Books of James & Jude - Chapter 4 review
James; Jude · Bob Eckel · Aug 25, 2013
James & Jude, No. 33
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926359542537

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

So Roger bypassed his responsibility as the elder teaching this class. He said, but Bob, I'm preaching to this. This is good. You're going to put me in a position to have to overview something rather than do it verse by verse. We're going to do it verse by verse anyway, so you're going to have to put up with that to some extent.

So what I did is summarily look at this chapter in the following ways. I've divided it into four parts. And the sections are labeled very briefly with three words each. I think three words each. There could be one that's more than that. Verses 1 through 6, grace trumps lust. The second section on James 4, 7 through 10 is humility creates exaltation. The third section has four words. James 4, 11 and 12 is God is the only judge. And the last section, also four words, actually five would be apostrophe, 13-17 which we talked about last week, is tomorrow is God's will. Out on our own, in terms of our own agenda. There's lots of content in 13-17, but I tried to be brief with my summary statements. So let's look at this first six verses, let's read those. So who's got their Bibles open that could read the first six verses please?

From whence came wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lust, ye lust and have not, ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain, ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not, ye ask and receive not, because you ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lust. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

Oh, keep going. Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? but he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Okay, so the title then of those six verses very kind of summarily is Grace Trumps Lust. And I think we see grace as the end of those six verses and lust through most of the rest of them. So that lust can take many different forms. How do we put into perspective the things of the world? Well, I have one verse to share that will allow us to seed that conversation.

1 John 2.16 we commented on last week, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. So, the question, how do we put into perspective the things of the world? Well, to start with, they're in total opposition to God's doing. The world is the prince of power of the air and control of the world and the world system. It says it right in the verse. It's an enmity.

Come on, Pat. We've got to see it up front here for you. See, there is a penalty to coming late, particularly when Vern's out of town and we have members from other classes. Welcome. Good to see you. Defining the things of the world is simple. How do we put them into perspective? I'm not sure what you're asking.

The world is not for us. We live here. Heaven is our home. This is our business address. I like that. We live here, but we don't have to be in it. We can be in the world, but not of the world. We're going to talk about this in a few minutes, but the love of the world is an unconditional love, just like Christ's love for us. That's a different kind of love. That's unconditional. It's interesting because we think of agape love as the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for each one of us, yet that love of the world is that same kind of love. That's how we put it into perspective.

We don't have this unconditional love of things of the world. The things of the world, we exist within and they surround us, but we don't have an unconditional love for these things. The security blanket is in our life insurance policy or our health insurance policy. that the security of the world for the believer is that the world is a training ground and it's a business address. It's not our permanent home.

So that's kind of what I was looking for. Thanks Margaret for opening that view up here. So we also see in verse 3 that we pray wrongly. So 1 John 5.14 says, Now this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. Notice it doesn't say, the answer is the way we ask. And it's interesting to look at the term here, it means to understand or to perceive the sense of what is said. So God perceives what we're all about, and he understands our request. But, notice that hearing is all that is promised here, and then the Spirit works. where in James it says you're asking amiss.

You're not asking in the way that the Lord would have us ask. It's a prayer. I mean, people are disappointed in God because their prayer is not answered the way they ask. Well, God doesn't say he's going to answer it in the way we ask. He's saying he hears it, he perceives it, and ultimately let the Spirit play out. Sounds like an associated thing with identification. If we're asking out of the old man's desires and what he thinks he needs and wants and is good, it's not the same as what the Spirit moves in our heart and mind to think and to ask. And I think as we go to the Lord, we don't say, gee, is that from the old man or is that from the new creation?

I mean, we pray constantly by faith that God hears our prayer. That's all we need. and the answer may or may not be what we want, but God just takes all things to Him. Think about Romans 8, these utterances that we don't even know about that communicates by the Spirit to the Lord, the heart and soul that we are all about.

So James said, one of your problems here is you're not going to pray. Here you're tied up with all these earthly lusts, whether it be of the eyes, the flesh, or the pride of life, but yet when you go to the Father, you're not praying in the right way. Again, keep in mind that when we study James and look at this, we have a foundation of Paul. You can't divorce the messages that James brings us from the rest of the New Testament.

