Jim Styles - Class 2: Mercy Triumps over Judgement

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Well, we got a few things from chapter one, to still finish up, but hopefully, this will be the ketchup class. The background information from chapter 1. Hope you don’t mind. I went back into some of that, a bit. I didn’t spend a lot of time in the background, but I really do think it helps to have a bit of that background in our minds. As to, why James wrote the letter, what was happening in the Ecclesia at that time, just in case we did miss it, I do want to make sure we got straight what? This is all built on the whole premise of this letter really comes in the first eight verses of the book so you want to go At some point in box, those in or whatever, at least make a note there, that really, this whole issue is a is built on the concept of believing that God is in our trials. And these trials are being used by God in order to develop patience and kindness and perseverance in us so that we might learn the character of God. And if we don’t follow that, if we don’t believe that’s the case.

2. 0:54

   And Trust the things that God’s bring in our life, then in James’s perspective, or like somebody who’s out there and were driven. And by the waves of the sea and we go up one day and down another, where his floating with the waves and we’re not consistently realizing that God is working in our life. And he calls that the double minded man. Got two minds and how we look at life, and we’re constantly fighting back and forth our own head as, to whether gods in it or isn’t in it.

3. 1:19

   And what that leads to then is a lot of occlusal trouble, family problems, and strife and us doing things our way. And then the rest of this letter is going to look at all those different issues. So what that’s actually, I think what James is headed at, if any of you are interested in ever listening to him again, probably once through the north, but if you are, if you want to listen to him again or, you know, somebody else, it wants to, I’ll try to put the classes either tomorrow or when I get home tomorrow, probably in a power points out on that website. My son Andrew who I have to thank and of course he’s my tech man.

4. 1:52

   Who I’m not, I don’t have today, or he’d be doing all this. He’s the one that said, all this stuff up and it’s great. He’s got a wonderful website set up. For our kaliesha and he took all the cassette tapes I used to have at home and he’s pilot, he’s put them all in MP3, format out on that website that lets www.atlona.com l in there Livonia tapes.com. And he’s literally got probably, I don’t know. It’s 1,300 classes out there right now. In MP3 format, you can just download them, put them on your mp3 player and listen to them.

5. 2:23

   So, if you happen to be like a, so he likes to listen to classes. Like me, you’ll like that website. It’s got a lot of good stuff there. Back, if you don’t like my classes on James, we’ve got that John almonds classes around everything John Knowles. We got John Martin. There’s a bunch of different people.

6. 2:37

   So if you don’t like what I have to say, you can listen to there’s instead, that might even be better. Anyways, that’s Livonia tips.com to finish up the chipper one, just so you can see where we’re at at the end of chapter 1 because it is a lead-in and to chapter 2 and really, what James does at the end of chapter one? Is he stood a whet?

7. 2:55

   Your appetite for all the rest of the letter? He just give you little bits and pieces of them. Like this issue about the father being every perfect gift coming down from the father and verse 17 and said, he’s a, he’s a, the Father of Lights with whom there is no variableness, neither, shadow of turning that concept about out in nature that this is the way the planets are set up and this is the way God runs.

8. 3:17

   He’s going to use that as the basis for chapter 2 that we can’t show partiality. That’s that’s how he brings up the issue he touches on it and chapter 1 and deals with it again in Chapter 2, if the end of chapter one year, Seeing this little section here from verses 19 to 27, that he goes into The Godly characteristics that we need to have in order for us to approach our trials, the right way, if we don’t have these Godly characteristics and what God’s trying to do is develop them and us and that’s what he’s using these trials for.

9. 3:48

   So if we’re single minded, then if we have this concept straight in our head, that God is in our troubles and he’s trying to help us through them so that we can learn to live forever and have immortality, and he can introduce Just us with that. Then we approach these trials the right way.

10. 4:03

    We respond the right way ourselves with our God. And we also treat each other the right way. And this was one of the big problems. James was having people that have conflict in life. It’s a lot of the times it’s because we’re not settled with our God. We don’t realize what our God’s doing and we get frustrated, we get so frustrated.

11. 4:22

    We take it out on somebody else. So we say things we should have never said he’s going to deal with the tongue and chapter 3 when we get to that about. We got to learn to control that tongue. We can’t just lash out at each other and single-minded people won’t do that because they’ll understand that God is in it. So it’s just it’s a it’s almost like a philosophy of life that we have to have.

12. 4:43

    It’s what God’s doing with all of his family members. It’s part of the family of God is that we trust and believe that he’s in all these things and he’s doing it for our good, that we might share his Holiness. So he goes in and verses 19 through the end of the chapter.

13. 4:59

    Then it looks at some of these things and we’ll just look through a few of them real quickly and then go into chapter 2. So, the lesson for us in verse 19 was you see, therefore, he says my brethren because this is the kind of God, that we have at the end of verse 18 there that of his own will. He’s brought us forth by the word of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits.

14. 5:15

    He’s like, he’s like planted us and he’s got, we’re growing up for him, hoping that we’re going to grow. We’re going to produce. So we’re going to produce fruit and it will be firstfruits of his creatures. This is the new creation that James is looking at not that the creation that we are. By birth, see the creation that we are by birth and the natural man.

15. 5:34

    What we do is we see with our eyes and we desire it and then it’s in conceives in our heart and we go after it, you see. And then it goes through this process of leading to death. That’s the natural man. But what God’s trying to do is develop something different in his creatures in his family members so that instead of responding, like that will receive this implanted word that he’s going to put in us and he’s going to grow something that will produce fruit.

16. 6:00

    To him that for which he can grant immortality forever. So, verse 19, he says, look, what we need to do is we got to be swift to hear. So be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to wrath slow to wrath. Because all of this other stuff, the wrath of man in verse 20 does not produce the righteousness of God.

17. 6:22

    So, this is something we can work at. And this is typical James because otherwise, you could just listen to me today. Talk about lessons in life things. We To do great, High sandal, doctrinal issues or whatever and go home and think, well, you know, that’s fine. I believe all that stuff. Great. But when James gets to the Practical things, it says all right.

