James’ Final Words to Sinners and Saints - Jeremy Sutherland

1 (3s): Good morning. Thank you all for coming to church today. We're gonna worship let's stand together. 2 (12s): Let's 0 (12s): Stand 1 (14s): Lord. Thank you for your grace, your mercy toward us. Thank you for just the protection you give each one of us. We ask that you would, that you would be praised and honored here this morning. We ask you to fill this with your spirit. Lord. We just dedicate this time to worship you. 0 (43s): Amen 2 (1m 8s): Breaks. So this is amazing. Grace, 0 (2m 5s): You lay 2 (2m 6s): Down sassy. All that you've done for brings our king king with 0 (3m 18s): That. 2 (3m 39s): Oh, Jesus SA for all that you done for worthy, a king who conquer worthy, worthy a king who Wey the king, who conquer Ayyy, that all that you've done for me for all that you've done for, I see praises to your praises, to, to your name, to your that's so much be lifted. 2 (6m 32s): Lifted, be lifted is to so be yeah. 2 (8m 19s): Be your name is life. 2 (8m 60s): Your name is inside me. Your name is love. That always finds me. Always finds me. 2 (10m 42s): Be lifted up. Be lifted, lifted the, oh, carry the way of the past. 2 (11m 50s): That won't 0 (13m 54s): You 2 (14m 38s): I'll be still that you'll 3 (14m 56s): You love. 3 (16m 20s): I know that you I'm calling God Moses, who I need you now to do the same thing for me, for me, for me, God. Oh God. Oh God, my God. I need you now. 3 (17m 2s): How I need you now? Rock I'm calling on the bottom. 3 (17m 43s): David who made a shepherd boy, courages. I may not face a lion, but I've got my owns, oh 0 (18m 1s): God, my God, you, oh God, my 3 (18m 9s): I, you heard your children. Then you hear your children. Now you are the same God, you are the same. God, you answered prayers back then. 3 (18m 50s): And you will answer. Now you are the same God, you are the same God you are providing that. You are providing, you are the same God, 0 (19m 10s): You 3 (19m 10s): Are the God, you than 0 (19m 17s): God in 3 (19m 19s): Now. 0 (19m 20s): You're the God you, the, you are 3 (19m 32s): Now. 0 (19m 33s): You're God, you, God, you, God, 3 (20m 9s): I'm standing. I 0 (20m 49s): Jesus, 4 (20m 50s): We thank you that we can stand on your faithfulness, Lord. That that is the strongest. You are the you're the rock of the ages. Lord. You're the thing that we can depend on no matter what's happening around us, no matter what's going on in our world, no matter what's happening in our lives, Jesus, you, the rock of the ages, Lord, the one that people have been trusting in for thousands of years, Lord, you are the one that we trust in today. You're the one that makes this church happen. Jesus, you are the one that's always faithful Lord. So I just pray that faith would rise up in our church this morning that we would not be people who are taken by the emotions of our lives, but Lord, that we would stand on the faithfulness of generations, Lord. 4 (21m 38s): And we just ask that no matter what situations are happening in people's lives today, Lord that you would show yourselves yourself, faithful. Now Lord. And we trust that you will. We trust that you will. Jesus. Amen. Amen. All right. Well welcome. Welcome to church. You can sit down if you'd like, thank you all for being here. It's great to have you here. If you are new here, we just want to welcome you and let you know that we've got an info center at the back. They'd be happy to answer any questions that you ha that you have. We've got bathrooms behind us, water there as well and coffee and tea out on the courtyard there. 4 (22m 22s): So feel free to do any of those things. We also coming up, we've got a beach baptism next Sunday. It's gonna be awesome. Are you guys are excited about that? I hope. Yes. It's so good. So I shared this a couple weeks ago, but last time we had a beach baptism, we had a couple hundred people out there. We baptized a bunch of people. We baptized someone who was just walking by. It was a really powerful experience. So please join us for that. We're gonna be at the end of grand it's it's at five o'clock. It's gonna be awesome. It's great time. Such a good time with just fellowship. We're gonna have hot dogs out there, food, all the good stuff. 4 (23m 2s): So join us. And this year we're gonna have mustard. It's pretty exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Last year we ran out of all the mustard really early. And so all we had was mayonnaise left. So if you're a big mayonnaise person on your hot dog, we probably will still have mayonnaise, but it'll, you know, we've got mustard. So I'm a big mustard person. Anyway. That's gonna be really awesome. The highlights baptisms though, Mustard's kind of down here, but anyway. Yeah. So also we've got lifeline pregnancy center banquet going on. It's it's gonna be a great opportunity to bless lifeline. So if you want to be a part of this, they're selling tables to be at the banquet. 4 (23m 47s): So they're tables of 10. And the goal for this is that you'll buy a table, come bring 10 friends that are up for donating towards what Lifeline's doing. They're doing amazing things in our community. They've got some really exciting updates that they're gonna announce at the banquet. And they've got a special guest speaker who's coming in. It's actually Tim Tebow's mom. She's gonna be sharing her some of her story. And she just it's very powerful. So you wanna be there for that? I would go back to the info center and Terry Bruner will be there to answer any of your questions. And then just as a reminder, if you weren't here last week, we just announced a staff update. 