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James Session Six 7.17.19 · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  My name is Jethro. If you don't already know me, I serve in the worship team and in the children's ministry here at Highland. Last week, we had the pleasure of listening to Brian Rowan, and he went over the taming of the tongue and how powerful words can be. Although the tongue is small in comparison to the rest of the body, it can create a lot of damage to someone if it is not kept in check. Tonight, we'll be continuing in James' letter.
• 0:26
  to the church as he speaks on wisdom and worldliness. We'll be in James chapter 3, but before we turn into that, let's go ahead and pray. Lord, thank you for the words of James, for his guidance in our journey to becoming godly men. I just pray that you would use me well tonight and that we would receive and meditate on your word with intention to follow you, Lord. Thank you for the opportunity to gather and study, and we love you.
• 0:56
  And in your son's name we pray. Amen. So if you haven't already, go ahead and turn to James chapter 3. We're going to start in verse 13. Verse 13 starts with, Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. So if someone is truly wise, typically it will show in their actions, right? How they live their life, how they communicate with people, and how they overall handle their situations in their life.
• 1:35
  I guess, acts with wisdom. I feel like it's approached with gentleness and humility. These two qualities should be how we respond to everything and everyone in our life. For example, when, let's say, if you're preparing a lesson for children's ministry, you automatically start thinking, okay, how can I explain this in a way that they will understand and retain it? Like, how can I really get my point across so that they're never going to forget it and that it just sticks with them?
• 2:04
  You tend to go into more detail with kids, right? Most of the time you're patient and you keep explaining it and explaining it until they do understand. And we just put more effort into it for them because as kids we want what is good for them and beneficial to them spiritually and physically. We want to make sure that the message is received. And it's with a gentle approach that we should use when we approach people. But I find that more times with kids that's...
• 2:37
  It's with even more gentleness that we add, because obviously with teenagers that are older, a lot of times the manner is different. We're a little more blunt, and we assume that they know a little bit more and can draw to conclusions a little faster than kids do, so we don't really go into as much detail. It takes a lot less effort most of the time to teach someone older because they're older. They can learn a little bit faster. And if it takes less effort, it takes less time.
• 3:04
  And the less time we spend on other people, it's more time spent on ourselves. For me, unfortunately, this is how I sometimes approach a lot of interactions in my life. I'm thinking about what I can do with my time, how can I benefit myself before I can think about benefiting the other person. So I tend to be short and quick with my conversations, because if I'm not, then I won't have time for the other things to do for myself.
• 3:34
  Basically, my mindset is I'm in a hurry, but to do nothing. Reading on to verse 14, it says, But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. Obviously, this goes perfectly with the example I just gave with me being selfish with my time. The things I usually want to get done usually have nothing to do with other people.
• 4:02
  I don't naturally want to be around other people, so my wife has to remind me that that isn't right. And she's right. Because, I mean, what happens when you only spend time with yourself? You typically only know about yourself. You only know what your needs and wants are. You don't really think or know about anybody else's lives. What you want and what you need and nothing else. I won't know how to pray for other people if I don't.
• 4:31
  spend time with them. I don't know what their struggles are. I don't know how to help them if I'm not spending time with them. Satan does a really good job of separating us, unfortunately, with all the things that the world contains and provides for us, supposedly. He takes the good things that God gives us and perverts them, which makes us worship only the benefit and not the person who grants us those benefits. Because, I mean, Satan, every day, he's saying, you could be doing this.
• 5:01
  You could be spending time with this person. You could have this. You don't need to be there, and you don't need to be with them. Satan does not want us to connect because he knows that God takes joy in our communion with each other, being in constant fellowship with one another, and just overall doing what God intended for us. In verse 17, it says, But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, open to reason.
• 5:31
  full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. In our world today, we don't typically associate those qualities with men, right? Being pure, peaceable, gentle, being open, or being merciful, impartial, and sincere. Those aren't necessarily qualities that we associate with men, right? With men, we typically want to be known for our strength. Just, I guess.
