Book of James, Part 1

Well, good afternoon to everyone. I think this is the first Sabbath since I started running the circuit with Rome that I've had to give different messages there and here. Next week we have Bible study there, and they're going through the book of Revelation. So we're even on a different Bible study schedule. But I gave a sermon this morning since I had a Bible study here. So it just makes it a little more interesting and preparing. You've got to do double duty to be able to do that. They're all doing well. Now I heard several of them talking about coming to the picnic, so hopefully there'll be several of us there, coming up.

We'll talk more about that in the announcements. If you'll remember, we're in the book of James. And last time we got up to chapter 1, verses 1 through 8, and beginning in verse 9 today. What I did the last time, just as a way of review, we went through the general epistles, and I gave you a general background of each one of them.

Remember, the general epistles are James, Peter, John, and Jude. All of these individuals had a very close connection with Christ, as we know. And James here is the Lord's brother. And so we're talking here about a family member. Apparently, he was the bishop in Jerusalem, and he stayed there pastoring what we would traditionally call the headquarters church. He was killed in 62 A.D., apparently stoned to death, and the stoning didn't quite take, so they took a club and beat him to death after that.

So he had a ministry, when you look at it, about 31 years, 30, whenever he was ordained. The book of James was one of the books that, when they started looking at the books to put into the Bible, they had trouble with.

And the reason for it is that it talks so much about works. And a lot of the other epistles, like John talked about love, well, hey, stick that in there. Peter talks about hope and these type of things. But when it came to James, and he started talking about works and so much emphasis on that, they weren't quite sure if that should be in there. So consequently, it was called a deuterocanonical book, meaning they had to take a second look at it.

Like the book of Deuteronomy is a second repeat of the law. So this was something that they looked at a couple of times. He was also known as James the Just, and supposedly an individual who had a stellar reputation.

Being the brother of Jesus Christ, it's interesting the emphasis that he gives, because he realized that, you know, even by 62 AD, that a lot of people were not really living what they professed, and they were not doing what they professed, or what they had been taught.

So with that in mind, you might remember we had covered the fact that this was directed to the twelve tribes that were scattered abroad, and apparently they knew where the twelve tribes were at that time. And he then goes through the purpose of trials, shows that if we lack wisdom, all we have to do is ask for it. God will give it to us. Now we come down to a section that deals with the perspective of the rich and the poor, as it says here.

Let's begin in verse 9, and we will read verses 9 through 11, and then we'll come back and comment on it because it's a whole section. It says, Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass, its flower falls, its beautiful appearance perishes, and so the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.

So here we have an emphasis, and you'll find that James does put quite a bit of emphasis through here on the rich and the poor. And in many cases, he takes those who are rich to task, that they became rich as a result, or on the back of the poor. In verse 9, it says, Let the lowly brother, this seems to be a reference to the lower class of people, and therefore who were poor, and they are told here to glory in their exaltation.

Why would they be exalted? Well, they were exalted because in Roman society they were very class-conscious, if you'll remember. There was the upper crust, there were the leaders and those who were rich, there was a poorer class, very little middle class, and there were slaves.

So here we have individuals who could have been slaves at one time, or still were, who were the poor, and yet before God they were equal to the rich. Because in God's eyes, you know what? God doesn't look on your clothes, He doesn't look at the outward appearance, He doesn't look at how much money you have in your pocket. Guess what He looks at? He looks at the heart, He looks at the attitude, and He looks at the approach. So He's saying here that they should glory in the fact that they could be exalted.

It doesn't matter how a person might be viewed from the world, or the world's perspective, the world's outlook, that we're all that God calls His children, and we're very precious, and we are special to God. And so therefore, you know, we are the ones that God is very concerned about. Again, James was very concerned that the rich had taken advantage of the poor, and we know that even though we may be poor, God doesn't want us to stay that way, does He?

God's law, God's way of life, teaches the fact that there are principles that we apply, and so we shouldn't necessarily just stay in that position. But God does want us to be poor in spirit, He wants us to be meek, He wants us to be humble, and the humble are those who humble themselves, and the problem with too many of the rich is that they tend to be so sold on themselves, and what they've done, their own abilities and talents, that they lack humility.