4 (24m 32s): That's going on, Ron and Christie are both retiring. So we're gonna be sending them out and blessing them next week and praying over them. So we're excited to do that. Also, if you have youth, they're gonna be in service today because Jeremy, our youth and family pastors preaching this morning, it's gonna be awesome. So with that, get up and meet somebody you've never met before. And yeah, we'll be back in a minute. 5 (25m 24s): And when you prayer and to be 0 (25m 30s): Puring 5 (25m 31s): Heart in your, your 0 (26m 32s): I 6 (27m 18s): All right, good morning, everyone. I just get ignored. It's okay. Ooh, it got quiet in the new, in this new sanctuary. I I've done a few announcements, but I haven't preached in this new sanctuary man. It's it's a lot more eyeballs. It's a little more nerve-wracking. I told you as a kid, if I knew that public speaking was gonna be my career, I would've probably ran away from my life. I, I still get anxious and nervous and timid. So let's pray right now. Pray for God's spirit. Pray for God to use my voice as, as we open up the book of James. 6 (28m 1s): So heavenly father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for the opportunity that you've given me, but Lord, more, more than that. I want to glorify you with these words, Lord, as we open up James and expound on these things that he, he speaks of, Lord, will you bring your understanding your wisdom to us this morning? Your, your wisdom that comes from above Lord, not the earthly central wisdom, but the wisdom that is from above Lord. Thank you Lord for this morning in Jesus. Name me pray. Amen. Well, good morning. My name's Jeremy. I am the I'm the youth and family pastor here at harvest church. So good to be with you. We're gonna be opening up James five today. We're gonna be studying James final words to sinners and saints, to sinners and saints, to get a little context of James. 6 (28m 47s): I just want to remind us of when the book of James was written. James was written actually was the first of the new Testament books to be written. It was written in approximately 45 ad. And so James now is writing to a very Jewish audience. He, he addresses that in James one, he's writing to the brethren that are the 12 tribes that are scattered throughout. You see the Jews Fromm council wasn't for another three years in, in, in which they decided what to do with these Gentiles that are converting to, to Christianity that are coming under the Jewish Messiah. And so it's very much written in a Jewish style that the Jews would understand. It addresses the culture that's around them. 6 (29m 29s): I get to brag a little about our youth group. I, I, I love our youth group. I, I, I have a number of students that want to dig even deeper than what we do on a Wednesday or a Sunday morning. And so we call this group the core group. So every other week we meet with his core group and we study different books. We've gotten, we've gone through toaster's knowledge of the holy, where he takes different attributes of God's and just expands those into who God is. And it's, it was an incredible book and it was incredible to, to see this students discuss this book. They have to come prepared to discuss, they've read the chapters ahead of time. And they come to discuss these different characters and attributes of God. Then we went through a book called a shepherd, looks at Psalm 23, and it was an amazing book. 6 (30m 10s): It was just looking and breaking up what Psalm 23 it is and how that applies to our, our life. It was just an amazing time. Well, currently we're going through a book called the forgotten Jesus it's by Robbie ality. And before that sounds, you know, before you think that I'm a heretic about forgotten Jesus, it's actually how Western Christians should view or follow in Eastern rabbi. And it's bringing out all these things about the he, the Hebrew Bible and how Jews think. And, and, and, and it's making the Bible just open up. There's so many things as Western Christians, that Jesus says that just go way above our head. 6 (30m 51s): But as a, as a Jewish person, would've understood exactly what Jesus was saying. And I'm gonna talk about that as we go through the book of James, but then exciting. I, I, I I'm, I'm wearing a t-shirt, I don't know some churches, you know, you have to wear a very suit and all that stuff. Some shirt are very, the pastor wear, but I'm wearing a t-shirt day because we're, we had announced this week that our youth group is being rebranded. We're calling ourselves the young heirs and I'm pumps. Alright, we have a good friend, a good person. Our church who's helped us rebrand. He listened to Carson, I and our all about our youth group. And he came up with this branding of young heirs and young, because young, but not dumb young, but not reckless young because we, the youth need to know that they have an inheritance youth. 6 (31m 42s): The youth need to know that the, that the better, the best is yet to come. And so we, as, as Romans eight, 17 says, we are children of God. That means we're heir of God. We are co-heirs with Christ. And that is an inheritance that we will get. And if Christ suffered then the, this Romans eight 17, that we must also suffer ourselves. And so I, I, I'm glad that these students are being called up into something because we're not trying to push them down. We're calling them into something greater. We're putting the cookies on the top shelf, making 'em reach from 'em. All right. So young heirs, it's, it's been exciting journey to be a part of the youth group here. As, as, as we watched it grow. 6 (32m 24s): Now let's get into James five. And if you have your Bible open up there, please we're gonna address the sinners and the fat of heart. That's who James addresses first in this section, the sinners and the fatten of heart. Now, once again, I wanna look at, at the context of James as a whole 15 times, James uses the word brethren in this section. He's not gonna use brethren. As we look at verse one, let's read verses one through six, and then we'll break it down. James says, come now rich weep, and how for your miseries that are common upon you, your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth Eden. Your golden, your silver are corroded and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. 