Book of James Chapter 1 - Bible Study | Encounter 2020 Men's Retreat

[Music] all right guys go ahead and grab your bi-fold and turn your bibles open to james chapter one james opens his book his letter his epistle by saying james a bondservant of god in the lord jesus christ to the 12 tribes who are dispersed abroad greetings now there's a lot of things james could have said to introduce himself right he said i i'm james i'm the head pastor of the jerusalem church hey i'm james i mentor paul and i mentor peter hey i'm james mary's my mom the half-brother of jesus but he doesn't say any of that doesn't mention a thing about it why because who he is and what he realizes after meeting his brother face to face is what he really is as a bond servant a slave of god and of the lord jesus christ and guys i paused at this first verse for a while because i and i asked myself if covert would have taken my company out and i would no longer have on my business card the ceo of alliance flooring right would that have changed who i am if it was my wife who passed instead of her best friend pam would that have changed who i am if i lose my family somehow in a tragic accident would that change who i am all those things would would be horrible obviously but what james takes us to is what the film just underscored who are you who are you well james says i'll tell you who i am a follower christ i'm a slave i'm a bond servant god's number one in my life greetings we tend to measure ourselves and introduce ourselves and even want to know something about somebody else by what they do for a living right what do you do my wife would come back hey meet somebody new in the subdivision what does that guy do as if that defines them right we're not defined by what we do we're not defined by what we own we're not defined by by how much money we have or how much we've sucked away what we're really defined of by the answer who is god to you that's what defines us that's what's the most important thing and that's where james goes and then i love where he goes from there he starts out and james is a straight up tell it like it is guy and he's speaking to an exciting time but a very challenging time he goes right to the worst day we could possibly have a horrible day a day when things aren't working out a day when there's confusion and trouble and the wind's blowing in our face and he says considerate pure joy my brothers when you incur when you encounter trials of many kinds why because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance for what result allow perseverance to finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking in anything this is not common thinking right so let's start out with that first statement pure joy what is pure joy okay i know what happiness is right the braves beat the yankees that made me happy finally wow ryan signed up a new store in illinois last week that made me happy our company's growing i've been looking for a new business car mine was i don't know i guess it was six or seven years old so i was kind of been looking around for a while i found it i found the right deal i took it my wife i said what do you think she gave me the thumbs up i drove off and i was happy behind that wheel it felt good to have this new car that's not joy right what's what he's saying is he's paul is not saying be happy when you have trials it's not logical we don't wish that on ourselves or our friends or our loved ones but he was saying is have pure joy when you experience trials now what how do we wrap our minds around that well let's talk about what pure joy is first so i pulled the path a verse there from psalm 16 verse 11 it tells us what pure joy is you will make known to me the path of life in your present presence presence is fullness of joy in your right hand there are pleasures forever i can tell you this five years ago when i was told to get my affairs in order i had not i had an impossible situation somehow in the midst of that i found pure joy before going into the operating room i had pure joy and the reason i did is because after ryan came over and we listened to oceans together and ball like babies and i got quiet before god and i had a lot of guys who are in this room praying over me i had total peace because i was in the presence of the lord i knew whatever was going to happen was his and it was a joy and a blanket that i can't even explain to you sometimes i wish i could have that every single day but it seems to escape us because of how life goes but what the psalmist is telling us in the presence of the lord is pure joy so the only way that we can follow up this first directive that paul that that james gives us which is when you have trials consider your pure joy is by being in the presence of god and understanding from his throne room coming down to us who he loves that he's doing something with us he's forming something as he sees something that needs to be corrected needs to be adjusted so he's going to put us through a situation so that we can learn some perseverance and so that we can be made mature and whole and complete looking back at things that i've gone through in my life that are extremely tough and we all could probably stop and go to the tables right now and we'd fill up the rest of the night just sharing with each other tough things that we've gone through but what we learned from those times right we learn much more during difficult times than we do in the winds that are back and everything is going well and our heavenly father who's preparing us for when we are in heaven and preparing us for our assignment whatever that's going to be and preparing it to meet with him is chiseling us informing us and he's going to put us through things and because he loves us and because he has a plan for us and he sees what we can be versus the comfortable place that we sometimes want to rescind to and fall down to he's going to pull us up and he's going to put us through things so that we can mature and become everything that he wants us to be so because of that when you're going through a test and you're going through