We've got to put it into perspective. Now a different part of the first six verses is friendship with the world. We've talked about the world and the system with you know, what it's all about. So what does this look like? Well, I alluded to this before. It involves the idea of loving as well as being loved. And here's this unconditional love.

If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you're not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. So this is the kind of environment that surrounds us that we need to put in perspective. The love of the world is in fact the agape love in the text and that's an unconditional love. That's not the kind of love we have for the world around us. So this friendship with the world I think implies the kind of unconditional relationship, that same type of relationship that the Lord Jesus Christ has with each one of us. Any thoughts about that? That's verse four. This goes a long way to explaining the head scratchers of our current world system right now.

Anything that seems to be right and good seems to be despised by the world. The world wants a politically correct goodness. They don't want the truth and they obviously don't want God. So it's interesting that I think in today's age, Maybe more than any other, at least of course at this age, at this time period, it seems like the world is constantly putting out that message that they hate what is true. They hate what is right, in essence. And they have their own right and wrong. They want to replace God's right and wrong with.

Right. Okay. Other thoughts about this? Yeah. This is the condemnation that light has come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. That's Agape. Good. So Agape we tend to think of only as God's love for us unconditionally, but boy it does apply to the the world system and potentially even the believer who has fallen astray into an agape level of the world system around us. They could be saved, but boy, the scripture calls us to a relationship that's not like the one that Christ has to us in terms of our perspective of the world around us. Yeah, Stan.

I was going to say, and you just mentioned the word, and you said relationship, because the person who who has a relationship through prayer with God, then he sets his goals and his desires relative to the feedback from God and the Spirit, instead of the feedback from his own motivation for himself. So in other words, I can go out there and set all kinds of goals for myself, but if God's not in it, they're the wrong goals. And my goals obviously are different than your goals. And so we each have to have this contact with the spiritual realm, which is God.

Think about our world responsibilities as employees, as sometimes employers, as parents, as neighbors and all that kind of thing. Those need to take on a reality perspective. The world measures us and our performance by its own metrics. In the workplace, Roger, as an engineer, you had a job description ultimately you had to live up to.

We're not to slack off in things that the world system is expecting of us. And I don't think the Lord calls us to abandon our jobs and ultimately be responsible. I hate the term full-time Christian service because in fact we're all in full-time Christian service. It's just our places of occupation differ one from the other.

Actually, God calls us, I may be going too far with it but I've always felt that God calls us to those things in which we can be examples and models and be the best that we can be and to illustrate what a Christian life can be like and should be like even while in this world.

Right. Now the thing is we have to be careful there because remember what we talked about last week and we'll cover this briefly at the terminus of today's lesson is verses 13 through 7 talks about boastings. Remember? And boasting relates to a selfish, self-centered braggart.

That's what it's defined as. And the boastings we think about really are in the world system giving credit to us for what we've done. We have to constantly think that our performance here relates to God's glory. And that's the only purpose for our human existence. Remember, our citizenship's above. This is just our business address. Okay, good comments.

Next, what does the spirit Quote, the spirit which he has caused to dwell in our hearts yearns jealously over us in verse 5. What does that indicate? The question really relates to is this conviction and or disappointment? What are your thoughts about that? And notice I asked the question and didn't give you an answer. The spirit in us yearns jealously over us. Is that? No, but it's a question. It says, do you think that the scripture sayeth in vain?

So it's sort of like it's saying, to me that says, you are so arrogant. Do you think that the scripture is saying this about what your position is, your love of the world. I think it's indicating arrogance there. Well, the arrogance of the believer. Presumably James is writing to the believer. Yes, exactly. But why is the spirit yearning in us jealously?

I'm not sure that it is. I think my take of this is do you think that the scripture is saying this? I don't, I mean, I think that's the arrogance. Do you think there's this battle that the spirit can't win you because you decided to love the world? That's how I'm looking at it. Interesting. Stan?

