Let's go ahead and start with a word of prayer here this evening, and then we'll get into this book. Lord, we thank you that you are a God who is one who desires for us to have skill in living life, that you've not left us on our own and left us to our own trying to figure things out, but that you and your infinite wisdom is given to us, wisdom on how we ought to meet demands and issues of life. And so we're thankful for that in a book like James, it's magnified. And may we see that here this evening, how to use this book. And this we pray in the name of Christ the Savior. Amen. Take your Bibles and turn to James 1. That's where we'll be all this evening. So might as well get there and bookmark it and get set up. Little exciting here this evening. You go, why is it a little exciting here this evening? Because we actually have something that's Different this evening when it comes to our books that we're looking at we're not going to say the word Paul Well, we will because later on we will But we're not going to say Paul to start off tonight because he is not the author of this letter We had gone through all these other ones and then even Hebrews chapter Many think that the Apostle Paul wrote Hebrews, but when we start tonight in your notes, it is, well, somewhat easy, but not easy as you think. Okay, you go, well, this is a letter from James, so the author has to be James. But the problem is is that there are multiple James in our Bible. And as you go through your Bible, there's James the brother of John. He's one of the sons of thunder. And he is the first of the apostles to be martyred. He's not the first person in church to be martyred that we have recorded specifically. Stephen has that title, but he's the first of the apostles to die. He's beheaded by Herod. Peter would have been second had it not been for the divine deliverance of God. And most people don't think that this is, who wrote this letter, is that James the Apostle. Most people think that it is James, the half-brother of Christ. He's the oldest of the children of Joseph and Mary. You go, how do you know that? Because in the list that we have, he's always listed first, and that's typical of that culture, to list the oldest one first in a list of children. And so he's the oldest child of Joseph and Mary. Throughout his ministry, Jesus' ministry, he was not a disciple. In fact, you have cases where they don't believe on him. It states that his brothers don't believe. And you say, how would that be possible when they lived with a brother who is perfect? Imagine you living with a brother who is perfect. Okay, there might have been some envy or bitterness in life there going on, or just kind of hard to comprehend the fact that their brother was the Messiah, knowing their upbringing, their family, and whatever may be the case. There were times that they were concerned for his safety. There's an occasion where Mary and the brothers come and try and draw him away out of the crowd. And it's at this point where the Lord describes the fact where he says, who are my mothers and my brothers and sisters? And he's pointing at these people who are following him. You know, you can be brothers and sisters of Christ, and that's a theological thing that as you read in Romans, you find this to be the case in chapter eight there, that we are co-heirs with Christ, brother and sisters of him. So these individuals followed him around, heard everything, but did not believe. It is the crucifixion and the resurrection that is the change point. This is the point where suddenly they believe. And it is in the, you read in 1 Corinthians 15, seven, this listing that, there he is, Paul. Paul has there, of all the people that saw Christ at the resurrection, and he specifically says James. Okay, and it's not James the apostle, it's James's brother. that he appears to and it seems to be at that point there's this instantaneous change and you have a fiery disciple of Jesus Christ, a fervent disciple of Jesus Christ. In fact, the change is dramatic and his following is so obvious to all that pretty soon he becomes the head of the church of Jerusalem. The apostles are there in this church, but it seems like he becomes the head pastor of this church. And you say, well, what's this, you know, how did this happen? Well, he's even on the same level the apostles. Okay, in Galatians, when the apostle Paul came back to Jerusalem after he got saved, he talks about the pillars of the church. James is listed as one of them, Peter and John. And so he's on apostolic level at this point in the sense of people's opinion of who he is, what he is, though he's not an apostle in the true sense. He's on the same kind of level of authority and respect in the church that the apostles have. He's considered leader of Jerusalem, head of the council in Jerusalem. Paul comes back after his first missionary journey, not after he's gotten saved, now he's been in the ministry for a while, and he comes back to Jerusalem Council, they're discussing the fact whether Jews can, or excuse me, Gentiles can truly be saved and not become Jews. And the person who gets the last statement is James. You go, what does that mean? He's the head of the council. Even with Peter there and others, it's James who has the last say. And when Paul gets back in his third missionary journey, James is still in the leadership of Jerusalem and he's suggesting things that the Apostle Paul does in order to calm some of the Jewish feelings towards Paul that he's leading Gentiles to Christ and he gives them what he needs to do in order to alleviate some of that