And so that's what we come to when we come to verse 10, because it says, "...but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away." And so He is showing that the rich will be brought low, and your riches can give you a false sense of security. I mean, if you've got a couple million dollars in the bank, you know, many of the rich say, why do I need God? Look at what I've done, what I've accumulated, I'm so smart, I've got all this talent, it's just coming out of my fingers, I've got all this ability, I've got this money, and so therefore they tend to look to themselves and not to God.

So it's through trials and testing, which He had already covered here, that the rich, as well as the poor, begin to learn that their riches are temporary and that they need to rely upon God. The importance of character is what you need to focus upon. And God can build character in a poor man, He can build it in a rich man, those who are lowly, and those who are rich. So you've got to be willing to obey God and submit to Him. It goes on in verse 11 to talk about how the sun comes up, the grass and the flowers are burned.

All you've got to do is go outside here right now. And guess what? My grass looks like somebody took a heat lamp or fire and burned it. That's the way flowers are now. When it gets real hot like that, it does tend to destroy those things. They lose their beauty, as it says here. God gives us different gifts. And the fact that a person is rich is not a strike against him if he is humble and if he submits to God.

Abraham was a rich person. Isaac was rich. Jacob was rich. David was rich. Solomon was probably one of the richest men alive. God is not against riches, but it's how we use our riches. God is the one who blesses us and people can be blessed, and we need to use our wealth to help others. If you remember back in the book of Romans, chapter 12, one of the gifts that God gives is the ability to help other people with wealth, with money.

And if God has blessed you in that way, then that's one way that you can help that maybe others can't. If you don't have two nickels to rub together, you're not going to be able to help financially a lot of people. But if you have more, you can help more. We should use our wealth to help serve others. Every gift that God gives us, we should be using to help others.

So it doesn't matter what that gift might be. Now, the word here that's interesting, the word for beautiful appearance in the King James Version is translated grace instead of beautiful appearance. Actually, beautiful appearance is a better translation. This is the only place in the King James Version where the word grace is translated from a word that is not charis, which means grace, as we've covered.

So, widely decided to use the word grace, except that it's talking about a flower being graceful or beautiful. But the word does have to do with beauty and with the appearance. And so, basically what it's saying is we can have wealth, and just like a flower, it can be fleeting. It can disappear. It won't last. You can be rich one day, as we know, 1929. If that strikes a bell with anybody, the stock market fell. People were jumping out of their windows because they lost everything.

And those type of things can happen. Reversals can happen to anyone, and one day you can be fairly well off. The next day, hey, you've lost it all. Because a lot of times, people's wealth is in stocks. It's on piece of paper somewhere. And if what you've invested in takes a nosedive, well, you don't have it anymore.

So this is the emphasis that he's placing here. So he goes on to say, then, blessed is the man who endures temptation. For when he has been proved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. So the word temptation here, actually, is purozmos, and it means a testing. You and I are tested in this particular case. It's not talking about temptation that we're Satan tempts us, but that he who endures testing, when he has been proved, and it shows the end result of what testing is about.

Remember, when Gary Petty was here, he explained the difference in temptation and testing. And that Satan tempts us, meaning he wants us to sin, and he wants us to disobey God. God tests us to see what we're made of. God tests us to see what we know. In other words, if we'll pass the test or what we lack, so that we might develop more of it. So God is interested in our character and saying that we are tested in that way. So if we endure trials and tests and we come through them, we will receive a crown of life.

And the word here for proved is dachomos, and again means tried. The word is used, generally, of metal that has been cleansed of all of its alloys. It has all of the gunk cleaned out of it. You find that this is what God is doing with us. There's a lot of things when God looks down at us. Think of yourself as a piece of clay. And mixed in with that clay are maybe, who knows what, could be sticks, stones, hair, grass, any number of things.

