Well, this morning we're going to continue through the book of James. We'll be in James chapter 1 verses 9 through 11. But before we get started, I want to share a story from when I was younger. When I was younger, I enjoyed playing video games. This particular video game, or many video games for that matter, involve creating a character and sometimes it's very involved and takes a little bit of time to make them look like you and you set their attributes and whatnot. There was one time I was doing this when I was younger and there was the the bug man who came and sprayed the house for bugs and in fact he was also one of my football coaches and so he would he would tease me and whatnot. But I was playing and he thought he would be funny and shut off the lights you know haha put you in the dark sort of thing. Well he didn't know this but that switch was connected to the outlet that the system was plugged into. So very much like this outlet here is connected to that and so the power to that is connected to the switch so when he shut that switch off it shut everything down and I was Distraught by my loss of time and energy on creating this character. And of course it didn't save because it was abruptly finished my point is is I'm no longer frustrated by that because it simply did not matter. It was something foolish. Yeah, it took a lot of time and energy and my heart was in it, you could say, as a young child, but it didn't matter. There was no eternal consequence. This is the very topic that we are gonna deal with in the book of James, of making sure our eyes are focused on things that are important, things of eternal consequence, things that matter more than the temporary here and now. So I wanna start by reading the text for this morning. Again, we'll be in James chapter one, starting in verse nine. James chapter one, verse nine. James tells us, let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat Then it withers the grass and its flowers fall and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits. And before we continue, let's pray. Father, we thank you so much this morning for your word. We thank you that you have spoken and that all of your word is profitable for teaching, correcting, rebuking and training in righteousness so that we're thoroughly equipped for every good work that you'd have us to do. And we know that the focus of your servant James, the brother of our Lord, had for us to set our eyes on not just resting in our salvation, but to press on to good works, Lord, to make the most of the life you've given us, to share the truth with others, and to bear good fruit, Lord. And we pray that you would bring that about in our lives. And Lord, we pray that the Holy Spirit would convict us in the areas that we're not doing this, and you would urge us on to good works. We pray in that regard for humility, Lord, as it's difficult to put our agendas aside and to put yours first. And we just pray ultimately that we'd fix our eyes on you, Lord Jesus. And we pray that you'd prepare our hearts now. In Jesus' name, amen. So one of the things we want to do before we kind of put the text together and find out what we're to do with it, we want to know what it says. And so to do this, we also want to review where we've been. Because what James, as I've been studying this first chapter of James, initially I thought, OK, wow, this is really practical. And it's kind of a shot here, a shot there of very practical advice. And that's very true. The very practical stuff that James is dealing with. But what I found is that it's all strewn together with a common idea. And so we want to gather all those ideas before we jump into our text this morning and continue on with his train of thought, if you will. And so what we see right at the get-go in James 1, verse 1, is it's a man named James, a bondservant of God. And if you remember back to our introduction to the book of James, we found out that the likely author or the likely identity of this James was none other than the half-brother of Jesus Christ. And of course, half-brother because they had different dads. One was God the Father, and James' father was Joseph, his earthly father. And so he was the half brother of Jesus. And some of the things we learned about him is for Jesus's earthly ministry, James and the rest of his brothers didn't believe in Jesus. They kind of thought what he was doing was well and good for him, but it wasn't important for them. And then later on in the book of Acts, we see that this very James, the half brother of our Lord, becomes a leader in the Jerusalem church, which was essentially the headquarters of the early church in those days. So Pastor James, which essentially in Greek, his name is literally Jacob. So Pastor Jacob, the pastor of the Jerusalem church, was a profound leader in those days. And so God did an amazing work in this man's life. And then from that, James also shares with, as it says in verse 1, to the 12 tribes, which is speaking of Israel, which are scattered abroad. And at the beginning of verse 2, he says, my brethren. And so what we discussed is the audience of James' or Jacob's letter were believing Jews, fellow countrymen, kinsmen of James. They were both Jewish origin, but they had accepted the Messiah, Jesus Christ. They had trusted Him for salvation. And what we figured out, as far as them being scattered abroad, is in Acts chapter 8, or really Acts chapter 7, we're acquainted with a man named Stephen. Stephen preached boldly before the religious leaders, and as you know if you've read the texts of Acts, he was killed. He was the very first martyr of the Christians. And then in Acts chapter 8 verse 1 and also in verse 4 we see that after that a great persecution arose against the church led by