BIBLE STUDY WITH ME | James 5

hey guys welcome back to my channel in today's video we're gonna be continuing on with our Bible study series going through the book of James and today's video we'll be doing James chapter 5 which is actually the final chapter in the book I cannot believe we are almost done with this series already I have loved going through it I love the book of James there's so much practical wisdom and every single time I read through it I learn something new if you have been following along with this series with me in real time comment below a gold star emoji because that's awesome and I love that we've gotten to study through this together because we're still in this time of quarantine and I have a little bit of extra time I think I am going to jump right into a new study after this the first study I did was through Philippians and I took a little break in between that and doing James but I think I want to keep going again because I have the time and I also want to continue creating content that is hopefully going to encourage people to get into God's Word and so right now I'm thinking I'm gonna do either first and second Thessalonians or first and second Peter I think I'm leaning a little bit toward Thessalonians but I'm not a hundred percent sure yet and I could end up doing something totally different too and so if you have thoughts one way or the other or if there's a totally different book you'd like to see me go through comment down below I'll be starting that up next week but for now we are in James and I'm excited to read and study James chapter 5 with you as always I will read through the entire thing out loud stopping to share thoughts and then we will pick a couple verses to dig deeper into and just study a little bit more in depth if you haven't already watched my videos on chapters 1 2 3 and 4 those are all up on my channel already so make sure you check those out just so you get the whole context of what James is talking about as a whole but we'll just go ahead and get started if you have your Bible go ahead and pull it out and turn to James chapter 5 verse 1 come now you rich weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you your riches have rotted and your garments are moth eaten your gold and silver have corroded and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire you have laid up treasure in the last days behold the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields which you kept back by fraud are crying out against you and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts you have lived on the earth and luxury and in self-indulgence you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter you have condemned and murdered the righteous person he does not resist you I'm gonna be honest I was a little bit nervous to do James 5 because I think there's a lot of things in this chapter that can be misinterpreted and this first part is one of them and so I definitely read through the commentary a couple times honestly this week leading up to filming this and it was saying how this first section is really a warning about desiring and seeking after money more than we seek after God and even more than that it is a warning about using money or using riches to oppress other people and I started to see that a little bit more in reading through it a couple of times that's one thing I would just encourage you with is if a passage at first feels a little overwhelming and you're not exactly sure what it's saying continue to read through it multiple times because I think the more you read it the more you're going to begin to understand what it's saying and of course use resources like commentaries to seek more understanding if things still aren't clear but essentially this first part of the chapter is really a warning against seeking after all these material things and making those things our end and our goal in themselves because it's saying how those things ultimately aren't lasting it's saying that your gold and your silver have corroded and their corrosion will be evidence against you it's a warning against seeking after things that are not lasting and stepping on other people even in order to do that rather than seeking after what is lasting which is God and the kingdom of heaven but it's saying that if our treasure and if our goal are these worldly accumulations are these worldly successes that we're gonna see the end of those things in the end of those things that's going to be emptied and then it's actually gonna lead to our ruin and so for me it's sort of a heart check to just check in and really ask myself what is it that I'm seeking after in this life what is important to me what am I trying to achieve what do I want because this verse is a reminder that everything but the one most important thing is going to fade away and that any motives that are seeking selfish gain are ultimately going to be exposed and then continuing on in verse seven be patient therefore brothers until the coming of the Lord so I want to point out a couple of things here we've now entered into a new paragraph heading and this one is under patience in suffering whereas that first paragraph I read was under a warning to the rich and I want to point out that in the beginning of that first paragraph warning to the rich that James does not address these people as brothers and sisters if you've been following along with this series probably noticed that James uses that phrase a lot that he is constantly saying my brothers my beloved brothers and when he starts this chapter and he does not address them by brothers he instead just says come now you rich weep and howl and then we enter into the second paragraph which again is subtitled patience and suffering and he says be patient therefore brothers and again we've talked about this throughout the James study that he's not saying that being rich in and of itself is a bad thing again it is that question of motivation is riches our primary goal our end goal and also what are we doing with our riches if we are rich and how are we accumulating then because he's talking about in this first paragraph how the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields which you kept back by fraud it's talking about dishonest gain not paying the laborers fair wages and accumulating wealth by a lack of integrity so again James is addressing these people not as my brothers but then we get into patience and suffering and he says be patient therefore brothers until the coming of the Lord and again I mentioned this in the last video but there's a therefore