We turn in sacred scripture to James chapters 3 and 4. We continue in our series on James. Going through it thoroughly, in my judgment, but every passage has something new to consider. James 3, starting at verse 13, and we read through verse 10. of chapter 4. The text is James 4 verses 4 through 6a. We begin reading at James 3 verse 13. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation his works. with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, boast not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion, chaos, and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust and have not. Ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. Ye fight and war Yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain, the Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore, he saith, God resisteth the proud. but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your minds, ye double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up." So far we read God's holy and infallible Word. The text is verses 4 through the first part of verse 6. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God, Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain? And now, by the way, there's no direct reference, there's no specific passage that is being quoted here. This is simply a general teaching that is found in Scripture. Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain, the Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? but he giveth more grace. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the last few sermons that we've had on the book of James, we've seen how James is addressing a serious problem in the churches to which he's writing. It was implicit in chapter three when James was writing about the use of the tongue and the danger of the tongue, And it's becoming more explicit as we walk through chapter four. The saints to whom James was writing are characterized by fights. They're characterized by warfare and by killing each other with their words. And in the first verses of chapter four, James asked the question, where are these fightings coming from? Where is this warfare and where is this attitude of bitterness and vile speaking coming from? And He answers it by saying, it's coming from your lusts. It comes from this hedonistic attitude towards life that you have, this pursuit of pleasure, so that you're not living for one another, but you're living for yourself. You're not living, you're not fighting for the glory of God, but you're fighting for yourselves. And that's what we looked at last time, two weeks ago. Remember the topic of hedonism, the pursuit of earthly pleasure. James writes, you kill each other, you're not even praying anymore because you're giving yourselves over to your earthly lusts. Well now with verse 4, James goes a step further and he calls these saints to whom he's writing adulterers and adulteresses. These Christians, these are brothers and sisters in the Lord to whom he writes and he calls them adulterers and adulteresses. It's clear that James is angry in this passage. And as he calls them adulterers and adulteresses, he's also identifying what lies at the heart of all their problems. What's at the heart of your problem? It's this, James writes, friendship with And as we'll see in the sermon tonight, that's exactly what this adultery consists in. They are seeking the world's approval. They are seeking the world's affections and the world's pleasures rather than God's approval and God's affection and God's pleasure. They are committing spiritual adultery. And James is showing these saints just how serious, just how offensive to God this behavior is. Well, before we begin, we need to ask ourselves the question, does this perhaps describe us as well? Are we, am I perhaps one who's guilty of spiritual adultery? Are we guilty of pursuing the world and the things of the world rather than pursuing the things of God? That's a real question. And to one degree or another, I think we ought to say yes. Yes, that is me. To be sure, I am inclined to it. And I have been guilty of it too. I'm inclined to seek the things of the world rather than seek after my God. And the word that comes to us this evening is a word that shows us perhaps in a fresh way just how offensive this is to our Lord and our God. It's adultery. It's spiritual adultery. And so it's a word that is meant to sober us up once again. It's a word that is meant to work within us a proper view of how wicked this kind of behavior is that characterized these saints. And yet at the same time, it's a word that comes with encouragement and comfort. Because although we are so often unfaithful to God, nevertheless, God is always faithful to his people. And as the text ends, He always gives His people more grace. And that doesn't give us encouragement to sin, but that's all the more reason to put away that friendship of the world, to put away that spiritual adultery and be more devoted to the Lord because He is so good. We'll see that in the sermon tonight. The sermon is friendship with the world, and we look at that theme under three points. First, we look at what it is, what friendship with the world is. Second, we look at the serious sin of it, that it is adultery. And then third, we look at the encouragement from God. Well, as we read this passage, the main doctrine, the main teaching that jumps out of the page is the doctrine