, God answers the next couple of verses. And I think He does, because He starts in And he tells you, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and that endurance has its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. So he actually answers the question that I posed here. I mean, write the text. Many times that happens. If you're willing to read the context many times, the question is answered.

OK, so the next one is, and this is maybe a little geeky, geeky-greeky. Does anybody remember the Greek word for trials? And that actually is the N-A-S-B translation. It's temptations, like King James. So what's, anybody remember the word in the Greek? It doesn't have to be a perfect pronunciation. It's actually on linear charts, but no fair looking. There's a noun form and a verb form. Parasmas is one of the either nouns. I keep forgetting. We're going to see those words pop up.

That's basically That word is defined as a testing with a view to failure, a solicitation to sin. So we're going to see how these two words, and the next question is, what is testing? Anybody remember what testing is? What the Greek word for that one is?

And I was going to find it again. Documas. Documas. Documazo. If I was really good, I could remember the noun and verb form and how they pronounce each one. So those two words are just going to be key in seeing how and testing, basically, the definition for documon or documonzo is a testing with a view to approval.

It's an opportunity to glorify God. So they're just vastly different. vastly different ideas. And actually, a casual reader to James might just blow past that and I think really do himself a real disservice. And actually, the English tries to accentuate that. They have either trials or temptations are the word for prosmas. And then testing, either testing or trying is what is used. So we're going to see how those words kind of play out.

All right, so the fourth question is, why is it important to know God's plan for testing is to produce endurance? And some of these don't have a, you know, in creating a question sometimes, I don't have a, you know, there's multiple answers, obviously. And we've kind of already answered this to some degree.

So why do you think it's important? Why does James want to communicate this? Why is this so important? Why is it important? We've got to come to James having confidence of who you are, the Lord Jesus Christ. these trials and tribulations are not so much to tempt us to sin, although sometimes we fall into that trap, but it's really kind of prove who we really are, right?

Exactly. It's not what you do, it's who you are. I want you to know who you are. I mean, you know. Yeah. So anyway. Excellent. No, that's great, Bob. That's great. You get a star too. I don't really want one. Thank you anyway. I got off on a kick here. Alright, so that's great.

Okay, what does it mean to be, if you follow the verse here, in verse 4, it says, let endurance have its perfect results so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. So what do you think perfect and complete means? And once again, we try to answer these in the course of the class when we taught these four verses. But what do you think?

And one of these perfect is one of those words that ought to kind of go off in your mind. It's used a lot in scripture. And it's one of those things, you know, once you become familiar with that word, you think, wow. I see what the Lord has here, but your first reaction is, perfect. Boy, that's a tall order.

And then you think, is that perfect positionally and conditionally? And we could spend lots of time just on that. Usually the context has it meaning more toward moving toward maturity. Exact excellent now excellent right and there's various passages that talk about maturity is a good alternate translation and complete actually is the idea of kind of having it having it having all its parts and there's a verse I could do for that but in the interest of time I think I'm just gonna not cover that so now I want to do is kind of I'm going to look at some charts here from my brother Hal.

And this is some of his observations. He's basically trying to answer the question, observe the good the Lord performs in your temptation. Basically based on the verses we just talked about. So the first one is, his desire is for you to count it all joy. So his purpose is, he wants you to count it all joy. And he doesn't want you just to do it and grit your teeth. I count it all joy. This is really hard, but I'm counting it all joy. It's not to be putting on a face. You're really to see that there is a joy involved in this. Secondly, he wants you to know, completely understand, his purpose. And that's why we're studying James. That's why we're studying what's called the temptation process. To understand, I think it's just key. I'll just give you a story.

I lived in England for five years and I came back and I worked out at Buckley. Being overseas that long, your driver's license at that time was only good for five years. But you could get an extension and they would stamp the extension on the back. I came back from overseas and I came out to Buckley to report there.

And I go to the gate, and the guard says, they don't always check, he says, can I see your driver's license? I gave him my driver's license. He says, it's expired. And I said, what I would have done in the past times, I would have gone down the path of being tempted. This guy doesn't understand, and all you got to do is look in the back. Doesn't he understand these things? In that case, I rested on the board and said, sir, would you mind just looking on the back? It's been extended. He looked in the back. I said, oh, OK, you can come in.

I mean, that's not a biggie there in life, but just like when you're driving down the road, sometimes people will do terrible things in cars, and your temptation is to, hey, I've got to show him who's in control here. Anyway, OK, so let's keep going.