I was going to kind of say the same thing, but in Romans it says that when Paul gets into that chapter 7, he talks about the two natures. So we have this principle or law that's in our members that Paul talks about. And then we also have this law of God in our mind. And so the law of God in our mind is this spirit who is teaching us and guiding us and willing us to do certain things. And so like Margaret says, we have this internal struggle because we have this other law in our member which is our desires and our motivations, our selfishness of the flesh, of the foot. And the spirit wars against the flesh, right? Absolutely. And so the spirit is trying to win us trying to win our members and our body and our flesh back to the desires of God.

So maybe this should have been reworded, is the perception of this believer to whom James is addressing, is he or she believing that this is conviction and or disappointment of the spirit? It is a question. Well, I mean, what's the perception of the believer in terms of the Spirit's role in his or her life? I think the Spirit's job is to point us to Christ, and when we're not focused on Christ and into the world and being friends with the world, then the Spirit is grieved because we're not following the Spirit's leading, which is to have fellowship with Christ.

Okay, the Spirit's never put in a position of jealousy. I mean, the Holy Spirit is the person that God had. Exactly. I think there's no way the Spirit would be envious. I mean, I think the Spirit... You know, God is bigger than that. I just think the Holy Spirit is bigger than that.

I mean, I think that's why they're saying, do you think, are you so arrogant that you think that the Spirit is jealous? This probably would have been better worded, the perception of the believer in terms of what the spirit is going through in terms of this situation. I was taken by the verse for adulterers and adulteresses. It seems like our love is for the Lord and when we go back to the love of the world and that and we want that and we take that in that we have left Him and it reminds me of Israel going back to the false gods that really we're loving something other than the one that we're married to in a sense or that is our wife and we And this jealousy of the spirit I think is the intensity with which he wants us to walk with the Lord and live in the life of Christ and not be in darkness. To be pure as he is. The context in which this is set, though, goes on to talk about grace, and to say God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And if I put it into that context, then perhaps the English translation, these words of this translation as jealously, another translation as envies, and as was pointed out God doesn't really be jealous and yet go back to the Old Testament where God talked about, I designed you to be my people and you've gone off a whoring after false gods.

I see that same kind of thing. Right, I think that's good. You know the other thing, keep in mind that what's being posed here Margaret is that do you think the scripture says in vain? So it's not do you think the scripture says, do you think it says in vain? So presumably the spirit dwells in us does your angelus. Yes Stan.

I was also going to say that if you really want to look at the spirit and what it's doing you just have to look at Jesus because Jesus was the living spirit on earth and how he treated people and how he lived and how he taught and how he had relationship with other people is an example of what the spirit inside of us is doing as well. So he didn't go up to people and pat them on the back and tell them foolish things and build them up needlessly, but he pointed out their faults like the rich man that came to him and he said you know, sell everything that you have and follow me. Well, he couldn't do that because Jesus knew right away that this was the problem that this man had and until he conquered this inner world, his inner love He was lost now. When Jesus wept over Jerusalem and said, how many times would I have gathered you under my wings as a hen gathers her little chicks, but you would not. So maybe this idea of urns delicately brings thoughts to our minds that aren't really the main consideration. Any other comments?

Yeah, Pat. I think the concept of jealousy maybe is not totally misfounded. And again, as I read it more carefully just a few minutes ago, it says, do you think it says in vain? So presumably it has not said it in vain. It's not void. It has value. And I think, Pat, that's good to kind of terminate this part of our lesson today.

I think, in fact, God is a jealous God, right? And the Spirit perhaps does have an atmosphere of jealousy in terms of the believer then going to old ways, old things, and, if you will, retracting his or her behavior. Yes, Stan, last comment. Simply, yeah, this is the last one I'm going to make. Simply, He's jealous for our soul.

He saved us. I was saved, I'm being saved, and I will be saved. This is the process of being saved. The constant process of the Spirit working out the life of Christ in each and every one of us. There's grace here, Pat. He's not sharing us with the world. Correct. Right, exactly. That's a good one. Alright, moving on then. What is this true humility in verse 6? Well, let's look at the definition. Humble, King James translates humble in the following manner, of low degree times two, the term humble itself twice, base once, cast down once, of low estate once, and lowly once.