tension. And so even at the end of Paul's third missionary journey, we have James being there and after that we have nothing about James. There's been two different accounts of his death. Some suggested the fact that he was taken and pushed off the temple wall, or the other one that he was stoned to death, but he was a martyr. It's just how he was, it was pretty up for question on that. But as far as biblically, this is the last note that we have of him. So here's an individual who's an unbeliever during Jesus' ministry, but saw his ministry. I mean, that lends some credence to it. He's seen Jesus as a young man. He's grew up with him. He's seen all of this. And then he's followed him around in the Galilean ministry, though not a believer. But when the crucifixion resurrection happens, transformation takes place. Now, the readers, as you open up this book, you find that James starts off this way, servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. You're going, okay, the 12 tribes. Well, immediately anybody reading this would go, oh, he's talking about Israel. And understand this, the Jews, even though they had a central place there in Israel, most of the Jews weren't in the land of Palestine there, they were scattered all over the world. And so he's just simply writing, I'm writing to Jews who are all over the world, scattered abroad, but specifically Jewish Christians. Okay, not just merely Jews, but people who were believers, because as you read through this, he's a challenging individuals who are brethren and the like, so he's writing the Jewish Christians, and they're suffering persecution, they have doctrinal questions, there's some moral laxity on their part, and James here is going to address these things. So, those are the readers, specifically for Jewish. Now, it's gonna play a role in how this book is structured when it's written to Jews. Time written, most commuters think that this book was written early in church history. Most think it was around 45, 50 AD, so it would be about 15 years after Christ, more than likely, making this probably the oldest letter in the New Testament. There's some question of when the Gospels are written, but as far as letters, most people will target this as the first letter that people in the church would have received. And when you start off, the church is mainly made up of Jews. And so that's early on, so it would have been early, more than likely, and making it the earliest one. Now, the structure of this book. This is where the Jewishness of this letter comes through. This letter has a flavor of Old Testament wisdom literature and the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament. Realize that Jesus gives the Sermon on the Mount, he's addressing Jews who are used to reading the Old Testament, reading some of these wisdom statements, and you go, well, what's a wisdom statement? A wisdom statement is just something that's short and easy to remember, typically. There's a lot of things in the Sermon on the Mount where you just quote one verse, two verse, and you have something to think about, meditate on, and put into practice. I mean, it's not difficult. You talk about how it is to pray. Well, here, how you pray. You go into your closet. You don't go announcing on the street. You go in your closet and there you pray because you're looking to be seen by God, not by men. Okay, pretty simple. I mean, it's just, you know, these types of wisdom that you have. And so Jews would have been used to hearing this type of thing when they read the book of Proverbs or they read the Psalms, these simple statements, kind of wisdomy statements with a practical application. You read this, the emphasis throughout is that words and actions match the profession of the believer. Ultimately, there is a need for an abundance of wisdom. The central portion of the letter calls for one to have heavenly wisdom rather than wisdom from the earth. Here's another thing about this book making it Jewish. The Jews always, on a regular basis, especially in poetry, to work their way down to a point in the center and then work back from it. or looking from your direction, they'd work down to a point and come back in this. And the center of most of their, you know, their core argument is right in the center, not at the end. You know, the main statement's right there. Well, as you read through the book of James, and we'll get there, chapter three, you have the whole passage that everybody remembers about the tongue. They forget the passage right after that's talking about earthly and heavenly wisdom, that you need wisdom and you need the right kind of wisdom. And so right in the center of the book, all of a sudden he's going, here's what you need. You need wisdom. And you're like, oh, okay, so now I go back to the beginning and go, I'm thinking about wisdom as I go through here, that this is a practice of skill and living, living out my life, thinking and considering what I should in order to live my actions outright. Okay, so this is what you have, that there's a search for heavenly wisdom. Ultimately, like the wisdom books, there are many commands and memorable statements. As you read this book, there's only 108 verses, there's 54 commands. So he's saying, do this, and do this, and you're going, well, what do you mean by that? Well, you read verse two. You get through the introduction, verse two, chapter one, my brethren, count it all joy. That's a command. Right from the start, you gotta count your suffering for something. So lots of commands. Also, James is concerned about the speech of the believer. The