18. 6:39

    Now, how you doing on this? Are you the kind of person that’s quick to hear when somebody wants to talk about something? Are we willing to listen? I mean really listen and understand what the person is thinking, that’s what we need to do. We need to understand and so we can jump into their perspective and repeat back and we really understand where they’re coming from, let’s be quick to hear and that That will make the slow to speak so that will help zip that that mouth up a little bit.

19. 7:04

    So we don’t react the wrong way and we don’t just jump on somebody because what we think what we think they think we’re going to listen instead and then we’re going to be slow to wrath let’s not get angry right away at people because it doesn’t produce the righteousness of God, that’s the problem.

20. 7:20

    It when we’re trying to live, like godly people. So we don’t want to be like that. We want to learn to overcome those things so that we can really be single-minded and believe that God is in it. Even when somebody comes to us in on a Sunday or there during the week, somebody calls us up and they say something they shouldn’t say and they get us angry.

21. 7:38

    We have to realize that God is aware of all that he knows what’s going on. And this could be just one of those is one of those situations in life where he’s waiting to see, how are we going to respond? No, not what did they do wrong? What am I going to respond to on this? This is an opportunity for me to find out whether I’m growing in the truth, whether I’m going to respond the right way. See, that’s a different perspective. What single-mindedness does as opposed to the double minded man just ago.

22. 8:04

    They should have said it to me and we lash out at them. I’m going to get there. We going to find some way to get back at that and correct that problem and all that, that’s what double mindedness does. And single-mindedness isn’t like that and single-mindedness brings peace and Harmony and it just it’s a different perspective and it brings the righteousness of God. I mean, that’s the problem.

23. 8:24

    The wrath of man is not going to do that. It’s not going to turn us into people that are going to go out there and work. Work for others, and James is going to give us some specifics on what the righteousness of God is. And it’s not just having a bunch of doctrinal issues that we believe the right doctrines and we belong to the right Church. The righteousness of God is when we get out there and we visit people that are sick, we go out and look for the orphans, we help the older folks that need help and occlusal life. We do whatever is needed in ackley’s whole life to help other people.

24. 8:52

    That’s James is perspective of the righteousness of God. It’s the right way of living, where we learn to help other people out. His point is that the way this is accomplished in verse 21 of chapter one, the way we’re going to do this is we’re going to lay aside all this filthiness and overflow of wickedness. We’re going to put that stuff out of us that we are by nature and instead we’re going to receive the implanted word. See this is not something that comes from inside our heads. This is something that we have to take into us. It’s implanted into us.

25. 9:25

    And this is why, when we leave this place this weekend, we have to be more committed. The Young Apple and the parents that are here and the older ones, we all know, we have to be receiving the word daily, you have to be reading our Bibles otherwise we’re going to see all these other things coming out in us and we’re going to we’re going to use our tongue the wrong way. And we’re going to say things we shouldn’t have said and think things we’re going to be really fast to respond to somebody and we’re going to do the wrath of man. But if we receive the word and it’s like having an operation in US wear something, literally we get cut open and the word gets put into us, it’s implanted.

26. 10:00

    In to us because it’s foreign to our thinking. If we get that word into us, that implanted word is able to save your souls and we’ve got to be committed to doing that more often. And if we knew those of us that were sick if we do, you know that people that have illnesses and we knew for sure, there was a magic pill at home.

27. 10:20

    And the doctors said, look, take one of these every day and you’ll feel you’re going to feel so much better. All this illness it’s in you is going to go away. We’d all take A whole bottle of them home with us and everybody would take them every day but there it is. It’s that’s it. It’s the word and we just got to be willing to do it. It’s it takes some effort on our part but it’s just like heaven, the magic pill and it is going to change our life. It’s slowly going to turn us into examples of the Lord Jesus Christ and we will follow in the steps of our heavenly father. So James is point is that look when you do this and you receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls, what this is going to do is it’ll turn you into Doer of the word and not just a hearer, you’re not going to be able to just sit there anymore and watch other people. You’re going to have to become involved. You’re going to have to be because this is what the word will drive you to do.

28. 11:10

    When you read your Bibles in your home and you see what all these active people did and how they were involved, you won’t be able to sit there anymore and just say well, that’s nice. Watch everybody else work and somebody has something that they need and they need food or clothing. Whatever, we just watch them, you can’t do that anymore, because we’re involved in the word and looking at the Bible examples, there’s Interesting article on the internet, just wasn’t too long ago back in March, and I was working on these classes or something else it’s time.

29. 11:36

    And I thought, that’s, that’s certainly true. And it took scientists years to figure it out. People do all kinds of studies about money and money and does money bring happiness. And what they were surprised to find over years is that a lot of times, they discovered that money doesn’t bring happiness. Somebody wins the lottery and all the sudden they got a million dollars and they track him through life and find out. It didn’t really bring happiness to them or you track some of these Sports characters.

30. 11:59

    It get millions of Isn’t you find out later on in life? That their bodies are worn out and they’ve spent all their money and they wasted their money in different places. It really didn’t bring happiness, what they never had looked at I guess, until this study was how people spent their money and much to, everybody’s surprise, what the Bible had said all along, is if you really want happiness, for money, money can bring happiness, but they’ll spend it on somebody else.

31. 12:21

    It’s such a simple concept, we don’t just spend it on ourselves. We spent it on somebody else and that’s what really brings happiness. Gnu, when you help other people. And some of you have known that all along. You’ve found that out just by reading your Bible that we don’t just seek. What’s what’s working for us? You see a need for somebody else, it’s spend the money on them and you make sure that other people are taken care of. So the mirror test is James gives it to us in verse 23 there, if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in the mirror and he observes himself and goes away for immediately forgets. What kind of man?

32. 12:57

    He was. So, you know, this is so practical. James he gives us the little mirror test, he says, look if we re if we do our readings at home and we do our Bible readings or we come to a place like this and we read and we listen to these classes and we talk to each other. We get a lot of Pumped up motivation, it’s like the mirror test.