none other than a man named Saul who would later be Paul sent to the Gentiles. But in Acts chapter 8, verse 1, we see that the Jews were scattered from Jerusalem. And so what seems to make sense, or the most sense, is that their former pastor, James, was writing to his former congregation that was dispersed because of persecution. He had a heart for these people. He cared for these people. And the news that he was hearing about the conduct of these people was concerning to him. Because of this scattering, some people thought, well, I'm just going to make the most of this life, and I'm going to pursue my business ventures and get rich. And as a result, they were not loving their poor brethren that lost everything in their persecution. And we'll get into more of that in chapter 2 and on. He had a lot to say towards the rich brethren and the poor brethren, which deals explicitly with our text this morning. It introduces that idea. But from there, the introduction, we looked at verses 2 through 4, where he deals with trials. Now again, these believers were facing persecution. That's an intense trial. And it wasn't just name-calling and mocking. It was putting them to death. It was putting them in prison. They were suffering for Christ and they didn't understand why. They thought that when the Messiah would come, everything would be great. And so James had to inform them that they would suffer until Christ comes. But one of the things we learned in verses 2-4 is that trials have a purpose. And trials are used of God to bring about a deep faith. So in other words, when we as Christians face trials, we are caused to turn our faith to God. And it tests that faith. It produces patience. Then he says let patients have its perfecting work literally a maturing work in your life so that you would lack nothing So trials are are cultivating this maturity in our life So not only do trials bring about a deep faith, but in verses 5 through 8 he says any of you lacks wisdom and we talked about how wisdom is is seeing earthly reality from an eternal perspective and in other words, it's seeing reality from God's perspective and that comes from God's Word and so when he says consider and it, joy, or count it all joy when you fall into various trials. That can only happen when you have a knowledge of what God has said about the matter, what our hope is in. And of course, our hope is not in this earthly life, but in the one above. And so the rest of the book of James is tackling that issue. We as Christians, because our hope is in heaven, should set our minds and our hearts and our goals and our focuses on that, on heaven. and he wants to combat and almost rip out of our hands this life. to get us to realize that nothing here is of any eternal consequence. And so, in a brief, concise sentence, what we looked at was wisdom brings about an undivided faith. He talked about the one who asks wisdom should not doubt, and doubt is a synonym for doubt is unbelief. It's the exact opposite of faith, and we as believers are to live by faith. So God does not want us to have an undivided faith. He wants us to have a deep faith and to have an undivided faith. In this passage, we look at how wisdom brings about a wealthy faith, a wealthy faith. So we're gonna look at what is true wealth and how do we get it? And so as we get into our text, Romans chapter 9 verses or I don't know where Romans came in James chapter 1 verse 9 through 11 Maybe Romans 9 through 11 is one of my favorite passages. Maybe that's where that came in. So some of the key ideas here are Right in verse 9 we see let, the word let, the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, and then verse 10, but the rich in his humiliation. So glory is connected with verse 10. So in other words, he's saying let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, and let the rich brother glory in his humiliation. And I've brought this out before, but 54 times in the book of James, he uses the verb in an imperative sense. And so what that means is it's a command. It's not a suggestion. It's a command, an authoritative command of God for us to do something. It's expected of us as Christians. To illustrate this point, it's similar to you men who have maybe experienced this. When your wife says something of this nature, you can do this if you want. Or you don't have to do this if you don't want. Now men, what do our wives mean when they say that? They want it done, right? Or not done. And so that's their kind and loving way for us to do something. And so that's similar to the idea here. It's a command. It's not just a suggestion. It's something we need to be doing as Christians. And so what are we to do? We'll look at that in a moment. So some of the other ideas that James expresses here is he uses a simile. Now a simile is a comparison. It's a figure of speech. And he likens the rich believer as a flower of the field. And what's interesting there is his phrase that he uses there in verse 10, as a flower of the field he will pass away. He's alluding to an Old Testament passage in the book of Isaiah chapter 40, verses 6 through 8, where he talks about man being like the grass of the field. Excuse me, and it's going to wither and ultimately fade away and not be remembered. What's interesting is, towards the end of that passage, what does he say does last forever? God's Word. God's Word. And so I think James, alluding to that passage, would have caused these Jewish believers, who would have known the Old Testament Scriptures well, to remember that this life is temporary, but what God has said is eternal. And so therefore, we should set our minds on the eternal, on what God has said. What's interesting about this as well is, as I was studying this, apparently there is flowers in