And what God is doing, he's taking that clay and molding it so that it begins to look like him. He shapes it so it looks like his character. And when God comes across anything that doesn't belong there, he throws it away. And so he's helping us to get rid of the alloys, to get rid of anything that shouldn't be there. In a sense, you might say to get the gunk out. And when he does, then we become more and more like him.

So God's purpose with us is to develop his holy righteous character. And again, that's something we used to talk about constantly. Mr. Armstrong used to emphasize that it used to be one of the emphasis that he had.

You've got to have character. And for some reason, there were a few years where all of that seemed to dissipate. But it is still there, and it's something that God's concerned with. Crown of life is a crown that consists of life. You know, anciently in the ancient world, crowns had various meanings, various purposes to them. There was a crown of flowers that was a sign of festive joy. A lot of times it was worn at a feast or it was worn at a wedding, where a bride might have a crown of thorns, not thorns, but of flowers.

We don't want thorns, but flowers on the head. Now, Christ had a crown of thorns, which was supposed to be something that pictured shame and humiliation.

A crown of gold marked royalty. You know, a king would have a crown of gold. Crown of Laurel leaves was a victor's crown in the athletic games. The crown was a mark of honor, a mark of dignity. Well, you and I are going to receive a crown one day. It is going to symbolize something that you receive. In other words, if you received a crown of Laurel leaves, it means that you won the race. This is like going to the Olympics. You win the gold medal. You're standing on the stand, and they play the national anthem. And here you've got this medal pinned to you. Well, anciently in the Olympics or the particular contest they had, you would stand on a stand, and they put this wreath on your head. Well, there's going to come a day when God will place that on our head, and we will have eternal life. And God will give us, and that crown of life is a symbol of what God is going to eventually give us, that we would have eternal life. Now going on in verse 13 through 15, this is a section about the LSD connection.

Now we've all heard of LSD. Lust, sin, and death. Anachronism here, LSD. L for lust, S for sin, and D for death. So it's a good way of remembering it. Then no one say when he is tempted, now here we're talking about temptation in the sense of trying to get a person to sin, that I am tempted by God.

So that's something you should never say. Never think. It says, I am tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. But everyone is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desire and enticed. So notice where the temptations come from. Your own desires are enticed. And when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it's full grown, brings forth death. Now the word desire here is actually, I think King James version says, lust. And it's the word for lust, or desire, wrong desire, or a lust. We cannot blame God when we're tempted. People succumb to temptations all along. They'll curse God, and they'll say, well, God made me do this. And we all remember years ago, the comedian had talked about, well, the devil made me do it. Well, no, the devil didn't make us, or God doesn't make us do it. Some people want to change that around and say, well, God made me do it. God is not tempted.

And he didn't create us with the idea of creating us as human beings and then tempting us.

Now he'll try us. He'll test us. He'll see where we stand with him. He wants us to grow. If we lack something, then he'll try to work with us to make sure we add that to our character. James asserts that while we may learn painful lessons from sins, God does not need to use sin to teach his people what they need to know.

God doesn't have to cause you to sin so that you can learn certain lessons.

That's not the way God operates. Now, you may sin, and as a result of sins, God may take the situation and help you to learn things. But I want you to notice here that humans are tempted by their own lust, our own thoughts.

A thought that is not entertained is not a sin. Notice again, let no one say when he's tempted, I'm tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil. So what this means, there's going to come a time in the kingdom, brethren, if we can make the kingdom of God and the family of God, that we will not be tempted by evil. Why? Well, we will not have the lust of the flesh.

The lust of the flesh will be gone. We won't be flesh, we'll be spirit. We won't have the lust of the eyes. And we won't have the pride of life at that time. These are things that we have to do battle with and overcome now. Now, verse 14 says, everyone is tempted when he's drawn away by his own lust. So how are we tempted? We have a responsibility in this. We can't just blame everybody else. People want to blame everybody else for their problems. Or they want to blame the devil. Now, I'm not saying he's not called the tempter. He is. He puts temptations there.

But it's our own lust that draws us away and we are enticed.