33. 13:13

    See the natural man looks at himself in the mirror sees what he sees and walks away and in five minutes forgets it all and at sometimes that’s all it takes. You look like sometimes, I remember being a young person, you go. Sometimes the class was like this to the weekend and you hear all these things that we can do when we Get home, you know, the commitment to do the Bible ratings, get out to meeting help.

34. 13:33

    People look around in a collegial, life of what we can do in 10 minutes down the road. It’s like, wow, that’s gone and it’s on the school back to work and all the different things come back into our life. And we leave the Gathering and it’s like wow where we ever really there and by Monday morning and you’re back at work and you’re back at school and you’re back into those classes. You doing all that stuff you wanted like, did I really go away for the weekend and it’s like gone and that’s the problem with the natural man it’s just gone like that. And if Are getting the Bible’s out again on Monday and getting back to this again, then it’s lost in all the effort of coming here is gone at that point.

35. 14:08

    And so, we’ve got to have that consistent. We can’t just look in the mirror. Walk away and not come back and look. Again, we’ve got to come back and look again or once in a while. We find this. Some people that when they looked and do the mirror test, that what they see in the mirror isn’t really what is on the other side and see that happens to sometimes, we sort of deceive ourselves as James says in here. And what We see in the mirror isn’t really what’s on the other side.

36. 14:33

    So we’ve got to be honest with ourselves and realize that we’re looking at ourselves in the mirror. These are the issues we need to work on and let’s face it. Nobody here, has am all figured out we’ve all got to go home. Everyone of us, myself included, and we work on these issues next week. That’s what we’re here for.

37. 14:49

    So he says, in verse 25, them in contrast to the man who forgets what kind of man that he was the meant, what the, what the godly man does is he who looks into the law of Liberty? Then continues in, it is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work and this one will be blessed in what he does.

38. 15:07

    So the law of Liberty, the law of Liberty, this comes up in James’s writings, it also comes up in Paul’s, this is not another one of these issues where you can see that James and Paul are on the same wavelength. They both used this phrase about the law of Liberty and you might not like, how could they both do that when they’re coming from different perspectives?

39. 15:25

    One of them’s, coming from the perspective of the judaizers is, I like work, work, work, work, work, and the other, Coming from the perspective, James here of the people that were like just sitting back and watching and joining the grace of God and they weren’t involved. But see in both cases in both cases, the law of Liberty is the freedom that we have in Christ.

40. 15:44

    The freedom to not be bound anymore. Like Paul would stay to a ritualistic series of laws. That says you got to do this. This this this is but you don’t want to help out in those that you don’t have to help out notice. You don’t have to help out in that because all you do is follow this, this is this and go through these checklists. List and Paul says, you’ve been freed from that, we’ve been freed to love one another and to serve one another through love. That’s the freedom that Paul says, we have in James, on the other hand, he looks into the law of Liberty and he says, look this law of Liberty is now going to free you. Not so that you can sit there and sit back in our chair and do all of our things.

41. 16:20

    And you know, go home and watch our TVs and be involved in all the things of this life that we want to do and not be involved in a collegial. This law of Liberty is going to You free from that to become workers for God, slaves of God become real workers. Like the, like Abraham was like a, like a ray AB was, and he’s going to give us some specific examples of how this actually comes to pass.

42. 16:42

    So this one will be blessed in what he does. So you got to look into that law of Liberty and it’s the law of Liberty. Its entry calls it, the law because of course, the Jews would have been big on their law. But this is a law that frees you from the limits of the law of Moses.

43. 16:58

    It frees you to become an active member of the family of God, living out the character of God and all the different things that you do. And so, you can see that that law of Liberty, phrase is picked up a bunch of times in the New Testament. When the Apostle Paul refers to our freedom. He says in First Corinthians 10 that he calls it, the freedom that we have a freedom to eat, that’s part of the law of Liberty, the freedom to eat all the different foods. James refers to adhere in chapter 1. First Peter Peter refers to it, don’t misuse your Liberty. He warns them.

44. 17:28

    See if the Liberties that we have But you can, it’s not just the freedom to be free from all the work, and now we’re free from everything. They’ll do anything anymore. It’s a freedom to be free to do what we should have been doing all along. That’s what we’ve been free to do. We’ve been comfrey, as Paul would say, you’re free from being slaves of sin to where now you are slaves of God, that that’s the freedom that we have.

45. 17:51

    And if any of us think that we’ve got a freedom that what in crisis, our freedom is just that. Now, we were free, we don’t have to do anything. We’re free from sin, and we’re just free to do our own. In life, that isn’t what the using this law of Liberty for a tall, Paul refers to it in, Romans 8, that way, when he talks about the law of the Senate, love sin and death, and the, the law of the spirit of life has set us free from the law of sin and death. Or I love Paul’s phrase in Galatians. Here, he says that we are freed to serve one another through love.

46. 18:18

    That’s the freedom that we’ve been given. So notice because this is such a problem, James three times three times. At the end of chapter one, did you catch those three times? He says, Alt be deceived. That is see when that happens, you know, that’s a warning to every one of us here that we can listen to these classes, we can read our Bibles. We can do.

47. 18:40

    We can read quickly through James chapter 1, and we could miss the fact that James warns us that this is not going to be something. The old man wants to hear. I mean, our fleshly thinking doesn’t want to do this and so he three times he points out in verse in verse 16 to 18 there.

48. 18:56

    When he talks that verse 16, don’t be deceived my brethren and he’s talking about every good and Gift coming down from God. We leads into this issue of partiality that God loves you and he’s good to everybody and so should you. He brought he mentioned up again about being deceived down in verse 22, so he says there, but the doers of, but the doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves, you see. Our natural mind is so good at this. We can go home and we can go back to everything the way it was Monday morning and we can deceive our minds into Aching word, just fine and dandy and we’re living the truth. The way we had been before and we don’t make any change. We don’t really, we’re not really doing it. We’re not really involved in a collegial life or not, really helping other people out.

