This book will challenge us to be honest about what we see in our lives, we will see that the real examination for us is not found in a checklist of things we ought to do nor is it found in how many times we ‘get into the Word’. James is all about the question, ‘Is the Word getting into you?’ Is the life giving presence of God flowing through you or is there a blockage in the current? Today we our being reminded that we are filled to be emptied, we are blessed to be a blessing, we are rich to be spent. We are to reciprocate the gifts that we have been blessed with.
‘Advent Conspiracy’ is about doing Christmas different and we will be looking at our faith in God and how that should affect us going into the Christmas season. In James 1 we will walk through our experiences in the trials, through the fire and coming out as gold. We will talk about good and perfect gifts and the pure devotion that God wants us to express in every season.
Walk with intentional faith!
The law for Paul was one that binds, keeps people from experiencing freedom, all the ‘add ons’ that people like to add to saving faith. It was all the Jewish deeds of formal obedience which gave way to boasting James law was the royal law of Scripture to love your neighbour as yourself.
Experiencing God can be bittersweet! Throughout the Bible we see examples of God’s people who have turned defeat into victory; trial into triumph and being a victim into being a victor. However, realize the key is that they had to go through the defeat, through the trial...
Worship That Turns to Gold 1:1 -12
V3 to consider = to evaluate, a financial term. Are you ready to count the cost
When it comes to trials, its not if but when. As Christians, we are not sheltered from life’s hardships, but we have the promise of His presence. God mixes the colors and experiences of life and weaves them together to bring His glory.
Patience is not just a passive acceptance of your circumstances, it a courageous perseverance in the faith of suffering and difficulty.
V4 Perseverance won’t come from reading a book, listening to a sermon or praying a prayer. We must go through the difficulties of life.
Proverbs 10:25 When the storm has swept by, the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever.
God shapes and builds our character so that our service will flow directly out of our experiences that we have walked through, or better as He has walked us through.
V6, 7 No doubt about it
V8 Do not be double minded! Single minded focus… Most commentators would agree that double mindedness had its roots in those who try to serve God and their money, their desire to accumulate wealth.
So, James elaborates on the differences between the rich and the poor. He is saying that is harder to stay focused for the rich because their joy in their present circumstances is short lived. It is only for the here and now and there test lies in the ability to stay focused on what will last. The poor do not have that distraction and therein lies their high position…
Proverbs 13:8 A man’s riches may ransom his life, but a poor man hears no threat.
Double –minded refers to any 2 competing affections vying for 1st place in one’s heart…
Do you have competiting affections in your heart?
V13 Here is the challenge, that if we are not careful, our time of testing on the outside can easily turn into a temptation on the inside.
There really is no replacement for our character development and it doesn’t often happen in the momentary heroics but in everyday living.
Max Lucado
We have to be careful because we are so naturally accustomed to complaining to God, questioning His love, resisting His will .. and then right at that point Satan loves to step in and provide us a short cut, a quick fix.
V12 Why stand the test?? The Crown of Life awaits those who persevere through the test! Sin is never a single act, but a series of choices, a process and James leads us through this downward spiral.
V14 Desire = any kind of desire and in and of itself, it is not evil, because without the normal desires and drives of life, we couldn’t function.
Unless we felt hunger and thirst, we would never eat or drink,
If we didn’t feel fatigue, we would never get rest
If we didn’t feel a need for love, we wouldn’t pursue intimacy
However when we satisfy these desires outside of God’s will, we get into trouble.
Eating easily can turn into gluttony
Sleep easily turns into laziness
The pursuit of initmacy out of the design of marriage leads to an affair
Satan takes desire and twists it and he appeals to our natural desires
II Learning to Receive Good and Perfect Gifts. 1:16-18
There is optimism out there that maybe we are coming out of the recession out downward trend and yet there is talk that we will feel the aftershocks for quite some time…can anyone say HST??? The new reality calls many of us to live simpler and fly in the face of every flyer that is jammed into our thick newspapers. There are deep issues that surround Christmas: greed, coveting, consumerism, idolatry and lust. There is a deep search out there for something that is lasting, that keeps your attention for longer than 30 minutes. It is a search for the good and perfect gift…contentment, peace, lasting relationship satisfaction, meaning and purpose!
v17 Another strategy of the enemy is to convince you that God is holding out on you.
It is better to be hungry inside the will of God than full outside the will of God.
Proverbs 17:1
So when facing temptation, remember the goodness of God
• He gives good gifts even in the form of tests
• He gives and takes away…whatever He deems best for us.
• He gives constantly
• He never changes
God’s gifts are always better than Satan’s sell outs.
V18 the greatest miracle is new birth and God wants to make us ‘firstfruits’ =
OT Jews brought their firstfruits, their expression of devotion and obedience of all their substance to God. Firsfruits are the cream of their crop, we are the apple of His eye, His prized possessions. You are bought with a price …1 Corinthians 6:19,20 therefore glorify God in your body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit
God wants to make us firstfruits, the cream of the crop, pure in every form from devotion to obedience.