of the antithesis. That's what this passage is all about, the antithesis. What is the antithesis? Well, maybe I'm sure we've heard this word before. The idea of the antithesis is something that has always been very important to God's people throughout history, and it's also important for us today as well. In fact, we might say more and more as we approach the end of this present age, we're going to experience the reality of the antithesis more and more. You look at the book of Revelation, and the book of Revelation is all about the antithesis. And you look at the falling away of many churches today and many people today, it's because they are losing the knowledge of what the antithesis is and they're losing the experience. They're not living faithfully the life of the antithesis. What is the antithesis? Well, the word is not found in the Bible, but the word itself has in it the idea that there are two things that are opposed to each other. The word itself has this idea. You have a thesis, you have a statement, you have a proposition. For example, A is true. And then the antithesis comes along, which is the opposite statement, and it says just the opposite, A is not true. So the word antithesis describes two things, describes the situation where you have two things that are diametrically opposed to each other. They're against each other. When I teach this word to the catechism students, the words that I usually use are the words enmity, right? The antithesis is enmity, hatred, or opposition. And to live the antithetical life then, as I teach the catechism students, is this, say no to sin and say yes to God. Say no to sin and say yes to God. That's the antithesis. And that's really what we're talking about here when we talk about the antithesis. We're talking about the warfare, the hatred, the opposition that exists between God and Satan. The warfare, the hatred that exists between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. Between the children of light and the children of darkness. Light and darkness cannot exist together. Either the darkness drives out the light, Or the light drives out the darkness, but they cannot be together. That's the antithesis. In the Bible, we come across the antithesis right away in Genesis 3, verse 15, right after Adam and Eve's fall into sin. God comes to them in Genesis 3, verse 15, and in their hearing, gives them the promise of salvation. And that promise of salvation consists in this, that God's going to change them. They've fallen into sin, they've become allies and friends with the devil, at enmity against God, and God says, I'm going to change them, so that no longer will they be the friends of Satan, but I will make them my friends. So Genesis 3 verse 15, God says to Satan, I will put enmity, I will put hatred, I will put the antithesis between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, thou shalt bruise his heel. That's the antithesis. So the antithesis is not even just saying yes to God and saying no to sin, but at the heart it goes deeper because the antithesis has to do with my identity. has to do with who I am. I am the friend of God. I am the child of God and I am, therefore, the enemy of Satan. And that's why I live the way that I do. The reality for all individuals in the world is this, either you are a friend of God or you are a friend of Satan. And we might say, well, Satan knows no friendship, right? Because that's the kingdom of darkness. But either you are the friend of God or you are an ally of Satan. Either you are the friend of God or the friend of the world. There's no neutral ground. All who call on the name of Jesus Christ are the friends of God because God takes them as His friends through Jesus Christ. And all who reject the name of Jesus Christ are the friends of Satan, they are the enemies of God. And that's exactly the truth being captured here in the text in verse four. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. There's no neutral ground. Either you are the friend of God and the enemy of the world, Or you are the friend of the world and the enemy of God. That's the reality of the antithesis. But now we have to dig deeper and understand what that means. So we need to get specific with the language that James uses in the text. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. Well, first of all, we need to ask the question, what is the world here in the text? Who or what is the world? Well, that word world in the Bible can be used to refer to a number of different things, but the word itself, the basic meaning is this, a world is a unified, organized system. or an arrangement of things, so that there is order, so that there is a unit, we might say. I think the word system is helpful, or the word unit. That's the basic meaning of the word world, a system, an organized unit or system. So for example, in the Bible, the word world is used to describe the universe. That's what this universe is. It is an organized, united system. John 17 verse 5, and now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. This world, this created world, is an organized system. Second, the word world can also refer to the world of men, the whole system, the whole unit of human beings, including our history and our culture and humanity. Romans 3 verse 19. Now we know that what thing soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. That's the world of mankind. But then of course, the word world can refer more specifically to the world of sin. It can refer to the life and the philosophy of life that is under Satan's government. John 15 verse 18, Jesus says, if the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you." That's the world of sin, the system, the unit that's ruled by the principle of sin, ruled by Satan, who is the prince of this world. John 17, verse 9, Jesus says, I pray for them, I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. 