Books of James & Jude - James special topic

We're going to look at three particular points. The first one is rather quick. The last two will make up quite a bit of content. So we've got basic keys to unlocking the book of James. These are things that I just wanted to hit really hard one more time.

I've hit them almost every single class that I've taught through this, but it has been so helpful to me in understanding how to interpret this book and how to make sense of it in the Christian life in the place that we are today in the church. So I'm going to cover those basic keys. And then the two topics that I'm pulling back out are early topics that I taught in the book of James, James 1, 14 through 15, and it covers the temptation in the Christian life. The picture there was so rich to me when I went through it, and I believe that it would be nice to be able to go back to some of the earlier topics that we had and just see those in light of having just completed the book.

And then the third one is faith and works, which obviously is a hot hot button for this particular book, and so we're going to look at that a little bit. And so we'll be covering these sections of verses. These are classes that I taught months ago now, but I think it would be nice to just again go put some of the initial topics as a first introduction to them, kind of set that book in for the first, and then as we looked at these last several weeks, the very end of James. And so that's the hopes today that we'll get through that. So we have these helpful observations to the book of James that I've brought up a number of times.

His focus was on the applying and doing of what one reads. So he's all about the reality of what the believer's life looks like in light of his fellow believers. He focuses on how things look to others, he's about doer, and he talks largely about being justified from an earthly perspective amongst other believers. So James is all about doing. And Paul, on the other hand, just to kind of put in contrast, Paul would point to how that doing gets done.

So, he explains the life and the power of the Galatians 2.20 and Colossians 1.29 truths that would then parallel and balance out the book of James and not allow us to get so siloed into the doing, but understand that when we recognize the further revelation of what Paul wrote and got entrusted to Paul, we see that Paul is entrusted to point out how we look at Christ and how he sees us, beholding beholding him through his word and how we are justified heavenly. So Paul is about beholding and James is about the doing.

Without the two, you get an incomplete picture. And I think that's one of the biggest challenges that teachers have today as they rush into the book of James. They can get so entrenched in the doing side of it that it ends up being a big large list of rules where you don't understand that, okay, I've got these things that represent the way a believer's life should look. but I don't know how it gets done. And, golly, I just got to pull up my bootstraps and work hard through it. And that's not the truth of the New Testament.

It's balanced with the truths of Paul. And so this is one helpful observation that we've pointed out so many times over and over, and I think it's just good to be reminded of. Another thing with regards to this transitional period that James is writing in, he was writing to Jewish believers. And as a rule, Paul's Gentiles epistles were written to the Gentiles. James is written to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad. And so James is probably the earliest of the New Testament epistles to be written. It's written early in the transition from the gospel of the kingdom to the gospel of substitution. And that's a major factor when thinking about interpretation of this book. So it is coming from the standpoint of a Jewish gospel.

That's their background. They don't understand the gospel of substitution in all its fullness as Paul was entrusted to communicate. So they're limited with what they have access to and we have to remember that. We can't just go back and think about scriptures being flat and that everybody at all points in time has had access to the exact same amount of truth at all points in time.

The scripture is progressive in terms of its revelation and we have to look at what James had available to him and what his readers would have had available to them at the time of the writing. The book may have been written before Acts 15, so this is a reference point. It was also written in anticipation of a soon return of the Lord. belief that the Lord was to return, the second return. James 5 seems to have special application to the tribulation period, and I covered that as well. And so they were thinking in terms of this soon return.

And lastly, in terms of this transitional period overview, the operating principles of grace and identification with Christ had not yet been revealed to James. There were seed points that we looked at. in this book, but they had not been fully revealed to James, and so he had a glimpse of these things, but he did not have a fullness of understanding that we see in Paul's books. And so that's just some helpful key points to interpreting the book of James that we've picked up a number of times throughout this lesson, and I just wanted to remind ourselves of that.

So let's look at this issue of temptation. This is one of the two special topics that I chose to focus on today. And it largely comes out of James 1, 14 through 15. You see that word tempted. That word is also used of trial. And the context is translated tempted here. I'll go ahead and read that.

But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. And so this is interpreted in a lot of ways to motivate believers to stay away from and to shun any kind of temptation or lust for the very outcome of death. And it can be used as a really shackle. to the pew, you know what I mean? You can quickly get somebody so wrapped up in the idea of their sin nature, leading them away into the temptation to the point of bringing death.