6 (33m 9s): You have heaped up treasure in the last days, indeed. The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which kept back, which you kept back by fraud. They cry out in the cries of the Reaper. Reapers have the, have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabbath. You have lived on the earth in a pleasure and luxury. You have fated your hearts. As in a day of slaughter, you have condemned, you have murdered the jest. He does not resist you. Now I wanna say that I don't believe this section applies directly to us, but I'm gonna show you how indirectly it, it, it might see. Now James is addressing, he doesn't use the word brethren in this passage. 6 (33m 52s): And the reason why I prefer the new king James version is because sometimes words are added to help us understand the original language. So in that section, that first verse, it says, come now you rich weep and how the original text does not include the word you, he says, come now rich weep and how. And so I believe west James is writing this. He's not addressing somebody in his church. He's addressing the broader context, those around those rich people that are now oppressing the people in John James congregation, who James is, is writing this letter to. So come now rich weep and Hal for your misery that are coming upon you. 6 (34m 34s): He's gonna talk about their wealth. Their wealth is being stored up, but yet there's misery that's coming upon them. If we look at the context of James and we go back to verse verse three 15, he's talking about this wisdom. He's talking about the different wisdoms, the wisdom that comes from above and the wisdom that comes from below, and this wisdom that comes from below. It says, it's earthly. It's sensual. It's demonic. It's it's, it's, it's its it's bitter envy. And it's, self-seeking that the wisdom that comes from below and that's the wealthy people. They're, they're seeking to fulfill their own pleasures and their own wealth and store it up. So he says, come now you rich weep, and how for misery that are, come upon you, your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth. 6 (35m 17s): Eaten. Wealth was always used with how much wealth you have stored up as well as the clothes that you had. Garments were an important thing. You can think of Joseph and the, the, his coat of many colors. That was in a way showing that this young boy, brother was gonna get a double portion. He was gonna get a larger inheritance than over his, his brothers. He was being put as, almost as if he was the firstborn son and that that coat that he wore was showed to his brothers, that his father valued him more than the others. In verse two, it says your riches are corrupted. And that word, if you dig down into the Greek, that word could also be translated, petrified. 6 (35m 59s): It stinks. So I went to U C S B and every year at U C S B. You always want to seek to live in a better house in a better place. You start out by living in the dorms first year, then you get a, a house, you know, somewhere else. And, and, and you wanna finally end up on, on Delly. That's like the beach party street, and there's a, there's a party side. And then there's like a surfer side. All right. And each year you try to move up in your status. Well, my senior year I had the opportunity to live on Delly and it was at the surf side. It was down by dev, but down by sands beach loved that place. 6 (36m 41s): And in this house, it was, it was a house that had six rooms and there was nine Christian guys that lived in it. And I loved that was one of my best places. I've lived nine Christian guys. We, we were all surfers. We wake up some mornings, look at the surf, outside our window. Do we wanna surf? We wanna go to class. It was always difficult choice, but having nine guys in a house, you don't just use one refrigerator. So we had three refrigerators. And let me tell you the amount of times I found science experiments growing in the back, there was refrigerators. The food was petrifying was not edible because it was not eaten because you took your dinner, your leftovers, you put 'em in the, in one of the fridges, and then you forgot what fridge you put it in. 6 (37m 22s): And then five months later, you open up and you're like, wow, there's a really fuzzy thing in the back of the fridge. And we also only had one trash can, but it was one of those big outdoor trash cans. And the rule was that the last person to put something on it, where it fell off, had to take out the trash. So the trash can, would get full. And then you'd begin to do this, like origami where like, you're not gonna be the guy. So it's you got this big old pile and oh, no, it fell off. So you had to be the guy that took out. But by the time it reached the top, the food at the bottom was stinked. It was petrifying. It was, it had a smell. And that's the riches that these wealthy people had. It was corrupted. It was rotten. And their garments, the sign of their wealth was being Mo eaten. 