entire third or central chapter is dedicated to speaking. This letter is probably the most practical in the New Testament. I mean, there's doctrine backing things up, but it's basically saying, live your life like this, do it this way. You need to think this way, so you act this way. It's very, I didn't want to use the term pragmatic, but practical. Here's how you do this. I remember, and, coming out of college and then having a ministry amongst teenagers and the like, James was one of the first books I went through. You go, why is that? Because there's not a whole lot of doctrine. There is some doctrine in teaching, but it's all practical. Here's a little bit of doctrine, but here's how this lives out. And so you would say this is a book that is, for most people, fairly easy to read. You say, you know, want to read a book in the New Testament that's easy? Most will go, I'll read James. Because it's very practical, very easy to understand. So, let's just kind of go through this book and arrange it in the sense that everything in this book is about wisdom of some kind. Living out and understand the Old Testament way of describing wisdom is this, that it is skill and living. Okay, there are situations at times that there's no direct answer on, and you need skill in living in a way that measures out the fact that you are a person who knows God. Because then they say wisdom, we say what's the beginning of wisdom? The beginning of wisdom is the, in the Old Testament, the fear of the Lord. And you go, what's the fear of the Lord? I believe there's a God, He really does exist. One day I'm going to have to stand before him, give account, so I better live in such a way that is pleasing to him. That's what the fear of the Lord is. So here you have in the New Testament as you go through, okay, wisdom is there's a God who really does exist. His son saved me. One day I'm gonna have to stand before his son who is God and give account. So I better live my life in a way that's pleasing to him. So that means I'm gonna think about what I do before I do it. And then I will have good actions. Now, as you start off this book, it immediately starts off with a rather ironic statement because it starts this way. Verse two, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse or many types of manifold different kinds of temptations And so right from the start, you're going, it's telling me to be happy when I'm suffering. That doesn't seem to make sense. But what he's saying is this, count it all joy. In your mind, think and go, this has value because God's brought this into my life. There's a purpose in this. What's God trying to teach me? Oh, this is not just an accident. It'd be very frustrating to live in life when random things happen in your life and you don't know God. You know, this happened, and this happened, and you know. you know, the frustration of life. And if you're a person who believes there's a God out there, and everything's by his direction and command, and these things come in, and we would view them sometimes as bad or difficult, you aren't going, yes, I love difficulty. No, that's not what it's saying here. It's saying, in your mind, understand that this has got purpose behind it. God's trying to do something. In fact, you get to the end of this in verse 18, and it talks about, and for 17, 18, it talks about every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from above, and the father of lights with whom there is no variability nor shadow of turning. God, in our mind, sometimes gives us bad things, but sometimes the best thing that can happen to us, they're good gifts. They're the best thing that could happen to us. But it starts off with that and it just says, okay, you fall into this and you go, well, what can I learn from it? Verse three, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. You know, if I go through difficulty and I am focused on God, I go through this, I've got endurance beginning to build up. Patience becomes the, you know, I understand God's in control. I am allowing myself to go through this and carry myself through. You've got endurance. But in verse number five, there are decisions that have to be made in bad times. So what does that do to us? It forces us to go to God. Look at verse five. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God to give it to all men liberally and upbraideth not. You go, what's that term in the English? It just simply means he doesn't rebuke us. And understand the term liberal doesn't mean, you know, God's a liberal rather than a conservative. That's not what it means. The idea of liberal just means free. He gives freely and he doesn't rebuke us and if you ask for wisdom, it shall be given him. But don't go through this and say, well, I'm gonna go to God but I don't think he's gonna answer because verse six says, let him ask in faith, nothing wavering for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. So here, you go to God, you pray and believe that he really does exist and he really does hear your prayers and he really does answer, you go to prayer like that and say, God's gonna give me an answer or the direction I need to take and don't be like the people who waver like the seas. And you get to verse number 12, blessed is the man that would endureth in temptation for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Now is this a literal crown that we receive in heaven or is it metaphorical? And I would say this, the statement here, it's this, you're going to receive a crown that is life. Realize as soon as you got saved, you had life. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Or the passage in John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish and is presently, the idea there, is presently having everlasting life. Life has already begun for you. Okay, and you understand this, your life has already begun. And it's just gonna continue right on through eternity. So you're kind of going, I got blessing right now because no matter what happens to me, I go through the shadow of death, I've still got life. It's around my head, I can't escape it. And so you have these blessings. So I've gone through this to start off with. Believers will be faced with many trials in life. The right response to trials will bring about many benefits such as joy, endurance, maturity, prayer, humility, life. Okay, you'll live life the way you're supposed to. You'll really be living. But When you understand the word trials, it's oftentimes in our Bible also translated as temptation. The words are interchangeable. It's the same word in the Greek. And you go, okay, so what's a trial? A trial is something that comes into my life that forces me to make a decision. Either the right decision or the wrong decision. And if we make the right decision, there's benefits and good things. But the problem is, is that we are so easily tempted to go, and this is why the word changes from trial to temptation, we go along with the temptation and the wrong path and go that way, and it suddenly becomes a temptation. It's the same thing, it's the same event. And when James talks about this, there are certain people that say, well, bad things happen to me, and God did this because he wants me to sin. I have no choice. You forget what 1 Corinthians 10, 13 tells us, that God is faithful, who will with the temptation provide a way to escape that you may be able to bear it. God doesn't put you in a place that you have to sin. Not gonna do it. But what you have here, James explains it this way, let no man, verse 13, say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, it's God's fault. "'For God cannot be tempted with evil, "'neither tempteth he any man. "'But every man is tempted when he's drawn away "'of his own lust and enticed. "'And when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, "'and sin when it is finished, it bringeth forth death. "'Do not err, my beloved brethren.'" And so here it's saying this, what happens in the temptation is this, that there's something dangled in front of you like a fish hook with a lure on it. And what happens is it pulls at your lust, which is your internal traitor, and it pulls you along to go, hey, go this direction in your decision making in this trial, go this way. And when we bite down on it, the term here is it's a birth, when we go, okay, that temptation's okay, we bite down on it, the hook's in there, that's when it becomes sin. The temptation to sin is not wrong, In and of itself, you know, I was tempted, so did I do something wrong? No. Here's this, Christ was tempted. He went into the wilderness and Satan was tempting him. He didn't sin. Okay, the temptation is not sin. It's when you agree with the direction of this and go, you know what, I think this is okay, and you bite down. Or in this case, something's conceived. You go, okay, with this. Well, when that sin is conceived, or when lust is conceived, it bringeth forth sin. and ultimately the sin brings about death, it brings destruction. And so what you have on the other side when it comes to this wisdom of trial, the problem that comes with trials is temptations. God does not fall for the temptation because he does not sin, nor does tempt individuals to sin. People are drawn away by their own lust until they bite down and accept the temptation as okay. This brings forth sin, ultimately death. But then at the end of this passage, it simply says this, every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above. Trials are not designed to destroy us. They're oftentimes there to give us good. Problem is we miss it because we go down the wrong path because we have, well, gone away. We shouldn't have. So that's how he starts off. Then he goes, okay, there should be wisdom in the way that you hear and you do. And this famous passage that talks about this idea, and it starts off this way, verse 19, wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. So it's basically saying, you've been, you know, and I had one person explain it this way, you've been given one mouth and two ears. You know, what did God expect you to use more? Like, okay, all right, maybe that's why, I don't know, there's no theological purpose behind that, but it's simply saying you ought to be slow to speak and swift to hear. You ought to be more eager in hearing rather than going, well, let me say something about this. And then it goes on to say this. You're supposed to lay aside all these things that are evil, the overflow, the abundance of evil in verse 21, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man beholding his natural face in a glass, or we would say a mirror. For he beholdeth himself, goeth his own way, and straightway forgetteth what manner he was. The whole issue there is this, is that you got a lot of people who go and they hear the word, and good for them, they heard it. And that's the first step. Without hearing, there's not a lot of things that go on. You have to have hearing. But the problem is, is they don't reflect upon it. They don't look and go, okay, I look like this in comparison to what I've just heard. It's like you getting up in the morning and you hopefully take a look at the mirror before you go