And basically, in 1 Timothy 1.15, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I'm chief, And I think it's seeing God for who he is and us for who we are. And I think Isaiah put it well. For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

So, ultimately, humility is, I think, ultimately seeing ourselves who we are before the Lord, right? And we are unworthy, totally. And I'm going to come back to this shortly in terms of Paul's view of him being the chief among all sinners, I think is really the ultimate humility that we must position ourselves in.

Now, you know, humility doesn't mean false humility. I think we can all kind of express that occasionally, becoming falsely humble. Humility is really seeing ourselves as God sees us, and I think that's the simplest way to put it. The world is full of false humility. And you hear it politically, you hear it day in, day out in the workplace.

Yesterday's None But the Hungry Heart, I thought, had a very good comment, that the Spirit is working with us to create in us the proper humility. But it's not for us to think about, am I becoming humble? I want to work on becoming humble. It's something which is a natural result of the life in Christ working out through us. I just love it. And I used to have trouble with humility, but now I'm the most humble guy. So, Al, how long have you been working on this? Over 60 years. So you're 61, is that right? Well I didn't know that I had to work on it when I knew everything.

Now let's talk privately afterwards. Alright. Okay, second section. We're not moving too quickly here, but the second section is James 4, 7-10. Humility creates exaltation. So in this section, verse 7, read verse 7. Let's read 7 through 10 since we're going to do these in sequence. Who's got 7 through 10? Please read.

Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. Have you heard that verse spilled out by Christians here and there?

Submit to God, resist the devil, and he'll flee from you. That sounds kind of like you push a button and this all happens just like that. So submit is putting oneself underneath, so presumably under God's great grace, and resisting to set oneself against. Pretty simple definitions, aren't they? So remember that the double-minded man is unstable on all his ways.

We've got this kind of constant battle between the devil, if you will, the old man, the world system, and the Lord Jesus Christ. So what's this victory based on that we ultimately have been promised here in James? Submit yourself to God, resist the devil, and he'll flee from you.

Well, it's our faith, isn't it? God's grace is the foundation, but if we don't believe this is true, how's it going to occur? And I think if you look at Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is a book that Mike says he's going to get back into this, and I'm starting to get back into it, the first chapter is on faith. And you know, faith is very simply defined as believing what God's revealed. The question is, are we new creations in Christ Jesus, positioned above with all benevolence that relates to Christ Jesus in us?

Do we believe that ultimately submitting ourselves to that by faith is ultimately going to accomplish overcoming the temptations of this world? So resisting the devil isn't something we think about and try harder to do. This is an act of faith. The devil has no role to play in our lives at all. He has no power over us when we respond by faith.

Basically, that's the way to accomplish the task of being victorious over the power of the world system, the flesh, and the devil. 1 John 5, verse 4, For whosoever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. We've got to act. You've plugged the light in to the switch, but you've got to turn it on. It's kind of like we're plugged in. but we've got to activate that power that comes from above.

Very simple, James 1.6, but let him ask in faith with no doubting for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. Let's pray for the horn here. Okay, so here's something I was pondering a little bit yesterday.

Maybe it's your Mustang. You left the windows down. Do you want to go check? You left the windows. Who knows? Somebody might be out there. Checking it out. It's right by the street. I did that once with a fellow I found sleeping in my backseat when I went out to go to a men's Bible study breakfast. I took him to church with me. He had gone to a party and kind of lost his way. Here's I think something that I was thinking about a lot this race preparing for today.

Does one repent and then become humble? And does humility lead to repentance? Yes. That's the initial question. From whence comes the power to repent? How do you get saved? Do you have to repent first and then get saved? Sometimes both happen. There is a repentance that leads to salvation, but then sometimes God brings to your mind other things that you hadn't thought of that need to be dealt with. Well, as believers we repent too, right? And repentance is just not regret, but regret.

You know, don't you get... I'll go aside for a second. Let me just get your question here. If you're a sports fan, aren't you getting tired of all these people with substance abuse who are repenting? If I hear one more apology for substance abuse among athletes, I just don't need to hear anymore, because anyway, that's regretting the consequences of the behavior of making not true repents, although I'm not the judge.