6 (38m 5s): Verse three says the gold and silver are corroded and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your fleshed. Like fire. That's strange because gold and silver don't rust, they don't corrode. So what is James saying is James inaccurate? No, he's, he's saying that the, the, the gold silver that you've stored up have began to Corro your own heart. You begin to trust in those things and not trust in God in their corrosion or other words, their poison will be a witness against you. It's it's, it's, it's holding up so much wealth that you're hurting others, and you're just sitting on it. 6 (38m 46s): You're just sitting on it as begin to rotten petrify. And it says you have heaped up treasures in the last days. Remember Jesus said where your treasure is there. Your heart will be in Matthew chapter six. And so these wealth, these wealthy, rich people had done these things, but how have they done it? It says, this is how they've done it. They did it by opposing what Jesus had taught. Verse four says, indeed, the wages of the laborers who mode your fields, which you kept back by fraud. They cry out. And the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of harvest. The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields. You kept back by fraud. 6 (39m 28s): So you didn't give. And once again, James is speaking of these rich people, they are accumulating wealth by defrauding and hurting, hurting others. In high school, I had the opportunity for about six months to live in the Philippines with my family. And we had, we rented a house from a woman named CCI and CCI was our landlord and, and CCI paid to have the, the, the, the landscape, you know, kept up. And I remember one day she said, Hey, the, the, the they're gonna come and mow the front grass. I'm like, okay, somebody's gonna bring a push mower. And the grass is pretty small. It was about 10 by 15 feet at little front yard. 6 (40m 10s): And the, the landscaper came and he brought scissors like utility scissors. GCI had filled the house with really nice things. She was so proud of her beautiful cabinets that she had shipped from United States. She, she could tell you all the things and, and that, that she had in the house, but then how she paid her people showed where her heart was. This guy showed up with utility, like what we might cut paper with. And he was out there for hours in the sun. And his wages were very, very low. He was defrauded of what he was earned. And he, I remember just watching, going, like heartbreaking what this guy will never be able to climb any ladder. 6 (40m 52s): I mean, how could you, how could you provide for your family using scissors to cut the grass, to mow the fields? And it says these things, how, which you've kept back by fraud. They cry out. Remember the first time that something's cried out was the blood of able, when he was murdered by his brother, Kane, they cry out in the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabbath. That's important to know because God cares about justice. He cares about those who have been defrauded over and over again in the Bible. You see, don't move the ancient landmark. 6 (41m 32s): Don't defraud others by taking away land, watch out for the widows, watch out for the orphans. You've you've, you've don't harm them because God are heavenly fathers watching, and there will be justice. He says, you're these cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabbath. It says you have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury. And you have fated your hearts. As in the day of slaughter, that's where I got the, their fattening of the hearts. They only cared about how they were doing and not how others, as in the day of slaughter, you have condemned, you have murdered the jest. 6 (42m 14s): He does not resist you. Now we could from a, from a reading of this and, and James two chapter, sorry, chapter two, verse five. We could, we could easily make the assumption that rich means bad. And that poor is good, right? We can, we can kind of see that maybe James is saying that rich is bad, but poor means good, but you need to step back and look at the Bible. And what the Bible, as a whole says about wealth. God uses the wealthy Abraham. Isaac. Jacob were, were the wealthiest in the region. The book of Joe was says that Joe was richer than anyone around him. We have men like Joe of Aramathea who had, who had money and power. And he was able to go and go directly into pilot. 6 (42m 55s): He didn't have to wait in line to visit pilot. He went straight in and asked for the body of Jesus. And then he had a brand new tomb that was hu outta rock with which they, where they laid the body of Jesus. He was a wealthy man. So God uses wealth, but it's the misuse of money that is bad. First, Timothy six, 10 makes it. He says that the love of money is the root of all evil. It's the love of money, not money. Isn't the root of all. It's the love of money. That's the root of all evil. Now it's easy to read this and say, well, richer, everyone else. 6 (43m 36s): We're the, you know, I'm the poorer person. But if you looked at the world's riches and, and where the money goes, Monaco somehow is at number one. And the average salary in Monaco is $186,000 a year. And down at the bottom number 58 is Afghanistan where they make $500 a year. Could you imagine trying to survive on $500 a year? Well, us and that list is about number seven. So there's 60, or there's 51 countries that are under us. As far as the wealth of the world, we have to be careful about the, how we use our money, although we don't. 6 (44m 20s): And this is how I believe this passage applies indirectly to us. We have to be careful with how we use our money. So I don't have People mowing my field, but how am I defrauding others? Well, I don't make my own clothes. So who makes my clothes? Who do I pay to make my clothes? And it's one of those things I begin to look at is where, where do my, where are my money going? Where, what is it supporting? And I look at things like the fast fashion industry, where like companies like H and M have 24 different styles a year that they put out and all that comes at a cost, cheap clothes comes at a, at, at a cost for someone. 