the Mideast that would spring up and be very immaculate and beautiful. And Jesus even used it in His explanation of how God cares for people and flowers the, or clothes the flowers of the field. But also how in a short while, those beautiful splendor-filled flowers will die and not be remembered anymore. And so just a vivid description of a rich person pursuing wealth. The ultimate idea, because the context of these first few verses in James, he's dealing with trials. So what I believe he's talking about here is two common trials that are common to just about everyone. The trial of poverty and the trial of wealth and of riches. Now maybe You're wondering, how in the world would riches be a trial? If that's a trial, sign me up. I want that trial. Well, we're going to look at how it's a very dangerous trial in the very heart of James's message. And so again, before we start to put this together, I want to look at some key words that help us to understand what James really has in mind here. So the first word I want to highlight is the word lowly. Now this word means humble or of low circumstance. And because it's contrasted with the rich man, we can conclude that lowly is a synonymous word for poor. This is a poor Christian, someone who is without material possession or wealth. This would fit with the context of the book of James in chapter 2 when he talks about not showing partiality to the poor brethren and to the rich brethren. And how they're not to say empty platitudes keep warm and well fed without actually meeting their needs. So these are poor Christians who also lost everything when they were persecuted and scattered from Jerusalem. Not only this, but we see in the book of Acts, a man named Agabus prophesied of a great famine that was going to be in the land. This was spoken of in Acts chapter 11, verse 28 through 29. So a famine hit the land. And when a famine hits the land, there's not a whole lot of food to go around. And so the already poor people would have suffered even greater suffering. Not only this, but Paul, in several of his letters and in the book of Acts, we see him speaking of taking gifts and offerings from the Gentile churches to supply the needs of the believers in Jerusalem. And so they never quite overcame their poverty, their suffering. And so they would take up these love offerings to give to the brothers in need, as they so needed. And so we saw in the early church that lowly, poor brethren We're actually in an exalted position and we'll get into that in a moment And then we come another word. I want to highlight is the word glory The word glory elsewhere the same Greek word is used to say boast So literally he's saying boast you who are poor Christians boast in your exaltation boast brag make most of your high position and And so the way he uses this word glory is to display or proclaim publicly a satisfied contentment with one's own or another's achievements. So they've achieved something in their poverty, and he'll explain. And so the other word I want to look at is connected with that idea of exaltation. Exaltation, which literally means just higher or of more grand nature. This same word is used in Luke 24, 49 to speak of heaven. Speaking is on high, the same word there. Exaltation. So it's a high status within a group. So James here is saying that the poor brethren is ranked higher in God's eyes than the rich brethren. And he'll explain why again in a moment. So then we deal with the rich man. That's pretty self-explanatory. This is one who literally has great material wealth. They have a lot of objects in their possession. They are wealthy. They are rich. And so what he commands the rich believer is to glory or boast in his humiliation. So he's contrasting. It's an upside down thinking. In our minds, we think the rich are well esteemed in our eyes and the poor, they're lowly. And James here flips it in the same way that Jesus did, in that the poor are the ones who will inherit the kingdom of God. And so humiliation literally means brought down from a self-reflective pride to an unimportant position. And so one of the things I've been saying in connection to James is, be humble or be humiliated. Be humble or be humiliated. And so these rich believers were not humble. And so therefore, James was writing to humiliate them, for their eyes were fixed on earthly temporary things, things that won't last. Another word I wanted to highlight was the word perishes. The word means the breaking down or destruction or loss of a thing, whether spiritual, physical, or abstract. So that's a very broad meaning. And so what he means here is to simply go out of existence. The word perish means to go out of existence. And so in connection with what he's talking about, the rich man's wealth is going to perish. The beauty of his wealth and material possessions won't last. It will perish. And he connects it with a similar word, fade away. And so I have a question. Do any of you know the names of these rich people that James was talking to? Do you know any of their names? No one. Why? Because it's faded away. It's perished. So their whole life, their whole pursuit, their whole journey, is unremembered. It's unimportant. But do you know who we will know well when we get to heaven? Those who gave up everything. Something I... Oh, is it... Who's the missionary to China? Hudson Taylor said something, he who gains what he cannot, or gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose, rough paraphrase, is blessed of God. And he certainly did that. He gave all to serve Christ. And it'll be those who are exalted in heaven, who are bringing more glory to God. The last word I wanted to highlight was the word pursuits. Now this is an interesting word because it means trip, journey, or conduct. And