• 6:05
  Overall masculinity and our ability to take charge and not put up with anything. The qualities that James describes wisdom to look like sound more like someone who works in the background, not someone who's leading. I mean, we know that people in the background do important stuff, but they're just in the back. They're the support role. An example, I guess, whenever we go camping, there's typically that one person who initiates or pushes to start the fire first. And then he tells them to...
• 6:35
  Tell everyone else to go pick up some scrap pieces of wood to help feed the fire. That seems like a small task at first, but that's just how we see it. We just see it as a small task. We don't really think of it, oh, I'm not doing anything to help. I'm a support role. There's no importance in that. But as believers, that really is our role because God leads us and starts the fire. He commands us to be the support role, to gather the wood, and to continue the fire.
• 7:06
  What we believe to be small is more important than what we see it to be. Because at first we only see the action and not the meaning, really. In our proper role, we are beneath God and serving God and loving God, and at the same time serving people and loving people. Being in that role then grants us wisdom. If we're seeking after God in that support role, then in turn typically follows his wisdom.
• 7:38
  Pastor Danny actually went over this in Proverbs a couple weeks ago, because it's not really something that we can obtain or gain by our own works, but rather something that can only be granted to us by God in our obedience to him. So if you go ahead and turn your pages to chapter 4, verse 1, it reads, What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? It is not this, that your passions are at war within you.
• 8:07
  You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly. Dispend it on your passions. You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. And James just goes into bigger detail to warn us against worldliness. And we all know the dangers of...
• 8:37
  Being friends with the world, I feel like it becomes more and more obvious as we experience more and more of the world, right? Kind of similar to when you meet someone and develop some sort of friendship. If that friend is anything like the world, then, I mean, later down the road, you start to notice some really awful things about them. They encourage and promote vile behavior.
• 9:03
  Some advice that I remember, I mean, I have some friends that still give me this kind of advice, even though they know I'm a believer, but they think they've got it figured out. They'll say, you know, it's your life, you can do whatever you want, and you should forget anyone else that tells you otherwise. Follow your heart, treat yourself, get whatever it is that you want. If you guys have anyone like this in your life right now, they're not helping you. Wisdom from the world is not wisdom at all. This reminds me of something that Sam Port just taught a couple weeks ago.
• 9:34
  If you guys remember the three Ps, it's the possession, profession, and polish. And that actually really resonated with me as someone in their 25. Because these are really things that other people in their 20s strive for. That's what the world tells us is going to make us happy and succeed in life. To strive for that higher status. That's what will make us happy.
• 10:04
  It's a supposed resounding wisdom that comes from the world and it's cheered on by so many people. If you go for those things, you'll be set, technically. But we know better. We don't want to be an enemy of God. That alone should scare us. No one wants to be an enemy of God, I hope. Continuing in verse 5.
• 10:34
  that he has made to dwell in us, but he gives us more grace. Therefore, it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. As many of you growing up in the church, I've heard a lot of things on pride and humility. Growing up, I've always heard the expression, don't get a big head. And that typically comes from my older siblings, thankfully. Whenever they heard somebody compliment me on anything, one of my older siblings would say,
• 11:03
  They would come over and whisper, like, hey, don't let your head get too big. Or if someone said, oh, you're handsome, my brother would come over and be like, hey, they're just saying that so that you don't feel bad about being ugly. But overall, all those things have been just so beneficial because now, growing up, it gave me a better sense of how to handle compliments. Not necessarily how to respond, but just how to take them. It's also just helped me to...
• 11:33
  be able to recognize when compliments do get to people's heads, and then you just watch that pride swell in other people. But then I'm also able to recognize when I feel like it might be getting to my head. But still, I mean, as an adult, I still have difficulty answering this question that I ask myself, which is, do I give credit to myself for doing this thing? I mean, I did it. It was my idea to do it.
• 12:03
  And it resulted in what I wanted, or at least something that I thought was good at the time. But the answer is a big fat no. Because when I ask myself that now, it sounds really stupid, right? The first words of that question is like, do I give myself credit? And already it sounds wrong. Because the credit for good deeds doesn't belong to us. It belongs to God. I am not capable of doing good on my own. That's God's work through me.