6 (45m 3s): And often it's the person who's face. You never see who's working in a factory, whether they want to or not. And it's adult or children that are putting out these things that are, that make it easier for us to go to a, a store and buy a shirt for $12. The cost comes somewhere. And I just wonder how God is hearing the cries of those kids stuck in the factory overseas that are serving us by the things that we purchase and we buy and it's. But it's, I mean, it's really hard. It's really hard to look and figure out like ethical ways to buy clothes and man, an ethical pair of pants that, that, you know, they were paid, right? 6 (45m 43s): There's a cost to it. But I think it's one of those things that we should consider are we defrauding others by how we live. We are a rich nation. And once again, it's not the love of money. That's the root of all yield. It's the misuse of money that de that's bad, that deprives others. It's a way to look at your rich is that hurts or robs others. Like Jesus said where your heart is, where your, where your money is. That's where your heart is, right? 6 (46m 23s): Wealth is a spiritual handicap reread of that. And Luke 18, if you real, if you have your Bible with you turn real quickly to REU 18. In Luke 18, we have Jesus counseling, the rich young ruler. He comes to Jesus and says, Hey Jesus, what do I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus then begins to have a conversation with him and points him back to the, the 10 commandments. And, and the man's like, I I've done all these since my youth. What, what else do I need to do? And Jesus said, well, he, when he heard these things, he said, you still lack one thing, sell all that you have and distribute to the poor. And you will have treasure in heaven and come and follow me says when Jesus, when he heard this, he became very sorrowful because he was very rich. 6 (47m 11s): He wasn't willing to let his riches go. He trusted too much in his riches to then to trust in Jesus. And when Jesus saw verse 24, when Jesus saw that he had become very sorrowful, he said, how hard is it for those who have the riches to enter the kingdom of God for it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Then for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. And those who heard it said, who then can be saved. They hear these words of Jesus. They're like who who's saved. Then Jesus. He says the things which are impossible with men are possible with God. We have to be careful that we, as the new Testament church are very generous with our giving, that we don't, as we look into the things that are going around on around our world with inflation and cost of things, there's the tendency to hoard. 6 (47m 60s): There's a tendency to keep, keep, keep, well, I don't know what things I'm facing. And so we wanna hold onto it. We want to trust in those wealth. We want to trust in as Jesus put it. The Mamon, Mammon's a funny word, right? From Matthews chapter six. And it's literally, there's no word for it in the English it's Aramaic word that they just took from Aramaic and put straight into our English Bibles Mamon and the thought is wealth personified. It's that which is trusted in. So you trusting in your bank account, are you trusting in the things that you have, your, your gold and silver or we trusting in the living? 6 (48m 43s): God, there's so many things on the horizon that make me terrified. And I think, man, I wish I had a little bit more money in my counter. I wish I had this, or I wish I had that, but we have to realize that it's God who's promised to carry us through this. 8 (48m 59s): Amen. 6 (49m 0s): We trust in a living, God, let's go. The next few verses chapter starting verse seven, James is now gonna address the saints. Now he's gonna bring back the brethren. Now he's gonna address his people. His flock, his church verse seven says therefore, be patient brethren and the coming of the Lord. See he's addressing his audience in light of the oppression. That's happened around them. He's now gonna talk to his people. 6 (49m 41s): So therefore be patient brethren until the coming of the Lord. See how a farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it, for it until it receives the early and later reign he's he's now addressing them because of the oppression that's happened around the injustices. And he's gonna give examples of how to patiently wait, Cuz the patience is you gotta wait for the coming to the Lord. God will bring the justice. That is always the promise. The Bible it's God who, who, who will bring this justice. We look at the world and we think of how can all these injustices be made wrong? You know, Hitler got an easy way out for all the evil that he did in the world. 6 (50m 22s): He just took his life. And that, that ended everything. So where's the justice in, in, in his, for his life of the damage that he caused the hurt. Well, so the Bible says there, the justice will be found. He will have a judgment awaiting for him. So be patient brethren until the coming of Lord, see how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until he receives the early and later rate. This farmer is amazing. Cuz the farmer simply takes a seed. And this was a time before, you know, drip, irrigation and sprinklers and all that stuff. And a farmer simply took his seed and he placed in the ground as an act of faith, burying that thing and hoping for an increase, hoping that the rains would come in the right time. 6 (51m 6s): The early was the fall rain. And the later rain was the spring rain waiting for the God to send the reign that his crop might grow. And that says Christians, we're supposed to do. We, we send our wealth Ford, right? Our treasures are supposed to be in heaven, not here on the earth. Our seed gets planted where we can't see it. He says, you also be patient establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord. As at hand, what I wanna do really, really quickly is, is to bring us to a little bit of understanding of the Jewish thought Jewish thought. 