We'll get to that section in a moment. If repent means to change your mind about something, don't we have to change our mind about our sinful state in order to become safe? Alright, but do we have a full cup of repentance when we come to salvation? I don't know about you, but when I got saved, I started realizing that all the things I had to repent that I didn't repent about before I got saved. Well, who's the focus of the repentance? Is it us or is it God? It's God. We're changing our mind about God. It's for you. Faith is.

But does repentance really result from humility? It must, I think, ultimately be true repentance. I think it's like the faith and works debate. Someone has likened it to a pair of scissors. You need both blades to make it work right. I think repentance and humility work together. That's right. And in a sense, that's why I finally concluded after thinking a lot about this and trying to get some scriptural basis for the answer to this question. Can these two really be separated? I don't really think they can.

Humility leads to our seeing ourselves who we are before God, and we repent of that. And ultimately, as we repent, we're made humble because it puts us in a position to get God's forgiveness fully, completely provided and accepted. I think this can be just an academic argument, but I know it is worthy of more time. OK, the third section is God's the only judge.

Let's look at 11 and 12. So Ingrid, maybe you can read that part, please. Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and destroy.

But you, who are you to judge your neighbor? OK, fairly simple. Next question. Why is speaking evil of the brother and speaking evil of a law of coitus. Is that because you're using the law to judge your neighbor? Well, the law is holy. I mean, even though, you know, the standard still is the law and Christ came to replace the law.

So I don't know, Yes, Sam. Well, the Bible talks about righteous judgment. And that's the judgment that comes from God. And that's divine judgment. OK. But I think the judgment that he's talking about there is probably not probably is the judgment from from a heart that here it says evil. So it's it's not an accurate judgment. It's not a righteous judgment. It's a selfish human oriented judgment.

I said worldly judgment. OK. All right. I'm raising the question. Is this not putting ourselves in the position of the lawgiver himself? Right. Right. I mean, we're in fact, you know, taking on a position of God himself in terms of this type of behavior. To put yourself in the position of you think you know that person's heart.

And only the law giver knows their heart. So that's why this section is entitled God's the only judge. There's no other judge. Christ pointed out when he talked about making righteous judgment, he said make sure you've got the plank out of your own eye before you go talk about pieces of sawdust in your brother's eyes. Because in a sense when we act as the judge, we're not only putting ourselves in a position to argue but we're saying God is right in judging us.

So in Romans 2.1, therefore, you are inexcusable, O man, whosoever you are who judge. For in whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same thing.

So that kind of hits home, doesn't it? And secondly, in 14.13, therefore, let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a curse to fall on our brother's way. But there's another side to this. My sister's in the new age.

And so anytime I try to talk to her about the error of her belief system, the first comment is always, and it always has been and probably always will be until she sees the truth. She always says, the Bible says, do not judge. And see, here's another one of those passages that you can read that. And if you read it out of context, you can come away with that. with that feeling that you are not supposed to judge. But the Bible tells, if you look up the word judge, the number of times it's in scripture, I can't count that far. It's huge. I mean, this is a huge topic in scripture as far as judgment is concerned.

So I brought up two circumstances here that relates to your question, Stan. The first is a brother trespassing against you. If you don't have time to look at these two sections, Matthew 18, 2 Corinthians 2, both deal with a brother trespassing against us and how to deal with that.

And ultimately, I'm saying is that really judging? Probably not. I mean, how we respond to someone who in fact offends us is not necessarily judging them, it's dealing with them. But the other issue I think is more relevant to the body of Christ. What about church discipline? Isn't this ultimately casting judgment on one of our brothers? And I think that relates to what you said too, Stan. When it says brothers, is that referring to fellow believers only, or is that general public. Well, I think we judge the world all the time because we stand in grace and truth, right? We do judge the world.

This is a different element. Remember, we talked about that. The world system's entirely outside the body of Christ. We do judge them as unsafe people living in an environment that is conducive to being separated from God. So this statement is referring at least to fellow believers. I think we have to interpret it that way, yes. So what about church discipline? The fornicator outside or within the body? By the way, outside the body, we have no problem. I mean, we expect that kind of behavior, right? That's the moral system.