He will use temptations. with a view to failure as a test with a view toward approval of your faith. Boy, if I had to pick a one key thought to keep in mind is that, and that's it right there, something occurs in your life and we're going to see you can respond in two ways.

You can respond and by faith trust the Lord for what's going to happen and walk with Him and then that the Lord will use that as a test of your faith to prove who you are or you can walk down the temptation path and go the other direction and we'll see about that. He expects and desires you to abide by faith in his truth and that's true of every every situation in the Christian life, in every situation in terms of scripture, his desire is to abide, to remain, to dwell, to be at home with. He wants fellowship with you. He wants you to realize what he has for you, who you are, what you have, and simply trust him as you walk in the Christian life.

And we saw this going to produce patience, and that patience is this idea of abiding under. You abide under a situation. and then his patience matures you spiritually. That's the perfect word there, we saw. And his patience stabilizes you and supplies all your needs in your temptations.

So now we're going to kind of go on to the next set of verses that talk about, so what I've done is I took the first four verses and I kind of, we're going to cover the next, the next three verses are down in 13, which apply directly to temptation and trials. So can I get someone to read these three verses? Sure, I'll let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust is conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

Great. Thanks, David. Okay, so these are some questions that probably pop into your mind. Maybe as a Christian who hasn't read too much scripture, you might think, You know, am I being tempted by God? Some people I say, boy, God, he's a stern God. He's going to child train me. And they'll use the verses on child training, and they try to apply those to. And child training is in scripture, and there is a sense that it's true. But in terms of temptation and trials, so my first question is, why cannot God be tempted by evil?

And this isn't a hard answer. If he's holy, he can't sin. Good, good. Okay. His very essence, right? You know, I kind of did a little search. There are many verses that say he's holy and righteous. That's God's very character. Well, his character, evil has no place in him.

And actually, that kind of goes along with the next question. What tells us that God does not tempt anyone? And it comes down to how temptation occurs. What's a mechanism for how temptation occurs? And we're going to learn about that in terms of the Christian perspective. The rest of the verse tells you that. It explicitly says, for God cannot be tempted by evil. He doesn't have a source of evil. He doesn't have a source of sin.

You know, we, every single person that comes in as a baby has a source for sin, our sin nature. We're born in Adam. We're born already sinners because of Adam, because of our birth. Now that's something that a lot of believers don't catch on to. They kind of think, well, I'm a sinner because I sin. Well, no, you start out... I can remember another story. I remember our first child, Mark.

And he's just a little thing. And I already saw stubbornness in him at like an hour old, two hours old. And I scratched and I said, how can he be stubborn? That doesn't make any sense. I know that I'm supposed to just, I can mold him whichever way I want. He can't be stubborn. I couldn't understand how he could be stubborn at a couple hours old. And the way he was stubborn was the nurse wanted him to, Vonnie was breastfeeding, and she wanted to feed him. Well, he didn't want to do that. He wanted to do whatever kids want to do when they're two hours old. He didn't want to do that. I said, how can that be? How can he be that? What are the two aspects of temptation in verse 14?

And just in the interest of time, basically it's being carried away and enticed by lust. And we're going to see those two words kind of played out a lot more graphically here as we go through here. And this is a key one. Another key, a several key thing. What is the source of our temptation?

If you're in the class, Al, you can't answer this time. I'm trying to keep quiet. I'm not really being hard on you. Some people will say it's Satan. They'll say it's the devil. Flip Wilson, that's way old for you guys. The devil made me do it. He was popular with The Devil Made Me Do It. In a roundabout way, the devil can... He's a defeated foe, but he can wave the flag. He can go out there and wave the flag.

So basically, it's basically sin. Our sin nature is what's the source of it. Things in the world and the flesh and the devil can... can provide a hook. Exactly. I thought Jim did an excellent job. I went back and listened to the classes, the ones I had missed, and Jim did an excellent job on pointing out that our sin nature is a vehicle which we receive the temptations of the world and of the devil. That's a porthole. So it comes back to us. We can't say it's somebody else. It's basically our sin nature. And then realizing we have a sin nature. Christian, no sin nature, I'm good. Boy, I don't know where you've been living. That's why they're depressed. I like the old comment, you can't keep the birds from circling around your head, but you can keep them from making a nest. That's good. Alright, excellent. Next one.