so the way that James is using this is the act of traveling from one place to another, often by foot or over a long distance. The idea is of an excursion, a rough task of travel. And so this is the idea of these rich people. They were straining themselves to acquire greater wealth. And this is the idea that James is wanting to combat, is that it's all going to fade away, so we should pursue things that matter. So to wrap this all up into a package, James's message is for the Jewish believers scattered abroad, that they needed a different perspective. They needed to change their mind. They needed a different outlook on life. Ultimately, they needed to have wisdom. And again, wisdom is Perspective of God over earthly reality seeing the world the way God does and the only way we could do that is from his revealed word from God's Word and so for us today the idea I wanted to get across is that wisdom seeing the the life we live the way God sees it wisdom brings about a wealthy faith a wealthy faith Now I know in comparison to material objects that maybe isn't as exciting, but I promise you it's worth it. I promise you it's worth it. So the outline for the book of James... Just the short passage we're dealing with in verse 9. It's the perspective of the poor believer So James is telling what perspective the poor believers to have and so again in verse 9 if you'd follow along He says let the lowly brother glory boast in his exaltation so the perspective of of the poor believer in Christ is to glory in his higher position And so, what this means is that he could be tempted to be discontent in their situation. The poor believer is tempted to be discontent with what they don't have. And they could complain to God, and James says, no, glory in your exaltation. It also could tempt the poor believer to desire what they don't have for material wealth. They're tempted to want what their rich brethren have. And James says, no, don't go down that road. You're in a higher position. You don't have any ties to this world that will distract you from the greatness of Christ. You are in an exalted position. And again, he commanded them to boast in their exaltation because it is easier for them to be satisfied by heaven. It is easier for them to be satisfied by heaven. This is why Jesus said it's harder for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. There's so much that has been attached to that rich man that heaven doesn't look as good to him because he's experiencing his heaven now. I think it was Randy Alcorn who said and several others who have said that this life is the closest to heaven some will ever get. But for believers, it's the closest to hell we'll ever get. And praise God. And that's the point of James. That yes, you're suffering, but it's only temporary. Any suffering is temporary. And on the flip side, any eternal blessing is temporary. So where should we put our focus? Where should we put our energy, our finances, our prayers? On eternity. On things that matter. There's two things that scripture talks about as lasting forever. One is man's soul, and number two is God's word. So if you spend your time on people and God's word, you'll do all right. If you spend your time, and I'll, since John's here, the thing that connected me to Village Missions from the get-go is they didn't have some fancy mission statement. It was preach the word, love the people. Preach the word, love the people. That's all we need to do. If every missions organization had that as their focus, they would do well. And not just as their focus, but also actively doing it, because that's the other thing. I think mission organizations have it as their goal, but it's so easy for us to slip off course and to start pursuing our own agendas or whatnot. Preach the word, love the people. And that's not just village missionaries, that's Christians. Preach the word, love the people. The second thing we see, the second point in our outline, so we see the perspective of the poor believer. Verse 10 is the perspective of the rich believer. So he writes to correct some understanding that the rich believer might have because of their material possessions. So the material possessions that a rich believer has might cause them to think that everything is alright. Everything's alright. God has blessed me richly. And I will say, there's nothing wrong with being rich. There's nothing wrong with being wealthy. If God has supplied it, praise Him for it. But if you're pursuing it, that's when it becomes dangerous. When you're consumed by greed for wealth, that's when it becomes dangerous. In other words, work hard and let God be the decider of what He gives you. I do want to say that before we continue. So the other perspective the rich believer might have is it would cause them to be ignorant of the temporariness of life. Ignorant of the temporariness of life. How easy is it for someone who has nothing to think boy? I can't wait till this is over and I'm in heaven and everything will be well again How hard is it for someone who's very wealthy to say you know what I could do this for the rest of my life In fact, there's rich people in our society that are looking how to live longer and live forever They want the most of this life But all the while they're running from God They're running from God, exchanging God for creation rather than the Creator, as Paul tells us in Romans 1. So the command for the rich believer is to boast in their humiliation because it is harder for them to be satisfied by heaven. So they're in a humiliating position because they are harder to satisfy by heaven and the glories of heaven and of God than the poor believer. And so this was an issue that these believers were faced with. And I think that this is an issue that cropped