6 (51m 48s): It was very dynamic. We as westerns, we have a Western way of thinking and the Jews had a Eastern way of thinking. Our way of think is very abstract. Like I said, we read, we read the book of by toes are called knowledge of the holy, where it takes different attributes of God and it separates it. It divides it, it makes a list. And that makes sense to our, our heads. The Jewish way of thinking was it does it's very dynamic. It doesn't, it doesn't do that. An example would be if, if an abstract thinker and a dynamic thinker were, were brought into a room into a science room and they were said, and they were both given a frog and said, Hey, tell me about the frog, explain the frog. 6 (52m 30s): Well, the abstract thinker would, would take this frog and we might measure it and weigh it. And then it might take a scalpel to it. And well, the lungs are this big and this, and, and begin to break it down that way. We want to understand the frog. Well, let's take it apart. Let's figure it out where the dynamic thinker, the, the Jewish mind might look at this frog and say, and take a step back and say, well, what type of environment does this frog wanna live in? What is its mating habits? What does it do? What does it eat? And it begins to look at it in a very different way. What does this frog do? And that's why in the Jewish understanding, and that's why the old Testament, it it's, there's so many examples because the Jewish mind wants to less understand of what God is like. 6 (53m 19s): As far as the attributes, the Jewish mind wants to understand what does God do? And if we understand what God does, then we can example, we can model what God does by doing what he does. It's a very different way of thinking. So that's why James now is gonna give these four examples. He could give the farmer. He gives an example, the farmer of what that culture would know what's happened around him. They would've all seen seeds being planted in the field. They would've all known of the early and the later reins. And now he's gonna give the example of the prophets, Establish your heart For the coming of the Lord is at hand verse eight, verse nine says, do not grumble against one other brethren, unless you be condemned. 6 (54m 6s): And that is something that needs to mark the church that we're not grumbling against each other. Pastor Steve's addressed this very well in the past few weeks is if you have any issue, if there's something that's bothering you, going speak to that person, don't go and talk to everyone else. Go directly to that person. Do not grumble against one another brethren. He's addressing this church less. You be condemned behold. The judge is standing at the door, my brother, and take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord as an example of suffering and patience. So now James is gonna use the, the Jewish dynamic thought of, of showing us an example of someone who, or people who did that example exactly who waited patiently for the Lord, who had had to establish hearts. 6 (54m 50s): There was the prophets, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord as an example of suffering and patience. Verse 11 says, indeed, we count them blessed who endured? You've heard of the perseverance of job and seen the intended by the Lord that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. It's interesting that the best old Testament commentary is found right here in the nude Testament. James is now giving a commentary on what he, his understanding of the book of job was it's very different than ours. 6 (55m 34s): The book, his understanding and the Jewish understanding of the book of job was that God, it says right here that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. If you know anything about the story of job, I don't, I don't read that. That's at least not the way I see it, but he was, God is very compassionate. Merciful. God didn't have to restore job. God didn't have to do all those things. We have outside appearance. Cuz we see, we see everything that happened. And we see the conversation between God and Satan. We see what happened behind the scenes. We see how Satan was allowed to take everything from job. Strange enough. He didn't take job's wife, cuz she told Joe later to, you know, curse God and die. 6 (56m 14s): I think Satan's like, well I don't need to take her out of the scene. She's she's on my side. But yet the end of the story job is restored. And the, the whole point of the story, according to James is that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. God, he didn't have to do that. And this is strange cuz verse 12, look at verse 12. This is, this is an awkward transition, a transition for me. And I've wrestled with this one all week. So he's talking about Joe, the intended by the Lord. And then he gets to verse 12 and he says, but above all my brethren do not swear either by heaven or earth or with any other oath, but let your yes. 6 (56m 57s): Be yes. And your no be no, unless you fall into judgment, like that's, that was a harsh transition for me. He goes from talking about, you know, the example, the farmer, then he talks about the profits. Then he talks about job and all of a sudden he goes, boom, let your yes be yes. And your no, no. Don't swear. So as I started studying, I started gripping with this first we start with the example of the farmer and that was a modern day example. That was what they would've understood. Then we get to the, he mentions the prophets. Then he mentions job. And now he's doing this well, I believe what James is doing is called a Kesher. 