What happens when lust has conceived? Verse 15. And it's answered in the verse. It says it gives birth to sin, and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. We're going to see this graphically in a couple of other ways here in a second. What kind of death have spoken of in verse 15? Some people will take that and they'll say, well, they'll think loss of salvation.

Isn't that a terrible hook in the road? You can beat yourself up over it. Lots of fellowship. Right, exactly. Thank you. Okay, so now we're going to see this. I'm going to do this about five different ways. If you haven't got it from this, you're not going to walk out of here without a few different ways. Okay, so here's the same verse, 13 and 14. So the process of being tempted. I'm going to do it first just in bullet form, then we're going to do it in picture form after that, and then multiple picture forms. OK, first of all, there's desire.

If you look in the verse, it says, but each one is tempted when he, tempted is this enticement to sin, basically. So each one is tempted when he is carried away or drawn away, a believer Basically this kind of assumes the believer is walking with the Lord in fellowship with him and something occurs in his life, like my example of driving your car or whatever it might be, something happens to you. So you're abiding in Christ and there's a desire that comes out of your sin nature. And then it says it draws you away, it entices you, and this is this idea to lure by bait, a fishing term, it draws you away, And then, this is a pivotal point. If you look at that, it says, when lust has conceived, and actually it's the idea of pregnancy, taking the bait, you become pregnant.

And it's irreversible. And then birth occurs, and the baby here, kind of an awful picture, the baby is sin. Missing the mark. You know, the harmatia, to miss the mark, the word for sin. Missing the mark. And then death occurs, and death in this case is loss of fellowship with Christ, not of salvation, as was mentioned. So there's just kind of the bullet form. So let's look at another way to look at it.

This is a picture that I love. Hal's one of Hal's favorite. Hal loved pictures. He loved to draw pictures. So basically, this is the same information, but now in a pictorial form. And actually, on your handout, you have only one version. I have three versions, and there's two overlays.

So you start out, you're abiding in Christ, some lust or desire comes to you. Our brother Hal, I think he had a gentleman in our class, and actually Bob and I were fortunate enough to teach with Hal almost ten years ago now. If you look down here, it was in 2004, and actually Hal had a list of He had someone in the class go through and list all the sins you could find in scripture. This is one of about five pages. Anger, irritability, bitterness, resentfulness, self-pity, discouragement, fearful, worry, and the list goes on. You plug in what is the desire or the lust, and the source is the sin nature. We know it can't come from God, so it can't be who you are in Christ. And also this says, this is just pivotal, if you have excluded the sin nature, you're in big trouble. Where are these things coming from?

So then you're drawn away, you're enticed, and he has a little fish out there, enticed like a bait, like you put the bait out there. And then the critical point comes when the bait is taken. From that far downward, it just goes, boom. Pregnancy, lust is conceived, birth equals sin, and death, loss of fellowship. So the first overlay, it's just kind of looking at here, saying, OK. And this is like the birds flying around that was the illustration there. The first part is that as you drive in your car, as you do 100 things during the day, There are lures out there. There are bait out there.

Something may attract you. Sin is attractive. I'm not kidding you. Sin is attractive. If it wasn't attractive, you wouldn't do it. Sin at its core is attractive. Until you take the bait, and we're going to see them, We'll see another overlay in just a second. But once the bait is taken, you're now in sin, and you've lost fellowship. So the next overlay is basically, what is our response? What does scripture say we're to do about temptations?

And basically, what it says is that we're to, if you turn to Romans, for you guys, Romans 6.11, most people have this memorized, but just in case you don't, Someone to read Romans 6.11? In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. So basically, reckon is kind of the King James verbiage. You are to reckon yourself dead to sin, dead to the sin nature. So that's what God would desire, as you have temptations, that you reckon yourself dead. Go ahead, Bob. I wish Al were here. I know, wouldn't it be so much better than me?

He's in better places, but this whole concept of being drawn away, in a sense, that is a failure to reckon, and ultimately, what's the source of being drawn away? Scripture says, until you bite the bait, you haven't been... Again, the question is position versus... Being drawn away is not of the new nature. But then how, though, appropriately, puts the record in there, right?