But within the body, in 1 Corinthians 5, 11 through 13, let's look at that. So let's turn to 1 Corinthians 5, 11 through 13. Paul said don't even have fellowship with them. Put them out of the system. Is that not judgmental? It's righteous behavior for the body of Christ. So whoever has that, please take a look at that and read it. But now I'm writing you, that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother, but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. Expel the wicked man from among you. Okay, so it says outside God will judge, but in the sense that believers found it in his truth, we do pass judgment there. And I think that's righteous judgment, looking at the unsafe world's behavior. It says we don't judge the outside, but God's bigger than we are. But I think as believers, we can, I think, have a judgmental attitude and behavior outside of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We point out places in the Bible where God judges that behavior. And so we don't make up the judgment. We say, do you realize what God says about? But as new creations of Christ Jesus, don't you think we're put in a position of understanding that behavior for what it's worth? And we do judge it as unrighteous behavior. But I think what I'll say is, we found our source on it's God's worth, not my idea, which is key.

But you could also judge it based on your I mean, you could make a judgment not based on the Bible. Well, you could. But we'll leave it to God to judge the world. But I'm just thinking, as believers, we have an opinion, which is one that, I think, puts us into a position of maybe judging the world and its behavior.

Anyway, within the body, that's judgment, is it not? By, presumably, elders of the church. That's one of your responsibilities, rather. So so this conflicts within the body. Are we saying that what about that and judging our brother in a sense that is judging our brother. Is this something we need to be concerned about about an internal contradiction of the word of God. I don't think so. But yes. Yes. I was going to say that.

It goes along with what Ernst has been teaching out of Hebrews where it talks about that the author of Hebrews, whoever it was, said that they should be teachers by now. So in other words, people within the church who supposedly know the scripture and study the scripture and have this relationship with God should be able to make these judgments more or less on a righteous basis, certainly not as righteous as God or Christ, but it is from scriptural training. But obviously it doesn't work that well in the world because we've got how many, 20,000 different denominations nowadays? And a lot of that is because people disagree on what the scripture says. or how you're supposed to live.

So that's a good thing. We've got one righteous judge who really does have a positive, absolute standard. And we should desire, if we're humble, to be able to live by that standard and to be able to teach or judge or discipline relative to that standard. Right? Right. And I think the warning is here, up here, about judge I mean, often the things we judge are things we know well, because we do the same thing.

And we have to be careful not to judge the whole issue of stumbling blocks, etc. before the body. But I think church discipline requires judgment of behavior within the body. and that's perhaps not the individual who's judging, other than the other four of the three. The three of you getting together, Sally Smith or Joe Blow, in fact their behaviors no longer conduce to them being part of the body here. So I think what we're looking at is the distinction between the individual and the body in terms of judgment.

Ingrid? Well, that whole chapter talks about, you know, a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. I mean, get rid of the, well, just, you know, just for the cleanliness of the whole body, because this person had been bragging, bragging about his behavior with this corner. Fornication. And then the goal of getting this person out of fellowship is restoration too. They want to see him restored and back into the body at some point. It's not just get out of here. It's we want you restored and that's why you have to be out. So is everybody okay with that?

As individuals we're not to judge because we're putting ourselves in God's position. Secondly, all these other barriers to the believer in terms of judgment, the impact on the person we're judging and on ourselves alone. But as a body, judgment really is part of the holy operation of the body of Christ. We reserve that to the elders. This is typically not one person making a decision about a believer's behavior in the body.

Are we okay with that, Gail? Do we need to distinguish between evaluating versus casting condemnation? I assess Margaret's behavior all the time. She judges mine. We'll talk later. I heard it says that we're not to judge, but we can be fruit inspectors. All right, good. Remember, Roger gave you this test. Oh, wow. That's a lot of hate here. You see, you can judge him about this. Judge him. All right, so the last section is what we talked last week. And there'll be a little bit of redundancy to answer over here, but not too much, I think. Tomorrow is God's will is the way I summarize this.