6 (57m 39s): It's called a Kesher it's a Hebrew word for connection. So what he's doing is he's providing a hyperlink. You know, hyperlink is when you're on a computer and you, and you see like something that's highlighted in blue, maybe underlined and you, you scroll your mouse over to it and it shows you another link. It shows you somewhere else that you can give you taken. It's a connection. A cashier in the Hebrew is a connection and it what it's doing, it's like it's reminding you of, of other things. So if I were to say towards the night before Christmas and all through the house, amazing, amazing. That's a, Kesier, that's a connection. I can say a few words. 6 (58m 20s): And then you all remember, and you're like, oh, Christmas, Christmas is coming way too soon. That's a, that's a connection. And so the hero mind and, and boys start and boys and girls both started studying the, the Torah from the time there were very, very little, so Jesus or James could say a few words and then their minds would remember all the things that that's connected to. That was very under understanding to them. So what I believe James is doing here is he's actually referencing Jesus reference back in Matthew five, turn there with me real fast. Matthew chapter five, no Bibles. 6 (59m 1s): I love Bible. I, I tell the youth group every, every Wednesday, I love to hear the Bibles. Turn love to hear the Bible's turn. Matthew chapter five versus 33. Jesus says again, you have heard that. It was said of those of old. You shall not swear falsely, but you shall perform your oath of the Lord. But I say to you do not, not swear at all, neither by heaven for his God's throne, nor the earth for his God's footstool, nor by Jerusalem for the, for that is the city of the great king, nor shall you swear by your head because you cannot make one hair white or black or make it grow, but less, but let your yes. Be yes. And your Nobi. 6 (59m 41s): No for whatever is more than these is from the evil word. Sorry for the evil one. So James is referencing Jesus right here. When he says, let your yes. B yes. And your Nobi. No. And Jesus is referencing the third commandment. The third commandment is from the book OFS, which is part of the law. So why am I saying that? Because this is the Jewish old Testament. I don't know why. And I haven't researched exactly why or, or how, but our, our old Testament is very much different than the Hebrew old Testament. The Hebrew old Testament is called The Torah, which is the law, the first five books, the Bible, it's the prophets, the net of him. 6 (1h 0m 29s): And then it's the writings or the KET of him. And so, yeah, they'll be, they'll be kind of scrolling up here. But so what James is doing in this passions as he's addresses this church is he's saying, therefore, be my brethren. I'm gonna give you an example of a farmer of what's happening around you. I'm gonna give you example from the prophets, the, the nevi I'm gonna give you an example from Joe, which is found in the writings and the Kevan. And then I'm gonna give you an abstract or a cashier that connects to the law, the law, the prophets, and the writings. They all point to this of, to how to patiently endure until the day of the Lord, how to live practically the law and the prophets that to knock James was Jewish. 6 (1h 1m 16s): And he addressing that Jewish audience. Does that make sense? All right, let's go to prayer and the needs of others. Verse 13, He says, if is anyone among you suffering? Once again, he's talking to his BN. Any among you, brethren suffering, let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing. Psalms, does anyone sick? Let him call to the elders of the church. And this has an Ecclesiastes feel, right? There's a time and a season for everything. There's some seasons in our life where we may be suffering. Well, God says, if you're suffering, then pray. Is anyone cheerful? Well, let, if he's cheerful, let him sing. Psalms. Maybe to encourage others. 6 (1h 1m 57s): Is anyone among you sick. We'll let him call for the elders of the church. There's seasons for everything. So my dad would always say, he says, as I am now, you will be. And as you are now, I once was, it was always a reminder that I would probably go bald someday when I made fun of his head and it's coming to true, it's coming true. Just season for everything. Is anyone among you? Sick? Let 'em call for the elders of the church. Plural. As in that, not one of the elders might be said to have been the one who prayed the healing, prayer, but elders as in a multitude elders of the church and let them pray over them, anointed them with oil and the name of the Lord And the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up as if enough and his hand, if he has committed sins, he'll be forgiven says, confess your fault to your trespass, to one other. 6 (1h 2m 59s): Pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much that word Tove speaks of force of strength of power and who is righteous. Well, none is righteous, but the Lord, but we can be by Jesus in right standing before God, because of what Jesus did. And when we have that right standing before God, we can have effective inferent prayer. And once again, and James is now gonna give us an example of what that effective prayer does. 6 (1h 3m 45s): What does prayer do? Well, this is what it does. It says Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And it did not rain in the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its fruit. What does prayer do? Prayer can hold back the reign once again, this is a commentary in the old Testament, because it doesn't say in the old Testament, how long the prayer the drought was for it just simply said that Elijah God told Elijah to pray to stop the reign, Elijah prayed and stop the reign. And then He told him to go to Brook chair, where, where he hung out for a while. 