Right. Well, I thought it was just so cool that it's like, you can't say, well, God doesn't have a... He doesn't have a solution for my temptations. He does have a solution. It's recognizing, and Bobby has even gone up for it, you recognize who you are. You say, I don't need to go there. Why would I go there as a child of God? Why would I even want to mess with that stuff? The problem is this all happens in a millisecond. Oh yeah, I know. This is slow motion. You don't mull it over. Exactly. You don't mull it over either. But the other important point here, Al, excuse me, but let me finish this, is just that This process of reckoning is not an intellectual process.

How many times have you tried to intellectualize who you are in Christ in the setting of temptation? It just doesn't make it there. You have to be abiding already there. It's a life by faith that really responds to this. You don't pull out your little cheat sheet and say, let's see, I'm a child of God. You don't do that.

I didn't come to Christ through my rational understanding. I cannot live a life in Christ through my rational understanding. understanding, because that starts glorifying my old nature and I start getting filled with this, oh I can do it myself, thanks God for being there, but I can handle today. And when we read that verse that we quote so often, my God shall supply all your need, we too often limit that to the physical supply of things and not to this kind of need of falling back on who we are in Christ. Actually, Denise had a question.

Oh, I was just going to say, you can even tie this back to the first set of verses that we did read, like considering it like pure joy that you're going through this temptation and trial, and because it produces endurance, which, again, that maturity that we all gain, like, say you get to that point and you do take that bait, so then you can pass and restore your relationship with God. Christ, that's a time where you can see, like, okay, this is where I do, like, catch myself, and, like, or, you know, I can say, like, okay, this does tempt me, and that's when I can look back and say, oh, I can, you know, reckon this, like, and pray to God, like, please help me through this, because I know that this is a point where I am weak. Well, you brought up the point, if you do take the bait, God has that covered too. He's got you covered, right? I mean, by the popular vernacular, right?

So we are to confess our sins in 1 John 1, 9. And then when we do that, we're back in fellowship again. We're back at the top of the stair step again. And this is played, in my mind, this is played over hour by hour, moment by moment in the Christian life. And the desire is that you stay up there, at least in the reckoning stage, and maybe even... That doesn't mean you walk around with... You're not a monk or a recluse. That's their solution. Think about that. Becoming a monk, what you do is like...

I saw a movie about integrate silence. There's no words. There might be two words. Very few words spoken. It's about these monks who take a silence of not speaking. Well, you know, their minds still go on 24-7. It's still chomping away. I mean, come on. It's crazy. But anyway, that's Davis.

I know in Romans it also talks about the weaker brother and the stronger brother and one who can eat meat and not be tempted and one who can eat meat and is tempted when they eat meat. And it calls the believer who can eat the meat and not be tempted the stronger brother. So we think of the monk as being a really mature believer. Because he avoids everything. In Romans it calls him the weaker believer. The stronger brother is one who can see these things and not attempt to dissent.

Exactly. And we're called to live in this world. This world is not our home, but the Lord wants us here. So he wants us in this dynamic. And he's provided for it. What's wonderful. So if we do go down the path, we can confess that. Like Denise said, and maybe you learn from that. You say, wow, why did I do that? And hopefully you learn from that. fall through that again. Many times we do. Sometimes things are recurring and they'll be there a whole life. But I think it's so comforting to know you kind of see the game plan and you see things kind of unfolding. It's happening in milliseconds and your mind starts going, oh, here I go again. Like with something sets you off. Some word sets you off. You say, I did that before. I don't need to do that. I don't need to prove that I'm right in every situation. And that's a problem that I have. I've got to prove that I'm right. An engineer proves that he's right. He doesn't back off. He proves he's right. That means you're a good engineer. Right?

The prayer need from our trip to Jacksonville, Kim knows how to light my fuses and she really will continue to put you back against the wall. Lots of baits. This is the class you needed. We'll see what's happened in two and a half years. I pray that the Lord has created me increasingly in zoom. OK, so if this wasn't enough, we're going to look at a couple of different other ways. OK. Actually, there's a word chart first. Now this is kind of good.

Basically, the source of our temptation, we'll go through this pretty quickly here, the solicitation to sin. So basically, the text says it's our own lust, right? If you read the text, it says it's with our own lust. And lust is this word epithumia, meaning a desire or longing And what's interesting is it's used two ways in scripture. Actually, that's not unusual. There are many, many words in scripture that are used both in a positive and negative sense. Paul uses in a good sense.

In Philippians 1.20, he desires to be with Christ. That's in a good sense. But we see lust almost always, when James would do, in a bad sense. And that's probably the predominant usage, in a bad sense.