Go to now ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell and gain. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then banisheth away. For that we ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings, all such rejoicing as evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

Boy, this is a tough, tough section. I hope we did it some justice last week. This represents, by the way, a transition in the epistle from kind of covetousness, lust, of basically judging now into the materialism. And that continues in the chapter five. So we'll be picking that up next week, whoever's teaching next week.

How do we contrast and balance earthly gain with spiritual gain? Well, I mentioned last week that if you look at the verb gain in this kind of atmosphere of human profit from whatever we do, it's only used once in the New Testament. But gain is typically connected to spiritual gain. I think that's kind of interesting. So financial gain rarely used. And this is the exception in this part of the New Testament. But in Philippians 37a, it talks about the true gain that we should be concerned with.

What things were gained in me, Paul said, those I count lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless, I count all things lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, through whom I've suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but done. that I may win Christ. Now when he says the loss of all things, what's Paul talking about here? The loss of all things.

Is this financial only? No, he's been talking about his reputation as a Pharisee and his training and his status. All of the above. His earthly reputation. His reputation. Knowledgeable guy too, right? Paul said he was knowledgeable in all things of Moses and the Old Testament. incredibly intelligent man.

All of this goes for loss. And by the way, he probably financially paid a price for his new ministry too. I don't know. He's not talking about your economic gain. He's talking about earthly gain that comes through all the wealth, Alice, you stated. So what does the loss of all things mean to us today? Are we to give up our jobs, our homes, our automobiles?

I mean, I don't think so. Does it relate to what we glory? I think there we are talking about something that is reality tested. What we glory? I think ultimately each one of us has to be convicted about where our hearts are at. This is a tough one because if we get too legal here we are falling outside of grace and becoming ultimately so concerned about A, B, and C in terms of how we are pleasing God. Yes, Dave?

Michael says we are aliens, but we are looking toward a future city. So in other words, we have to live here as strangers and aliens, but the focus should be on the heavenly city. The rewards we get here are not going to be eternally satisfied, but the eternal rewards that we get at the Bema Judgment will be. I mean those will be eternal.

So we live here not necessarily striving for worldly rewards, but striving to do good works that will ultimately be rewarded eternally by Christ. Right, and by the way I think these heavenly rewards are not red, white, blue ribbons for a certain number of words that we need some kind of credibility list. But I think the life of crisis is lived out here brings glory to our father and those rewards come to our lack of recognition. We don't count up our rewards. It's a life that ultimately. leads to the rewards, and we don't seek the rewards, we seek the life that is Spirit-led by faith.

And the rewards will lead up to the Heavenly Father. Jesus said, lay not up for yourselves treasure on earth where moth and rust erupt and thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven. And to carry that out in a practical sense, He talked about don't set your affection and your goals and your standards on the earthly thing of what kind of house you buy.

We had this thing going on for a while. What kind of car would Jesus drive? He'd probably walk. You know what I'm saying. It's just like you say, we'll peg the standard at a certain level. He should buy a Ford instead of a Cadillac or something. But that isn't the issue. The issue is what occupies your mind and heart.

Well keep in mind here what we're describing is someone who's going to the city. Today he's decided to go to the city and he's going to be there tomorrow. That means today and tomorrow he'll make a lot of money. and ultimately he is going to boast in these prophets that he has. This is a whole behavior that is really motivated by the flesh entirely. God doesn't have a place in this behavior.

I went through the Old Testament again here because I thought this was so beautiful. A couple of verses of Jeremiah I had never realized before. It said, Thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, which he exercises loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things, for in these things, I delight, saith the Lord. Isn't that a beautiful passage? I mean, it's Old Testament stuff, but it's a prophecy that probably has eternal value, doesn't it? From Genesis to Revelation, and as the body of Christ, we can relate to this in terms of how it deals with the James section we're currently looking at.

OK, last slide. How often do you think your life is a vapor? Boy, a vapor. Alla, his background in chemistry, knows a vapor will last about a second. It doesn't dwell. Our lives as vapors. Paul said, for me to live is Christ and die is gain. And my comment to that is either way you win. To live is Christ and die is gain. How's that for double victory? It's a win-win situation. So consider eternity as a comparison. I mean, in terms of a life being available, think about eternity with no timeline. There's no point A and point B temporally in eternity.