up because of trials. And so a warning for us is when we face trials is when we need to draw near to God. Because when we face trials, that's when we're tempted to depart from God and to start pursuing other things. And I think that's what happened. The persecution arose and these Jewish believers said, I don't want that. I don't want any of that. Stephen dying? No. James, the apostle, dying? No, I don't want that. And so they started to preoccupy themselves with other things. In fact, that's the focus of the book of Hebrews. The same audience, Jewish believers, who were tempted to go back to the Jewish system, worship system, and to reject Christ. And so the writer of Hebrews was saying, why would you go back when Jesus is better than the law? He's better than the priest. He's better than the sacrifice. He's better than the temple. He is better. And though you're suffering, it's worth it. It's worth it. The third main division in our text, in verse 11, so he shared the perspective of the poor believer, verse 9, the perspective of the rich believer, verse 10, and then verse 11 he talks about the temporariness of riches. The temporariness of riches. And so he likens this to the grass that withers and the flowers that fall because of the burning heat. It's a very temporary thing. In fact, we're experiencing this now as the beautiful greenery in this area is turning red and yellow and brown and dying. In fact, I've always been... I love fall, but it's always been curious to me how death can be so beautiful. Because that's exactly what's happening, is everything's dying, but it's so beautiful. I think that's a beautiful picture of the Christian life and how death can be beautiful. The death of Christ can be a beautiful, beautiful thing. Also, in light of the temporariness of riches, his idea in mind is that the rich man also fades away in his pursuits. And again, that key word is pursuits. It's not wrong to be rich or wealthy. God has provided very wealthy Christians to supply greatly towards missions and towards the activities of the church. So it's not wrong to be wealthy. It's not wrong to receive the blessings of God. But it's wrong to pursue that, to have an expedition or journey in order to achieve that. Because that's when our eyes are not on Christ, it's on what we want, and what we'll have, and what we can achieve for ourself. I want to read the lyrics of a song that has really challenged me in this area. It's a song called, It's Not Enough. And so starting in verse 1, it says, Though all the wealth of men was mine to squander, and towers of ivory rose beneath my feet, were palaces of pleasure mine to wander, the sum of it would leave me incomplete. Though every soul would hold my name and honor, and truest love was always by my side, my praises sung by grateful sons and daughters, my soul would never still be satisfied. The chorus, it's not enough, it's not enough. I could walk the world forever till my shoes were filled with blood. It's not enough, it's not enough. Verse two, though I could live for all to lift them higher, or spend the centuries seeking light within, though I indulged my every dark desire, exhausting every avenue of sin, it's not enough, it's not enough. I could walk the world forever till my shoes were filled with blood. It's not enough, it's not enough. I could right all wrongs or ravage everything beneath the sun. It's not enough. It's not enough. To make me whole. It's not enough. It never was. Awake my soul. It's not enough. It never was. It's not enough. It's not enough. I could walk the world forever till my shoes were filled with blood. It's not enough. It's not enough. And I think that's a vivid picture of the one who pursues heaven here on earth. Their idea of heaven is going to be flawed. They're going to pursue all these things and even if they got it, it won't be enough. And we see pictures of this in scripture. Solomon had everything. He tells us that he denied nothing before his eyes. And what does he say at the end of the book of Ecclesiastes? The chief end of man is to follow God. He was a man that learned from experience what it means to go against God and denied nothing. And yet he was unsatisfied. Another picture is Nebuchadnezzar. Same situation. King, mighty king. Ruler of the known world at that time. Had everything he could possibly want. And he was left with nothing. And God brought him low. Cyrus, the same situation. And rich people today, same situation. We will never be content with riches. We'll always want more. And so let's pursue something that matters. And so as we come to a conclusion, we want to apply this to us. But first, we want to know what did James want his original audience to do with this? So the primary application of this passage is for the Jewish believers that were scattered abroad, they needed a different perspective. The poor believers were told with biblical authority to boast in their exaltation, And the rich were told to boast in their humiliation, but both of them needed to recognize that there is no hope in riches or material possessions, because all will be gone and forgotten." And the fact that we don't remember any of these rich individuals is proof of this. So, translating this into what do we do with this text? What are we as Christians living today to do with what James is writing to first century Christians? What does this teach us and what are we to do? So there's three questions, for those who maybe haven't been with us the entire time through James, that I've been putting forth. Three challenges, I should say, instead of questions, that we want to let God into our life. We want Him to show us what needs to change, but we also want to be humble enough to actually do it. And in thus doing, we want to have our