Well, welcome to Exploring the Bible. And as you probably know by this point, we are exploring the book of James. And we are in chapter one, and we will take up tonight at verse 22. But first, let me share a little something with you that was first published in the Wall Street Journal. And no, it has nothing to do with financial things. I'm not sure why this was part of their journal at some point a number of years ago. But in an article, they reported that nearly 1,000 different cookbooks are published each year in America. They go on to say that most of them are full-collar, very expensive, and yet at the same time, they observe, fewer and fewer people are cooking and the numbers of people eating at restaurants continue to increase. So I'm wondering, how many cookbooks do you have in your house? You do not have to answer that. I know we have a number, and I'm guessing that we don't use most of them very often. But we do a little better than this lady that's quoted in this particular article. Wall Street Journal interviewed one lady who said she had acquired 16 cookbooks 16 cookbooks in the last four years. That's four a year. But she also, and who knows how many she had before that, she acquired 16 in the last four years and she also subscribed to two cooking magazines. We went on to question her and found out that she had only prepared one sit-down meal in those four years. So those cookbooks weren't getting a lot of use. And how did that meal turn out? In her own words, it didn't turn out. So that's probably why she only tried once, but it wasn't for lack of instruction. She had all the knowledge she needed to fix one meal right, or if that didn't turn out, at least try again. I mean, surely she would have got some right. She was more interested in knowing how to cook than actually cooking. I don't guess that's a really bad thing, if that's your thing, but it illustrates something to me. A lot of people approach the Bible the same way. Unfortunately. A lot of people know a lot of facts about the Bible. They may even know a lot of things the Bible teaches. I even know how they should live their life in many respects because of what the Bible says. But they don't put it into practice. Now, you know, you hear this all the time. The old word is the word hypocrite. You know, you claim to believe something or you value something, but yet you do something else, something contrary. Just like the lady in the Wall Street Journal article, you can waste a lot of time and maybe money learning how to cook wonderful meals, but may not cook any. But worse than that, and I'm not accusing any of you here, but we all have the tendency to think if we have attended church or read our Bible or listened to a sermon, whatever it is, that we can say amen, and yet so many things we hear, we do not make an effort to put into practice. Now, we would all agree that the Bible's truth is transforming. In fact, it has transformed millions of lives across the centuries. And it has transformed us, no doubt. And I think we could probably all give that testimony. But the real question is something that goes a step beyond that. The question we need to ask ourselves is, has it transformed my life in the present? We usually think of transformation as taking place when we placed our faith in Jesus Christ. We were born again. We were made a new creation in Christ. But is that process still going on? Is the Word of God continuing to impact our daily behavior? So we could ask ourselves questions like this. Am I a different person than I once was? Well, we probably could say yes to that. Am I a more dedicated believer now than I was a few years ago? Well, hopefully, you would say yes to that. Am I more Christ-like today than I was last year? Well, those are good questions. Now consider what James said, and this is not in our text for tonight, but from last week, which leads up to tonight. In verse 21, James said, therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive, that's a command, and receive with meekness the implanted word. That word of God, which contained the gospel, which was transforming when we became a Christian, still has to be received on a regular basis. It has to be ingested. We have to read it, study it, think about it, meditate on it, continually receive the truth. The day-to-day, our day-to-day conduct our practical righteousness will result from our active interaction with the Word of God. And that Word provides us with the foundational truths and instruction that should rule our lives. The question is, does it? Does it rule our lives? So looking at verses 22 to 27 of chapter one tonight, we begin with this little bit of context before we come back to what I was just saying. Remember the reoccurring themes in the book of James, trials and testing. We are in a section now where he is discussing what is wise behavior. But here's where we're at tonight. And this is the point we need to make. And this is the point that James is trying to get across. Wisdom includes this very, very important idea. God's word has not been learned until it has been applied to our life. I'm using the word learned in the sense of complete learning. We can have a head knowledge, we can understand truth, It's just in our head. It's just in our mind, but it's not in our life until it's applied. So, learning God's Word, ingesting God's Word, absorbing it, receiving it, should show up in our life. That leads us to a question. What is involved in the application of God's Word? Because that's what James is telling us tonight. He's giving us two answers to that question. Since God's word must be learned, you know, in terms