And so we want to talk about what that means today and see it in light of what it actually says and then again continue to balance that with revelation that we have from Paul and his works as well. So let's look at this topic about temptation. I mentioned that that word temptation is also used in previous verses and it's translated trial. And we know trials are a major theme and topic as well. I chose to go to this instance of the word because it was more personal and the picture that we have about temptation here is so vivid. that I felt like it just continued to stick out in my mind, and I think that was Paul's point here. So we've got this illustration about temptation that we want to look at. So tempted is a solicitation to sin with a view toward failure.

It's from the same root word that we saw, as I mentioned, in verses 3 and 4, and it's translated trial there, but there's this contextual difference here that has this translated actually tempt. I think that's the right way to look at it, and I think most modern translations do use that. But context is always a decisive factor. We have to remind ourselves that just because it's the same word, we might be able to, with Greek being so flexible, we have the ability to see that and use that in different ways in the English. And in this case, that's what we've done. But it's soliciting to sin. It's translated tempt, not trial.

And God is separated from being the source of temptation. That was a major truth that we learned through the book of James, is that God is not the one responsible for the temptation. He's not the source of it. God never solicits man to sin. There's never this idea of God sitting up there, you know, kind of, you know, oh, if I can just get him a little bit closer and there's the snare and I got him. You know, that's not the view that we have of our loving Father with regards to temptation and sin. But rather this is a passive voice. So this word tempted is in passive voice. So it means that we are acted upon and the question is it by God or who is it by?

And so we want to take just a minute to remind ourselves of a major distinction of our spiritual anatomy as a believer. On the left hand side we have the physical realm and on the right hand side we have the spiritual realm. And so we've got the body being contrasted by the spirit, the brain and the soul, and in the middle, in a shared way, you've got the mind, emotions and the will. So you'll see here in the first top red box that the believer's soul and spirit are God's dwelling place.

So this is not where temptation takes place. But in the bottom right hand dotted red box, you see that the sin nature is a spiritual entity attached to the body. So as long as you have this body, you are capable of being acted upon by temptation. This body is the container for the sin nature. And so when James talks about this, this whole process of being carried away and enticed, he's talking about the sin nature desiring to carry you away, entice you into sin. And so that is when we talked about the passive voice who is acting upon us. It's not God, but it's rather that sin nature. So this is, as a review, we're just kind of reminding ourselves of this.

So the verse verse 14 says that when he carried he when he is carried away that is the believer He is drawn away or led away. And so the sin nature which can be Abolished can never be abolished nor improved upon nor refined It draws us out of abiding like a fish drawn from its hiding place and that's the visual that we see there You've got this fish It's hiding under the rock, and the sin nature draws him out of the rock, out into the open part of the river, and then he is enticed. And that's what the word means next.

He's literally to bait or entrap. And in the New Testament, metaphorically, it means to entice, beguile, to lure. And so your own sin nature, the sin nature that's attached to your body, lures you out from under the rock, the hiding place, as it were. And it not only lures you out and carries you out, but it draws you out, but it also lures.

You hook yourself. You see, this is what's going on. Your sin nature is pulling you through this process out into the open. And as you begin to think through the temptation that you're struggling with, this is the visual that James is seeing happening. So a person's sin nature both builds and baits his own trap. And this is a present passive reality.

It then says, it uses the word lust, James uses the word lust here, so to desire to have a passionate longing, to strongly crave and have what belongs to someone else, and or to engage in an activity which is morally wrong, to covet. So lust can be used in two different ways. We often think of it in a sexual sense, and that's not the biblical meaning. It actually could be used in a good sense, as Paul uses it, to desire to be with Christ. So, it's a deep, passionate longing is the actual word there, and it might be better used in our day and age as that, rather than lust. But nonetheless, we do have the fact that it's used both in a good sense and in a bad sense.

So, in most usages in the New Testament, we have this lust, meaning this evil desire, and Colossians 3.5 would represent that. And normally in most classes we would go and read these supporting verses, but we're just reviewing special topics this time around, and so a lot of this should be pretty fresh in the mind in terms of having looked at it in the book of James already. So a little bit more on our own lust or passionate longing. In James 1-4, which we're talking about here, it's used in this negative sense.

And so the source of our desires are bad, and they are from our sin nature, our flesh. Therefore, the ultimate source of temptation is our sin nature. So there are many external influences. You can think of your own that you've struggled with this week. But there are the solicitations to sin. They're that little flickering kind of fly on the top of the water that you decided was interesting enough to be carried away, drawn in, and then you allowed yourself to be literally baited into.

