Bible Class - James

this morning good we're doing the best we can mr larry so um grant's throwing that out in case you're joining us online grant's throwing that out only for one reason mr larry is my father-in-law and uh it's really cool because i get to be in here and next week uh i think grant's gonna get to teach on james chapter three unless we go quick and we get into it a little bit this week but james chapter three is talking about your tongue and it's like you can't people have tried to control everything but what's unique is they've never been able to control the tongue for like thousands of years it's just not worked well um and um and so i appreciate you calling me out to my paw in law about you know well you know what's interesting there's about eight or nine people in this room at this moment and two of them happen to be our father-in-law so it's like i don't know i don't know what that's all about or uh but anyway speaking of taming the tongue and you know all these other things and so just if you're joining us online and you're expecting to see us in the fellowship center for one kingdom sunday which we announced that we were doing last week speaking of the tongue and the tongue misspeaking we got a text this week midweek and said hey plans have changed we're going to be back in sunday school and so we are here with you again this week and we're excited about that because to be honest i love one kingdom i think it's amazing i think what god does through that ministry uh in in the churches both in the united states and elsewhere is absolutely spectacular so i believe in one kingdom i believe in the sunday and i know that everything that we give today is going to go towards one kingdom which is just incredible if you think about it and so i'm excited for that to be coming up be sure to um after this class be sure to flip over to the worship service you can experience one kingdom sunday with us having said that we've been in james here and james is pretty neat because james chapter one is is kind of like being mature what does it mean to be mature as a christian and so what that means is no matter what circumstance you go through no matter what you find in life whether it's good or bad have joy and again there's a difference between joy and happiness but you can have an underlying just ability to have joy and so that's that's kind of james chapter one in a nutshell and james chapter two is like once you're mature and once you have joy hey there's the way that that fleshes out and so we started it last week uh james chapter two about not showing favoritism if you're gonna flesh it out you don't just you're not just nice to the to the rich people you're not nice to the people who are nice to you you're nice to everybody and and so it's it's about favoritism and i went back and i was watching um this guy named chan if you have right now media i encouraged you and some of you have done it especially some of the online folks because they called the church office and they got a password for right now media and they went and watched james and they're texting me or their their facebook and me or direct messaging me and saying hey this stuff is amazing and here's what here's what he said in his right now media he said here's a real quick test to know if you learned anything from last week think back on this past week because every day it doesn't matter your age it doesn't matter if you're in elementary school or if you've graduated from with your doctorate every day you have an opportunity to show favoritism or not so how did you do last week did you live it out did you flush it out or did you show favoritism and so that's just a quick question that we can ask ourselves over this past week and how do we do are we just are we just listening and having faith are we having faith in works which is really what you're into it is and so i'm glad uh you know we've just begun to dive into the faith and works or faith in deeds um portion of this chapter is a challenge uh i wrestled with this last week and even more this week as i as i thought about you know faith and deeds and how those tie in together it ties in really nicely with favoritism obviously because i think if you if you don't have favoritism if you if you have that pure mindset if you have a genuine faith then you know you won't show favoritism and and and your deeds will be born uh naturally a genuine faith just just it bears good fruit um and and i think that that's what's so important about this chapter so i want to start clay i don't know if you have your bible open but i want to go ahead and read a little bit we're going to read through it this morning we'll start in james chapter 2 we're going to pick up in verse 14. we're going to read along a little bit what good is it my brothers if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds can such faith save him suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food see this kind of leans back into the favoritism right i mean look i mean i'll just be honest just read that first question again i mean could you imagine a bigger question that james could ask i mean what good is it my brothers and sisters if you say you have faith but do not have works can such faith save you wow is it really even a faith is it faith suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food if one of you says to him go i wish you well keep warm and well fed but does nothing about his physical needs what good is that in the same way faith by itself it is not accompanied by action is dead can anybody want to tell me anything we touched on this last week about anything that you can might want to say that you have faith in but without any action is death give me an example give me an example something that you claim to have faith in but without any action we can all see that it's dead anything so last week you talked to football yeah i have to be