1 John 2, verse 15, love not the world. Neither the things that are in the world. If any man loved the world, that's not talking about the universe now, but it's talking about the world of sin, the world under the dominion and influence and power of sin. If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. So that's the world of sinful man under the rule of sin, which has Satan as its prince. This is the world that man lives for. This is the world that teaches that man should live for himself as the highest good. This is the world that serves the glory of Satan. This is the world, we might say, that is pursuing the kingdom of Antichrist. This is the world that is at enmity against God, that hates God, that loves sin, and that would kill God if it could. And this is what the antithesis is, that world of sin, that unified system under the rule of sin that is in opposition to God, and then God in opposition to that world of sin. That's what this word world is referring to in verse 4. Friendship with that world is enmity against God. Now, a second question immediately jumps to us. What is friendship? What is friendship with this world? Well, friendship especially involves two things. It involves attraction and then it involves fellowship and company. Friendship develops when two or more people are attracted to each other or they're brought together through something that attracts them together, something that draws them to each other. Maybe they have a common interest, maybe they have a common goal or a common problem, but for some reason they're attracted to each other. And then because they're attracted to each other, they seek out each other's company. They delight to be with each other and do things together. Now, part of the gospel is that God has made us to be His friends in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, God has drawn us to Himself. And in Jesus Christ, God brings us into His own companionship and fellowship. God spends His time with us. He shares His secrets with us. And He changes our hearts so that we now, by His Spirit, are also attracted to the same things that He's attracted to. Things that are pure, things that are holy, things that bring Him the glory. But now to be the friend of the world means that you are attracted to the world of sin. You fellowship with that world of sin. You go in and out amongst those who are in that world of sin. You have friendship with them. You have common interests and common goals, right? And what are those? What are those common interests and common goals? Well, eating and drinking and being merry, living for the things here below. exclusively, being selfish, indulging in earthly pleasures, walking in sin, being rebellious to parents. And then you're attracted to each other and you have companionship with each other, listening to music that takes God's name in vain, ignoring the Lord's day, just living my life for myself and for my family and for my people rather than living for God. And the common problem? that unites them together? Well, God and the demands of His law and His own unwavering commitment to justice and righteousness. And so it's easy to understand what the passage is now saying. Friendship with the world is enmity against God. There's no neutral ground. You cannot serve both God and mammon. If you love the one, you will hate the other. If you love the world, if you love the philosophy of the world of sin, which says, live for yourself, pursue your glory, indulge in the lust that you are craving for. If you love that world, if you love that philosophy, if that's what you want, if that's what you agree with, if that's how you're choosing to live your life, well then, you are the enemy of God. That's the statement here. You are the enemy of God. That's the way it is. What we should ask ourselves is, that how we are living? Is this what's happening to me? Right? Self-examination, is this what's happening to my family? Is this the trend among me and my brothers and sisters in the Lord? Because it happens gradually, doesn't it? It starts with the desires. It starts with the lusting. What I'm pursuing in my daily choices. James makes that very explicit in the second half of verse 4. Notice how he writes the second half of verse 4. Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world. And that word will, other translations capture the idea. The word will means desire. Whosoever wishes, that's the idea. Whosoever wishes to be the friend of the world is the enemy of God. So point is, it starts with wishing. It starts with my desires. It starts with this coveting. I want what that world of sin has to offer. I want the stuff of the world. It starts with our lusts. And then what do we do next? Well, we take that step in that direction. We indulge ourselves. Oh, I want to be a Christian. I confess I am a Christian, but still I don't mind indulging myself every once in a while in these lusts that the world can satisfy. We like it. I remember the figure that a minister used when I was a teenager. This was a topic for one of the conferences that we had when I was a young person. And the figure was this. You're always trying to get as close to the edge of the cliff without falling over, right? You always want to get as close to that dividing line, as close to the line of being with the world as possible without crossing that line. That's how we start thinking, as if that's good, virtuous behavior. Right? We have this temptation to have our feet in two different places. One foot in God's Word, one foot in church, and the other foot in the world, walking in sin. But of course, you can't do that. That's the whole reality of the antithesis. You can't do that. So what happens? Well, the material things start dominating our lives. And we work hard in order that we can satisfy those lusts we're pursuing. Right? That becomes my goal. And then what happens is that you suddenly start noticing that you have a lot in common with the people of the world under the rule and power of sin. Living for the weekend, living for the thrills of life. And then what happens? Well, you start bumping into others who are living for those same things. You start making friendships with them. You start finding that you speak the same language. You are attracted to the same things. You have things in common. And there's less time being spent in God's word. There's less time being spent with God's people. Less time being spent with God in prayer. Even these saints themselves were not praying. And suddenly I'm finding that I'm forming friendships with the world. And that's how maybe I'm living throughout the week, and then I get back to church on Sundays, and maybe it just doesn't feel right anymore. It feels maybe hypocritical. Suddenly, church is not satisfying. It's not giving me that kind of pleasure that I'm feeling in the world. To be honest, I'd rather sleep in. I'd rather be at the beach. I'd rather be golfing. I'd rather be out hunting. I'd rather be shopping than be in church, fellowshipping with God and being with His people. And that's how it happens. You know, poor church attendance isn't just a Sunday problem. Church attendance is a deep spiritual problem of the heart. The church attendance is only a symptom. It's only a symptom of something that's going deeper, right? What am I living for? What do I want in life? I find I have no problem getting up for work in the morning. I still make it to work, but I can't make it to church. How does that happen? Well, it's because I know that going to work is gonna get me that paycheck. And that's a greater motivation for me to get up in the morning than the prospect of meeting with God and his people and worshiping in his house. You see, that's the blunt reality of it. What does God say to that? What does God say when we're making those kinds of value judgments? When we're making ourselves friends with the philosophy and the culture and the attitude of selfishness that permeates the world of sin. God says, I'm against you. God says, you are my enemy. That's friendship with the world, beloved. And to put it in the context of the book of James as a whole, we could say it this way, that's faith without works, right? That's the whole theme here. I say I have faith, but the way I'm living doesn't line up with it. And what we need to remember And what we need to teach our children is this, no, I'm the friend of God. I'm the child of God. I'm a child of light. I'm a recipient of God's grace. He's made me a new creation. He's made me different. He's made me his. I can't act this way anymore. I can't be the friend of the world. Not only is acting this way the way of misery and death and not satisfying what is really good for me and what I really want, but the fact is I have no business acting this way. I'm the friend of God. You know what friendship is. Friendship doesn't act this way, if indeed I actually am the friend of God. Well, that leads into the second point of the sermon because James goes even further than just friendship, we might say, but he puts it like this. Not only am I the friend of God, but I'm the bride of God. I'm part of the bride of God. And not only is friendship with the world an act of betrayal of friendship with God, but it's an act of adultery. That's what James is saying when he begins verse four that way. Ye adulterers and adulteresses. What James is making reference there to is the fact that we're part of the bride of Jesus Christ. That's who you are. That's the people to whom James is writing. He's not writing to people of the world. He's writing to believers, to confessing Christians. And he says, you are the bride of Christ. You're the bride of God. That's especially Old Testament language, isn't it? In the New Testament, we speak that way. The church is the bride of Christ. But in the Old Testament, the language was especially this. The church is the bride of God. And that's how James is using it here for these Christians of a Jewish background. We get the idea. It's the same idea. God has made you his people. You've been begotten with the word of truth. God has brought you into an exclusive marriage relationship with him. And now the way you're acting is like this. You're committing adultery. You're being unfaithful. You're being untrue to God. And it comes off as rather sharp