• 12:30
  If there's anything to be proud of, it's that God chose me in that moment of time. Most of the world will encourage people to claim things, to claim tasks, to take credit. Have your name on that and be proud of it because you made it happen. But don't believe that because it isn't true. We're natural-born sinners. If we didn't have Jesus or any sort of biblical teaching in our lives, we wouldn't know any better and life would be a terrible mess. We have to remember that we are extremely, I mean, microscopically,
• 13:02
  smaller than specs in comparison to God and his power. So to think that we are significant or capable of any significant accomplishment without God is just crazy, you know, because again, we're not capable of doing good without God. A good illustration of that was a couple of years, I can't remember if it was last year or a couple of years ago, but Danny showed us a video talking about the size of the galaxy and it kept zooming out and zooming out.
• 13:32
  And just showing us how small the earth is and everything else. And again, it was a great illustration of showing us how physically small we are compared to God. But it isn't something that we spend time thinking about enough. I think, for example, in Isaiah 40, 12, it says, Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span? Enclose the dust of the earth in a measure and wave the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance. The span.
• 14:01
  And that verse is talking about the distance between your thumb and your pinky finger. I mean, that's what God used to mark off the heavens. That is how small we are. If the heavens, I mean, is as big as the Bible says, and then that's how God measured it, that's, I mean, already a crazy thing to think about. Anyways, continuing into verse 7. We must submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
• 14:30
  Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. Prioritizing God has always been, I mean, it's always a struggle, right? We don't naturally want to submit to anything, so we don't. But as Christians, I mean, we are reminded all the time, every day, that he is great.
• 15:03
  And he's incredible, right? The Bible tells us this. So how can we act otherwise? Our attitude toward God has to transform because we are extremely beneath him and should live that way. I mean, we can't expect to become closer to God or know more about God if I'm clinging to things or other people that have nothing to do with him. We must submit to him. We have everything to gain from submission to him. But if we continue to practice trouble, our lives will be trouble. I mean, just to repeat myself,
• 15:33
  The verse says, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. We all know this to be true. We know it. We've experienced it. And we've all heard a version of this. I'm just going to say it again. We become who and what we surround ourselves with. Or we exemplify the environment that we put ourselves in. Again, I'm only 25, but three years ago...
• 16:00
  I wasn't living according to the Bible or in submission to God at all. I was doing some pretty terrible things. I was choosing to be with non-believers because I knew they weren't going to tell me no. That's pretty much it. And I just engaged in everything that they did, thinking that, you know, I'm a believer, so I'll be an influence to them, right? But first, I have to be their friend so that they'll like me. That's Satan's way of manipulating.
• 16:31
  Thus to his likeness. And the way I ended up living wasn't something that had just happened, you know. It wasn't that, like, oh, I decided I'm going to hang out with these people. All of a sudden, I'm not living according to the Bible. It took time. It developed over time. And there's a saying from a movie, I can't remember which movie it was, but it said, the knife that hurts the most is the one that takes its time. Over time, I had developed these friendships with the wrong people.
• 17:00
  They encouraged some terrible behavior, and it resulted in me doing some, just making some really poor choices. Living this way for a while, I mean, eventually just brought me down spiritually to the lowest point of my life, and it affected everyone that I knew. I felt like at that point I was the furthest away from God. I mean, even though when, as a teenager, we feel like we're pretty rebellious. I mean, when I was a teenager, I was pretty rebellious too, and I thought, oh, I don't need Jesus and all that stuff. But this actually felt worse.
• 17:33
  as an adult, because I was still serving in the church while engaging in these things and teaching people to do the complete opposite of what I was living out. And I felt so far away, it took me hitting that low point to realize the damage that had been done. I significantly felt like a traitor. I wasn't proclaiming the name of God to others, but more importantly, I wasn't proclaiming the name of God to myself. I felt like I didn't deserve to be serving at the church at that time.
• 18:03
  This next verse I'm about to share talks about money, but I feel like it applies greatly. It's Matthew 6, verse 24. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. I was living a double life, basically, playing worship music and attending Bible studies, and then in other times I was instigating...