honest i fell asleep in a football game last night okay and i still don't know who won okay probably wasn't louisiana tech oh i i saw something is that not good did tech lose i don't know did they i didn't i didn't i fell asleep during two football games tech and elizabeth the interesting thing about teaching bible class during football season is like the analogies are just pouring in so late at night i know this i saw on my feed this morning you know your little news feed and some of your friends blurb things and one of the friends said that the coach and i won't name the coach's name because i'm trying to do what james says and speak nice but they were like this coach is going to kill me so i got a feeling we did not win yeah didn't go well what else what else if you don't have if you don't show your faith how do you know it's dead or if you're not faithful marriage when you said that i went ooh marriage marriage yeah right that's actually a d correct so what she just said was you can have faith in your car but if you don't actually service your car and put stuff in your car on the way to church this morning i drive a diesel and my diesel exhaust light popped on and it said 500 miles left or it will slow you down to 20 miles an hour so i can really relate to what you just said this morning you know i think about i think about uh and this is something that probably all of us can relate to in some form or fashion is our health my health right and some oh you know the doctor tells me i need to do this or that i have to take this action you know when i may have faith in that doctor if i didn't have faith in him i probably wouldn't go to see him in the first place right like you submitted to his opinion or you you you know got his opinion but then you didn't take any action on the step well hey man you know you need to get in shape well doc i thought round was a shape you know what i'm saying that actually doesn't work you have to take action on some of those things happens on january 1st every year you ever try to go to to the wellness center on january 1st oh don't start don't worry around this you know you get everybody in there it's one you know and and faith without putting do you understand what i'm saying yes but works this and this is where i struggle it's like works alone does not mean you necessarily have faith right that's what's unique and that's what's really unique about this passage because when you have like i can have works because i know it's the right thing to do and i can be a good person and so you can like we're all made in the image of god so we all have god's spirit in us throughout the world i mean i don't know of a human not made in the image of god and so we all have this holy spirit innate within us and and paul talks about it over in romans but i'm not going to get in romans because we're talking about james but it's it's like even it's going to go on and say even the demons believe and they shudder so there's no question that we all know what's right and wrong but man when you when you when you just do it for good works it's it's not because you had faith and so there's this it's a really unique thing faith apart from works is barren it's dead i want to get to come back to that in just a second so i'm going to read first john first john chapter 3. uh if you look it would say read 17 and 18 verses but i want to reach back and grab 16. did we read this last week i don't know in my mind we did but in my mind i went through this whole thing i love it um first john chapter 3 16 this is how we know what love is jesus christ laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers i want you to pay attention in 17 as if 16 wasn't good if anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him how can the love of god be in him dear children let us not love with our words or tongue but with our actions and in truth let us show our love and our faith in our deeds i think that's really really powerful um that we don't just sit back and just say that we have faith and you know you talked about being barren and you know an apple tree doesn't just get to claim that it's an apple tree right because i mean if you say well that's an apple tree i'm like okay well well how do we know that's an apple tree right better bear apples you better be pouring some apples off that thing right i mean we've got we've got uh several trees in our yard um that one of which is in right behind my house is a mulberry tree okay and and sometimes i look out at this mulberry tree it's right there kind of and it's got there's some other big trees around it you know and and man there's uh you know just kind of has this awkward overhanging limb that kind of prevents some sun from getting on a particular patch of grass and and i look at that tree and i'm like man it just thing probably needs to go right it just needs it needs to go but you know what it does every year it bears fruit it bears fruit year after year after year and randy we'll go get a tarp and lay it down underneath that tree so that we can capture those mulberries what do we do with those cans them up makes a good sandwich eat them you know they're they're a wonderful fruit and so you look at this tree that you go just looking at it you know it's not the most beautiful tree on on the property and and and you go well we can but it just bears such wonderful fruit and it's a mulberry tree and you know how we know because it continues to yield that fruit and sometimes it's overshadowed by these other trees i won't say ugly they have these big kind of like almost star-shaped leaves and you know what they drop they drop the gumballs you ever had gumballs it ain't very good the one thing i dislike the most about gumballs come on what is it have you ever stepped on the gumballs and had them roll and you just right they tear up your lawnmower so what i'm saying is we know that tree by its fruit we