a hard time you can have pure joy because you know you're loving heavenly father loves us more than we can ever even think and imagine is putting us through a test so that we can mature and we can grow and so you can have that now it's a lot easier three years later look at back on that can we learn this look and realize we're in the middle of it what are you doing god so he hits that he says if you don't know what to do the very next verse go down there james 1 5 through 6. what's up why are we going through this he says now if any of you lacks wisdom i don't get it why am i going through it he should ask god who gives generously to all without finding fault so james nick one of james nicknames all right i would probably if i see him i may at some point when we get to know each other call him the king of one-liners right you know what his nickname was when he was walking around camel knees you know why they called him camel knees because he was constantly on his knees and they were all because of the amount of time he was in prayer his knees were all wrinkled up from being on his knees for so long now where do you think he learned that from when jesus started his ministry if you read the life of jesus when he called his disciples he went to capernaum and he and he healed peter's mom then he disappeared the next morning and the disciples were looking for him the crowd was starting to get he's like they found him they interrupted his prayer and said jesus what are you doing we got a momentum going we got a whole bunch of people that and jesus had found a quiet place to pray that was not something that jesus started at age 30 when he started his ministry that was jesus life from 12 years old on at least jesus made a prayer part of his life and james knew that about his brother and after he met his brother and he got changed he remembered his big brother and so one of the things he tells us right out of the gate if you lack wisdom ask god who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to him let me ask you something do you have a bench do you have a room do you have a place in your house that you go to meet with god daily regularly do you realize the value of that i can tell you that i get in places and in meetings and in situations that there is no way i could handle them if i didn't have my time on the bench that day god will meet us on our bench and give us wisdom and give us powerful living and conviction that can come from nowhere else except by taking out the time to develop your relationship with him slow your day down and realize we have access to the creator of the world he gives us access through his son why would we not take advantage of that why would we not make it a prior why would not that be the most important part of your day a chance to take everything and put it before our loving father and when you don't get it you say god i don't get it why is life so hard right now why is the wind always at my face or thank you god everything just seems to be in place right now thank you for this little bit of respite that i have right now i know there's another lesson coming i know i've got something else to get chiseled when that day comes help me to realize what's going on help me do you have that kind of relationship are you having those type of discussions everybody agrees we should jesus lived it james lived it do you live it are you walking out what we're talking about that's what james wants to know are you living out your faith is it a part of your everyday life have you developed your theology and what you really believe is this an important part of it fellowship one-on-one your relationship with god what's really true what really matters to you not what somebody sees not how you can act when you're around certain people in certain times who are you really at home what are you prioritizing i can actually watch fox news if i've been on the bench that day if i don't i wonder what's going on in the world so crazy i can't watch it right i know who's on the throne if you ask it'll be given to you but we he must ask in faith without doubting because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind you ever feel that way what james is talking about is the principle of slingshot everybody knows what a slingshot's for right if i want to take something i want to pinpoint against that back door give me a slingshot give me a rock i can take it stretch it back and i can launch it where it wants to be what i propose to you is that our launch is in our stretch god knows where he wants to send you god knows what he has planned for you in order for you to get there he's going to have to stretch you he's going to have to take us through a time when we get stretched so that he can launch us to where he wants to go so what we want to do is number one realize that that's a fact and realize that what we're going through is part of that reason because god is on the throne and he has actually he loves us enough and knows us enough and has an individual plan for us that he will take the time to put us through things to stretch us so that so that we can be launched and then james goes on and saying oh yeah and by the way when you get stretched the tendency is going to be to say all right i'm being stretched but that's okay because i got this over here or i got this over here i can fall back on i can go to my comfort i can do whatever i've created in my life to have a comfortable life here that i can ignore that for a period of time and just concentrate on this over here distract myself whether it's sports or whether it's my second home or my luxury or whatever it is that i do to get myself off of that and forget that and just come over here no no no no no no you're going to come back to it if you work your way around what god's trying to get you through i i'm telling you i went through some things four times because i didn't catch it i can figure out how to get around the wall i can distract myself from that forget that god's gonna bring me right back to it because i didn't learn it we put too much pain on ourselves ask god for