6 (1h 4m 26s): Then he went to the widow's house and then he fought against the 400 of the prophets of the all where God sent down fire. And then at the end of that, then he, he was told to pray for prayer, but that was a three spirit period of three and a half years, which is interesting because there also says that in RO revelation 11, there's gonna be two mysterious witnesses that are gonna be given power over to stop the reign. And they'll be, have that power for three and a half years. It's interesting that two men showed up to Jesus on the Mount of trans configuration was Moses Elijah. But Elijah says was a man with a nature like ours. 6 (1h 5m 7s): What does that mean? It means he was just like us. And yet he was able to withhold the reign. He was able to hold drought. It's not the merit of a man, but the grace of God, prayer should always mark the life of believer. And finally, here we come to the, the place of what to do with those who haven't been patient or persevered, What do we do? What do we do? How do we help those? And this is what we do. Verse 19 brethren. If anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, let him let him know that he who turns a sinner back from air of the way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. 6 (1h 5m 49s): Jesus told the parable that the shepherd, the good shepherd that left the 99 to go and seek and save that one, recall to bring back the air don't don't gossip about them. Don't forget them. Keep them in your prayers. Keep reaching out the Lord. We'll save a soul from death. It takes endurance to do that. Takes endurance. To see someone who's fallen behind and to keep going after them and keep encouraging them. Years ago, I had the opportunity to, to climb Mount Shasta with, with a couple friends, Brenton Jayman and, and decided to climb it in January. 6 (1h 6m 39s): I don't know why in the middle of the winter got our ice ax, boots, crampons, all that stuff. We, we camped out at high camp. The first night at 10,000 feet woke up the next morning. Everything's all iced over. Put on our crampons ice ax. We began climbing Mount Shasta all morning. We're looking at what we thought was the summit Sun finally came up. I could start to feel my toes again. That was, that was a glorious feeling. And all morning we kept treking up about, about one o'clock in the afternoon after starting at 4:00 AM we, we, we reached what we thought was the summit came over the rise and only to be so disappointed because there stood before us misery hill and is exactly what it sounds like misery, Hill's only 400 feet in elevation, but somehow the what, what the, the wind had messed with the snow and ice and each step was about 18 inches. 6 (1h 7m 34s): And I was like, there's no way I can do this. But with the encouragement of my two friends, cuz I had just gone from Santa Barbara, which is, you know, elevation zero up to, you know, almost 14,000 feet and not my lungs were burning. I was like, I don't know how we do this. But step by step, we made it up misery hill and I was like, okay, misery, Hill's the top. That's it. We're we're good to go. We'll get up there. We'll be on the summit, take our pictures and come down. We get the top as misery hill and there's about 300 yards. And then another rise to the summit. And I looked at that and I was just gased I was spent, I, I just fell back in the snow and I laid there and Brent and Jamie were like, come on, alright, we gotta get this. We gotta do this. I'm like, no guys, you gotta leave me. 6 (1h 8m 16s): I, I can't do this. I cannot physically do this anymore. And lo and behold, they just kept, come on, Jeremy, you, you, you're gonna, you're gonna regret this. Come on, come on, come on. And they kept encouraged me until finally they pulled me up, stood up when we made the summit, but I would not have made it without the encouragement of those others. Not said, come on, you can do this. I would not made it. And so maybe it's just the endurance that some of us have that we're called in. Be that as encouragers to those around us. Let's pray, Lord, we thank you for your word. Lord. 6 (1h 8m 58s): Think that you're so gracious to give us direction on, on how to use wealth and what to do with what we, what you've entrusted us with. Lord, not to put our trust in the things of this world, Lord, but we put our trust toll in you. God establish our hearts. Lord establish our hearts with the what's what's on the horizon. Lord, what we don't know. But Lord you do. And so Lord, we look to you, Jesus and Lord, if there's some around us who have wandered Lord who have strayed, who've aired, Lord help us to know how to reach out to them. Encourage them. Lord, help us to know how to, to, to lift them up. Lord, look to you this morning, Jesus name we pray. 0 (1h 9m 41s): And 6 (1h 9m 42s): Then let's worship. 0 (1h 10m 23s): I see the stars. I wow. How great thou, how great thou was 3 (1h 11m 13s): Soul. 0 (1h 11m 16s): My 3 (1h 11m 35s): And when I, that God, his son not very sent him to died and sin how great the, how great the sings. 3 (1h 12m 50s): My so then I, how great sings, 9 (1h 15m 10s): How great you are, father, how much you love each one of us here right now, father, may we bless you today? May we bless someone else today? May we listen again in our minds? What we learned today? Wonderful words that Jeremy spoke. May we apply that to our lives and may we be a witness to others? Lord, please bless everyone as we leave. And we do have a prayer group up here for prayer. So everyone says, amen.