know we know the mulberry tree we got a slow tree i didn't know what a slow was until randy did some research got this sloacher it is a beautiful tree it's like it's like you got to spell that for me s-l-o-e okay because i was saying w i mean i thought all trees grew slow and so i was i was needing to understand randy and phil can give you a full dissertation we'll do a sidebar class but it's this beautiful tree and you know what it does it it it it yields these like small plums okay oh it makes a really good jam there's other stores there too but but we know that tree by its fruit we know it and you know what we do we protect that thing and and randy does it's like hey we don't want you we don't want to part by we want we want that i mean it's it it's it's got a prominent place because it continues to yield fruit and so we know that it is so that we know that our faith yields fruit faith when it does not yield is it truly faith that's what they're saying show me your faith without works and i'm going to say i don't see it show me your faith by your works and it's crystal clear that's that that's another way of saying um in in verse 18 but someone will say you have faith and i have works show me your faith apart from your works and i by my works will show you my faith you know i was wanting to ask coach davenport who's been in this class he's coached for a lot of years okay and coaches really doesn't matter what level you're coaching at you you really can see the players who buy in and have faith in the program that you're that you're you got going on right like the ones who have faith what do they do what are the people in a program that have faith what are they doing somebody give me an example what do those people do they support it they work hard at it right those people are the people that are showing up early you know they're like you're they're not the ones you're having to call them and get them out of bed go hey you know reminder we got we gotta we gotta work out today we got to practice or no they're the ones there coach hey what time we what time can we get there how early can we get there right go ahead randy yeah i saw something this week that kind of dramatizes it there was a quote from a church in afghanistan it says we're going to continue to meet and we may die and i think about the church in america we're going to meet unless it's a beautiful day or unless there's a party right or less there's whatever and it was uh kind of hit hit me square realized that do you want to do you want to repeat to them what you just said yeah randy said that he read a quote this week uh about it from a church in africa afghanistan afghanistan okay afghanistan that said we're going to meet and we may die yeah that's powerful and and how in our church here in america we say we are going to meet unless the weather is nice unless he was doing a very good job of tiptoeing around man i appreciate that unless there's a your child has a sporting event or a baseball game or something like that see they're teaching us stuff while we're teaching oh you know i didn't hear him say that i think that's your heart convicting sure no doubt about it just to let you know what it is this is what we call real time this is real-time teaching really who else we're going to talk we're going to talk about abraham that boy abraham he had some struggles too let's talk about abraham uh you know when i when we talk about him which by the way randy thank you and and i think that is absolutely true you know we're going to meet and we may die based on just that and we're very blessed that we get to meet here today really without oppression and there are many many who are not able to do that and and i do think that also helps us transition to a man like abraham you know abraham's story is is um wow it's quite interesting um the way god worked in his life him and sarah and really generated a faith and you see works in his faith maybe at a time when he wasn't even so sure right like he had faith and he's like i'm not even really sure what this means or what this is how this is going to turn out so if if you want some homework if you want to go back and read go and read genesis chapter 12 go and read about abraham and abram and the calling of him because it's really interesting he was a wanderer he he's he was just out there and then god said this is who this is who i'm going to use and he took him and he showed him the stars and he said your offspring and look i get chills i don't know why that gives it but your offspring is going to be as numerous as the stars in the sky and so that's really if you have to if you want to understand why the hebrews and later the jews it's the same people group but how they developed into who they are their national identity it's truly um you have to understand the story of abraham the story of abram if you want to get real specific and go all the way back into genesis and so if you really want to understand what james is saying here in chapter 2 do some homework do your own reading it will be fun it's not like i'm telling you this because it's not an interesting read the book's been around for thousands of years and it's really interesting to read about abraham because he was a wonder and god set him apart and said i choose you and so at the first part it was god choosing him but then at the end it was like well that's where we are in the story in james so we talked about abraham and sarah and what did they want i mean what what was there what what did they want i mean like lord saw hey you're gonna you know be blessed in this way so what what are they they're wanting a child right they're wanting this child and they're wanting the promise that god gave them to be fulfilled they're wanting okay you said my offspring is going to be as numerous as the stars and yet i have a wife and she's still barren so and so they look they like a lot of us what