49. 19:44

    Some of us could do that. We can deceive ourselves, we think. Well, we’re okay, because we’ve got the right religion, we believe the truth, we understand the statement of faith and we have all the doctrines to see, that’s, that’s mental, deception. Brothers and sisters. If it isn’t changing our life. If we lash out at people in the way we talk, and we ate, we have evil. Up about each other.

50. 20:04

    We’re just deceiving ourselves, our natural model do that. And in verse 26, he mentions it again. For anyone among you thinks he’s religious and does not Bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart. This one’s religion is useless. We talked about putting it out on the table that can anybody missed that? James doesn’t miss the words, he just calls a spade.

51. 20:24

    A spade and says, if you think you’ve got the right religion and your religion isn’t strong enough to control your tongue and what you say to each other. Other what you say to your parents and what the parents say to their kids and what you say to your spouse’s in your own homes, when nobody else is there to here? If your religion isn’t an isn’t strong enough to control that your religions useless, Useless.

52. 20:49

    So what if you have the right doctrines, it’s not impacting your life. You’re not becoming a child of God children of God’s just don’t have the right religion, have the right way of life. And that’s what they’re after. This would have been what Jesus had been trying, to convince James of all of his early life. And James would have been a good Pharisee. Probably growing up, following the law, doing all those things, going through the checklist.

53. 21:11

    And he would have heard Jesus say this over and over and over again. It’s all about how you live. It’s The Sermon on the Mount. It’s all about your way of life and so, you know, James now is just coming back and hitting the same issues with these people. That had the right bullies, they had the right religion, but the religion had no power, no power to change their life. So be careful.

54. 21:32

    It shows when he uses that three times, that’s a warning to ourselves, we’re really good at deceiving ourselves. We look in the mirror, we see a face and we walk away in a few minutes and we forget what we heard today. Are we forget what James had to say? And we go home and we just go back to our old ways.

55. 21:48

    Of life. We got to be careful that we don’t do those things as well. Don’t be deceived because pure and undefiled religion. You see what James does? Not as he gives you a practical example to say, all right, how are you doing on this? Have you deceived yourself and is practical? Example is to take some cases right here of people who can’t pay back you.

56. 22:08

    So he talks about the widows and the orphans as your religion, strong enough to make you do something for somebody else. Knowing that Never going to be able to give you anything back in return. I mean like Jesus said, I mean even the Gentiles to do, those kind of things if you take care of the Rich and they have you back over and you expect a bad kind of thing, even the Gentiles do that.

57. 22:30

    But if your, if your religion is strong enough to change your life to where you do things for God and you help people out, you see a need in a collegial life and somebody has a need, they need something, whatever it is, economics food, anything, somebody do a Bible class with them. Somebody come over and visit that.

58. 22:47

    Whatever it is. And realize you’re never going to get payback from that person. If your religion is doing that and it’s motivating you to help other people like that, then your religion has power. But if it doesn’t it’s useless because it’s not changing your life. And you look at the young people that are here.

59. 23:03

    Look at how many young people need you. When you go back home, all I of people are struggling. They’re going through troubles at school, they have family problems. Is your religion strong enough to take another young person and call him up every day. Cinnamon emails, A text message and keep in contact with a person and help them through their troubled.

60. 23:22

    Times is the truth strong enough in your life to do that? Is it worth that kind of effort or are we just here so that, you know, we can hear, you know, we’re here for our families there were here. Just because, you know, it’s a nice place to come, you know, nice place to be here.

61. 23:36

    They feed us good, they take care of us and it’s a good social Gathering. You see? This is the kind of stuff. James is trying to get us to Think Through. Is this going to change your life? Or are we just going to keep going the same old way? And so it’s a very practical thing to bring up the widows and the orphans in their trouble because they can’t help us. And the other thing that he balances that with at, this is perfect James right here.

62. 23:58

    He brings up two things and he mentions, first of all, the widows and the orphans. There’s there’s a test and secondly is the truth strong enough to keep you unspotted from the world. Is this changing your life to make decisions so that you don’t become involved in the things of this world that we shouldn’t be involved in?

63. 24:15

    So it’s a great balance between the the Things of the of the occlusal life for people that need our help and then those things that we need to work on about ourselves to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. And that’s why I like James, he’s very practical. He doesn’t just throw an issue out there.

64. 24:30

    He throws an issue out there and then gives us a measuring stick as to. How are we doing now? You see when you go home it may not be the widows and the orphans in eurycleia it might be somebody else, but that’s what you have to think about here. Today. We all have to be thinking about what can we do to help?

65. 24:47

    Maybe it’s Sunday. A school, maybe it’s in cyc, whatever it happens to be it. Maybe it’s something like Hall cleaning, you need somebody to clean the hall, and there’s not enough people to do. It is our religion strong enough to help us do things for others. Realizing there’s no payback. Right now, the payback is in the fact that we’re part of God’s family and he loves us and he’s going to give us eternal life.

66. 25:08

    That’s the payback, not something that we get right now in this world. So what kind of religion do we have brother and sisters? If it went and young people is it one that just looks good from the outside. We tell our friends that we just don’t have, we believe the truth, we have the truth. Or is it a religion?

67. 25:22

    That’s changing our life and that’s I think really that’s what James is going to try to do now in chapters 2, 3 & 4 is, he’s going to look at it and 5 as well. He’s going to look at some specific issues that we can examine our own lives and find out how we doing, how are we really doing and changing our lives to learn to live for God.

68. 25:40

    Now, what happens then in the next four chapters in 2 3 4 5 is that James brings up most of these same issues. He’s touched on at the end here in chapter one and he’s going to deal with that with some specific cases of how you can find out how you’re doing and areas that they all need to change. So, the issue of partiality comes up in chapter two, right off the bat as you saw in the reading and that was from back in chapter 18 verse 17.

69. 26:05

    We got the doers of the word that he mentioned here in chapter one at verse 22 and that’s going to come up again and 2:14 the tongue, the idea of like controlling your tongue and verse 26 of chapter Is going to come up again in chapter 3 and verse 5, the wisdom that is from above.