It's not an external thing in and of itself that tempts us. So just because it's flickering and it looks great and we covet and desire it, that is not the temptation itself. It's literally a source from the sin nature that draws us to that. And it's our reaction to that that is what is being talked about here in terms of lust. External things do not become personal temptations unless the sin nature desires to pursue them. It's weird how some people are drawn to other things and you're like, I don't have a problem with that.

Yeah. Do you have it open for questions? Yeah, absolutely. What do you think about a person who is blind? Do you think they have less temptation? No. Because the eye is the... is one of the sinful portals that things come into your body. I understand where that might come into play. But because we have multiple spiritual senses, and we have the contrasted physical senses, just the I in and of itself doesn't necessarily mean that a person is going to have access to more temptation than one who is blind. I can't necessarily speak to what those are because I don't experience that same limitation with my own eyes.

But, doubt. the doubt that must come from not understanding and not seeing and not knowing why you have these things or suffer from these particular handicaps could produce a desire to pursue certain types of sin of depression. You could potentially put yourselves in the shoes of anyone and find ways to get carried away into any type of sin even without the use of certain senses.

Al? I think any handicap like that or anything else, tends to make a person self-centered more. There is more temptation to look at your infirmity like Paul praying three times that that thorn in the flesh might be removed from him. God saying, my grace is sufficient for you. It's really good to learn that lesson. when you have a handicap, whether it's hearing loss, or vision loss, or walking loss, you can go on through all the list of physical difficulties. Especially as we get older, I can't speak for other people, but I know this is one of my problems now, is not to focus on what I can't do, but to focus on what God still has, and to be thankful for that. for which he has called me. And I think that would apply to the situation with a blind person.

What about emotions? Depression? Loneliness? As I look around it leads to so much. Temptation? and eventually sin. Yeah. You know, the source here, and just kind of go back to the source of all of this temptation and what it is that lures a person out, that lure and that being drawn away is different for all of us. Sometimes we share them, sometimes we don't. Sometimes you have a physical, you know, you might have a different physical situation than I do, but I think the reality that the Scripture tells us is that the sin nature is just as active irregardless of what the actual flesh is incapable of. Because that sin nature is present and attached to this physical body so long as we are here, it is active and it finds a way to lure a person no matter what their limitations may be.

Just a quick thought. When I was young and first became a Christian, I envied old people. I thought, their life is so stable and fixed. They haven't got all these life choices to make. They haven't got all this life. They've got it all together. Now that I'm an old person, I envy the young.

Exactly what you're saying. It varies with age and with personality and all the rest, but all of us have places where that sin nature rises up and says, I want to have my way. No matter what age we are, God has the answer in Paul's writings in 1 Corinthians 10, 13. Amen? Amen. Any other questions back there? I was just going to give a comment of that.

It's desiring a need or an answer outside of what God has provided for me, the illustration of Abraham and Isaac. God promised a fulfillment there in Abraham and was strong in faith. And yet at one point in his life he said, this has got to be fulfilled and I've got to reach outside of myself and get this done. And so Ishmael comes along to do that.

In a spiritual sense, whenever I'm in a situation, and that situation varies for obviously every individual as was just mentioned. as that I have no temptation towards a particular activity that I find repulsive. There's no need there for me to fulfill. And yet something that is more appealing to me, if I feel that I'm shorted in some area, then I'm going to want to desire to fulfill that. God has provided a need in that area, and yet I can still have to go out of myself to follow after my lusts and say I'd rather have this short-term fulfillment. of what I know God has provided for me.

It's a good point. I think to maybe build on that, when we think about sin, we think about things that are repulsive, and we can name off the high-level list. Sin is not trusting the Lord for our needs. Even with our children, just because we have a child who chooses to obey what we say, doesn't mean that they actually trusted the Lord to do that. They could be you know, just getting it done, you know, grit and strength and, you know, and you can sense that. And you even have to ask your children and sometimes yourself, you know, just because I chose to do the right thing doesn't mean that I operated by faith with that choice. And so, even yet, in what appears from a believer standpoint, fellow believer, could ultimately be sin at the end of the day just because you weren't trusting the Lord to do those things.