out. Now you've got the option to just walk out of the house. But most of us look at that and reflect upon what's reflecting back at us and go, ooh, there's some things that need to be fixed here. And you get into action and you take care of it. So it is a person that hears the word with meekness and goes, this is what I need. I'm going to reflect upon it and change as the result of hearing what the Word has to say. It works as a mirror for me to see what I'm like. And so when you have this, too many are willing to act without thinking or consideration. Truly righteous ones will hear the Word and then respond to the reflection that they see in the Word. Many people pay lip service to following God, but true Christianity displays itself in works of compassion and purity. The ends of the fact in verse 27, pure religion and undefiled before God is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Now there's activity that goes on in reflecting upon who you are. So you get done with the first chapter and you've already gotten, you know, more than enough to think about as far as wisdom. And James isn't done. There's more topics that you can apply wisdom to. It's chapter two, and you have this wisdom and acceptance and concern. I'm not going to spend a huge amount of time on this section just due to time here this evening. But what you have in this story is that there's an illustration given in James, and he may have seen this in his church that he attended or he's seen it in other locations where you have a rich person come in and a poor person come in and the poor person is completely ignored. In fact, the rich person comes in, he's in the bright clothing. You know, and everyone goes, wow, hey, sit here, you know, sit here in our church. You know, we got to go to this place for you. And then this poor person comes in and the response of church is this, oh, well, you know what, sit over here. And you know what, we don't have a place for you to sit in a chair. You can sit on the floor and think about those people in houses. This is where you're meeting in churches, you know, so you're like the footstool there, you know, the Ottoman, you know, I can step my feet on you and, you know, you can sit here. And James here goes, that's not what ought to be happening because if you know your God, There's no partiality with God. If you're rich or poor, he doesn't care. He still saves you. So when it comes to you knowing your God, if you're thinking about, okay, this is what God's like, how am I gonna reflect what God's like when it comes to the acceptance of people? And it's just simply this, you do not accept in regard to faith. Okay, true religion will give the same reception, both the rich and poor. God accepts rich and poor for salvation. Believers fulfill the law of love by welcoming all with the same fervency. They should show no partiality, because God doesn't, when it comes to salvation, we should be the same way in the church, not thinking, you know, well, this person would fit better than that person. No, they all fit. God saves and transforms them, glory be. Now here is the section that, if you've ever read anything by Martin Luther, this is why he didn't like the book of James. Remember when Luther got saved, the major problem in the church at that time, the Catholic church, was that a person was justified by works. That's how you got to heaven, you had to have all these works done, and you had the seven sacraments, and everything else beyond that, and this, and so people were justified, or had a right standing before God on the basis of their works. And he comes to Romans chapter one, and he reads, the just shall live by faith. A person has a right standing because they have faith in God. There's no works. And so he comes to this passage in James, and this is a section that talks about that a person is justified by their works. And he just goes, wait a second. What's James saying here? Because he uses the term justification. Verse 24. It says this, you see then how that by works a man is justified and not by faith alone. Now you take that verse right out of context, you're going, sounds like I'm gonna be saved by works and faith. But you have to then take the whole context and realize what he's arguing for is this, You have an individual who simply says this. Yea, a man may say thou has faith, but I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by thy works. Thou believest in verse 19. There is one God. Thou doest well. The devils believe and tremble. There is a kind of faith that just merely acknowledges in the head, but doesn't have the heart. Saving faith is both a head knowledge and my whole heart being cast upon it, because the devils believe there's a God. They're not questioning the fact that there's a God, but they don't have a heart belief. They aren't putting their trust in him. There is that kind of faith, but a saving faith is one that's the heart, and with the heart, a person believes, and what then you have reflected in that is that they're going to do works. And the New Testament has this throughout, but by their fruits ye shall know them. You know, people are like, well, am I saved or not? And you're like, well, one of the things that indicates the fact of whether or not you're saved or not is the fact of you seeing things in your life that are changing. not you changing them, but they're changing, and you're seeing fruits of righteousness taking place, and you're seeing works that reflect one who knows Christ. You have this whole idea in the book here. Now, They've struggled because of this, because