wisdom find out what it is you're gonna learn it the first time don't flunk third grade right let's learn what we have to learn be deliberate about our relationship and what it is that god's trying to teach us for the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass and its flowers fall off and beauty appearance is destroyed so too the rich man in the midst of the pursuits will fade away we have to realize is all this stuff that we distract ourselves to like that's going to be going just like your grass it's not water here and gone just like that everything that we have there's nothing wrong with james nowhere says there's anything wrong with riches but he says don't take comfort in them and just realize it's temporary what's more important is who are you how do you answer that question who am i how are you growing with him all right let's go to the next one here's the great promise that he gives us blessed is a man who perseveres under trial because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that god has promised to those who love him what he's doing is he's moving us toward eternity we're living here for a short period of time eternity is forever what we do here plays into what happens there how we mature here makes a difference in how we enter there so therefore we want to embrace the lessons that we learn and realize that we have a promise the crown of life to those who love him it says when you're tempted go ahead and turn the second page of your bifold james transitions and says okay have pure joy when you have trials now how about when you're tempted interesting it's the exact same greek word sparossimos the same word is used for when we are tested and when we are tempted he says first of all let no man say when he's tempted i'm being tempted by god for god cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not tempt anyone have you ever found yourself in a position where you're doing something that you know you probably shouldn't do but you're doing it because your desire has led you there and you really want to do it but you know you shouldn't do it and you end up putting it on god and say well obviously he wants me to do this or is i wouldn't be in this position right now right paul's calling out and says no no no god does not tempt anyone and then he goes so let's talk for a second what's the difference go i left two blanks there there's two types of tests right you can be number one write down to prove strong you can be tested to prove how strong you are that's what god does he puts us through trials to strengthen us or to show our strength number two to prove you're weak god never does that that's what we're told god will never put us through a temptation to prove that we're weak satan does that so my analogy is i'm in the flooring business when a new product comes out when i moved to atlanta i was vp of sales at mohawk when a new product came out we would test that product and then we'd take a competitor's product that was similar and we would test that two totally different tests we would test our product to show how good it is how strong it is and tell the consumer this is what it can do you can walk on it we put it under traffic of 20 000 people it still stood the test it didn't untwist you can put you can spill coca-cola on it'll clean out then we go to the competitor's product and we would do everything we can to break it down to show how weak it was so we could say their product doesn't hold up god's over here putting us through trials to strengthen us satan's over here tempting us to break us down that's the difference between the two dynamics so go to the next slide here's a space of one spot in the bible where james breaks down for us the anatomy of sin what happens when we sin it's on the second page james 1 14-15 each of you each one of you is tempted by his own evil desires it starts with something that we want he is lured away and enticed and then after desire has conceived it gives birth to sin in sin when it is full-grown brings him to death guys when we're when we find ourselves on the wrong side of what we should be doing what we need to realize as james breaks down for us it starts with our desire that's a checkpoint for us and then that desire when it's conceived when we do something with it it develops into sin and then when we continue with it when sin has become full grown it'll overtake us and it'll kill us and he uses a fishing term right he talks about being lured and being enticed so let's for a second consider a fish let's consider a bass here's the fish right now his desires are starting to grow right it's feeding time he's hungry he wants something the fisherman comes along and says all right i can develop one of any number of things that could lure that fish so that he gets on to my bait right and so let's go fishing it's study what time the fishes are hungry my grandson used to come over to our house and fish you would go online and figure out oh okay the fish and feeding time is between six and seven in the morning i'll be there at 5 45. let's go fishing right or no tomorrow is not until nine o'clock somehow people have figured this out there's books on it right best bass fishing lures and how to catch fish let me ask you something do you think that any of our soul doesn't know us well enough to develop the lure that's going to catch you which one of those things he can catch you with you think a book hasn't been written by satan and the demons throughout mankind's history because a lot of this stuff repeats itself and what happens so what's next the fish is caught what's the next thing that happened the fish is sliced down the middle deboned fried and eaten what do you think satan wants to do to us he's out to slice us dice us kill us we're told he's out to rob kill and destroy everything that we're about here's what i've noticed in life when does this come god's over here testing us for strength we're being stretched satan's over here trying to tempt us and bring us down i'm going to tell you the biggest temptations i've had in my life is at the back of that stretch