You see, when you think on something, you have a thought that is not right. The thought itself is not a sin. We have wrong thoughts come to our mind all the time. Now, our job is to have the strength of mind character put them out. Don't think on them. But when you harbor a thought, it conceives. It means it begins to grow. It's like sticking something in the ground, a seed, and it begins to grow and it begins to materialize. And you act upon it. And when you act upon it, if you allow it to stay there, it grows and it becomes a sin. So God cannot be solicited with evil. He doesn't solicit us to do evil or to do wrong or to sin.

God doesn't try to trip us up. That's not His purpose. He's not out here to try to get us to fall, to stumble, to sin. I think a lot of people think that God created evil in man and yet God has created us. Every baby that is born is created neutral, meaning it can be influenced for good, it can be influenced for evil. The problem is we're born into a society where all the influences, if you're cut off from God, are evil. Your own influence, your own lust, your own nature, Satan the devil, the world, the culture around us.

What you want to do is to stop the wrong thoughts. And this is one area that you and I need to really be praying about. When a wrong thought comes into our mind, do we have the strength of character to put it out? To say no, to resist it. It could be a lust, a sexual thought. It could be wanting to imbibe too much. It could be wanting to eat too much. It could be wanting to do almost anything too much to steal, to break the Sabbath, whatever it might be. We have to recognize it for what it is and how do we know if thoughts are right or wrong. That's what this Bible is for. That's why God's Word has to be written in our mind. Most things that come into our mind, you don't have to run to the Bible and say, I wonder if it's in the Bible. You know it's in the Bible. Or you know if it's right or wrong. Because you know God's law and it's been written to our hearts. So once we harbor it, it begins to bear fruit or begins to bring wrong thoughts and can bring forth death. The key is to stop the thoughts before the lust begins to materialize. To stop it before the lust springs into action. So you've got a progression here. You've got thoughts and then you've got the lust and then you've got sin or action that takes place. Along the way, it's easier to stop the thought than after you've harbored the thought to catch the lust. You're starting to lust and to try to stop it there. It's always easier to go back here. Now, verse 14 says, but everyone is tempted when he's drawn away by his own lust, his own desires, and enticed.

Drawn away means to be drawn out like a fish, being enticed from its hiding place, to be lured out. In fact, a good translation is lured.

A fish can be back in a hole somewhere and you throw some nice juicy fat bait. It could be a fat worm or you could keep running a lure by it up and down. That lure looks so enticing.

The first thing you know is it starts inching out of that hole and it begins to look at it.

You find that that's the way too often sin is. Sin doesn't just happen because of the slightest temptation. I mean, we don't normally just sin because of a slight temptation that comes along. There's usually a gestation period when the individual toys with the idea, maybe puts it out, he comes back, thinks about it, and the sin is allowed to continue to grow more powerful until it can destroy a person. I think pornography is a good example of this. Somebody sees something on the internet or buys a book and there's some pornography in it and maybe the first reaction is, well, you know, that's filthy and he throws it away.

One day he's out there looking through the trash can for the book again and, you know, looks at it and the first thing, you know, I think I'll go on the internet and see if I can find something. So he goes and starts searching for it and then all at once you sort of get hooked and you keep looking at that type of thing and it can be very powerful and it can grab an individual and eventually destroy them because now it becomes a habit and when you allow something to become a habit that is wrong, that is sinful, it can destroy you. That's what smoking does. The first time you take a puff on a cigarette, you're not hooked, but you puff enough and the first thing, you know, your body begins to crave it and you want it. And so this is the way temptations are.

If we have wished to avoid the outcome of sin, which is death, you have to abort the cycle at the earliest possible moment. If we refuse to desire what is wrong, we won't be tempted to sin by that. So we've got to learn if it's wrong and the temptation is there, you say no, you walk away from it. If you have, as an example, a problem with heights. I've been out, you know, 10-12,000 feet high on a mountain and looking over a cliff. Well, it feels funny doing that. I mean, every time I do that, I lay on my stomach and I sort of peer over the cliff because you get up there and you feel sort of woozy and you're afraid you might fall or you know you're holding to a tree or somebody holding to you. Well, this is the way we have to be. If you know you have that problem, if you're a mile from the cliff, it's not going to bother you. You can fall down on the ground all day long and you're not going to fall over a cliff. The closer to the cliff you get, the more danger you're in.