70. 26:22

    He’s going to touch on it again in chapter 38 verse 13. The fighting’s and the wars that were going on is to you know whether you can control the wrath of man that the righteousness of God is not done by the wrath of man is going to come up and check her for humbling yourselves.

71. 26:37

    Came up in chapter one. You look at 1:21, it’s going to be again in chapter 4 and the rich in their Pursuits is going to be all over the place in this book. Patience comes up again in helping the sick. So the rest of the letter, what James does is he lays out the basic framework and now he’s going to give all these specific things to help us. Understand how are we doing?

72. 26:58

    How we doing these issues? Now, for some of you you might look at Jeffers 2, 3, 4 and 5. And you say well you don’t have any problem with those specific issues but what they are is they’re like they’re like specific cases. That the Ecclesia was having trouble with at that time and what we have to do today is look at well, how are we doing on those issues and what Other issues have crept into our ecclesial or our family life that we can take the same lessons as James, and then apply those in our Ecclesia and our lives. So, in Chapter 2, here’s what he does. He sets out to find out.

73. 27:31

    Are you a doer? Are you a doer of the word? Because when most people read chapter one and they say, well, you got to be a doer of the word but be a doer of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves, most of us, read that we all go away thinking. Oh I’m a doer.

74. 27:45

    I mean, let’s face it hands up. Who thought they weren’t to do her. I mean, most of us all do. We all think we’re a doer. So what James does now is he says, all right, here’s what doers of the word really do and then he gives you specifics to find out. Well, are you really a doer or did you just deceive yourself and you thought you were a doer or maybe you had a few items over here that you’re a good doer in but oh you got a whole bunch of over here that on Annika.

75. 28:10

    Do that. I’m going to do that. I didn’t know. God expected me to do that. And so he gives the specifics about what was causing the trouble. Then in a lot of these things are still causing trouble now. So one of them is favoritism Prejudice, so we might think we’re a doer of the word but then when it comes time to really treating everybody equal in a collegial life, do we really loved everybody and the Ecclesia? Do we really treat them all the same or do we have little rankings based on, you know, their family names based on where they came from.

76. 28:43

    You look back in the first century. Look at the Jewish Gentile. We have even got to that yet. And that was going to become the big Prejudice issue later on this issue. Really, never did get salt and Paul had to pick it up and keep working at it. And so, is it any big surprise that it’s still a problem today.

77. 28:58

    And what happens when we prejudge each other, is it? We judge we start to become judgers based on how somebody dresses and based on what kind of car they drive and all those kind of things are based on their economic status or what Bible version that they use. You see, we still You’re thinking why don’t do that? Well I don’t do that but do we if you really look at all the cases of prejudice and prejudging that goes on, maybe do a little more of it than we thought and that’s one of the areas that we can work on.

78. 29:26

    So James is going to look at that and then he’s going to look at the rest of chapter 2. With whether we have an active Faith, an Act of Faith, that’s expressed and works of Faith. Or is our faith, just a very passive one where? Oh yeah. I believe the truth. I believe the truth. So the Lord Of Glory comes up.

79. 29:41

    Ready to be getting in verse 1 and for any of you that like to do any Bible, King and James chapter 28 verse 1. Don’t hold the faith, he says of the Lord, Jesus Christ, the lord of Glory with partiality. So he’s going to get right off into this issue of partiality. Now, he may have mentioned this phrase, the Lord Of Glory that comes up.

80. 29:59

    The Apostle. Paul uses it as well in First Corinthians 2 and when Paul uses that phrase, the Lord Of Glory, he’s using it from the concept of the glory going out, like, the father of lights. And when the glory goes out, you say, when Paul uses that phrase and call him, the Lord of, Laurie and First Corinthians 2, Paul is now dealing with the Jew and Gentile issue, he’s trying to get them to see that.

81. 30:20

    Look, we only have one God and he shines, his glory on the Jews and on the Gentiles and he’s Paul is later on from James constantly, trying to deal with it, with the Jew, Gentile issue, James may bring it up in this case because he’s trying to get them to see that they can’t show partiality The Lord Of Glory Shines on them all. And we’ve got to learn to reflect that just like God. So you can’t claim that you’re a follower. Lower that you have the faith of Jesus Christ, the lord of glory and then decide who you want to let that Glory China Sea, we can’t do that.

82. 30:53

    That’s that’s God’s choice, not ours and that may be why he brings it up in this chapter and it looking back at that issue of the Father of Lights, like the stars. So favoritism, when you look at how this works, this whole first section in Chapter 2, verses 1 all the way down to 13 really is connected with this issue. Of favoritism favoritism are partiality. It’s based on outward appearance. We find some external thing about our brothers and sisters or our family members or our parents, or our children, that makes us make decisions about whether or not, they’re really, really legitimate members of the Ecclesia are members of the family of God.

83. 31:28

    And then, what we do, you see in our little Minds, what we do is we spay, we pay special, special attention to the ones who fit our categories. You see, we give them extra special attention, and for the people that don’t, we sort of subtly, it was just still pretend, they’re not there, or we sort of give them The Leftovers kind of thing.

84. 31:46

    Now, you know, we may not realize that we’re doing that sometimes, but if you think about it in a collegial life, I think most of us with human nature. In our families. We do we have mechanisms that have been set up where we have our favorites, our fave five, you see that on our little occlusal phone and that’s what we do. And our problem is, when we establish that we established on the basis of what we like, what we Rank and all that kind of thing, not on the basis of who’s really, a member of the family of God.

85. 32:15

    Does God? Look at them and what James is trying to get them do is get out of the box for a minute and realize, God loves them all. There are no fave fives. There are no special cases in a collegial life. There is nobody up here and somebody down there, they’re all members of the family of God and we have to treat them that way.

86. 32:32

    We can’t give special seats to people. We can’t give them special treatment. I mean that’s that’s what he’s really after. It’s not a good idea to do that and a collegial life. If anything you know you want to try try to help the ones who have the Greatest needs not to just bend over and backwards and help the people at already already had the needs satisfied.