You were just gritting it through and getting it done. And I see that a lot in my children. Obviously, I see that a lot in me. And I think that James has a lot to say about what that looks like on the outside. And Paul talks a lot more about the fact that we are operating, our operating system is one of grace based on faith and trust in the Lord through His Word to do the living through us.

And it's a much different thing to recognize that we're not sitting around pinpointing sins, but we recognize those do come from the sin nature and sometimes no one ever knows about them and you could never see them. A fellow believer can never see our lack of trust in a certain area, but we know we've got that Holy Spirit who convicts us. We've talked about James looking to the importance of confession and making things right and finding yourself back in fellowship with him. Regardless of what sin we're talking about or what physical ailments we suffer from or limitations we have, the desire of that sin nature to lure us out there to not trust the Lord, which is really the ultimate issue. Trust yourself. Trust the world. Trust the devil. Trust one of the three enemies that we have attacking in our mind regularly. Trust those things. Don't trust the Lord. By golly, just don't do that. Anything else but that.

I don't want to prolong it, but a personal illustration that I thought of this past week was my particular job is in payroll, and every day I look at what people make and how much they pay. So this is something that is second nature to me, to look at this and to be aware of what's going on, and yet there's a very real temptation And it does occur on a regular basis where a paper will come across my desk, here's a pay data adjustment form for a particular individual, and all these numbers that I'm looking at every day, all of a sudden there's something in me that says, man, I wish I had more money. And that's when this object that's before me opens itself up as a potential temptation.

I create that by allowing myself to be drawn away from my desire to be fulfilled in something other than what God has provided me for. by the grace of God, then he reminds me, I know where you're at. I know how much money you make. Have you ever lacked? Have you ever not had what your needs are to be fulfilled? And then that's where that trial of my faith works patience to say, yes, God knows where I'm at. He'll provide for my needs every step of the way. And then I can process that paper, put it aside, and do the humdrum every day until the next, you know, payday comes along.

And so there's these things that I process and say, well, this is not even a temptation for me. You know, this person makes less than me anyway. And, you know, however that works. And then there's the others that come through that, you know, and that's where the aspect is. Some things are temptations, you know, and some things are not.

That's right. But every case needs to be handled with the recognition that I serve and belong to a sovereign God who knows exactly where I'm at and will provide for me according to His promises and according to His grace. No, that's right. I appreciate you sharing that.

In terms of just kind of using that illustration or even thinking about that, you start the day at the desk, you're abiding in Christ, these desires, these passionate desires, the source being the sin nature, the lust draws you away and entices you, and you have the option here to be lured by your own bait. And so, in that illustration, at that point you can react by coveting and becoming deeply entrenched in a focus on something other than what the Lord has given and looking to the world to supply that need. But at this point, sin has not taken place. The temptation is real, but sin has not taken place.

But then in James 1.15 it says, Then, when lust is conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. And so when we talk about when it has conceived, so to conceive literally to become pregnant, it's there, it's at this point rather, where the process moves from temptation to sin to the irreversible process of sin itself. So at that point, you can't unsin. You have to go through the process of what a 1 John 1, 9 situation, but it is here where James says it's given birth. You can't put that baby back. It's conceived. It is growing. It is real. And it gives birth to, literally, to bear. And the metaphor of pregnancy and childbirth I think is really appropriate.

Sin, like a child at birth, has long been alive but is now made completely manifest, completely visible and seen. And all sin incubates in the mind before it becomes overt. So the sequence is conception, which takes place in the mind, then the birth of sin, and finally death. And that's what we see in this illustration.

You take the bait, you get pregnant, literally lust or passionate longing is conceived, and birth equals the sin. And it says when it is accomplished, it brings, to bring an activity to a successful finish, literally to complete, to finish, to accomplish what sin has in mind. What is sin's accomplishment? it brings forth death. It begets death, to die, to literally experience an aspect of death. So when sin has run its full course, when it's fully grown, it brings forth death. And when we say death, we mean separation. Separation from our source.

And in this instance, we're talking about the loss of fellowship with Christ, not a loss of salvation. A believer can still experience separation from God, but not positionally. But experientially, you can walk in separation with God. We call it a loss of fellowship. Different than our relationship. We made that clear in many times, in many ways, but we're talking about you can walk in an expression of separation from God just like an unbeliever can and experience that lack of fellowship with Him.

But He is faithful, and you mentioned His sovereignty. He is sovereign. To never allow that relationship to ever change with Him, but you now experience a separation from the life-giving grace that one experiences they trust God to do the living through them.