Okay, let's move on to verse 16 then. Well, verse 15 again says, When the desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And again, this is like conceiving in birth.

You give birth to sin. It's like giving birth to a baby. And sin when it's full grown, when the baby is full grown, when it's matured, becomes a habit, it brings forth death. And so the end result of that is death. So we're told in verse 16, Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.

So we're not to be deceived in these ways. You and I can be misled. And we can deceive ourselves.

Self-deception is one of the easiest things for a person to do. And you and I are warned about it.

People in the world don't believe they're deceived. If you were to walk up to the average person on the street and say, you know you're deceived, they would say, what do you mean? Well, you know, you're deceived about religion. You're deceived about everything in life. You don't understand more than a hill of beans, you know, when it comes to the true way of life. They would get really offended. And yet you and I know we've been deceived. We've been deceived in all aspects of life. So we need to recognize it. And so he's saying this. Don't be deceived. And realize that every good gift here in verse 17, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. As we talked about, one of the definitions of grace is freely given gifts. And so every good gift is from above. It's God's grace. It's God's love, His mercy. It comes from God. And as it says here, comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

Now the expression here, shadow of turning, means God is not fickle. God is not moody.

What if we worshiped a God who was just moody?

What if he had PMA every Friday? What if he were moody and had all kinds of various emotional upheavals? And so on various days of the week, he just gets, boom! He's just really upset with us. Well, that's not the way God is. God is fair. He doesn't change his moods in the sense of being moody, although God can have righteous anger against people. He doesn't reject us because, well, quote-unquote, he's in a bad mood. The word, variableness, here, is this is the only place where the word is used in the New Testament. And it means change. There is no change or shadow of turning with God. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

His overall character does not change. His overall purpose, his overall plan. What if two thousand, three thousand, four thousand years into God working out his plan with human beings, God says, I think I'll change it. I think instead of giving everybody salvation, what I'm going to do is just let people live for a thousand years. And so God changes the rules on it. Or, you know, he changes the standards. What kind of confusion would that create? God doesn't do that.

Now, God can change. I know the Bible shows us that. If we repent, God can change his mind as to what he was going to do. So God allows us to change. And based upon what we do, God can change some actions towards us. But that doesn't mean that he changes his law, or he changes his plan, or he changes his purpose, or his will. Those things go on. And it doesn't matter what we do.

Now, verse 18, of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. So of his own will, the word here means will or purpose. God has willed a certain direction in life, plan in life. And according to his will, he has created us as human beings. Man exists because God chose to create man for a purpose. God has a purpose in mind for us.

You and I, who are called now in the first 6,000 years, are referred to as first fruits.

The first fruits are the first ripe fruit of any crop. If you have a garden, and you go out there every day, and you watch your tomatoes grow, and you watch your beans grow, you watch your okra grow, or your peas, or whatever it might be, you're anxious to see something produced. And all at once, when that tomato plant has a little tomato on it, you get all excited, because that means there are more tomatoes coming. First fruits are eagerly anticipated because they are a foretaste of what's coming in the future.

And brethren, God, his mouth, in a sense, waters, figuratively speaking here, when he looks at us, and he sees and he knows that over the last 6,000 years, that there had been those who have gone through the process, and are just awaiting the resurrection to be a part of his kingdom. And so he knows that we can make it. And that's only a foretaste of what is to come in the future. The first fruit crop in the Old Testament was always dedicated to God. So are we. And God has a special plan or purpose for us.

The first fruits are called now, again, not because we are so righteous, we're so good, we're so great, but because God is preparing us for positions, greater responsibilities, and duties in his family and his kingdom. Verse 19, therefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.

For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Now, James is showing here that in order to receive God's truth, there are three approaches that are necessary to receive it. Number one, we have to be swift to hear. We cannot receive God's truth until we're ready to listen carefully.

Many times, people like to hear themselves blabber or talk. They're always talking, and they're not willing to listen. You're not going to learn unless you listen.