there and so we have to ask what is that there for so there's just been given this warning to these rich people who are seeking after this end goal of worldly riches worldly successes and then it's saying therefore brothers be patient and again it's talking about patience and suffering and so it seems like this is almost talking to the recipients of those who are being mistreated in the first paragraph so this could be a word maybe to those who are experiencing unjust treatment or experiencing just suffering of any kind James is saying to be patient therefore brothers until the coming of the Lord that not all is right in this world right now there is wickedness people are mistreated in this world but he is saying be patient therefore until the coming of the Lord because again it may seem like these people who are operating in justly or mistreating people it may seem like they're succeeding right now if they have all these worldly successes but there is a time coming when wrong things are going to be made right and God is going to bring justice and it's almost as if he's saying that there is going to be a time when things are going to be seen as they really are because right now maybe those not living according to how God has called us to live maybe they do appear to be succeeding right now and maybe those who are honestly earnestly seeking God and being obedient to him maybe it appears that nothing is going right for them maybe in the eyes of the world nothing is going well about their lives but James is reminding us that this is not all there is that there's more coming he's encouraging this eternal mindset when at the end of those unjust games is going to be exposed and God is going to move on behalf of those who have been treated unjustly it says in the beginning of chapter 5 again that the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord he hears he sees and he is going to act but in the meantime James is giving this call to patience as we wait so he says be patient therefore brothers until the coming of the Lord see how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth being patient about it until he receives the early and the late rains you also be patient establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand again this is not all there is God is coming and he's going to make things right verse 9 do not grumble against one another brothers so that you may not be judged behold the judge is standing at the door this is what we talked about I think it was either last week or in chapter 3 that we are not to judge other people that God is the only rightful judge and it is saying here - not even grumble against one another so that we may not be judged and so we just see all throughout James this continual call to unity and to not doing anything that is going to create any sort of division within community verse 10 as an example of suffering and patience brothers take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord behold we consider those blessed who remained steadfast you have heard of the steadfastness of job and you have seen the purpose of the Lord how the Lord is compassionate and merciful so James again is telling these people look you may be experiencing injustice right now you may be experiencing suffering right now but be patient and as an example of that as something to encourage you as you seek to be patient look to the prophets look to JoVE if you're familiar with the story of Job job is a righteous man before God who has everything taken from him and he has immense suffering come upon his life and job never gets an answer as to why he suffered as to what was happening behind the scenes and it's just a long process of him wrestling with God but he ultimately comes to this point where he says God I don't understand but I trust you and then when we get to the end of job's story we see that God restores him and that he blesses him twice as much as what he had before and so it this is the example of what James gives us to encourage us as we are trying to be patient and suffering patient as we wait on God patient in in justices that we may not understand it it may be a process but in the end we see who God is that he is compassionate and merciful and the same God who restored Jobe and blessed him more in his latter days that he was in his former is the same God that we are waiting on and trusting in in our times of suffering verse 12 but above all my brothers do not swear either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath but let your yes be yes and your no be no so that you may not fall under condemnation I read a note about this verse in my commentary and it was basically just saying that our word should be enough that there should be enough credibility behind our yes or our no because we live those things out in integrity when we use those words that we don't even need to swear on it or to make an oath on it because we should say it and mean it and follow through so let your yes be yes and your no be no verse 13 we are now entering into a new subheading called the prayer of faith and this is one that I was especially nervous to tackle just because this is another one that can be misinterpreted and I think that a misinterpretation of this passage can actually be used against people in a way that can potentially bring a lot of pain and to be honest I think that it can be a little bit confusing when you first read it I know that I felt that but I'm just gonna talk through it and share my thoughts that I've come to based off of studying this passage and other passages in Scripture and so we'll just read it verse 13 is anyone among you suffering let him pray is anyone cheerful let him sing praise I'm gonna pause right there on that first first God echoes another place in scripture that says to rejoice with those who rejoice or I think of Ecclesiastes where it talks about how there's a time for everything under heaven there's a time for celebrating a time for mourning the time for gladness a time for sorrow and so this is very straightforward very practical are you suffering and pray are you cheerful let him sing praise like praise God and the good and turn to him in at the suffering and then this is where it gets into the part I was talking about so verse 14 is anyone among you sick let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up and if he has committed sins he will be forgiven therefore confess your sins to one another pray for one another that you may be healed the prayer of a righteous person has a great power as it is working and then we're given another example