So the temptation process, finally, abiding in the flesh, you have a loss of fellowship. And to kind of break it down a little bit further, you've got temptation and no sin before the debate is taken. And below that, you've got a sin-based experience here. And above, you're reckoning. You're reckoning on the truths of God's Word. through the paper, through the temptation to want something that you don't have, you are in a process where you can reckon. But after you've taken that bait, and you've literally coveted, and you've found yourself in that situation, now you're in a position of needing to confess.

One thing that comes to mind is When you're really angry and you're you idiot, you know, and it's funny, it's like I compare thinking of if you want to plan robbing a bank, it takes a long time to make your plans. Yeah. Or you want to, you know, commit adultery or whatever. You're going to have to figure out how this can be accomplished. But swearing at somebody, you know, it takes like a microsecond. Right. And yet that's what I guess it would be a sin to be so angry. And to call somebody names and whatever, give them a finger, whatever, you know.

But you think of the driving thing, what happens in our minds is so fast. So it seems like there's different types of sense. You know, ones that are planned out, ones that you... It's almost like you can't even... It happens so fast, you can't even stop it. Well, I think that that's how it seems.

But the Word tells us that sin takes place the moment we take our eyes off our Savior. So whether we're driving or we're planning a bank robbery, even if it takes a split second in the car, it was preceded by the fact that you were not beholding the Lord through His Word. So you were not focused on Christ. And if so, what do you do?

You come to church, you find the pastor. No, I'm just kidding. We're not in a situation where we need a confession booth. What you do is you ultimately recognize it instantly. And as soon as you do, you confess it and you move on. And you walk with the Lord. So we're in that situation. And we're all there, Pat. We all find ourselves instantly being pulled away.

But the reality is, don't cut the word short and lie to that. you lacked a focus preceding that sin. You lacked the focus of the Lord in your heart. And that's just the truth of what it is. And what it does is it calls us back to His Word, back to the trust of Him doing the living through us. Because Christ doesn't do that. And if he's doing the living through us, he's not going to do that. So we know that we lacked a focus prior to the sin.

Yes? That's where this expression that WWJD, when something suddenly happens, what would Jesus do? If I say that to myself, I've changed my whole personality. So one thought, just to kind of maybe build on that, when we think about the truths of what Paul has said in his word, we're not going to find ourselves trying to necessarily do what Jesus did, but allow Him to actually do it through us. So, as opposed to trying to act like Jesus, Paul tells us that our source is life in Christ, and that he will actually do the obedience, and we simply are trusting him to do it.

So, in a sense of not robbing a bank, or not committing adultery, or not having a problem with a driver on the road, My sin nature is always going to want to do those things, or whatever it is that you're struggling with. It's going to do it. And if I try to make the sin nature respond or act the way that Jesus did, as I see maybe in the Sermon on the Mount, Our responsibility is not necessarily to mimic what Jesus did or said. He had a purpose in time in order to communicate to the Jews.

Paul tells us that as a New Testament believer, He is our life and He will do the living literally through us. And so it's His obedience. in and through our abiding body and our abiding mind that actually gets done. And so, just to kind of build on, the thought is right, the thought is about Jesus. But it's not so much to mimic or to act like Jesus did, but to simply trust Him and He will do the living. But I'm asking the question of myself. I'm not saying, I'm saying that I question my behavior. What would my Savior do? That means I want to do that. Yeah. No, I think the motivation is right.

It's just sometimes a difficult, it's a difficult balance just because sometimes, you know, Jesus did things that we wouldn't do in certain instances. There are things that he was sent to do on this earth that we would never want to try to mimic or replicate, so to speak. Like what? Well, we wouldn't necessarily want to find ourselves in a situation where we're trying to heal someone like Jesus was, or we wouldn't want to go back to the cross like Jesus did, or try to claim the perfection to try to live a perfect life like Jesus did. It was His job to do that, and it's our job to trust Him to do it through us.

So there are things that Jesus as God in human flesh literally was that we would never be or capable of, but what Paul does tell us is that after the death, burial, resurrection, the ascension, and the seeding, we are identified with Christ in those things. But there are other things that we are not identified with Christ in. And so we focus on those things that we are identified with, as Paul reminds us, and we find ourselves more focused on that part, the components to Christ's life for the New Testament believer that are impactful for our walk with Him. Any other thoughts?