justification works. It seems that James is promoting works of justification. This, however, James connects faith in Christ, which results in works that display faith. If a person who claims Christianity does not have works that displayed that faith, then that person's salvation never happened in the first place. Faith without works is dead. And you know what? Because that's not they didn't have a saving faith. They did something. but there was not a true trusting in Jesus Christ. There was a head knowledge, but not a heart grabbing onto Christ and saying, I need him desperately. So the examples given, Abraham displayed his faith by willingness to sacrifice his son at God's command. His faith, he believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. And then you see years later, because that statement of Abraham believing God is counted for righteousness is Genesis chapter 15. The story about his son being sacrificed, which displays his faith, is a story that happens in Genesis chapter 22, and it's probably 35 to 40 years after that initial statement. Abraham believed God and was counted for righteousness. Well, how do you know he was? Late in his life, he's still displaying his faith in God by willingness to offer up his own son. His faith is justified, or we might say this, proven. And Rahab displayed her faith in God by hiding the Jewish spies. It's not just me like, I believe your God's really great and credible, you know, he separated the sea, the Red Sea some 40 years ago, and I believe your God's powerful and mighty, you've wiped out the kings that are along the river bank on the other side, and that, no, she goes, she acts upon it. I believe your God's great, and I'm gonna act in such a way that shows that I believe your God's great. She protected the spies. So faith without works is dead. Now, wisdom and words. Okay, James right in the middle, this is this core thing where he begins talking about this. You have individuals. that are wanting to be teachers. It starts off this way, it says, my brethren, be not many masters. That word masters is elsewhere translated teachers. I'm not sure why it was chosen the English here to do that, but not many masters, not many teachers, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation for in many things we offend all. If a man not in word, men offend not in word, the same as a perfect man and able also to bridle the whole body. He's simply saying, here you got a person who is in a job where he's got to speak a lot. Some people are like, oh, I would love to talk all the time and have people listen. That's the wrong perspective on life, because you can, by many words, offend all. You can do that. The Proverbs is filled with statements about this. Teachers have a great responsibility to students, but also to God. Teachers that control their tongue can control their behavior. But as you read through James chapter three, as you talk about this, they go through and give the illustration of putting bits in a horse's mouth and you can put rudders on ships and they turn them. But verse five, but the tongue is a little member which boasts of great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth. And you go, OK, so how is this, you know, this thing that we have here, how are we to control it? Well, verse six, the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body and seteth on fire the course of nature instead of the fire of hell. We can tame all sorts of things. But verse number eight, but the tongue no man can tame. So you're told right there, hey, you can be a perfect person following God in this, but guess what? You can't tame your tongue. You're like, okay. Sorry when I say the mean things I do to you and whatever. I can't help it because I'm just told I can't control my tongue. But he's warning the tongue's got great power. It can destroy, it's uncontrollable, it can set on course that cannot be returned. You go down a certain path and it just burns things out. You've burnt your bridges, if you want to put it in the modern vernacular. There are things that you do with your tongue that cannot be recalled. It's destructive. And you just kind of go, if I can't control my tongue, what hope do I have? Well, it's what you have at the end. Wisdom and life, okay? Oh, I need something that I don't come by naturally. I need wisdom. Why do I go after people and yell at them and have strife with them and I'm envious of them? Well, it's because of this. Verse number 13, who is a wise man and dude with knowledge among you? Okay, a person who can control their tongue. Let him show out of a good conversation or lifestyle his works with meekness and wisdom, but if you have bitter envying and strife in your heart, glory not and lie not against the truth. I mean, if you envy and strive with other people, you're not doing well. Verse 15, this wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, and devilish. For where envying and strife is, there's confusion and every evil work. But you want to have a thing where you're not having strife go on, you're not destroying things. Well, here it is, verse 17. But the wisdom that's from above is first pure and then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy, and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. What you find is all those statements are characteristics of God. He's like this. So if I've got wisdom from above, I'm considering what God is like. And I have to go, how am I going to reflect this as a follower of God, his child, what is that going to look like? And if I don't control this, I've gotta come and stand