87. 32:51

    And what James says about this whole concept of paying attention to you? No, he what he does. He says, look the man in verse 2, he comes into your assembly and he’s got the gold rings and the fine apparel and he comes in. Then there’s the poor man in the filthy clothes. We were just having this discussion at breakfast over there, this morning about whether or not close matter. You see in a collegial life and see christadelphians are good at putting a real emphasis on the clothes. Big on that.

88. 33:16

    But if you had been alive in James’s Ecclesia at this time and you were a member of the family of God back here, this this is a problem back then too. And the tendency is to look at people coming in the doors, look at how they’re dressed and make a decision about them and we can’t do that brothers and sisters or young people. We have no idea how God views that person. We don’t know that based on their clothes, we don’t know their economic situation and what they’re really doing. You don’t know that about a person and God doesn’t care about the Close like we do.

89. 33:46

    He looks upon the heart now. That doesn’t mean we purposely dress up in rags. That’s not what I’m getting at. What we got to do is put the blinders on and quit, looking at the externals. Don’t judge people by the cars. They drive by the clothes, they wear and all those externals. We if we do that we will become as he says here at the end of verse 4, he says look you’ve shown partiality, amongst yourselves and you become judges with evil I thought that’s not judges of evil thoughts. You see.

90. 34:19

    It’s judges with evil thoughts. Most of the modern versions fix that up. You’ve got evil thoughts in your head. You’re not like God, you’re not like one of God’s children you’re judging people on the basis of external appearance now. And I was the issue with Saul and David When God says you know God could I wouldn’t win. Single said God doesn’t look on the outward appearance. He looks on the heart and we read the passages Brothers. And sisters but we read them.

91. 34:46

    We look in the mirror and we walk away. And in five minutes we forget them and then we go back to showing partiality. We can’t do that, not not if we’re really children of God, that’s an issue. We got to work on and we got a value. What every person brings to the Ecclesia and sometimes those people that don’t dress the way that we think they ought to dress. Sometimes those are the people that have the greatest care and they see the greatest way of empathy and sympathy to other people.

92. 35:13

    And they can reach out to People that those of us that are dressed up in our suits and our fancy clothes, we can’t reach them and those other people can and it’s important to realize that brothers and sisters, and not worry so much about that, external appearance. And I want to make sure you’re real. I’m not saying everybody just goes home and down dresses or we all show up in our eggs.

93. 35:32

    Tomorrow that’s that’s not what I’m after. I’m just saying, let’s not let that become such a big issue and personally don’t let that become the basis. Upon what I look at. Other people and make decisions about whether they’re really God’s children, we can’t do that. That showing partiality, that’s judging with evil thoughts and boy, if nothing else.

94. 35:52

    That’s an area, we can all work on. See that’s why I say James’s. Letter could have been written. Last week, we have the same problems today that James was dealing with back. Then you see God doesn’t show those kind of favoritism God looked at people through all different ages who had all different forms of life, and their dress and everything and God was willing to take them all, take them all, no matter. How they dressed in their in their day and age and whatever they had, he wanted people that wanted to live like him and valued his family.

95. 36:21

    And if you showed up in robes and you had bare feet, that was okay and gods family because you came and and that’s that’s the way God dealt with people. All through the years, he never set a dress standard in the Bible and there’s a good reason for that. Because we’d all look at that and say, well, there it is, there’s what we got to do and everybody who comes in as to be like that, and he doesn’t do that because he’s so bigger than that, and he’s trying to reach.

96. 36:44

    Shout out to all the different cultures, all the different groups of this world and he wants to keep that door open for everybody. And to do that over thousands of years. You can’t set that kind of standard and we can’t either. We’ve got to be much more flexible. He’s the Father of Lights.

97. 36:59

    You see, there’s no Shadow due to Turning with him. He just keeps shining it out on everybody. He sends his rain on the just and the unjust in Timothy. It says he desires all men to be saved, you know, we quote that passage, I remember using it. Bible passage for years is arrested scripture. And I’ve used that to fight the Trinity and think there it is. First Timothy, you know to and for God, desires all men to be saved.

98. 37:21

    And then in chapter in verse in verse 2, it says there’s one mediator, there’s one God. And one mediator between God and Men, the man Jesus Christ and we use that as a rested scripture to defeat the Trinity. You know, it took me years and years to my embarrassment to realize what that Bible verse was actually tried to tell us. That’s not a Bible verse in there to tell you that there’s no Trinity what Paul was at pains to get. The Timothy is his same old issue. We’re Going at here in James, is that our God does not show favoritism.

99. 37:49

    There is no God of the Jews and a god of the Gentiles. There’s no God of some christadelphians. And another God of other christadelphians. There is one God. And there’s one mediator between God and Men. We’re supposed to all be looking at the same God, he’s the one God of all, it was supposed to bring unity in the Ecclesia. That’s what Paul’s fighting for.

100. 38:10

     There is only one God, we don’t each group have our own God, the only One and there’s one mediator and were all United in him and Paul brings it up twice and in the concept of unity not not about although we use it against the trinitarian today that really isn’t what it was about or are you see all over Paul’s writings that this issue a partiality it comes up in X and Romans and Ephesians and Colossians and also in Peters writings as well. So there’s this this problem of partiality has been a human issue all along and it’s one of those issues we can work on today.

101. 38:42

     You look at what he says to counter this. And what James says here, he says look hasn’t God right there. In verse 5, has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and Heirs of the Kingdom, which he promised to those who love him. That’s what God’s done. He chose the poor, they’re part of his family because they’re rich in faith and their Heirs of that Kingdom. You can’t look at those people and say they’re not part of God’s family, he chose them underlie that has not God. Chosen.

102. 39:11

     That’s not maybe what you would have chose or what I would have chosen. Those but God chose them and that’s why we can’t show partiality God picked them because they’re rich in faith, and they’re going to be Heirs of the Kingdom, which he promised to those who love him. And that’s the aspect that we don’t know about people.

103. 39:29

     We just don’t know. And he says, look at the behavior of the rich. These people, it probably what happened in the occlusal life is this. The rich people had their rich friends, and their Rich, Jewish friends, and they’d bring some of the men and their meetings, people from the synagogues and everything. And so, there was quite a mixture of the rich.