Lust or desire in James 1.14 is a bad sense. It comes from our sin nature.

Let's just look at Galatians 5.17 just for a second.

Can someone read that if they get to it? flesh that you desire against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. For these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. Good, okay. So that talks about the flesh and the spirit. And flesh is another word.

It's not exactly synonymous with the sin nature, but it's close. So anyway. Okay, so therefore the ultimate source of temptation is our sin nature. And there are many external solicitations of sin. I was kind of showing that list. And here's the key point. It is not the external things itself that tempt us. It is our reaction to it. And that's what it's all about.

Like Bob's saying, some things, some people, some words, and you know yourself. And the thing is, if you grit your teeth, that's not trusting the Lord. So you don't go down that path. I think it's understanding the situation. Knowledge is... the truth will set you free. Having the understanding of what the process is and how that happens is vital. Not that you grit your teeth. You say, I see what can happen more. I see where I can go. I don't want to go there. That's not going to glorify you. That's not who I am. That's why we're only there for 30 hours. Okay.

External things do not become personal temptations unless the sin nature desires to pursue them. Once again, it's all about our sin nature, and we have a sin nature, and the Lord has allowed that to be with us. He hasn't taken us and removed us from here, and we're to live the Christian life with that sin nature there, but he has provided himself. It's so critically important Raj to realize that sin nature never improves, does it?

Exactly. Right, and so all these programs, the anger management course, I guarantee the anger management course you take, I'm sure we could find one. We could go online, Denver Seminary probably may have an anger management course. I don't know. The jail has it. Is that right? I'm sure they do. That's part of the reintegration in society for those that have Right. Shown that that's a major personality. Well, corporations have anger management. But isn't it interesting is... Yeah, the university has it. But God's word never has an anger management. He says, don't fool with that sin nature. That's not who you are. It's there, but you're to walk with me. Do you see who you are? You're to know your history. And he floods you with that you're a new creation in Christ and the sin nature is something that's there and he has provision for that.

So here's another chart. So this kind of shows you, you have a temptation and you have our response. You can go to the left fork or the right fork. The temptation occurs, our response. The desired path is that you walk by faith. You continue to walk by faith. and you have life, and that temptation then becomes a test to prove who you are. The right fork is you take the bait, death occurs, you're not approved, God's not glorified, and then ultimately you could add in there, sins are confessed.

And then I have another one. This is more for you just to kind of keep in your notebook or whatever I mean. Same kind of idea. You have the top path, your response, taking the bait, what happens, sin, loss of fellowship, unrest. Are you happy? Are you really happy?

Once you take the bait, guilt comes in. Then you start feeling guilty. There's a whole thing with guilt you have in there. You feel guilty. Then God desires to convict you. Basically, you agree with Him. He wants you to agree with Him. Or the bottom part is the faith rest part. You count all joy. You know his purpose. I mean, that's key. You know his purpose and you can rest. Imparts patience, maturity, supplies your needs. I think I have one more. I like this one because this is kind of, for most, I'll speak for guys here, for most guys, your relation with your wife, and you love her so much, it can be hard. It can be hard.

It's the most wonderful relationship you'll ever have on this earth. If Bonnie were here, would you say that? I would. It is. I was thinking here, this seems like it's putting all the bad things on the lady here. Let's say she has legitimate concern, but you respond, you come back just big time. I've done this. I come back and say, why do you ask that? We've talked about that a hundred times. You bring it up again. She's really concerned about it, and you blow it off. I mean, you've gone right down that path.

It's just those simple things. That temptation occurs. This says she has financial problems, demanding bad attitude. What if she has a legitimate concern? The kids need you to be here, Roger. You're not here. You're doing what you're doing. You're doing Roger things, she'll say. You're doing Roger things. That's kind of her little code.

Way more gracious than I deserve, that's for sure. Anyway, you become upset, impatient, discouraged, and once again, you can respond, you can say, well I'm right, and you can prove a hundred ways why you are absolutely right. That you're spending extra time at work, and you're doing this or doing that is the right thing. But if she has a legitimate need, and I fall short here many times, I think they'll have you meet that need. So there's another example. So that's why I like this chart. It brought it down to home where the rubber meets the road.

So that's the trials and temptations. Actually, the rest of chapter one, it may not be as explicit, but trials and temptations are in there. I think everybody did a pretty good job when we went through the, you know, there are temptations to be only a hearer of the word, not a doer. There's just a multiple set of things in chapter one that talk about temptations in one way or another.