i get stretched to here i'm looking for a way out so i turn my head sideways that'll give me some relief that'll give me some relief we have an enemy that's putting allure out to you right when you're at the place where god's trying to teach you something and he wants to launch you he's going to take you over here to something that's going to take you off of here guys if you're turning alcohol when things get rough realize who's doing that god's trying to teach you something you're trying to numb yourself over here if you're turning on the computer to get an adrenaline rush from the images that you're looking online because you're in the stretch and the day is hard you just can't take it who do you think is doing that and what's his purpose to slice you down the middle what james is telling us is take this stuff serious if you say that you're going to follow christ if you say he's your lord if you say he's your savior stay away from that stuff let god do his perfect work in you so you can be launched and you become all that he wants you to be life is short we have so much opportunity he prepares things for us in our life that we can walk in them but we can't when we're compromised we can't when we're trying to figure out the stretch and how to give ourselves some relief that is not in his plan so what happens what changes when we sin here's a verse i didn't get it when i first read it do not be deceived my beloved brothers every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of heavenly lights with whom there is no change or shifting shadow what does that mean it's dark outside it wasn't when we got here it was light outside what changed the sun didn't move we did the earth is turning on its axis what james is telling us if you find yourself in darkness realize this god didn't move you did you moved away god has no shifting shadow if you moved it's because if you're in darkness because you moved away from him so what do you do at that point confess your sin he's faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you from all your unrighteousness don't mess it up don't compromise be a man who wants to live life to glorify our heavenly father the most glorifying thing that james could have said in the first verse was imos bond servant of god that's who i am i'm not here to tell you anything about me anything that's great about me i'm here to tell you i have a god who's worthy for me to be a slave i want to bring glory to him with my life all right i love those of you who know me know that i love far side right so here's the guy the smallest head in the room right he said mr osborne may i be excused my brain is full so i get to this point in james i say all right man we just went through a lot who's james and and and you know what should we how should i look at temptation how should i look at testing or whatever but james doesn't stop and he's on a roll so we're going to stay on a roll we're going to close out tonight with just a handful of things that he's given us some very practical insights on how to live our life so go ahead and look at the last page the third page on your on your foldout james 1 19-20 my beloved brothers understand this everyone should be quick to listen slow to speak slow to anger for man's anger does not bring about the righteousness that god desires how many of us do the opposite right slow to listen quick to speak quick the anger that's how most guys operate do you or are you quick to listen slow to speak slow to anger because that will bring about the righteousness of god that's what james is saying if you want your religion your relationship to him to be useful be slow to speak be quick to listen be slow to anger verse 21 somehow i neglected to put it on the sheet let me read it to you it says therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness in humility receive the word implanted which is able to save your soul put aside filthiness when i say that does anything in your life come to mind put aside filthiness does anything come to mind if it does let me encourage you before your head hits the pillow tonight take that to god say god i don't know what i've been thinking i don't know what i've been chasing forgive me i haven't been looking to you i know you're doing the work in me i keep looking around you help me get rid of this filthiness take it out of my life give me a new desire in my heart that i don't desire that anymore he will do it he gives us the holy spirit to actually change our desires so that we want to follow him so our life can glorify him we can't do it on our own i tried i had some wicked things i mean i had a couple things that got me i think every guy has three things i do not just i'm talking to guys i think every guy can name three things this is what takes me down and i keep coming back to it and i would try and i would try and i would try and it would work for a while then come and get me again and they would come and get me again and finally i realized i'm trying to do it on my own i can't jesus said i have to leave but i got good news for you i'm sending you a helper the helper will change your desire so you no longer want it and it will change your activity start by confessing your sin asking him to cleanse you from it asking you to change your desire and watch your life change those around you will say whoa what's different with you because when you're hiding filthiness you may think you're hiding it people around you know you ain't right i'll tell you who really knew my wife i don't know if she's really the holy spirit but sometimes i think so i can't hide anything from her she knows by look at my face thank god for people like that in our lives right all right let's go to james 1 26. here's really the theme i mean this again this part of the theme verse that comes out from james if anyone considers himself religious and yet does not bridle his tongue he deceives his heart and his religion is worthless we've talked about that dan's going to be unpacking that a little bit more tomorrow morning it's a big big theme in chapter 3. got to pay attention to our tongue