before him someday and give account. So this wisdom from above, is one you want, but if you pursue that which is below, then you'll show this by your actions. So whatever wisdom is pursued will show itself in outward activity. Now, you see this shift and then suddenly you kind of get to the point, it's the center point of the book, and it's the high point where you need wisdom, you need this because you're destructive of other things, and you might be going, I've got no hope, or I've gone down a course I shouldn't have, I've gotten far from God, this is a problem. Well, what happens in this is that chapter four, verses one through 12, is probably one of the greatest passages in the New Testament about repentance and revival. I mean, he talks about the fact that you are people that are like this. Verse one, from whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not even of the lust that war in your members? Ye lust, ye have not. Ye kill, ye desire to have and cannot obtain. Ye fight, and ye war, and ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your own lust. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, knowing ye not that friendship of the world is enmity with God, whosoever that will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Kind of going, okay, if you're this type of person, you got fighting and strife and things not going right, guess what? It's probably because you're the enemy of God. You've taken up sides on the wrong side. So how do I fix this? Look at verse number five, or verse number six. It says this, but he giveth more grace, or that word more, you could underline it, put it outside, he gives greater grace. Okay, grace greater than all our sin. That's what it's saying there. He gives this and you say, well, how do I get this grace? Well, wherefore he saith, God resisted the proud, giveth grace in the humble, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God. God's not far away because he's chosen to be far away, it's because we've gone our own way. Draw an eye to God and He will draw an eye to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners. You go, what's that? Confession of sin. Purify your hearts, 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 will do what? He'll lift you up. You're not the one who has to lift yourself up. God will if you come in repentance to Him and just simply say, I failed. God goes, okay, you're in the right spot. I can help you out now. I can lift you up and be able to help you in what you need. And so this a person gets a fight struggles because they have a sin nature. They follow the world's wisdom. They're not spiritual. James gives a series of command for a person to have a revival and restored relationship with God. They're humble themselves and draw nigh to God. You get to the last two verses there, 11 and 12, people get into strife because they judge others. I mean, there's kind of a final statement there, but here he's got people judging one another, and here's the issue. What every person should do is live out a life in relation to God. Let God do the judging. Okay, you don't like to be judged. and you recognize your own sinful condition, so why are you going about letting everybody else know what they're like? Fix your problems, okay? I mean, that's really what he does at the end of this section of, okay, I'm a failure, but here's how you get right with God and get back in a right relationship with him. There's wisdom in planning, okay? We'll not spend much time on this, but it says this year you have an individual that says, go to now, you that say today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain, whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life? It is even a vapor. He's grabbing a term from Ecclesiastes. Vanity, vanity, all of vanity. Our life is a vapor. Is that the term that's used there? It appeared through a little time and then vanished it the way. It's not saying don't plan. Okay, that's not what this is saying. The problem is, is there's too many people out there making plans and they're not considering God. They don't take God into account in their plans. They just kind of go, I'm gonna go about this life here and God's outside of it. I'm just gonna go with my plans and go with them. But see how this ends here, verse 15, for you ought to say, if the Lord will, okay, if the Lord allows this, we shall live and do this or that. Okay, if the Lord allows us, we'll continue on this course, but he may not, and if he doesn't, okay, fine, we'll go with the course that he gives us, whatever he brings into our life, but this is the plan that we think we should do. Planning, life's transient, a person who makes plans without consideration of God is a fool. You have Christ talking about this, we're a man who's gonna build barns and bigger barns than this, and the statement God makes about him, Christ does, he goes, thou fool, this night your life shall be required of thee. Making plans without God a part of them, you're foolish. Wisdom and wealth. The church is filled with both rich and poor. James reminds wealthy believers that their riches are temporary. It seems like this church in Jerusalem was trying to impress the rich people. And when you read the passage there, and we don't have time to go through this whole thing, but it seems to be talking to the Jews and going, do you realize that most of those rich people are the ones who've made your life difficult? You think about it, the richest people in town in Jerusalem were who? The priests. The priests were the richest and wealthiest people in town. Who had