of head knowledge, but also applied to our everyday life, our thought life, our actions, and all the rest, what then is involved in the proper application of God's Word? Well, there are two requirements. Number one, God's Word must be actively applied, actively applied. This begins with hearing the Word, and if we hear the Word without then applying it, it's an empty activity. an empty activity. Let's look at the scripture. James says, but be doers of the word and not hearers only. There's two parts of learning God's truth and making it a reality. But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. And what he means by that is, if we think just because we know what we should do, but we don't do it, then there's a disconnect. There's a self-deception probably going on when somebody says, well, I go to church, and I believe everything the preacher says, but then their life doesn't reflect it. So hearing the Word, without being a doer of the word involves self-deception. It's not enough. And we fool ourselves to think that it is. And not only is there a self-deception involved, but he goes on and says, for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, He's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror, for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. So therein, James illustrates the self-deception he's talking about. A hearer of the word is like someone who looks into a mirror, and I'm looking into a mirror right now, obviously, because I have a big, long mirror on the back of the room. So it's kind of hard for me to forget what I look like with that being back there, although I would kind of prefer, perhaps, to forget that. But when it comes to the word of God, he's illustrating here, and he's saying, In terms of a comparison, when you look into a mirror, you should remember, obviously, what you look like. In fact, and I think the older we get, we probably spend a lot less time in front of the mirror than we did when we were younger, for obvious reasons, but careful, considered, and sometimes lingering exposure to our own image is what happens, especially when we're, like I said, younger. So there's no reason that we should not remember what we look like. So this is kind of an absurd illustration, but yet it's not absurd in the sense that, you know, that's what people do when they look into the Word of God. They see what they should be, They see what they can be and what their life ought to look like, but then they go away and forget it. They forget what kind of man he should be. Even deceive themselves about what kind of individual they are. Proper application requires that careful examination of what the Scripture says and the translation of that into reality. So proper application, that's what we're talking about. Hearing the Word without applying it is an empty activity, and then B, proper application is required to benefit from hearing the Word of God. That's almost like A and B are the opposites of each other. and that's the way we should look at it. Let's go back to the scripture again. Verse 25, speaking again of this man in the illustration, it says, but he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. Let's talk about that verse for a minute. The term looks, again, it means a, deliberate and thoughtful and anticipatory look, a look for the purpose of gaining information. And it says, but he who looks into the perfect law of liberty. Now, James doesn't say the perfect law. It doesn't say Moses' law. although I suppose in the Old Testament times, when that's all they had, there'd be a similar application. But James says the perfect law of liberty. Now, when James wrote, the New Testament was not complete. So he has to at least reference the whole of it, but something has changed. It's now a law of liberty already, even though the New Testament hasn't been finished. So what does he mean, a law of liberty? Well, if we are made to do what we should do, we may indeed obey. That was the case many times in the Old Testament. The law of Moses included a lot of you know, punishment or penalties for doing certain things you shouldn't do and so on. And it required a lot of things in terms of their worship as well as their personal lives. It was a have to. If they didn't, they could be excluded from the temple, later on the synagogue. In the days of Moses, excluded from the camp. put outside the camp. So it was a binding law, but James now describes the law of God as being a law of liberty. What does it mean? It means that we're not made to do it, but we still should do it, and we have the choice as to whether or not we're going to do it. We have the freedom to choose and nobody's going to make us. Obviously, we have laws in our nation or in our civil codes and laws that Congress makes and all the rest, and we're made to do certain things by the government. But as far as God's word is concerned, God doesn't force us to obey. We have that choice, the same choice that Adam and Eve had in the very beginning. But what has happened is, when we placed our faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit came into our life and produced a desire to do what the Word of God says. We're not made to do it, but the Spirit of God is pointing us to it, and He is helping us understand the truth, and He is convicting us when we go astray. But He is a part of our very being. because He indwells us. And we shouldn't have a problem with the moral aspects of the Old Testament law. Obviously, a lot of the other things have passed away, but the moral aspects of Ten Commandments, and they're all repeated in the New Testament, by the way, except for Sabbath