104. 39:45

     And he says look how can you possibly take the rich person who walks in the door back there? Who’s a friend of this Richford? They come into your Ecclesia? He oh, come on up here and you give them the best seats. And you’ve just given just all over them. You’re just like, trying to keep them happy because they’re rich and they have money. He Paul says, look there.

105. 40:02

     Peter James says, look, aren’t they the ones that are oppressing? The Believers? Those are the ones that drag you into court and they blaspheme the lord’s name. How in the world? Can we take those people and show favoritism to them? That’s maybe an extreme case. But this is what they were living with. The rich Jews were doing that to their Jewish community and they were actually picking on each other there. So what James does next is he realizes? He says, look deep people.

106. 40:27

     They know their Bibles. I know what they’re going to think that he knows the Jewish mind the same way that Paul does when he writes his letters. So he anticipates what they’re going to think? He said he goes on in this militant next section, there in verse 18, if you are verse 8, if you really fulfill the Royal law, according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor. Neighbor as yourself you do well because he knew what they would be thinking is well look James back in Leviticus 19, it says you shall love your neighbor as yourself and those rich people you see there my neighbor.

107. 40:56

     So those are the ones I’m going to love them as myself. I’m going to give them the best seats. I’m going to take good care of them. And so James says, look if you really did that if that’s really what you’re thinking that you do well, but if you show partiality, while you’re doing that, if you visit to one neighbor and you don’t do it to the other one.

108. 41:15

     Then you commit sin and you’re convicted by the law as transgressors. The see, that’s the beauty of James. He lays it all out on the table and he knows what they’re thinking. So he says, I know what you’re going to think on that. You’re going to think that you’re OK. You’re going to justify it with your Bible.

109. 41:28

     As you’re going to get your Bibles out, look at the passages and say, oh, it’s okay if I do this and James says, well, that’s if that’s the case. That’s great that you’re doing it for those people, but if you show partiality while you’re doing it, oh boy, that’s a whole different thing.

110. 41:40

     If you don’t do that for everybody then you’re not really loving your neighbor and that’s the same Isn’t that what happened when Jesus gave the parable? And the fellows will, who is my neighbor? And so right away we want to show partiality and about, who’s the neighbor, who is it? It’s just human nature.

111. 41:55

     That’s the way we are brothers and sisters and young people. Young people, you’re like that as well too. Yeah, I watched the Visions in the young. People certain select groups you know you like some groups that are in other groups. This isn’t just something that comes on. I believe it or not when you’re 25 years old or 30 or this is missing.

112. 42:10

     Just Mom and Dad’s problem. I remember what it’s like when you’re young, I remember see you. I see and watch Divisions that were there, all of us have this problem. This tendency to show favoritism to certain groups of people, whatever it is, that we use, is are dividing line. And whoever it is, we set up with our standards. We’re very good at showing partiality and not giving everybody the same treatment and the benefit of the doubt and what ends up happening is he says you become judges with evil thoughts.

113. 42:36

     So what James doesn’t is he takes the Jewish thinking right here. He says. All right, if you really did that, then if you want to go back to that law and you think You’re loving your neighbor as yourself and be, if you’re showing partiality, then you commit sin because you can’t just aim at certain laws and say, well, I’ll keep this that out.

114. 42:53

     Keep this, I’ll keep this and you leave all the rest of them out. So what do you then does is he’ll go back and look at that? I think we’ll skip the section. Leviticus 19. Actually, if you get a chance at some point to go back and look at where that came from, it is fun to see that only three verses earlier in Leviticus 19 where it said, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, right? In that same section, you know, God put right in there for us that you shall not do Injustice and judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor nor honor the person of the mighty in righteousness.

115. 43:23

     You shall judge your neighbor because that was a problem and see God was so balanced in Leviticus 19. He said, look those of you that have sympathetic Tendencies and you want to like give the poor, the benefit of the doubt and treat them better than the rich, you can’t do that either. This is a balance to the judges. When they go to judge you have to show, right? Aegis judgment.

116. 43:45

     So, you know some of us are balanced One Way. Some of us are more on the other side but when God put it in there, he said, look, you’ve got to be balanced on both sides. You can’t show either one of them. Partiality, we have to be equal in that judgment and take care of both groups. So, the thinking of Judaism, then what that James is going to anticipate right now, is look the laws, the way to earn salvation, as some of these Jews thought they can’t keep the whole law.

117. 44:09

     So what the Jews would do, what Paul came to fight in Judaism. Was that you rank the law? You know, some of us are the same way. We take God’s laws and we rank them, take the Ten Commandments and do the same thing and we say out of all those Commandments in the Bible, I’m going to try to do this one. This one, this one, this one and we rank them out, the ones that probably the easiest ones for me to do. Those are the ones I ranked the highest and then I try to follow all those things.

118. 44:32

     And then when you fail on one of those things that I put up on my my top five that I look at you and say, well, you’re failing, you see because you didn’t do that, you didn’t keep that one up there and that’s one of the big ones and this is human nature. This is the way we are.

119. 44:46

     We all rank the laws by Nature. We want to put them up there and say, well, this is what God really wants out of us, we rank these laws like that and then and if somebody else doesn’t follow those, you see then we just figure. Well, you know, they’re not following God’s laws must be Spirit Week here. You know?

120. 45:03

     Like at school said, they have those Spirit weeks, you know, every time they happen to school, that’s what we figure. It’s a bank. That’s what I do mind is to keep one who’s come in and maybe that’s the Bell for lunch to see. Obviously got two minutes, it’s close, but that we’re getting there.

121. 45:17

     So, yeah, anyways, that’s that’s a human weakness problem. Thanks Ed breaking those laws. So let’s go home this weekend being careful. That were not one of those people that ranks the laws. And we show partiality based on how we rank the laws, you know? And the fact that can Deuteronomy, you’ve got that pretty clear that cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of the law and all the people shall say. Amen.