made life most difficult for the believers? It was religious leaders. And they had spent their life trying to impress people that had riches to be a part of their church, and the answer was, wait a second. Some of these people you're trying to impress are the very ones who are making life difficult for you. And if you had wealth, it would probably be something that destroyed you too. Not that wealth is bad, it's just they were viewing wealth from a wrong perspective. Riches are temporary. It's not worth giving one's life to the fruit of wealth because it can affect one's judgment. Wealth is not a sign of blessing but could easily bring one under God's judgment because you make decisions. That's why 1 Timothy talks about he fall into temptations and snares and many hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil. The pursuit of it, making it your goal. Wisdom and persecution. You find this section has, starting off and you just go through the section and just mark all the times it talks about patience and long-suffering. You underline it in here because the word comes up. It's the idea, verse seven, be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Verse A, B, also patience, establish your hearts. Grudge not one against another, lest ye be condemned. Take my brother and the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering and affliction of patience. And then the statement, behold, we count them happy, which endure. Suddenly you have a different word. It's not long-suffering, long-burn. It's the word endurance. You have heard of the patience or endurance of Job and seen the end of the Lord. The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. You kind of go, so what's going on here? Believers have set their mind on Christ. The end's coming. I'm going through difficult times. Okay, the end will come. You endure like a runner in a race to the end of the race, but the end will happen. This doesn't go on forever and ever. So you run the race with patience. Bible's filled with illustrations, prophets and Job's who suffered and in the end God brought them through. They suffered in patience because they had a focus on God. Even Job, when he's complaining to God, who does he have his focus on? God. So James is giving that as his illustration. Wisdom and prayer and difficulty, he closes it out. He starts his letter off with pray for wisdom. If any of you lack wisdom, let me ask of God. Well, he closes his letter out with a call to different kinds of prayer in different situations. He does this, verse 13, is there any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is there any Mary? Let him sing psalms. Is there any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church. Verse 15, the prayer of faith shall save the sick. Verse 16, confess your faults one to another, pray for one another that you may be healed. And this illustration of Elias or Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are. And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not upon the earth. He prayed again, the heaven gave rain, the earth brought forth her fruit. And so then you have, at the very end, an individual who has erred from the truth, and you say, well, what's the goal there? That you bring them back, and there seems to be an element of prayer connected to this. What you close out with is this. Prayer started this letter. Wisdom was needed. At times, wisdom is needed for ones who are sick. Other times, prayer is needed for one who is in sin. And God draws them back. that they confess their sins, they get right with God. And he kind of closes the letter off and he simply goes, there are times where you pray in that manner because that's the only thing you can do. There's nothing else you can do. You can worry, you can fret, you can do all this, but think about this, casting all your care upon him for he careth for you. All things by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. These passages that are saying, don't worry about these things, take them to the Lord, that's all you can do about it. A wise person's not letting themselves be burdened by things they can't solve themselves. They take it to God. That's the wise thing to do. And so you get through this book, it's all about wisdom. And so as we said, there's just all sorts of different types of wisdom and situations that you have in it. And it seems like James is kind of just going all over the place, but it's all related to the fact that we think about God and consider that he really truly does exist. I'm gonna have to stand before him. How do I reflect in my actions and my decisions that He really does exist, and one day I'm gonna stand before Him. How do I live my life out that way? And that's why this letter was written, much like the Old Testament literature that many of these Jews would have known. All right, let's go ahead and pray. Lord, this is a good book. Many things here just to be reminded of that are good short statements. about us living in a way that pleases you. Lord, it's a daily battle for us because the world and all that goes on here grabs our attention, our focus. We need to live life in consideration of you, who you are, what you're like. and then respond in ways that would reflect who you are and what we know about you. So we need wisdom just as these Jewish believers did 2,000 years ago. We need this kind of wisdom in daily living to glorify you, to make you known, for us to be a reflection of who you are. We love you, Lord. Thank you for your word. It gives us light to our path. And we praise you in the name of Christ. Amen.