what what did they do take it into their own hands it matters great at that right i'm great at it lord i'm gonna drive you know you sit over there i'll let you know if i need you i'm driving and normally when we do that you know we we end up in the ditch and that's exactly what happened with with abraham and sarah you know she she said all right she went and orchestrated this whole thing she's like all right i'm gonna carry this out lord i you know i know you said and all this but but here here's the here's how we're going to here's how we're going to do this so have a son well they get older and older and and faith begins to what wayne as if it's almost non-existent i love i want to go back to and i mentioned this last week and i want to read in genesis um chapter 18. now sarah was in the tent and the men were meeting with abraham and angels they were talking with him and she was listening and they were saying that you know next year she was going to have a son and she's listening to this and what's she saying she's in a tent she's going over she's scoffing right because she knows her condition she's like there's no way what's her condition i don't understand well you're saying she's old well i mean i'm not saying that the bible says it i just ask i don't you know i'm not even comfortable saying that like the bible said you can read i i was driving out of the neighborhood today and there was this big sign at the front of the neighborhood okay it said happy birthday miss irma happy 90th birthday okay and so i happen to know miss irma i think everybody knows miss irma because miss irma's been around long enough that we all get to know miss irma right so happy 90th birthday miss irma but anyway well it just says here she was past the age of childbearing okay okay whatever that is well sad so as she was listening so sarah laughed to herself laughed at herself and she thought after i am worn out and my master is oh will i now have this pleasure what what chapter and verse are you in chapter 18. you said after i'm worn out that's what it says right i understand that's what she laughed at herself i just laughed too the way your bible said it my master is old will i now have this pleasure then the lord said to abraham now she she she did this to herself right like so it's not like she did this that's why i was it when when you know in the new testament you hear jesus heard their thoughts like you've got to be careful with preachers again verse 18. chapter 18 verse 12. so sarah laughed to herself as she thought after i am worn out and my master is old will i now have this pleasure all right you know what mine says which is similar but it says so sarah laughed to herself saying after i have grown old and my husband is old okay shall i have pleasure we got some of this going on here then the lord said to abraham why did sarah laugh and say will i really now have a child now that i'm old is anything too hard for the lord i will return to you at the point of time next year and sarah will have a son sarah was afraid so she lied and said i did not laugh i didn't laugh you know i like you ever you ever had said something to yourself and you thought you were the only one and i know that never happens in marriage you know or whatever like you say something ah just like and they hear you and like oh no you're around you're on you're on an island here i don't know what you're talking about so she laughed she didn't she wasn't so sure and then she had a son we know that part of the story now we know isaac was born and and kind of fulfilled that promise and so you know that kind of feels like ah you know like super bowl moment we win everybody hoist the trophy lord was faithful we you know we reaped the reward and and it is being fulfilled not so fast move on to chapter 22 and this is where we start talking about works clay this is where we start you want me to get there no i can't wait genesis chapter 22 um abraham has taken isaac they got everything prepared right they've got everything they're going out to make the sacrifice you know and and and isaac you know what does he have he has faith in what his dad his dad right like a lot of us i mean you know i my dad hey man he takes me somewhere i mean i mean i'm i have no fear no worry in the dark by myself scared to death in the dark with my dad no problem here goes abraham and isaac and they're hiking out the verse nine when they reached the place god had told him about abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it he bound his son isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood i mean i know we've all read that story i know we've all heard i know we know this story but when you just stop and think about that and and let that sit on and you know i think about this and and we joke many times about about um joe neal being my mother-in-law and you know disciplining your children is a challenge especially in front of a child specialist expert phd you know now she enjoys she appreciates that i discipline them in fact she likes to get a report have you spanked them that's not um but a lot of people struggle with that right like we struggle with discipline we struggle with just simple discipline you know because we we don't want to create any kind of what we don't really don't want to create any ill will like we want our we want our our children to look fond we don't want to create any harm for them like we want to see them succeed and we want them to be happy and and joyful and all those things so we struggle a lot of times with just disciplining our children appropriately correct listen and here is this man abraham who has taken this son who they were too old to even have it they've already had the moment of fulfillment and yet here he has him bound up we're supposed to be in james we spent a lot of time in genesis this morning i'm with you fellas so he's got him bound up what would you classify