But any last thoughts on these explicit charts before we go on? We're going to start covering the rest of the chapter here. And hopefully this is a resource that you have. You can take these charts and review them. And it's helpful to you to see that this process, that God has an answer for this situation of temptation and trials. And ultimately, it's to glorify him. OK, so now we're going to step back and go through the other sections here. Could someone read these four verses?

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to be Ought not to expect that you will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, and stable in all his ways. Thank you. Okay, so actually just one little point here that up at the top is one of those cases where it's assumed to be true, and it could be, there's one translation has it, but if you lack wisdom, and you certainly do, Let us ask of God.

And remember this falls right in the heels of verse 4 that we just read that talks about the, let me go back to verse 4. Can someone read verse 4 in James? Do you have it conveniently? So let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect, and retire wanting nothing.

So this kind of refers back, God is giving his wisdom in those verses about testing and trials. So the first question I had, I kind of answer it, is there any doubt that you lack wisdom? And the context says, there's no doubt. What does it mean to ask in faith? Is there like a synonym for that, do you think? I'd say in confidence that God wants you to have wisdom. Okay, okay. To ask in faith is to believe that God can supply and will supply. Right, right. Okay, that's good, that's good. I thought actually, you know, asking in faith, isn't that kind of a definition of prayer?

I mean, we're praying And do we pray to get our solution? Or do we pray to get, you say, Lord? Many times we say, your will be done. I don't have an answer for this. Now sometimes, if it's maybe a life-threatening situation, you would pray. You typically pray for life to be you know, to maintain. I mean, I don't... I'll say I ever could pray not to have something like my children, that they wouldn't, you know...

Anyway, go ahead. One of the things about faith, and it applies to salvation as well, but I think our tendency, especially in James, is to measure ourselves in terms of faith. Like, faith without any doubting. I mean, goodness, that's a lot of faith, man. I mean, it's not just a small amount, it's a large amount. We start really focusing on ourselves and the amount that we have. But it's always the object, and it's the sufficiency of God in this case that it's where the faith is placed. It's not how much you have. I think this verse is used out of context in many instances to increase a person's faith.

And it has completely to do with the sufficiency of our object, and in this case it's God. Same thing with salvation. We can be drowning. And it's just a nod to hell, right? But it's the sufficiency of God that supplies the answer, in this case, for wisdom. But this verse is used. No, I know. No, it is. Okay, good. Thanks Jim, that was good. Okay, so this is kind of in verse 7 and actually back in 6 there. Why should the man, in verse 7, not expect to receive anything from the Lord?

And you know what, just kind of interest of time here, what occurred to me here is that, you know, since we're talking about faith here and it's wisdom, he's all over the map. I mean, he doesn't know what he believes. The question I didn't put in here, basically, is that how do we gain wisdom? And it's kind of implicit in here that we gain wisdom by God's word. So the person down here who's just all over the map, he's here and there all over the map. He doesn't have time or he doesn't have the desire to look to God. He's unstable in all his ways.

I would say, Roger, too, if you're always in doubt, you don't know the Lord. You don't know who you are in the Lord. Therefore, you can't... Because when we pray, we pray with the mindset of, or we should, Even if we don't say, Lord, whatever your will is, if you're abiding in Him, His character should be coming through you so that your prayer is more in line with what His will is anyway. So if you don't know Him and you have that doubt, you're asking for all kinds of things that have nothing to do with His character or His will or who you would be in Christ.

So, of course, the Lord's not going to answer those prayers. They're not in any way, shape or form connected to that. By the very definition, the man in verse 7 is not asking in faith. Correct. Right, exactly. That's exactly right. That's why I was looking at it. He's not asking in faith. No, he's not. Alright, so now we're going to kind of skip to another section. So this is, can someone read these four verses?

Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. For no sinner has the sun risen with a burning heat, and it withers the grass. If flowers fall, and its beautiful appearance perishes, so the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits. Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those that love him. So actually, verse 12 is kind of the lead-in verse to verse 13, which we covered, 13, 14, 15. It's kind of the lead-in verse, talking about trials. So why does the humble brother of circumstances have a high position?

And I actually forgot, who taught this section? I forgot. Was it Jeremy? Was it you? I'm not trying to pin you down. So it's interesting, this talks about the brother of humble circumstances, and then it talks about the rich man. And there's kind of some almost Old Testament kind of stuff in here. It's definitely Old Testament. It is very Old Testament like. And remember James is writing to Jewish believers here.