And then you have to be slow to speak.

When we're always telling what we know or think we know, we can't hear what God is saying.

And then we have to be slow to wrath.

The person who gets upset very quickly, especially about the truth, will reject it without really examining it. How many times have you known if you've talked to family members and you tried to explain to them something about the truth? Sabbath, maybe, or holy days, or tithing.

And they react. You mean to tell me that what I'm doing is not right? And they get real angry, and they'll react toward what you're doing. Well, that's the carnal approach.

Well, God wants us to be swift to hear. That means He wants us to listen to Him, slow to speak, and then slow to wrath.

Now, the anger of man, as it says here, the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

The righteousness of God is doing what is right.

Now, you and I can be angry. The Bible says, be angry, sin not. We can have righteous indignation, but sad to say that 95% of the time when we're angry, it's not righteous indignation.

What isn't with me, I don't know about you. It's just you got angry about something. You lost your cool. And normally, immediately, when you do it, you know, uh-oh, I'm not being slow to wrath. I said something I shouldn't, and you regret it.

Christians are told to develop a longer fuse. Not a short fuse. A lot of people have short fuses. Our fuse should be real long. It should take a long time to burn and get over there before we start reacting. We need to be in control of ourselves. However, we don't want to get angry, we don't want to get so upset, and we just sort of burn inside, and we never deal with it.

There are people who don't know how to deal with their emotions.

God created us as creatures, as beings, who have emotions. We have feelings.

We do get angry. We do get upset about things. We do show love and all kinds of emotions. Those things aren't necessarily wrong. They're how we handle them, how we control them. Now, some people will never express any of their feelings, and they just hold them all inside, and they become stressed out. And the first thing you know, they get sick. They've got health problems. Some organ breaks down in the body, and that's because they're not handling their emotions properly. So God has given us our emotions, and He wants us to handle them properly. And that takes His Spirit to lead us and to guide us. The problem with us as human beings, a lot of times, is that we don't know all the facts. And sometimes we can really get worked up.

If you ever got worked up over a situation, and then when you found out all the facts, you realized, I'm wrong. Because you didn't know all the facts. You only heard maybe one side. And the Bible talks about, if you only hear one side of a situation, you don't hear the other side, then you're generally going to be wrong. How many times have I sat down with a couple? Somebody comes to me and tells me how bad his or her mate is. And boy, how in the world could a person do that? And you get so upset, and you're going to go talk to them. And then you hear the other person, and you ask yourself, are we talking about the same situation? Because there are two totally different perspectives.

And somewhere in between is the truth, is what I've normally found. So there's an overall principle I've always used in marriage counseling. It's not who's right, it's what's right.

Now, you know, a person can claim, you know, I'm right and she's wrong. Or she she says she's right and he's wrong. Well, who's right and who's wrong? Well, I don't always know.

Because I wasn't there. I wasn't hiding in the closet listening and watching. I don't know everything that was said. I don't know what triggered the situation or why everything came about. And those are things that are hard to understand. But I do know what's right.

And when it comes to a husband and wife, I know how a husband ought to treat his wife.

And I know how a wife ought to treat her husband and respond to him. So those are the things we look at. And if you're not doing those things, then, you know, you know, that's where you need to look at and change and repent. An angry attitude is not the atmosphere in which righteousness flourishes. Just not the correct atmosphere or environment. In verse 21, therefore, laying aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. Overflow of wickedness means an overabundance of naughtiness or doing what's wrong. You and I, as it says here, we need to lay aside all the things that are wrong, that are naughty, that are evil. And we need to have the word implanted or engrafted within us.

Inborn or innate within us is a better translation of the word.

Something that is implanted within us. Now, the Bible says that God's word is to be written in our hearts. It's to be implanted there. It's to be carved there, chiseled there. It's to become a part of us. And you and I should know God's law. Sometimes it's not a matter of not knowing what's right and wrong. It's a matter of having the will, the desire, the character to just do what is right. Remember, wisdom and character go hand in hand. Wisdom is knowing what's right, choosing to do what's right, and doing what's right. That's where character and wisdom tells us what's right. This is the way walk you in it. And then we have to have the strength. Well, human beings don't normally have that strength. That's where God's Spirit comes in.