that where would you say abraham is right now clay i know we talked about this would you say he's at the faith stage or is he in the works so work me through that in your mind for me i have to back up just to touch for this reason i know that you looked at this group in this audience that's here in this room and you said to them hey we've all heard this story before but there's a lot of people who might be listening at home or who might be tuning in later who might not have heard this story before and this is a really difficult story and it's a really difficult story for a lot of different reasons i find myself thousands of years later after this story has happened there's no question that this story that the bible is thousands of years old okay it's god's word and there are two sons that abraham had he had two different sons and those sons are very significant because those sons still play out you mentioned afghanistan earlier those sons still play out there's still religious squabbling in the world today over these two boys all right and so i don't want to discount that in any way shape form or fashion because sometimes we read these stories that are thousands of years old and we think they were they were back then but i want you to know this still plays out today so ishmael representative of what um you you tell me go ahead i'm i'm with you fellas okay well you were on such a role well i just i i would you through you're getting i i don't want to go that far back i don't want to go too deep into everything because because it will be so long right but so so first off let's just say this let's say ishmael representative of doing things our way okay right sure and then isaac representative of the lord's way and and sure is that i mean that's well so simplifying so again if you're going to go there here's what i'm going to say there is because we haven't talked about it yet so ish he's saying ishmael doing things our way because sarah said to abraham hey take this woman my maidservant take her and have a baby with her maybe that's what god meant and so that's the only reason i was saying so i mean i can go there with you but so that's what you see a facebook message he'll go there with you if you want to get further into it we can go further into it but the unique thing is the reason it's true is it happened back then and it still happens today right so where we are where you asked me just then where are we is this faith or works so god says to abraham i think he's already forgotten even that i asked you that okay god says to abraham hey take your son here i want to i want you to know that this this boy that there's nothing between you and me you haven't elevated your son over me there's nothing there between you and me and so he binds up his son and he puts him on this altar and for us in our day and age we don't understand that kind of thing because we don't understand altars and sacrifice because we're so far removed from that because jesus was the ultimate all sacrifice on the and on the altar but for for this day and age it would have been very common people would have understood that because remember mary and joseph we've talked about it in this class mary and joseph offered a pair of doves and that's how we knew that they weren't rich because they couldn't offer other things as sacrifices so sad the sacrificial system is still in order and even back then in the in this mesopotamian world they did not abraham but remember he's first generation right um because god calls him so they they're they would have known about human sacrifice and in in different cultures even in the americas that was happening and so that's not out of the realm so what what's happening here it's really weird for us especially this this far removed but for abraham he's just doing what he feels like god is calling him to do he is he is both faith i have faith that god is doing it and not only do i have faith let me show you my faith by my works because i am binding up my one son who i think you've promised for me to be countless for my offspring to be countless as many as the stars and so he's saying this is what i thought you were going to do but maybe you have something else in store and so how i mean it's both and how can it not be faith and yet at the same time what james specifically says in chapter two he says abraham believed god and it was reckoned to him as righteousness i'm in verse 23. and he was called the friend of god you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone so so we jump back to genesis he's like whoa don't go to 23 yet i'm not there because we want to give you a snapshot and and it's really hard to to to reach back and grab all the context but that's why you all have homework yeah that's why you have one more so but we wanted to at least kind of paint the picture of of the example that's being used in james which is why we go back in in a little bit in a certainly insufficient manner of setting the stage where abraham is why he's a faith uh and works guy i want to just wrapped up this portion in genesis chapter 12 okay so you know he's bound what's it do he raises to sacrifice his son he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son but the angel of the lord called out to him from heaven abraham abraham oh it gives me children i know that's why i said here i am he replied do not lay a hand on the boy he said do not do anything to him now i know that you fear god because you have not withheld me withheld from me your son your only son sounds like another story you just have to make the parallel you can't be teaching this without making that parallel i mean that's how much god loves us that he did not withhold his only son yes sir in the back you know we talked about faith that works and trying to figure out this um this was not the first sacrifice that abraham would have done right he knew what it entailed he knew there