on the part of James, doesn't it? He calls these Christians adulterers and adulteresses. But we need to appreciate what James is writing here. Let me ask you this. Men of the congregation, and this is for all of us in a moment, but let me just start here. Men of the congregation, would you tolerate it if your wife was flirting with another man and spending time with him and enjoying the different pleasures that he was giving her? Can you imagine your wife going on a date with another man? It makes the skin crawl with jealousy because of the idea of it. Can you imagine your wife spending a day at the beach with another man? Can you imagine your wife not even just being with another man, but just longing to be with another man? So that your wife tries to get as close to that line of committing adultery without actually crossing the line and committing the actual act, we might say, of adultery. Doesn't that kind of thinking make you jealous? I think for godly men in the church, that's a real offense. I work for you, I love you, I'm living for you, I'm faithful to you, and you go lusting after the things that another man can give you? I could really say it the other way around. Wives with husbands, it's essentially the same thing. A wife is right to be just as jealous of her husband as the husband is of his wife. But I word it that way because that's the comparison in the text. We are the bride of God. We're the bride of Christ. And this is how offensive our behavior is to God when we're flirting with the world and we're lusting for the pleasures that the world of sin can offer us. It's adultery. It's offensive. Here I am married to Jesus and I'm having an affair with the world, violating my marriage relationship to God. It's offensive. And I think then we can all tend to become like David. When Nathan came to him with that parable of the rich man and the poor man, and you know the parable, and David says, that man who behaves that way, that man shall surely die. And Nathan has to reply to that by saying, David, you are the man. And then we see how humbling this is for all of us. You see, that's the point James is making. James is not using this kind of language in order to say, you adulterers and adulteresses, you're all going to hell. No, James is putting it this way because he wants them to repent. This is serious sin. This is adultery, spiritual adultery. And God is a jealous God, and rightfully so. And James writes, my brethren, these things ought not so to be. Repent. That's where he's going in the next few verses. We'll get to that next time, Lord willing. Humble yourselves. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Right? Weep and moan. And he goes on. Let your laughter be turned to mourning. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord. Repent. That's what James is doing here. See your sin. See how offensive it is and turn from it. Well, before James writes those things, he writes a few more things. And because we're going through this letter in detail, verse by verse, let's look a moment at verse 5. Verse 5, James writes, Well, if I knew exactly what that verse was getting at, I would try to tie it more smoothly into the sermon this evening. But the reality is, verse 5 is perhaps the most difficult verse in this entire letter. in the sense that it's hard to know what James is trying to say with verse 5, or what he is saying by verse 5. And there's essentially two ways to interpret the verse. There's really two questions. If you're looking with me at verse 5, two questions. First, in verse 5, is the word spirit referring to the Holy Spirit, or is it referring to the spirit of man, the soul of man? And then the second question is, is the word envy, at the end of verse 5, a good envy? Is it a jealousy, like a righteous jealousy? Or is the word envy referring to a wicked envying, a lusting for earthly things? When my research that I did, about half the resources I consulted went in the one direction and the other half went in the other direction. In the end, both can be understood in an orthodox way. they both can be brought to the same place. So here are the two possibilities. Either verse five can be read this way. Do you really think that the scriptures say in vain that the Holy Spirit in us is very jealous over us? And the point then would be this, the Holy Spirit is very jealous over you. You're committing spiritual adultery, but the Holy Spirit is grieved and angered by it. God wants your devotion. God wants you to be faithful to him. Don't you...do you think that the Scriptures tell you in vain that the Holy Spirit is very jealous over you? That's the one way to understand it. Or verse 5 can be read this way, do you really think that the Scriptures say in vain that our sinful natures have a strong inclination towards envying and coveting the things of the earth? Then it's referring to our human nature and it's referring to envying in a bad sense. That we are really, we have a sinful nature that really inclines us towards lusting for the things here below. So then the point would be our sinful natures are so bent on lusting that this is what we're always struggling with. And the scriptures warn us about that all the time. Well, there are arguments for both interpretations. Maybe we can combine them and put it this way. We all struggle with this sin to one degree or another, but the reality is in the eyes of God, it