You see, there's something lacking. And what's lacking is God's Spirit. And God's Spirit provides the power, the motivation. God's Spirit stirs us up to guide and to lead us. Now, it goes on to say, receive with meekness the implanted word. The word gentleness, or meekness here, refers to the quality of people who have humbled themselves and know their own weaknesses. See, humility is where you're able to fully acknowledge who you are, what your weaknesses are, and how great God is and how much more perfect He is than we are. It's not just sort of walking around, you know, looking, quote-unquote, humble. It's recognizing how great God is and how insignificant we are, and having a proper evaluation of ourselves and who we are. So, we need to realize that every good thing comes from God, and that a person who has meekness chooses to be humble, and humility is a choice. Humility is a way of life that you and I can choose. We can choose to go in that direction.

Now, verse 22 is probably the theme of the book, the heart and core of the book, the summary of the book. Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. The call to do what is right, what the Bible says, what the Word of God says, is at the center of everything that James teaches here in this book. It sums up the message of the whole book of James. That is, put into practice what you profess to believe. Put it into practice. Do what you know you should do. This section shows that God is a God of action. He wants us to show our faith. Just having knowledge doesn't cut it.

I mean, we can have knowledge. You can read every booklet we have. Go through the correspondence course. You can read the Bible backwards and forward. You can have all kinds of knowledge, but if you're not doing it, then it doesn't count. God is a lover of action. Knowledge is of no use, unless I put it into practice. You can tell your wife you love her, but how does she know you love her? Well, it's by your actions, how you treat her, how you deal with her, how you go out of your way to help, or to serve, or to give. Remember in Romans 2.13, just to summarize it here, that the doers are justified, not just the hearers. Romans 2.13. So we have to be doers.

Hebrews 2.11 says that we are to give heed to the things, unless we let them slip away from us, unless they get away. One of the things that I've noticed is how easy it is to forget what you've learned when you don't do it. If you ever run into someone who used to keep the Holy Days and Sabbath, and eight or ten years later you come upon them, and you know they're not doing those things anymore, and it's almost as if they didn't know anything. They've lost it, and the knowledge has been taken away from them. Well, action. You've got to do. The more you do, it certainly helps with our understanding. In 1 John 2 verses 3 and 4, it shows that we have to keep the law. We have to put it into practice. So verse 22 here is a key verse in this book, and it sort of summarizes the message that James has. And this is the reason why Luther hated it. It's the reason why many theologians wonder if it even should be in the Bible, because he talks about works.

He talks about action. He talks about doing. They say, well, this isn't like Paul. Paul talked about grace. John talks about love. Peter talks about hope. And you know, here he's talking about works. Well, he's also talking about faith. And he's describing what real faith is.

As verse 23 goes on to say, if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself and goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. So you and I look in the mirror every morning, not so much to say mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all.

You know, you don't do that. But you look in the mirror and you say, huh! You know, you look at your hair. Sometimes I get up in the morning, I wonder, you know, who's been in my hair all night. You know, it's going in all different directions. And, you know, you look to see if there's any dirt on your face. The word observing here means attentive considering, giving something your full attention. So you and I observe ourselves here. We, you know, we look into the mirror and we see our face. It's not just somebody who hasty look looks in the mirror and says, well, it's still there. And you go on. No, you look at your face. You know, if you're a woman, there are a lot of things you do to your face, maybe to get yourself ready to go somewhere. You look carefully. And this is the way we are to be when it comes to information that we receive.

A mirror gives you information about yourself, right? You look at it and it gives you information about what you look like. The Bible is the mirror that we are supposed to look into spiritually. And guess what? It gives us information about ourselves. It tells us how we look or what we look like. And so we are to be careful. You and I, as it says here, are to be those who listen.