Paul at one point said, even if I don't want to do this, I'm constrained to do this. It's like he had to do the work of God. And he's a bustle. And he said, I have to do this. Yeah, he was an apostle. He had to get to Ephesus in Rome, and he had to do the things that the Lord had for him. And can we be constrained? Maybe is the deeper question at heart there. Can we be constrained in the same way that Paul was? Well, maybe. It depends on what parts of constraining that you're talking about with regards to Paul.

We have to recognize who we are in relationship to Christ based on progressive revelation. It's difficult for us not to want to go back and operate like Abraham or, hey, let's go back to Moses. These are heroes of the faith or David. But we have to realize that they had certain amounts of information available to them when they were walking with the Lord. And in the case of the Old Testament heroes of the faith, they didn't have an indwelling Holy Spirit like we did. There's so many truths that don't necessarily apply in the same way to us that applied to, say, David or Moses or Abraham.

We use the foundational truths. God in his perfect knowledge decided that he would reveal himself just as we teach the child, starting with basic arithmetic and moving them on to more advanced math and so forth and on into chemistry where Al can really help us understand the finer details. In the same way he did that with the world that he created and mankind, which he corded along through an introduction to himself and a personal relationship with himself, but it happened progressively over time. And what we enjoy today as New Testament believers in the age of grace, in the age of the church, literally the church, the bride, what we enjoy is far greater access to truths than some of these earlier believers did.

And even in some cases, we have to realize that we would do something quite different because we have a different operating system today. We're not under law, we're under grace. Just a thought. There are places in scripture where people ran and there are places in scripture where they stood firm. And so this idea of what would Jesus do and similar kinds of things where we try to imitate proper behavior. It's all so much just like what we're doing here in James, looking at a context, looking at what the overall situation is. And God may tell you to stand firm because he knows where you're at in your faith walk.

And if I'm faced with the same thing, he might tell me to flee because I'm weak in that area and liable to take the bait and get on the wrong path. So just to add a footnote to what you said is that you can't, one size doesn't fit all. You have to take the individual what God has given him in a way of personality and gifts and some men can do one thing, another is talented in another area and God has a place for each one in the body to try to just imitate can get to be a root function as opposed to the active work of the Holy Spirit in us which offers essentially different That's a really good point. What does the Holy Spirit offer us as a response to whatever our temptations are?

You know, the illustration comes to mind of, okay, here's that thing I want, and I'm walking by it, and maybe I'm going to convince myself that, you know, So let me just back up and say this one thing. The what would Jesus do perspective is one that I have shared and have been involved with and thought for many years. So I understand the desirability of it. But as I continue to look at the scripture and allow my mind to be shaped closer to what it says versus what seems right, even though there's a lot of momentum behind it, I realized that there's a pretty significantly different way of thinking when it comes to actually finding ourselves in an obedient lifestyle, and this illustration might help. So I've got this situation over here, and I'm drawn to it. I've carried myself out into the open.

There's a passionate longing for it, and I'm sitting here looking, and I'm saying, okay, now Jesus would never do this. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it." And I just keep walking and all I can say to myself is, don't do it. Just don't look over there. Don't look over there. And I'm literally holding my face away. And I'm going to physically restrain myself from doing this to the point where I get out the door and I'm like, yes!

I didn't do it. I didn't do it. And Jesus wouldn't have done it and I didn't do it either. But the problem is now I'm thinking about what I just didn't do. And at the end of the day, I trusted myself to not do that based on a motivation that was like someone else. But that motivation could be said of many different systems of belief. Don't do what Gandhi would do. Don't do what Gandhi would do. Gandhi would be peaceful here. He would never flip this guy off in the car.

You know what I mean? You can be motivated by a lot of different things. And just one more second here, let me kind of get through the contrast. But, I think what the scripture says, and some of these verses here help us remind that. So, consider yourself to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. So, this is my sin. I am dead. I am dead to the reality of this desire. And it says, but I'm alive in God and Christ Jesus.

Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts. Galatians 5, 24. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Colossians 3, 5. Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

So here's the same situation. And I recognize this. And so I turn. in my mind to focus on the Lord and I go through the identification of who I am. Okay, this is a real thing. I really am drawn to this. I want to get out there and get myself baited and lured and conceived and give birth to sin. I want that. The sin nature wants that.