is very offensive. Why are you lusting for the things of the earth? Why are you lusting after the pleasures of sin? Why are you pursuing the things here below? You are betraying God and his love. Don't you have God as your husband? You do. You are the friends of God. You are the precious beloved bride of Jesus Christ. You are the apple of God's eye. And that's not just comforting, beloved, but that's also a call to be faithful. That's also a call to be offended at sin. If husbands and wives are protective of their marriage relationship and they're jealous of it, and that's merely an earthly institution, then how much more protective ought we not to be and jealous over our relationship? with God. Well, how humbling this is, isn't it? Because who among us doesn't feel these inclinations to pursue the path of earthly pleasure? Who among us doesn't struggle with coveting? Maybe for you it's the same, but for me, with summertime, with all the opportunity, all the available experiences that are out there, there's the inclination to lust and to envy. How often can't I be comparing myself with the people of this world? And then I'm inclined to think they have it better off. We sang it in the song service. I'm so often like Asaph, in doubt and temptation. I'm getting envious. And it's foolish, isn't it? Because what is greater than knowing God? What is better than being a child of the light? What is better than having God as my father and being married to Jesus and living with Him in that blessed relationship? Because although I am so often faithful, He is always good. He's always faithful. He is always true. And He is always meeting me with perfect love. and grace. And that's where we get into the third point of the sermon. That's the encouragement that James gives to these saints at the beginning of verse six. But he gives more grace. And that's sweet, isn't it? To know the grace of God. How precious did that grace appear? The hour I first believed, is it the same thing today? He gives more grace, beloved. Maybe our sins rise up against us. We see our spiritual adultery. We're humbled by the sight of our sins. Maybe there are even sins that we're struggling with right now. We've made it to church, but we get home and there's still those sins that I'm struggling with. Jesus says, James writes, he gives more grace. And what that means is God is faithful. even when you are not faithful. God is the faithful husband. And God not only forgives our sins, but He also helps. He gives His grace. Grace is power. Grace is spiritual power. He gives us His grace so that we are strengthened to turn from these sins and turn unto Him. He's the one who's given us Jesus. He's the one who's brought us into a marriage relationship with Him. He loves us, and He will give whatever grace we need. And beloved, the wonderful truth about God is this, there's always more grace. There's always more grace. The well of God's grace will never run dry. Yes, God demands repentance. That's where James is going, only in the way of repentance. But for his people, the reality is, he also gives the grace for repentance. This is not giving us a license to sin, but this is an encouragement. This is an encouragement for those who need help. Do you need help, beloved? Do you need help saying no to sin, saying yes to God? Whatever it is, your personal relationships with others. Do you need help living an antithetical life? Do you need help saying no to the passions of the flesh? Do you need help so that your focus is turned more heavenwards and you start living more for the things that are eternal rather than the things that are temporal? Go to God. That's the point here. Go back to God. The very one against whom you are sinning, go to Him. The one against whom you're sinning with this spiritual adultery, go to Him because He's the God of grace. He's the one who keeps His vows. He's the one who even delights to show you how great His love is in exactly this way. He freely forgives and He freely saves. That's so unnatural to us, isn't it? We live with one another so often with an implicit idea of conditions, right? Is someone worthy of my love? And then we turn to God and we tend to approach God the same way. How am I worthy of God's love? And then we struggle with that. And God says, you're not worthy. Not in yourself, but in my grace I've given you Jesus, and in Jesus you are worthy. You are already my bride. I've established that relationship. I will be faithful. I will be your God, you will be my people, and in Jesus Christ, I always will give you more grace. He gives more grace. He says, come to me, find your pleasure, find your delight in me, you who are my people, you who are my church. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank Thee for this letter of James. We thank Thee we can spend time looking at it. We thank Thee for the preaching. We pray that Thy Spirit might so attend the preaching that it convicts us in a good way, and it causes us to experience the living Word, that this is not just a word for those 2,000 years ago, but this is for us, and it is good for us. And we pray that it might shape us and we might turn and we pray that we might know thy grace, Lord. Thou art the God who gives more grace. Comfort us with those thoughts and glorify thy name through this preaching as thy spirit applies it to our lives. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.