In that school, we're blessed with a couple of blessings in heavenly places. Why do we boast? Well, I love this verse. For who makes you to differ from one another? And what do you have that you didn't receive? Now, if you didn't receive it, why do you glory at it? Is that you received it. Anyway, if you had not received it, I mean, okay.

What do we reward in this world? We reward intelligence. We reward athletic ability. We reward musical skills. We reward beauty. Physical beauty. These are the things the world system rewards. By the way, if you're a beautiful young woman or if you're a handsome guy, who gave you... I mean the point is that's all designed genetically. And where does the genetic trick come from, right? It just so happens that you chose the right parents, right? And what alleles do you mean? Which parent gets one gene? Those ended up being beautiful or not? So what? It's the internal man and woman that's beautiful before God. But the world rewards these physical things or accomplishments.

And ultimately, therefore, we have nothing to boast about. So what is God's will for today and tomorrow? And does it relate to anything other than being conformed to his image? And I would say absolutely not. God's will is in a form versus a catalog now. It's for the decision on that car ultimately to use that vehicle in whatever way to bring the order that they thought. It's not the naked vehicle of the color. Every decision we make is being utilized to conform us to his image. We don't know what to do.

All my kids are all kind of partially in transition. Kim's up for tenure next year at Jacksonville University. Kristen's looking for a job. She's a fifth year postdoc. She has no idea where it's going to be. Elizabeth just formed a new business and it's unclear where that's going in terms of need for more employees. Peter's a professional biker. That's not going to last forever. He's got a girlfriend. He's not sure if he wants to marry her or not. Clark is, never mind. All these kids are kind of in transition.

But ultimately, the decisions they make in terms of this earthly existence all need to be viewed in the perspective of how is God conforming them through these processes and these decisions to follow. And therefore, doing good. By the way, if you're not doing good, you're sinning. Doing good is his life within us. And not doing good is falling short by faith. When we think about doing good, what are we doing? Are we creating a list for ourselves of how well we are doing? I don't think so. Doing good is living by faith that each and every circumstance that occurs on a day-to-day basis is ultimately bringing glory to the Lord.

That's doing good. And if we reduce it to any set of acts or deeds, we're always going to be falling short, because we can never accomplish enough to please God. So the bottom line is what I use often is keep looking down, because that's, in fact, where our life stems, and that's on which our faith is based. That's very, very simple. So, tough task today, Roger, reviewing James 4. Any thoughts or additional comments today about this overview?

Wouldn't it be nice to have a relationship with God the Father like Jesus did, where everything that you say and every act that and has come from the Father. Wouldn't that be unbelievable to know exactly how you were supposed to respond in any and every situation?

I mean Jesus didn't go out to make friends at all. He just lived his life in accordance with what the Father wanted him to do. So sometimes we don't make friends and sometimes we do. Our personal motivations are so dominant Because that's how we're made.

The Lord Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man. So spiritually he was in constant communication with his Heavenly Father. Keep in mind his ministry probably really started when he was involved by the Spirit. But he was still perfectly holy and righteous before the ministry really fully was engaged. But keep in mind this, and I think it's something that relates to our citizenship.

O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the power of this sin, death, whatever? And right after that is the Lord Jesus Christ is the one, and there's no condemnation at all to those that are in Christ Jesus. Boy, talk about, again, that soft pillow for a tired head. There's no condemnation in this. We had a discussion in our Bible study last week, didn't we, Margaret? Why don't you mention that briefly? We'll close. Does God see our sin? And if we're identified in Christ, my view is that He doesn't see the sin. He only sees us in Christ. who's in us and we're in Him. It's not that He can't see it. Of course, He can see everything.

And it's not about the Lord's fellowship with us. It's our fellowship with Him. We're sinning. We're the ones out of fellowship. The Lord never leaves us. He never abandons us. It's confession on our part, just to restore our fellowship. The Lord has never gone anywhere.

Bumper sticker I used to love said, if you feel far from God, guess who moved? Thank you for the many things that you have given us. Thank you for your son who you have given us and has provided his righteousness for us. And as Margaret said, thank you for always being with us and never leaving us. I just am awed.