worship. And so the Spirit of God produces an internal motivation to do what we should do. But the Spirit of God always works through the Word of God. He helps us understand it. He is our teacher. He interacts with our conscience. He brings conviction when we're wrong. He steers us in the right direction. And we have that great advantage. And as long as we don't turn a deaf ear to the Word, the Spirit of God is going to help us apply it. if we learn to be yielded to Him. It's a continuous effort. He who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer. So there's a continual aspect of this interaction with the Word of God, motivated by and aided by the Holy Spirit. And that's what it takes to be a doer of the word, and then the future tense, we do that today and tomorrow we will be blessed in what we have done or because of what we have done. Now, I know Ray plays a little bit of golf here, and currently I would fall into that same category. I play a little bit, not much these days, but for years I puzzled over how to have the right swing, the perfect golf swing. And so I have watched more than one video online. I know Tracy and David play a little bit of golf too, maybe some of the rest of you. And I've watched enough videos to know what the perfect golf swing should be. In fact, I had a golf club when I was teaching in high school, and I would show videos and help my students learn how to swing the golf club. And some of them were very good at it, better than me probably by a stretch, some of them. And because they could execute it. But you see, my head knowledge of what I should do has to be translated to what I do when I go out on a golf course. I have to be able to execute what it is that I'm trying to do, and I know I should do. But that is the problem. It's difficult to execute. And I've even went to a whole different swing now that I've gotten older, which at times works really well for me, because I certainly can't swing like the pros. But I was doing really well recently until I thought I had it, and I went out to play and it was just horrible. I couldn't figure out what in the world I'm doing wrong and I went home and after a few hours I thought, I wasn't following what I'd learned. I'd gotten off track. There's that kind of process that needs to go on in our heart and mind as we live on a daily basis. we have got to be familiar enough with the Word of God and in tune enough with the Holy Spirit to understand when we're not right and it's showing up in our life and then motivated to go back and figure out what it is I'm doing wrong and why and what I should be doing. But most people find it much more easier just to excuse their behavior and forget about it. So they make no progress and they don't really apply the Word to their life. So it must be actively applied. But then secondly, the second requirement here, if we're going to apply God's Word as we should, it must be specifically applied. Now you may have to make a note here. The word specifically here means that it touches on specific aspects of our life in many, many categories. But James only mentions two, because obviously in his epistle here, his letter, he's not going to record them all. So he gives us a couple of examples. And he begins this way. He says, if anyone among you thinks he is religious, and bridles not his tongue, but deceives his own heart. This one's religion is useless." Now, what in the world is he talking about? And I puzzled over this many times before, because I don't like the word religious. because religion has a connotation of you have to do things to please God to be, you know, in his favor, or some people think you've got to do religious things to even earn salvation, and we know that's not the case. That's not what the Bible teaches. This is a translation made back in the 1500s in English, which translates a Greek word, which I think is equivalent to what we would call God-fearing. Some people really go off base here. You're talking about commentaries earlier. You can read a lot of commentaries here that will tell you that James is commenting on our worship. And we think immediately of being in church and singing and praying and listening to the Word. That's not what James is talking about here. Now, obviously, worship should lead to God-fearing behavior But this word really, as James uses it, means this, if anyone among you thinks that his life reflects God-fearing behavior, or remember, James is writing before Paul did. So James's terminology sometimes is not exactly the same. And he uses the word, which I don't think it's used anywhere else other than James in the Bible. But he goes back to how it was used in Greek, that was spoken in that day, and this is kind of what it had come to mean. So, God-fearing behavior, proper behavior, obedience, the Word of God which has been heard and is now being put into practice, if you think you're doing that, think again if you're not controlling your tongue. And you can You can think about this, but it probably won't take you very long to figure out why he uses that example, because that's a very, very difficult thing to do. In fact, James has already mentioned this earlier in, I think, verse 19. What does he say? Be swift to hear, slow to speak. And so he introduces it there. He comes back to it here. This is another one of those recurring themes in the book of James. But he'll come back to it in earnest in chapter three and give us a real good section on how and why we should control our tongue. But it is extremely difficult. And by the way, one of the illustrations James uses when he gets to chapter three to that other section is the