122. 45:43

     You know, Paul would deal with this later on. Nations 5 that he testified in verse 3, there’s that everyone who become circumcised. If you want to go back to this law, think that’s going to save you. You’re a debtor to keep the whole law. So if you think you’re going to follow the law like that by picking and choosing James wants to make it very clear to everybody, you can’t pick and choose the laws.

123. 46:03

     You can’t just say, I’m going to pick the rich people and show kindness to them and leave the poor people out when you do the laws and you can’t rank the laws, you have to try to keep them all. So he brings that up here in this section. He Says why bring you know when you look when you look at this little section here verse 11, you see, he said, whoever in verse 10 there, whoever shall keep the whole law. And yet stumbles in one point you’re guilty of it all. So you can’t do that ranking thing and think you’re okay because that’s not the way it works. If you’re going to go back to that and think you’re keeping the law, you’ve got to try to keep it all and so he brings up the example now of adultery and murder and you know why bring those up other than the fact, he’s trying to remind them about King David.

124. 46:43

     Because remember what, And with David and that God knows the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Now, when you look at this issue of why he calls it, the Royal law because he does. He think he uses a 12 Here Again by The Law of Liberty but he refers here to the Royal law as to why he calls it. Debt, it may be because on those two Commandments you see on the idea of the loving God and loving the neighbor that as Jesus made it very clear.

125. 47:11

     The whole law hangs on that. So I think in calling it The Royal law. He’s like saying that though these this is the whole broad aspect. It’s just like Phil’s like like The Royal Concept of the kingdom. And the top laws that are up there, here are the top royal laws of God and the Royal law is that you love your neighbor as yourself and that you love the Lord your God and it may be that.

126. 47:33

     That’s why James refers to it that way. Back in verse 8 if you really fulfill the Royal law. According to the scripture, then you’re going to do all these different things and you’re going to show them without Reality. So we got to be careful brother and sisters because here’s our problems today, we show favoritism today based on way people dress, let’s face it.

127. 47:53

     We do that’s human nature to do that and that’s an area we got to work on. We look at the cars that people drive somebody comes up in a beater car with think all, you know, there’s just a beater car, what are they? Somebody drives in and some nice car and already we’re making decisions about the people before we ever see him, get out of the car, just based on the kind of car that they drive, we make decisions about skin color. And let’s face it.

128. 48:15

     That’s human nature and we got to work on that. That’s an area that we have to work on. They have to fight the Tendencies to show favoritism. We do it based on the country. Somebody’s from, you know, they accept that they speak from the Ecclesia that they’re from the family name, that they might happen to have the amount of money that they have is we even do it with gender.

129. 48:34

     We have favoritism shown for guys and girls based on gender and that there was an issue that Paul had to deal with. Neither male nor female, you’re all one in Christ, Jesus. We do it based on somebody’s education, somebody has a degree in college and a masters and we rank them up there and somebody else just as a high school degree and we put them down there and we don’t realize that God loves them both and they’re both assets to the Ecclesia because they bring strength in different areas that one can see that.

130. 49:00

     The other can’t we do just, we got to fight the tendency to do those rankings. We we show favoritism based on people’s Age, based on the Bible version that they use. If you don’t have the right Bible version, you see your really your can’t read or, you know, you You’re not viewed as a legitimate christadelphians or something because you got the wrong version. We have folks in our community who do that over the Yahweh name and they think that boy don’t use the Yahweh name or so he does use it.

131. 49:25

     What Yahweh. It works on both sides that people treat that as a dividing line and look at showing favorites, we can’t be that way brothers and sisters. That’s not godliness. That’s not single-mindedness, that’s not like our God who does not show favoritism, he doesn’t do that on these little issues. What he shows favoritism towards is those who love him and those who love one another that’s God’s Royal law. That’s the top thing that we have to aim for not on these other little issues that you know, we tend to put as big issues today so where he ends up at the end of verse 13 and maybe we’ll leave it at that and break for lunch is that look verse 12? He said so speak and so do so now he’s getting into the Practical.

132. 50:10

     So when he leaves us he says now what we want to do is when we talk and we use our tongues, And when we got there, we do things in our political life and we treat people the way we treat them and we go to set people and we go to talk to people when you’re to put them in their seats.

133. 50:23

     Let’s do it as those who we will be judged by the law of Liberty the law of Liberty which has set us free to serve one another not based on the rankings of the law. The little rankings that we have but the law of Liberty brothers and sisters from which we all been set free to serve one another in love because Does mercy triumphs over judgment if nothing else when we leave this weekend brothers and sisters and young people? Let’s keep that in mind because in our community we have those who have the tendency to swing on the Judgment side. We have those who swing on the merseyside and what the Apostle Paul knew about human nature with James here knew about human nature and Paul does as well because Paul’s know different later on when he deals with the same issue our tendency as human people is that we go towards the Judgment side. That’s the way we are by nature and you see it all the time. We’re just natural judges of one another. And so what we have to fight on that brothers and sisters as we have to constantly be pushing ourselves. The other way of giving people some slack, cutting them, some slack in life and realizing that these issues that we’ve ranked up there as being so big and high, maybe they’re really not as important as we thought they were. And what really matters is whether somebody loves God and whether they love their neighbor also. And so what we do then is we learn to show Show Mercy to our brothers and sisters to our young people who may not have been.

134. 51:50

     Oh follow the law like we think our do the rankings as we think we show them kindness and mercy and we cut them some slack because in the end of Mercy, will triumphs over judgment. That’s the thing. We have to aim for that South and the new King James puts it. That Mercy triumphs over.

135. 52:07

     Judgment it. See it defeats it in the end and it provides a much more peaceful happy family life. And a Usual life. If we can treat one another, with a little more Mercy, cut each other a little bit more slack because, you know, in your heart that when you show up to the Judgment seat, you know, which side you’re going to want to be on. Who’s going to want to be on the side with judgment out there when we’re standing before the judge, we’re all going to hope for mercy.

136. 52:36

     So why brothers sisters can’t we show that Mercy today to each other and the way we treat one another and how we talk to each other and the things that we do in our family life and Ecclesia life And with that, we’re off to lunch.