• 18:31
  Just awful behavior. I was trying to live two separate lives, honestly, and it was terrible. But, I mean, we all know we've all made that turn, and the same is always true of the opposite. When we choose to be near to God, our lives are truly better. They are so significantly better, and you guys know this. We may come by the same types of hardships and difficulties or situations as when we were living in a sinful life, but we are able to withstand them.
• 19:03
  ten times better, more with God than without. When we spend our time with the church serving God, that's what we grow up to know. That's what we kind of start absorbing when we put ourselves in that environment. And then our lives are just better. There's no other way to put it. It is better. And every day I want to feel like my relationship with God is at its highest every day.
• 19:34
  But I always have to make sure that I realign my focus on him because if I don't, then it's going to go elsewhere. I mean, we can't expect to thrive in an environment that we don't belong in, right? If we try to plant trees in a desert, it's not going to do anything. It's going to wither up. It doesn't belong there. The environment is going to keep that tree from growing or at least it's going to make it extremely difficult for it to grow anything. So with that, I mean, we can't...
• 20:07
  Expect to be granted wisdom by God if we're not seeking wisdom from God. If we spend time trying to learn from the world, we'll be wasting our time. Because, again, wisdom does not come from the world. James tells us this, it only comes from God. So continue to spend your time with God and his people, right? He puts this where we are in life for a reason, to give us these opportunities to share with people. And just, I mean, share our testimonies, really.
• 20:43
  I mean, that's what we're called to do. We need to share our life and be intentional with other people. And besides people in the workplace or at school or wherever we're at, that also includes the people in the church, right? We need to be intentional with the people in our church, too. Because everything that Satan seeks to destroy in the world, he attempts even more to destroy in the church. So, I mean, let's not confuse what James is telling us in this letter, right?
• 21:12
  we are still called to minister to others. And so that will include the people that submerge themselves in the world. So it's not to, like, we're not turning our backs on the people in the world. We're just not wishing to be like them. We want to be influences to them. And, I mean, the actions of true wisdom are gentle and they're full of fruit. And that's what we would want to share with everyone, right? God has equipped us with his word to help strengthen our relationships with him and with each other.
• 21:47
  I mean, ultimately, that's why we're here. I mean, we're in the world. We're with it every day more than we are at church unless you work here. But that's what we're called here to do. We're called to love and to sharpen and just create peace with one another. I've always been interested in martial arts and things like that. And if any of you have changed in martial arts, you always learn the, I guess, the number one rule or the first thing that you learn is how to avoid conflict.
• 22:27
  You know, you don't instigate it. You don't pursue it. So then, I mean, as a student, you're wondering, like, well, then why am I learning? Like, what's the point? And that's how I feel like a lot of our attitudes could be within the church is, you know, I'm never going to run into that. If I'm going to avoid it at all times, then what's the point of learning this? Like, why do I need to know? Well, because, I mean, we don't know when God is going to use us.
• 22:55
  And we want to be ready for when he uses us because there have been so many times in our lives that we've been given the opportunity and what? We're not ready. We don't know what to say to them. Like, oh, I mean, last week we were given that question, like, what would we say in this 10 minutes? We're going to be late to work and some guy asked us, like, hey, what do I say to God? And I felt pretty convicted at that moment because I wasn't, I didn't know what to say. Like, I didn't know what to write down.
• 23:27
  And that just shows that, you know, I wasn't using my time wisely to know what I should be saying. I mean, eventually, if you give me like a couple minutes, eventually I did write something down. But we never know when we're going to come across someone like that, you know, who's going to need our help, who's going to need us to know what we need to know and what we come to know and learn about every day. Yeah, I guess overall, just be gentle in your conversations. Just remember, I mean, the dangers.
• 24:08
  of being with the world. It's easy to participate because it's just what the world does. Just make sure that you're staying on guard because we have to remember why we're here. Yeah, I'm going to end with that. Let's go ahead and pray. Lord, thank you again for James. Pray that we would continue to seek after you and not the world. Help us to focus on what is good and true in your word.
• 24:43
  I pray that you would bless the rest of this week and that you would grant us the strength and wisdom to lean on you in our daily struggles. I pray that you would bless this discussion time, that we would really dig deep and honestly just take you seriously, Lord. We love you in your name we pray. Amen.