So the humble circumstance, literally, if you look at some of those words, really means he doesn't have much. He has very little. And kind of implicit in that is that since he has very little, material things won't be bothering him. A kind of implicit assumption there.

So it seems like that person is sort of like the rich man Lazarus. It's in the Gospels, but it actually is very Old Testament-like. And how about the widow? The widow's mite, she's very little. That person is seen to be on a higher spiritual plane. That's kind of what's coming through here.

Because the next part is that the The rich man, why is the rich man in humiliation and his pursuits fade away? It seems like here again, it's sort of the rich man is considered his riches are his focus in his life. That seems to be the context here. Why is the person pursuing under trials considered blessed? And that basically just kind of comes back to what we just talked about, right? Because it will be a blessing because as he sees that he goes through that trial and he trusts the Lord, he says, thank you, Lord, and he's blessed by it, just by the very fact that he understands that, what's going on there. That goes right back to considered all joy. Exactly. It's exactly the same idea. The question is, where are the blessings sourced? They are sourced at the right hand. So the concept of keep looking down is one that continues to come up. That's where the blessings ensue.

What does it mean to receive the crown of life? I'll go ahead and answer the question, or give you my answer. The word for crown here is this word, Stephanos. And that's the one that they would give, like the laurel wreath, the victor's crown. So it's very much in the victorious Christian life kind of idea. And basically in verse 12 says, blessed is the man who perseveres under trials, for once he's been approved, so he's been, and think about it, you endured the test, he will receive the victor's crown which the Lord has promised to those who love him.

And maybe we'll stop with this one right here. There's more after this, but let's cover this one. OK. This is a neat section here, too. And this follows the section we read earlier. What are we not to be deceived about? And actually, once again, it assumes that deception is already going on. You're being deceived. Stop being deceived.

Let me answer my own question here. If you look back, this follows verse 15. We just went through the temptation process. I think Jim did a good job on this one. It looks back and says, wait a minute, you saw this temptation process. Don't deceive yourself. You could go down that path. It says, stop being deceived. It's assuming that you're going down that temptation path and that you're taking the bait.

But it already assumes that. One interesting thing, real quick, we focus a lot on the street level view of our condition, the meditation process, and that's the previous verses there, but this whole idea of above, and looking above, even James didn't get so caught up in the condition that he didn't, in two verses later, remind us where the source of the gift is, and so there's an abide and a looking above that even James... Right, that's cool.

And then where does he fall? He's absolutely right. He says, stop being deceived, my beloved brethren. And then he goes right in to looking to God, looking to the source of that. The source of good things and perfect gift, it's the Lord. It's God. It has to be Him. So that he focuses on Him. That's right. He's focusing on things that when you get into Paul, that's who you are in Christ. It's really beautiful.

And the Father of Lights seems to be that, I saw one, I recall he mentioned the idea of how many, look at the lights in the universe, they're uncountable. He's infinite. So once again, it's a characteristic, and I've forgotten, maybe you remember Jim, what you said about the It was his first gift. Light was his first attribute. You could go a bunch of different ways in this. You could say light is in the universe. You could say let there be light. God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. It says the same thing that God is not a source of temptation or of sin.

And the last question, actually I lost my four. What is being talked about when it says, He brought us forth by the word of truth? In this case, I think it's talking about, this is talking about the new birth. He brought us forth, in verse 18, in the exercise of His will, He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures. So this is talking about the new birth in Him.

So I will stop there. There's actually two more, actually four more charts. So actually two more charts. Sorry. It's too much. Just so you know, Roger, we don't have the same handout you've presented. Really? We have some of it. We have some of it. We don't know. There's a lot of missing skipped. Here's what we'll do. I'll have an amended set of handouts ready for next week. I apologize. That's OK. But I just thought you should know that. OK. I think it's better that way. Let's go ahead and close then.

Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have, Lord. We thank you, Lord, just that you provided for for a temptation in our life, Lord. And we see it every moment, Lord. We see there are opportunities to glorify you and opportunities to not glorify you, Lord. And we know that we're not to be bean counters, but we're to focus on you, focus on who you are and what we have. And there's so many marvelous things there for us that you want us to spend our time focused on you, Lord. And we thank you that that is the life that you desire us to live. In Christ's name, amen.