same one he uses here when he says bridle the tongue. A bridle is what you put on a horse so that you can control the horse as you ride the horse and steer him where you want him to go. And so we need to put a bridle on our tongue. not literally, although that might help some people, because they run afoul of this so often, but it's a figurative expression here, bridle your tongue. If you don't bridle your tongue, you're deceiving yourself about being a person who practices obedience and is a doer of the word. And he says, if that's the case, Your religion, as it's translated here, one's religion is useless, or literally one's effort to live in accord with God's word, to be God-fearing, is a useless endeavor. So God-fearing behavior requires the control of our tongue, our words, but then, you already saw that, Oh, I just wanted you to go back. I mentioned this and I forgot I had it on screen. So then my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear and slow to speak, slow to wrath, James 1 verse 19. So now we can go on to add B. God-fearing behavior also requires caring for the needy. This goes to our deeds. So the words and our deeds, words and deeds, that encompasses the whole, and he chooses an illustration from each here to be, you know, an example, an umbrella that we could use to evaluate our behavior. God-fearing behavior requires caring for the needy. We see it in verse 27. He uses that word religion again. Pure and undefiled religion before God. Pure and undefiled, God-fearing, obedient behavior before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. to visit orphans and widows. When we use the term visit, we think of just going and making a social call, right? Or maybe if you visit somebody in the hospital, you sit down and interact with them to encourage them or whatever. But the word here translated visit comes from a root of the same word translated overseer in the New Testament, such as in 1 Timothy 3, verse 1. So an overseer manages, an overseer looks out for the good of the whole. An overseer, by the way, translated in English bishop, which means overseer in 1 Timothy 3.1, one of the qualifications for the pastoral office. Bishop is one of the three terms for a pastor in the New Testament, bishop, elder, and pastor. To visit orphans and widows means more than just to go say, how you doing? You're doing okay? I hope you're feeling good. Just thought I'd stop and chat for a while. No, it's looking out for them. It's caring for their needs and helping them with their lives. So there's a lot involved here. choice of orphans and widows was made very, it was very acripo for the moment. James is writing to Jewish brethren who have placed their faith in Christ and because of persecution have been scattered out across the Roman Empire. Go back to Acts 6, what was the issue going on there? Remember, they had to choose the first, and we call them deacons, although the word is it uses a noun there, in Acts 6, chose seven men, and he gave the qualifications, the apostles decided on the qualifications that the church choose seven men to take care of the distribution of food to the widows. We mentioned orphans there, but widows in particular. When you go over to the book of 1 Timothy 5, verses 13 to 16, Paul includes a whole section there, verses 13 to 16 of 1 Timothy 5, telling Timothy how the church should take care of widows. There was not anything to take care of a widow in those days, and the husbands, especially in Jewish culture, were the ones that provided the means for the family to live. Now, in the Old Testament structure, there was provisions where people could make donations to widows through the temple, but they're not a part of the temple anymore. They're not Jews anymore in religious practice. They're Christians. So this became a problem in the church, and that's why they had the problem in Acts 6, because the apostles were spending so much time taking care of these matters that they couldn't devote enough time to prayer and the teaching of the words. They had to get somebody else to handle that. So this is a very real problem when James wrote. By the way, God always provided in the law, you remember the book of Ruth, and Ruth was gleaning in the corner of the fields, that was part of the law, the civil law in the Old Testament, that people that owned fields and planted crops were not allowed to harvest the corners. And then those widows, orphans, whoever had need could come, and like Ruth did, come and gathered up the barley that was not harvested there and took it home so they could make bread for her and her mother-in-law. So this has always been something that God has provided for. Now I'm not talking about caring for people who won't work. Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 3.10, if someone won't work, they don't deserve to eat. And evidently in Thessalonica, some people decided they would be better off just, you know, not working, let the people in the church, you know, take care of them. That's not what we're talking about here. This is not about begging. There's a lot of beggars in Jesus' day. And people would give them a little bit of this and that and drop some money in their, whatever it was they were holding, I don't know, cup or something. and out of the goodness of their heart, they would help. But Paul's not encouraging someone to be a beggar. He's not telling the widows and orphans to be beggars. He's not saying that they should be out asking for things. I mean, he's telling those who have to take care of them. And he says this in the end, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Why does he say that? Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, by the way, it's the same word used in James 1, 2 to 4, trials, in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Now let's go back to what Jesus said. The man asked him, what must I do? to receive eternal life. And Jesus said, you know, well, what do you think? And he said, well, I'll keep the law and do all these things. Jesus said, well, if you do that, you'll be all right. In other words, if you can live a perfect life, you know, you can make it. But nobody can do that. There's no work that man can do. And that's been emphasized throughout the New Testament. Jesus was trying to get the man to understand that He himself wasn't even doing it. He said he did it. He said he kept all the law. And Jesus went on to say, but the law boils down to this. You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. On another occasion, he illustrated it with the story of the Good Samaritan, when the priest and the Levite ignored the man hurt along the road. and robbed by thieves. So when James says, keep yourself unspotted from the world, he's talking about our tendency to put our desires first and the needs of others last. In fact, if you go to 1 John, you probably want to jot this down, 1 John 2, 15 to 16, John says, all that is in the world is this, the lust of the flesh The lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Now, back when we looked at verse 12 of chapter one, we went into this. Every temptation is one of those three kinds. It's a temptation for us in terms of the lust of the flesh, satisfied our fleshly desires outside of the will of God. Lust of the eyes, possess things that are not ours by whatever means outside the will of God. And the pride of life, putting ourselves first in everything. And that's why James says this. Because you're worldly if your desires control your actions. But you're spiritual if the Holy Spirit's desires and the Word of God's commands control what you do. Probably many of you have had this experience. Because I grew up in Appalachia, we didn't always drive on paved roads. Sometimes, you get off the paved road, we just called them dirt roads. I think down here in North Carolina, you call it a path, a dirt path. We just referred to it as dirt road. You're on the dirt road. But when it rains or it snows and melts, you get big mud puddles. And you might can navigate those or get through them but if you get off the road a little bit and you get over kind of on the edge between the ditch you could get stuck really easy. So what you have to do is you have to get out. Hopefully there's more than one of you. So one can sit under the wheel and push on the gas pedal and another one or hopefully two or anybody that comes along that's willing to help gets behind and pushes the vehicle out of the mud. and those rear tires spin. This is back before the days of front-wheel drive. The rear wheels would spin, and I've had this happen to me, and it just completely splatters you with mud from head to toe. But it's worth it to get your car going again. That's the picture he has here, not that they had cars in James Day, but the fact that mud is easily splashed and splattered. And we live in a world, and we walk through a world, and we navigate a world full of people who are controlled by their own desires, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And when we get too close to them, and when we emulate them, and when we allow them to influence us, we get splattered. with the mud of the world. Now here's something that's kind of thought-provoking. George Barna, that's published in World Magazine back in 2003, 2003, this is 21 years ago, found that one out of three born-again Christians that reported a personal commitment to Jesus Christ and expected to go to heaven, accepted, at the same time, same-sex marriages in many cases. And at that time, 39% of Christians believed it was morally acceptable for couples to live together before marriage. That's just two examples they came up with. And we're seeing this more and more in our society today. Christians who, and I'm not doubting their salvation, I'm just saying they walk so close with the world, they can't differentiate between what the Word of God tells us to do and how we should live with how they are living and what they do believe and what they absorb. Because if you're not absorbing the word of God, if you're not allowing God to determine how you think and what you do, somebody else is going to determine it. And this world is full of, and as you well know, the broad road that leads to destruction is broad because most people's on that road. So most people you're going to rub shoulders with are going to be a bad influence. And that's the sad reality of where we're at here in 2024, best I can tell. And I'm not pointing the finger at anybody in here. I'm just saying this is something that's afflicting the church in this day and age. So you say, well, I don't believe this. Well, I understand that. But we need to be careful to consistently practice truth. People may or may not hear what you say about what you believe, but they cannot help but see what you do about what you believe. They may not accept it even then, but the most powerful way to change people for the good is to portray Christ before them, and they'll be attracted to the difference. You have that opportunity to tell them about Christ. Okay, well, that's our study for tonight. I think that's... You end up with a little review, God's word has not been learned until it has been applied to our life. What is involved in that application must be actively applied and specifically applied.