Pure Devotion….from the expression of my lips to the experience of my life 1:19-27
V19-21 swift to hear
slow to speak Proverbs 10:19; 17:27
slow to anger
Accept the word planted in you – parable of the sower – hard, shallow, crowded and fruitful
The test of authenticity is the fruit! By their fruit you shall know them. The tree is known by its fruit. Matthew 7:16
V22 examining ourselves –
the tragedy of no follow through in the mirror of God’s Word
• We only take a glance –there is a big difference between a candid photo and ana cat scan….a photo doesn’t reveal the problem. We have to get to the place where the Word of God actually changes the way we do every day life. We forget – however, if we let the truth actually change the way we approach our day, the very things that we do and how we go about it, it would be unforgettable. So, why the disconnect?
• We fail to obey - there is no substitute for putting it into practice.
Seeing the highlight video, hearing the story is no substitute for being there!
Be doers of the Word
Field Education in Bible College saved my spiritual life as I could have easily become numb to the countless messages, challenges, chapels, song and the academics of dissecting the Word…..
You see the academics of the Word with no follow through results in dried up, passionless Christianity.
V27 a challenge to follow through with orphans and widows
"If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight reign on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless." I love that verse, because what easily takes place in Christian circles is that we have a way of institutionalizing things and we turn them into religion….
There is always a subculture, a particular expression of Christianity, that surrounds any given spiritual community. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there is a tendency for us to create an acceptable code. We do this in order to feel good about ourselves because we are living up to this little code that we created. We're in church on Sunday morning, we're going to a small group, and we're putting money in the plate. We have a sense that we're doing what we ought to do.
But here is the danger that we don't get into this place where we have this sense a pride about who we are and look at how I got here. Man, this church should be lucky they have me!! And we feel proud about our religion,
James at this point stops us in our tracks and says, "And here is what real religion is: when was the last time you helped an orphan or widow?"
Real religion that counts before God results in a lifestyle that has the same heart for people that God has.
The widow and the orphan are always used in Scripture as examples of the people who are most marginalized, disenfranchised, and oppressed. They are people who have no advocate or guaranteed sustenance. They are the people most dependent on outsiders for their life and safety. Danny Hall
A man put an ad in the paper that he was looking for help. His wife had died of aids and he too was HIV positive. He had a son, 7 years old by the name of Robbie, Robbie was HIV positive as well, he contracted it from birth. A pastor read about the story and was moved, but that is where it ended. There was a faithful church attender who read about the story and thought that they would pray for the family, but that is where it ended. Then there was a family, they hardly made it out to church, it was a blended home, the kids didn’t get along with each other and there were barely making it by. But she thought, I have a home God has blessed me with and I want to show His love to this family. Robbie was a cute little blonde boy, but the disease continued to take its toll on his body. Linda would care for him and there were times that Robbie would vomit blood and cry right through the night, but Linda prayed with him and would rock him to sleep. She still didn’t make it out to church very much. But she made it out a few times with Robbie and there was a lot of worried parents about HIV kids in SS. There were some parents who decided that they would rather keep their kids out of SS, but Linda took it all in stride. She loved little Robbie right to his death and brought an agnostic father a little closer to maybe believing…
So James is saying to us, "God's heart breaks for those people in need. Does yours? If you are a real doer of the word and not just a hearer, how is it changing your life from the inside out-and is it leading you out into the streets to help those in need?"
He closes by saying that in addition to helping the widow and the orphan, we need to keep ourselves from being polluted by the world. I think he's simply saying, "Don't live by the world's value system. Don't let that pollute you. Live by God's value system, and that will include a heart of compassion for those in need."
Do we recognize that God loves not only us but other people? Think about a person you find it difficult to love in your life, and remember that they are created in the image of God and he loves them like a child. Christ died for them as well as for you. Can we get out of ourselves and see the people in the world as God sees them?
It is not hearing God’s Word that brings the blessing, it is the follow through, acting on it, experiencing the truth in your life
V22 It is one thing to be deceived by Satan, but quite another to deceive ourselves.
Here is the takeaway for this week – a subsistence diet – A diet of one!
I want you to take the next five days to live free of restaurants, coffee shops and place yourself on one meal and water a day. The idea is not to pack as much as you can in, but to go simplified with a single serving of fruit, vegetable, protein and water.
It is a challenge to live like most of the world that is in poverty and what they have to survive on. It is a challenge for us to abstain from discretionary purchases this upcoming week. The money that you would normally spend on going out what groceries for a normal week would consist of, the money spent on going out to dinner, clothes, buying a coffee…we are asking you to give sacrificially above and beyond your regular giving next Sunday for our benevolent offering towards a Partners gift of water and towards the ministry of the Kuranji’s who serve in Serbia.
The World Water Council reports that 1.1 billion people live without clean drinking water, and 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation. 1.8 million people die every year from diarrheal diseases, and 3,900 children die every day from water-born diseases. [D. Zimmer & D. Renault, "Water Crisis Facts and Figures" World Water Council, 2003.
We understand that some of you do have health related issues and no, we don’t expect your kids to live on the same diet. This is a challenge to enter the story and an opportunity not to boast that you are on 'the subsistence diet,' but a chance to feel, to recognize and to appreciate. So, take the opportunity if you are able and as you drink water this week, make it a spiritual exercise by giving thanks for it and a prayer request that we will commit to sharing His life giving water with others, not only physically but spiritually through this act of generosity.
13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:13,14
27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27
More information is located here at www.harvestofhope.ca about Partners International