But I'm dead. I am dead to sin and I'm alive to Christ Jesus. And that truth and the reality of being identified with Christ in His death, I've also been raised with Him and seated in the heavenlies. I belong to Christ. He is my life. Lord, I'm going to rest in these truths. Rather than work through them, I'm going to rest in them. And you are going to have to change my heart here.

Because He says He does. He's in the business of doing the living through you in order to carry on an obedient fellowship with Him. And He is faithful. And if you rest and you trust Him to do that, you will walk through that instance, not mimicking, but resting in His obedience. And He will supply all that you need to get through those things. And so that's kind of the difference that we see when we think about just bootstrapping it through. And goodness gracious, fellow believers, we've all been there, right? And we all still do that in many ways.

But that is what a growing life, a growing walk with the Lord Jesus is like. It's a greater degree of rest, and it's less work. It's the measure of your faith. And that's the escape that Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 10, 13. If you do just what you said, then He will provide that escape, because I've obeyed Him. There's no temptation that you cannot find your way out of. And it's not because you did it, but it's because you found rest in the Lord Jesus' obedience through it. Amen.

I think what you're saying is that there's a difference between you know, here's that temptation, there's a difference between turning away and turning to Christ. And it seems like what, well certainly what Paul talks about, and even what James is saying here, I think there's a danger in trying to dissect sin and try and provide an anatomy of sin. That's kind of the human way. That's the Catholic way. You want to look at the psychology of the person. What led me to that? Catholicism also wants to define things. Okay, you're fine up to this point. Oh, now you sin. They want to draw these strict boundaries. That's not what James is doing here. He's not trying to do an autopsy on sin and on psychology.

He's talking about when we're drawn away. In the latter verses, 16 and 17, he talks about every good gift comes from God. It's about knowing, believing God, and having our faith in Him. That's what you're talking about. The human thing is, if I'm tempted by this thing, I change my route home from work, or I do something else, I'm turning away. But I'm trusting in myself. The goal here is I want to look to Christ and realize what He's given me and what He's going to give me and just have my faith in Him.

If I use what Jesus used in a parable, it helps me mentally to think of it. When He talked about the man who was demon-possessed and spirited, He essentially kicked him out, cleaned up the place, that the man put in there to fill that empty void. And Jesus used that illustration of he brought all his friends there to live, and the latter state of man was worse than when he started. And I think that's the sort of thing that we can crank up our motivation, grit our teeth, and do the right thing.

But if it's all centered on me, that eventually breaks down in some way. Am I getting frustrated and angry and disappointed and saying, God, where are you when I need you? Versus the rest that you talk about, where I let Jesus take that place and then it's occupied. Rather than cleaning up my life and saying, Look how righteous I am. I'm a good Pharisee.

Well it does. It causes you to think about how well you did through multitude of sins, and again, that focus is off. And so, I think it's interesting that we're going to only be focusing on temptation today, but that's great because apparently it was something that was on our hearts to delve into, and we all had a lot of insight. I think it's been great.

I wanted to wrap up a couple of thoughts with this section and just talk about the divine viewpoint of temptation and maybe get a little bit clearer picture and we can talk some more. But what should our response be to temptation? So when one finds themselves resting and trusting through whatever that temptation was, James literally talks about this in a previous verses, consider that joy, all joy, brethren, when you encounter various temptations, trials, the same word. So what's interesting is when you get stuck in a situation where you feel like there's no out, There's not only the opportunity to be identified, to trust in the identification, but to also consider it all joy. The Lord is giving me, He is not causing this trial, but He is using this trial to give me an opportunity to trust Him, and that is a place of joy, as opposed to a place of, I can't believe this is happening again.

Are you serious, God? I mean, really? I just walked through this, I've got to walk through it again and again? I don't know what's going on with this Christian life thing. But James is saying that is a situation where God did not put you in that place. Your sin nature put you in that place. But God uses it to grow you into a greater degree of fellowship and trust and rest with Him. And that is a place of joy.

And I can honestly say there is no other perspective of life out there Hindu, Buddhism, whatever post-modern, syncretistic combination you want to come up with. Atheism, humanism, whatever. There's nothing that looks at these same... because everyone's going through the same kinds of things out there. But there's no one out there considering all joy and knowing that there is a purpose behind how God is going to use that for His good. There's nothing out there like that.

Why should you be joyous in being solicited to sin? Because the more we recognize temptation to sin, the more we know Christ. Because God will use temptation for the good. Knowing Christ intimately is His desire for us. And in this day, in this age, until He returns, These temptations to sin are opportunities to know him more. And that is how he uses those in the world that has a presence of sin.