worship to be worthy of the calling that God has called us to. And so the first challenge is to let the Holy Spirit search you out. Let the Holy Spirit search you out. So what that looks like in light of this text is, are you placing too much value on temporary things? Or are you placing too little value on eternal things? God's Word and people. Are you putting too much value on temporary things or too little value on eternal things? And that's hard. That's a challenge because we live in the temporary, right? We don't see eternity. And sometimes we struggle with what we talked about last time in James with doubt. Did God really mean what he said? Does He really have my good in mind? Is it really going to be worth it if I give up the best that I can have now for something I don't even know will happen for sure? We have to believe God and His Word. So are we placing too much value on temporary things or too little value on eternal things? So that's the issue. Number two, the second challenge, humble yourself and do what God desires of His children. Humble yourselves and do what God desires of his children So let God determine your steps wherever that takes you what needs to happen what needs to change in your life? So that you have the focus on eternal things and not temporary. I Was able I was blessed to go to the Duluth Bible Conference up in Duluth, Minnesota and hear from godly pastors that I greatly respect and one of the pastors was talking about a In Revelation, the 24 elders, he interprets the 24 elders as Christians, which I'm still studying that out. But, the 24 elders have crowns. They're given crowns. And what they do with those crowns is they throw them at the feet of Jesus. And so, his point that he was making was we as Christians are given crowns for faithful service. And we throw those crowns, those crowns of glory at the feet of Jesus, because it was for Him. And it was to glorify Him. And so his point was, to the Christian that would say, well, you know, rewards in heaven, you know, being in heaven is going to be reward enough. But his point was, how would you like to be, as everyone's throwing their crowns of what they did, the service that they gave to God, throwing at the feet of Jesus to proclaim His goodness and to glorify Him, and then everyone looks at you, and you have nothing to throw. because all your treasures were on earth. Everything you strived for was earthly and gone because Jesus himself destroyed it. We want to be faithful. We want to take what God has given us, the eternal life, the spiritual gifts, and we want to use that to bless people. We want to use it to know God's word and to proclaim that to other people so that they're not ashamed when they stand before Christ. or so that they're not separated when it comes time for Christ to judge the living and the dead. We want to be faithful, and that takes humility. It takes humility to put our agenda aside and to focus on Christ. The third challenge is to learn to worship God in a worthy manner. Worship is singing. Worship is prayer. Worship is service. Worship is Bible study. Worship is a lot of things and we want to make sure that we're worshiping God in a worthy manner And so part of that is having the right attitude doing it for the right reasons having the right motivation And all that comes simply the simple answer which we're going to talk about If I may put a pitch in for the Bible study, we're going to talk about this on Monday all of that comes simply when we abide in Christ and We don't try to produce anything. We don't try to do this or do that. Our focus is on Christ. And when we abide in Christ like we're supposed to, we will find ourselves doing good things. We will be consumed by love for other people, that we will be driven and motivated to love them, to give, to pray, to study the Word. That comes when we simply abide in Christ. We don't have to summon that motivation. That doesn't come from us. In fact, Paul talks about in Romans 7 that when we go down that road, we want to do the opposite because our flesh gets engaged. And when our flesh gets engaged, we don't want the things of God. So we rest in the new life that God has given us. And so we learn to worship God in a worthy manner. So how can you Put less value on temporary things and how can you put more value on eternal things? Let's pray Father we thank you for this challenge. We thank you for your servant James and in boldly proclaiming truth and truth that will help us to be productive Christians Lord, we want to be faithful. And Lord, if we don't want to be faithful, we pray that you would show us why we want to be faithful. Lord, this life is hard, and you know very well, more than we do, of suffering. And so we pray, Lord, that we would make the most of the short time we have. Our life is a vapor. And we want to be found faithful, so that when it comes time to glorify your name for the life we lived, Lord, we pray that you'd be honored and glorified for changing our lives. We give you our lives and we ask that you take them. Lord, if there's anyone here that doesn't know you, who has never trusted you for salvation, I would invite you all to trust Christ right now in the quietness of your own heart. The gospel is that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. He was buried and he rose from the dead. To prove that our sins were paid for and he offers eternal life to all who trust in him and him alone And so if you'd like to do that in the quietness of your own heart Tell God that you trust him for salvation And in his word, he says those who believe have a current possession eternal life Father, we thank you for your goodness We pray that you bless the rest of our week and the rest of our day and we thank you in Jesus name. Amen