was a shed of blood he knew there was death he knew that what was going to happen is in this section i've read this section many times and i have one verse underlined um that's really before this go back to verse five and the second part of five well if i'll read the whole verse he said to his servants stay here with a donkey well i and the boy go over there which was where he was going to do the sacrifice and this is what i have underlined we will worship and then we will come back to you so he had that faith knowing what he was about to go do right and still come back with the boy right how that was going to happen yeah abraham didn't know which is a good point because he may have so so tommy backed us up to um genesis chapter 22 verse 5 which is i think is a really really good point uh and the whole verse he said to a servant stay here with the donkey while i and the boy go over there and the key point that tommy made that he highlighted in his bible is we will worship and then we will come back to you so i think the point tommy i think that you're making and is very valid is he knew that they would come back not knowing necessarily how that would be he had faith that that even if he could that he could raise him from the dead right so it's so unique because the sacrificial system is something that we don't have every day here with us but so what they would do is they would take the best of the best and they would offer it as a sacrifice because just the faith that i'm giving you the best that i have and that that you will return it it's a very um system full of faith anyway sorry love it thank you tommy thank you tommy so let's go back now we can get back to james two chapter two we're gonna back up from where clay let's go let's just go to verse 18 and progress naturally through the chapter but someone will say you have faith i have deeds show me your faith without deeds and i will show you my faith by what i do you believe that there is one god good even the demons believe that and shudder i think you already made that point we're going to teach the class and then go back and teach it you foolish man do what do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless was not our ancestor abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son isaac on the altar you see that his faith and his actions were working together and his faith was made complete by what he did and the scripture was fulfilled that says abraham believed god and it was credited to him as righteousness and he was called god's friend you see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone you know i love about um the story of abraham and really you know it's interesting if you just read the old testament there is nothing new under the sun right i mean i mean we we are not inventing anything oh we invented the internet it's way worse i mean i've had a family oh yeah now we have the internet i'm like i mean humans are humans right and and we can go back and we can read human nature and we can learn i just need to know every time somebody says that there was a person who ran for office who claimed that he invented it so i want you to know i am controlling my tongue right now by not actually but when you said that so this is me actively trying to control my tongue continue good good part of this yeah part of this class is me not sending you down all these side sheet trails but i think about abraham and so many people especially in the old testament man who were so flawed right i mean like the people that we look at as the hallmarks of faith were flawed and conflicted and yet the lord used them right go ahead go i can tell you got more you want to say no i mean i i look at the people that god uses i mean you just the only thing i would say different that you said was you said it past tense and because you were saying look at the people in the old testament that that were the who god used but these are the ones in the body and what i'm saying is and that's what gives me chills because it's not just those people look look at my life look at my my goodness but take us out of the equation because we're just little bitty mere teachers right look at mike kellett look at al i mean they share things that are just they're unbelievable and yet they're willing they're willing to rip open who they are and and to still press forward and i think the reason i mention that in a past tense is because if you look at these greatest people of the bible and we're going to read a little bit about another one here in just a second but the flawed people he's using them every day in spite of their flaws in spite of the decisions that they make that are in conflict with what his with what his will is i mean i look back at my life and i can see decision points whereas like okay clear decision point are you going to go left or are you going to go right okay well left happens to be what i want to do right and then right happens to be what i probably should have done and i've made so many left turning decisions he's like hey man you're over here wandering you know you're over here trying to create what you think you want to create or or make it go how you think i want it to go for you it was like look hey man it's back over here and so in spite of my flaws in spite of the the the place how it played out for abraham but in that moment he he wasn't so sure and and if you were a a jew whenever this was written a hebrew back back in the day so you would have you would have been able to hear some of the things that jesus said of course we've talked about how james is very it's he's was probably the brother of jesus because he just says so many things that are so similar to what jesus would say and so i told y'all last week kind of in if you were to read luke chapter 19 the story of zacchaeus zacchaeus was this toll collector he was rich he was all these things and finally the crescendo in like