And we hear the Word and we do it. And as verse 24 says, he observes himself and goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. Well, you and I don't forget what kind of a person we are. Listening to the truth is not an end in itself. See, sitting here hearing a sermon, listening to a Bible study, reading an article, reading the Bible is not an end in itself.

You can fold the Bible. You can walk away and say, well, that was a good or bad or indifferent sermon. And that's not an end in itself. What is the end result of those things?

Is looking at yourself and seeing, do I measure up? Am I doing what I should be doing? If a sermon covers something, by doing that, we'll find there is a room for improvement. Well, maybe there is. Or do I need to change? There may be times that you need to change. And so you're evaluating yourself. You're always looking in the mirror and you're always evaluating what or where you stand and how you sack up. Now, as verse 25 goes on to say, but he who looks into the perfect law of liberty. So not only do you just look into the word of God, but it says the perfect law of liberty and continues in it. And it's not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. This one will be blessed in what he does.

Now, God's law is called what? Flaw? No, it's called perfect.

Now, you and I are not perfect yet. Well, that's something we're striving for.

God's law is perfect because God is perfect. And he is the great law giver.

He cannot be better. You can't find anything that's better than God's law.

Perfection in it is something that you and I keep growing towards. It's an end that we it's our goal. It's the purpose of the law. It's also called the law of liberty. This is the perfect law of liberty. And it gives us true liberty.

Remember this, brethren. God's law is never restrictive. God's law is protective.

When I say restrictive, there are those who say, well, God's law is restrictive.

It restricts us from doing every perverted sex act that a person wants to do.

Or whatever it might be. God's law, yes, may say don't do certain things, but why? Because God wants to protect us. The analogy would simply be this.

If you have little children, they're young children, and those young children are two or three, you give them certain rules. Don't play in the street.

You don't go next door where there's a big Doberman Pinscher or a German Shepherd.

Don't do this, don't do that. Why do you do that? Because you want to restrict them.

Well, because you know they could be hurt if they went out and played in the traffic or just run into the street without looking. You are trying to protect them.

And so God gives us His law because it protects us, and it gives us true freedom.

Freedom from things that would hurt us. How do you remain free and out of prison?

Well, by keeping the law. As long as you obey the law, you don't have to worry about the law.

But when you disobey it, then you may have your liberties taken away from you.

So you find that God's law is a perfect law of liberty. And we're not to be a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. We will be blessed in what He does. I want you to notice God doesn't just bless the hearing or my understanding. He blesses the doing.

If we put it into action, God will bless what we're doing because we do put it into action.

If anyone among you thinks that He's religious, so here's somebody who thinks He's good, righteous, religious, and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is useless. So notice again, here about three times in this chapter, talks about how we deceive ourselves. And one of them is by not bridling our tongue.

Religious here has to do with ceremonial service of religion, external acts of religion, such as public worshiping, fasting, giving to the needy, all of these things that a person might do. So you might think you're religious. You think, well, yeah, I give to the poor. I give to the Red Cross. I give to this charity. I do this. I go serve. I pick up trash on the highway, whatever it might be.

But if we don't bridle our tongue, then we are deceiving ourselves. People can look religious, but that doesn't get us into the kingdom because God doesn't look on the outward appearance. He looks again on the heart. He looks on our motives and our attitude. He looks on, do we love our neighbor? Do we love Him? Real worship is described here in verse 27. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this. So here's pure religion. Here's real worship of God.

An undefiled religion before God the Father is this, to visit the orphans and the widows and their trouble and keep oneself unspotted from the world. A word unspotted means free from censure, irreproachable, not sullied, not dirtied, not allowing the world to contaminate you.

So real worship then involves a practical service and giving. Faith is something that you do.

It's put into action. Pure religion is doing something about others who are in need, doing something about yourself. And you and I are putting into practice what we know.

So brethren, he ends then chapter one. And of course, when he wrote this, there wasn't any chapters, just a book that he wrote. The thing continues to carry on here.

But he shows what pure religion and undefiled is. So James is a very meaty book, and it's one that we can learn a great deal from. Okay, we'll go ahead and take a break, have another song and announcements, and then we'll come back for the second half.