we absolutely have to pay attention our time mark's been doing some work for me and uh he only a couple times i'll notice mario will you're ready to say something it'll stop you know what he'll say right here is it true is it helpful is it inspiring is it necessary is it kind ron forget what i i'm not going to tell you what's going to tell you we got a lot of guys in this room who are our athletes who are compete and there's you know guys we jostle right i tend to go there too much my wife will bust me on it sometimes because i can say some things but then i let it but and you know joking around there's nothing wrong with that but then sometimes when i'm frustrated with somebody then that comes out even more and then now i mean but i honed a skill over here that i use over here when i'm frustrated what james is saying if we can't bridle our tongue then who are we this is a powerful powerful tool to inspire or to tear down if we're using it to tear down if out of the same mouth comes blessings and cursings then we have to say is my religion even worth anything is it making any difference you can destroy your testimony in two sentences with somebody don't make it useless it's a very practical thing to do think is it true is it helpful is it inspiring is it necessary is it kind try that on for a while i've tried that on the last three weeks i've stopped myself in a conversation many many times and i apologize to my son yesterday one time on the phone because i said someone said you know what i shouldn't have said that because i realized that i didn't i didn't follow that james is saying clean it up clean up your mouth pure and undefiled religion james 1 27 before our god and father is this to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world do you see the contrast in verse 26 he's saying i'm going to tell you what pure religion isn't what pure religion isn't is you running your mouth if you can't if you can't control the flap your religion's not pure but let me tell you what pure religion is given to somebody who can't give anything back to you you go help an orphan and you go help a widow there's nothing they can do back for you you want to show that you have pure give to people who can do nothing for you not doing it for attention you're not doing it because of what they can do back you're doing it because you have a heart to help other people the same way god has a heart to help you and then he concludes by saying keep yourself from being polluted by the world what does that mean are you polluted by the world as i chewed on that i asked myself what am i in love with here that maybe he's a little bit out of whack that maybe has me a little bit polluted god says we love the world the love of the father is not in us it's an interesting dynamic it's because we're temporal it's a balance i mean we're temporal this is what we see this is what we live in god's invisible and we you know we have to slow ourselves down to talk to him and he will make ourselves known to us and his words alive and every you know anybody that's in the word knows that but this world is powerful and enticing and there's so many things that can pull us james is calling us to ask ourselves have we in any way allowed ourselves to be polluted by this world where something here is more important than our relationship with him something here might be more important than what he's called us to do and how he's called us to live don't allow yourself to get there that's what james is telling us and one of his directives right as he keeps hitting us with directive after directive after directive we started out by showing a film of who you are interestingly paul has the exact same theme in his writings now consider paul i i think the two biggest conversions in the new testament are paul when he got knocked off that horse right good guy religious guy convinced that he was serving god by killing christians and he's on a horse on the way to damascus and jesus knocks him off the horse and he said and he calls him to the right team and paul was like for the first time real saw and realized he was wrong he was so dedicated and thought he was doing so right and he realized he missed the whole thing and what does jesus do to him jesus takes him for three years entrains paul in the desert personally trained by jesus and what's a big theme that paul writes about our identity who are we because of our relationship and how has that changed us here's let's take take home assignment ephesians chapter one let me encourage you to go to ephesians chapter one spend some time on your bench start out by underlining everything that it says in ephesians chapter 1 about who we are in him what is our new identity because of our relationship with him and then ask yourself do you see yourself that way do you realize that this is how god sees you so the clip we show from overcomer that's part of the theme of that movie and there's a young lady who she's who is being tutored who went to ephesians chapter one and as a result of that she comes back to school and she shares who you are so i'm going to close by showing you that clip and then tim and the guys will come back up and we'll have a little bit of worship ronald ryan tell us where we're going the rest of the night tomorrow okay thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] 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Channel: One Thing for Men

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Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Men's Bible Study Topics, Men's Group Bible Study, Video Bible Study, Spiritual Growth, men's retreat, book of james, book of james bible study, apostle james, epistle of james, small group bible study, james bible study, bible study for men, spiritual maturity, bible study, book of james sermon series, bible study fellowship, men's bible study, men's ministry, live bible study, practical wisdom, small group bible study ideas, book of james chapter 1, one thing for men

Id: -ULgSWOZuPY

Length: 37min 26sec (2246 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 14 2020