luke 19 chapter verse 10 is where he says um jesus says look i can make a son of abraham out of any of this god can make a son of abraham out of even these is what he's saying because to be a son of abraham to be a child of abraham is the the pinnacle of their faith if you were called a child of abraham then you are both faith and works you are living it you're in the middle of it and jesus is saying you can go to all the sunday school classes and you can believe all the right things and if you do that and you believe all the right things you're just as good as the demons the demons might even be better than you because they shuddered they shuddered when they believed it and so what he's saying is you have to do both and you can't abraham didn't just have faith abraham had faith and his faith was fleshed out with his word it precipitated works it was fleshed out so i want to i want to read this the end of the chapter clay and i know you're going to be why do you want to read i want prostitutes i want to read i want to read this i'm going to and then i'm going to let you kind of put the bubbles in this chapter you're going to be gone fair and so verse 25 in the same way was not even rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without deeds is dead you know i think it's so interesting here to read about rahab the prostitute because don't you think prostitution is really just the epitome of the the submission of the fleshly desire like that that's really the kind of like that's just given to the fleshly instantaneous desires that we have in the flesh and you take her who who you know she would be probably looked down upon and kind of uh not a lot different than they would today right i mean just kind of despised or or be one of those people that is cast aside for favoritism and set by the door and that's how she is and yet she is an example of faith and works so what was what she did so why is she an example so in in this in james to let you know the greek the greek and the hebrew back in joshua are a little bit different so in joshua if you were to go read joshua some more homework joshua chapter 2 through 6 but is going to be the story of kind of rahab and so back then the hebrew word there could be different meanings for the hebrew word that was used the word could be in keeper so and if you're a spy and you're going to visit a town and you're trying to learn what's happening in the town where are you going to stay at an innkeeper's house okay because they did not have believe it or not holiday inn express was not available back then airbnb yeah no air yeah this is more like an airbnb close yeah the internet hadn't been invented but so um so back then rahab the hebrew word there for in keep could be innkeeper it could be harlot so it but in the greek the word that james uses in the greek make no mistake the word he uses in the greek is definitely like immoral she was an immoral woman uh so you would think of it as prostitute as as person who um would make their living doing immoral things and so how is this so james you says hey you want to have abraham is abraham the person we'll talk abraham abraham was justified because of his works or we can go with rahab she did you hear what i said just then even the pronoun i used she remember back then women were not as they hadn't had the 1960s movement yet okay um and and i so if women couldn't listen i'll say it this way women couldn't vote yet um all right and so women were treated very differently um is how i would say it um and so um not only were women treated very differently so james says hey abraham and a woman and not just a woman a woman who was not a hebrew was not she was an outsider and not only was she an outsider she was immoral an immoral woman outsider how was she justified was it her faith it's what she did and so james who remember jesus and james they would have been run in parallel who's always hammering on them the religious leaders the people who go to church or back then they would have called it synagogue so they're saying hey if you look at somebody and they're they're hungry and you do nothing to go back up to verse you know 14 or 15 if a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food and and one you in um one of you says to them go in peace keep warm and eat your fill and yet you do not supply their bodily needs what is that what good is that and so that's what i've really loved about this church uh and i know we've got to wrap up but um just to to wrap up so that we can all go down and experience what it is about this church that's so amazing is this church doesn't just do this this church does this and it doesn't just reach out with their mouth it reaches out with their money and so what better to end with to say we're about to walk down we're going to leave this place and we're going to go down to one kingdom sunday where every penny that's given today is not going to be spent here at this church it's going to be spent outside doing doing god's works how neat is that how neat is the story of that um and so james chapter two i won't be here for the next two weeks he's got it on his own and i'm so thankful because i still am working on controlling my tongue and so i'm not gonna have to be the teacher that says uh you have to control your tongue next week in james chapter three there's also something about teachers in there too yeah read ahead read ahead guys go in peace uh let's pray god we come before you and we give you thanks because you're god and we are not man we mess it up a lot of times help us to understand what you want us to do with our lives with our moments so that every moment we can honor and serve you we pray all this in christ's name amen

Channel: Whites Ferry Road Church

Views: 747

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Id: 8idBUXh8aFk

Length: 46min 55sec (2815 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021