Was there a thought back there? No. OK. Yeah, John. I was just going to say, it's also important, and maybe you're going to get to it here in a minute, but it's important that for the believer, not for the whole world, but for the believer, every trial or testing, God has a purpose.

It's not like Well, you made that wrong turn there. He's going to use whatever you encounter in your life for your benefit. He's going to use that and you can never say that whatever has happened to me, even though I may have caused it, that that's not going to be used for my benefit. It's not like you're...

The believer's in an incredible position, and that's why we can count it all joy. Incredible. We know that the Lord, even through my own stupidity, He still will use that for my benefit. And that's just so mind-boggling. You mean, Lord, that you're going to use it? Paradoxical. I know. You're going to use that for my benefit? That I messed up here? And you're going to use it for my benefit? That's a really good point.

No, it is. And it looks like you're going there with your knowing here. But that idea of knowing, sometimes we think of knowledge as stuffing our head full of facts. And I've been working with my guys out there at the jail. No, it isn't how many verses of scripture you memorize and how much you learn about Jesus. It's how much you meditate on it and get it into your worldview and your thinking. And as Paul mentions in his epistles, to grow and grace and knowledge it's a growing process it's not just factual information and this is what you're saying here taking in knowledge but the word know there is like Adam knew Eve and she conceived it's knowing intimately it's not a head knowledge it's a total reality Yeah, I think of it in many ways. We have the mind of Christ, and that is what you are learning to know more of. It's not as though we are reforming our own mind. We are literally becoming more in tune with the mind of Christ.

But this verse, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, is an interesting perspective out of the book of James, talking again about this testing, this trial, this temptation, and that word knowing, to be taking in knowledge, to come to know, recognize, understand, or to understand completely. And then that testing, a test of proof, giving you an opportunity, out of a sin nature enticement, giving you an opportunity to know Him in a different way. To know the mind of Christ in a more intimate way. Pat? I just think of the world view. If I'm going through a trial, it's because God's punishing me. Like karma. It's not an opportunity. No, it's not joy.

I'm just getting what I deserved, you know, type of thing. Anyway, just interesting the difference between the worldview and the... Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I'm going to stop there. Faith in works is an interesting perspective as well. But throughout the study of James, I've just been so privileged to be able to to teach, but in the same time, be taught in my own way, in my own mind, through the Word. So, thanks for letting me do that and share this one topic. I'd hoped to get to two. I knew it was too ambitious, but I did it anyway.

But I think that this is a really great book that has so much for the life of the believer today. It's applicable today. It means a great deal to how we understand, how we appear to fellow believers based on all of the truths that Paul talks about in terms of our death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and our seeding. James saw that those truths are anticipated, the later understanding of those as being seen in the life of a believer. And we have such great access to so much that when we go back and look at James and understand it properly and don't run into it as if James had everything that Paul had, we literally see a book that has a believer resting in God God's Word and Christ doing the living and a lot of doing get done.

You know, a lot of doing gets done. That knowing that the testing of your faith. How do I know that the testing of my faith is going to produce endurance and the knowing is I know my position in Christ and that gives me the patience and the rest and the endurance. So the connection is knowing that God is faithful, that God doesn't change. that God has secured my soul for himself. That's what produces. So it isn't really the testing that produces the endurance, it's the knowing God, it's seeing the end process, seeing it all the way through, like Roger said. Great. Well, thanks. Thanks for all your feedback and comments. I think it made for an interesting look into this topic of temptation in the book of James. So we'll move on to Jude. That'll be exciting. Another book that is often not handled at the church level very often. So we'll, as a team, attack that with the grace of God. And so let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much for your word and that we can sit together and focus on who you are. And we know that your word provides us greater understanding of you as the word. And Lord, we just ask that As we continue through our day and our lives and recognize the reality of temptation for each of us, that we might find ourselves resting and trusting in you to do the living through us so that we can grow nearer to you and have that intimate knowledge that might further access to your mind, understanding things far beyond what the world could ever even begin to understand. Lord, we have a divine viewpoint. And we've been given such great insight into ourselves and into the world that we live. And Lord, we thank you for the truths that you are going to return.

And that you will bring together all these things in your perfect timing. And that we will have eternity to continue to get to know you and experience your grace. And we thank you for that. Just pray for a good rest of the day of fellowship. It's your name we pray. Amen.