of Prayer being powerful in Elijah where it says Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed fervently that it might not rain and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth then he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the earth bore its fruit and so here again this is under the subtitle of the prayer of faith and James is encouraging us to prayer he is encouraging us to have faith in our prayers and he is saying that the prayer of a righteous man that a prayer given and faith is powerful where I think that this can get tricky is specifically in verse 15 where it says the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up and I think that one is tricky because we can probably all think of examples where maybe you knew somebody who was praying for healing praying for physical healing in the body and they were full of faith and they had faith that God was gonna heal and that's not what happened and then we look at a verse like this and it says well the prayer of the faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up and I think where I can start to get really really dangerous is when you have people who say to those people who are suffering who maybe lost a loved one who are praying for healing and faith and who didn't get it saying to those people will you just didn't have enough faith and if you had enough faith then they would have been healed and that is just so incredibly damaging and that's why I think it's so important to have a whole Bible theology where we're not just taking one verse and building our whole theology of how God works off of one verse in and of itself or giving this entire book this entire book is the revelation of who God is his character how he works in our lives and we have to be looking at the whole Bible as we are forming our theology I think of the story and the Gospels of the man born blind and everyone in those times assumed they had this belief that if somebody was sick if somebody had an ailment like that then it must have been due to sin but then Jesus comes on to the scene and says no it wasn't this man's sin it wasn't his parents sin but rather it was that the glory of God might be seen through him because jesus healed him and people got to see who he was through that and so we know from that passage that physical ailments are not always the result of sin yet here in James he is telling us to confess your sins to one another and to pray for one another that you may be healed and so sometimes sin can be the reason for an ailment but it is not always the reason and in this first we are told that the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick but we are not told that if somebody is not saved if they don't get healing that it was because there wasn't enough faith that is not what it's saying and when I'm talking about the importance of a full Bible theology I think that it's not a mistake that Jove is literally an example given in this same exact chapter and again with Joe we are told outright that he was a righteous man that he did not sin before God in the whole ordeal of what happens in that book and that he was a man of faith yet he still experienced suffering to no direct fault of his own there is actually the scene up in heaven between God and Satan that brought about what happened to job on earth and so I don't think we are always given an explanation or we always know the reason why when somebody is sick when somebody experiences suffering or when that prayer for healing isn't answered in the way that we want it to but I don't necessarily think that that is the point of this passage I think the point of this passage is that James is calling us to have faith he is calling us to pray he is calling us to confess because God works through those things and because He is calling us to have faith in who God is that he is capable of doing those things not because he is promising that we are always going to get the outcome we want and I also want to point out to the healing is not just limited to the physical I think that sometimes God can use physical ailments to bring about a deeper spiritual healing where people come to know God and they come to receive salvation and so I think that sometimes there's gonna be things that happen in this life that don't make sense to us it looks like God didn't answer the prayers for healing but there could have been something deeper that took place a deeper healing that took place and we are called to have faith in who God is and what he is capable of and to trust him regardless of the outcome that we can see because we can't see everything but God is working and moving so far beyond what we can comprehend I want to read this note from my commentary on this section it says as seen throughout the gospels jesus healed both physically and spiritually and the same double connotation may be present here as well james is not teaching that all illnesses will be healed if people would simply call upon the elders or try to make themselves have enough faith or pray with enough conviction healing when it does come is always a gift from god who is sovereign over all circumstances in booting sickness and health it does not follow therefore that a lack of faith on the part of the sick person is the reason that the sick person may not be healed so again the commentator here is saying what I was talking about before that we cannot make the assumption that just because somebody is not healed that it meant that there wasn't enough faith and again to do that I think it's damaging to a person who is likely already grieving and so I think that this is something we need to be really really careful about we don't want to miss the point of this passage which is again to call us to consistency and urgency and fervency in our prayers believing that God can and will move in incredible ways believing in who he is and what he is capable of and trusting him regardless of the outcome verse 19 my brother's if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins that is it that is the end of James 5 we made it through this entire book as for the verses I want to pick to study a little bit more in depth I'm looking at verse 7 and 8 so I'm going to go ahead and pull out my journal and we'll get to studying okay so I wrote out verse 7 and 8 I'll go ahead and read it it says be patient therefore brothers until the coming of the Lord see how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth being patient about it until it receives the early and late rains you also be patient establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand and one of the main reasons I wanted to pick these verses to study a little bit more was actually because of a note I wrote here in my journaling Bible from a commentary the last time I read through James so I'm going to copy that note here into the notes section of my journal and then I'll read it to you [Music] okay so it says the early rain falls in Israel during October and November and softens the ground for planting the latter rain falls in March and April immediately before the spring harvest so it really stands out to me about this note one is it's kind of just cool to get the context because James is writing to people who would have understood these things as he's talking about the early and the late rains people would have known what he was talking about and we kind of miss a little bit of that context and so it's saying that there's the early rain that has this one purpose for softening the ground and in the latter rain which comes months later and that is immediately before the spring harvest and so what really stands out to me is all of this is waiting right this is talking about patience and suffering and so James is talking to them in this period of waiting as we are waiting for the coming of the Lord waiting for these in Justices to be resolved waiting for God to move in these ways and so both the early rain and the latter rain is in this time of waiting for the harvest because James is drawing this analogy of this farmer who is waiting for the precious fruit of the earth for the results of that which he is waiting for and so both of these both the early rain and the latter rain both of them are in this time of waiting and their months apart which means that this is a long period of waiting but both of these rains actually have a different purpose one is to soften the ground and one is immediately before the spring harvest to water it and so I just want to make the note that God has a purpose in what he's doing and all of the different stages of our waiting even when it all looks the same for us right like for this farmer he's just waiting for all these months the rain in and of itself in October and November doesn't look any different than the rain that's happening in March and April to him and to the human eye would all look the same yet those two rains had a different purpose and so God has a purpose for what he is doing in each stage of the waiting and in all of it there is a process so I wrote that down here that God has a purpose for what he's doing in each stage of the waiting and all of it is a process and then I also wrote down that the early rain and the latter rain looked the same yet they each had a different purpose and I'm going to highlight that part right here and I know that this passage again is specifically talking about waiting for the coming of the Lord that as we talked about before we are waiting for God to make things right but this passage is also revealing to us the character and how he works in the waiting and so I think that this is actually really encouraging because I know for me sometimes in waiting it doesn't seem like much is changing I see the early rain and the latter rain and these months are going by and they both look the same yet in this example those two rains they had a different purpose and God had to bring the early rain in order to soften the ground for the planting and then that planting happens and then that latter rain comes right before the harvest to water and to prepare it for that harvest and so here in this analogy that James is giving for waiting and for patience is this analogy of a farmer where there is a very specific process that needs to happen in order for that farmer to see that precious fruit of the earth that he is waiting for and I think there's just this sense of comfort and encouragement and that that God knows what he is doing that he is working even when we don't see it even when to us we just see everything looking the same early in the latter rain that God is working that he is moving and setting things in place that need to happen in order for that precious fruit of the waiting to be seen and so I'm just gonna continue to think through that and look at things in my own life that I'm waiting for and how God might be working in different ways and having different purposes in the different stages of waiting in those things and asking him to show me that I actually decided to also write down the definition of the word patient as I'm thinking and praying through these things so it says able to accept or tolerate delays problems or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious and so again I think that we are able to be patient are able to accept or tolerate the delays like this definition is talking about because we understand that God has a process and he has a purpose in every single stage of it and then I also really want to do some self-examination and just be honest about areas I see myself getting annoyed or anxious in waiting because the definition of patient is saying that we are able to accept it without doing that without becoming annoyed or anxious and so again those are the things I'm going to be thinking and praying through that is all for James chapter 5 don't forget to leave a comment below letting me know what bursted out to you most and just what you are learning from this chapter I know that there's probably a lot to be thinking through and so I'm excited to hear your thoughts thank you so much for going through this series with me I hope that you have learned a lot that it has helped you draw closer to God that is my biggest hope with any of the videos that I make if you enjoyed this video please be sure to give it a thumbs up that is a huge way that you can help support my channel and then also if you have ant please be sure to hit the subscribe button thank you so much for watching this video and I will see you in my next one bye [Music]

Channel: Kaci Nicole

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Keywords: james 5, james 5 bible study, bible study with me james 5, james 5 sermon, sermons on james 5, james sermon series, james 5 commentary, commentaries on james 5, confess your sins to one another, let your yes be yes and your no be no, bible study, bible video, how to study the bible, james 5 study, james 5:16, that you may be healed, the prayer of faith, james chapter 5, bible study with me, christian youtuber, bible study series on james, bible study video, james, bible

Id: NfKcr7gNyVs

Length: 21min 37sec (1297 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 17 2020