James Bible Study Week 4

1-3

Passions

Two viewpoints or interpretations (within a man vs. within the body of Christians)

ESV: passions NIV: desires NLT: evil desires KJV lusts/ pleasures

James is speaking about our evil or sinful desires

Why do our evil desires cause fights or wars?

James 3:16 "For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice."

Unity

The opposite of the wars and fights is what the bible calls unity

John 17:11 "Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one as we are one."

Context: Name is character or nature

This is Jesus' idea of unity

That we are as close to each other in nature and character and desire as God the father and Jesus

The only way to accomplish that is by aligning our passions and our desires with God's

That sounds really complicated, but it's not

Pray for God to change you and your desires

4-5

Friend of the World, Enemy of God

Very black and white

doesn't say God is disappointed

It says we are His enemy

What is the world?

Not actually the Earth or other people

but the sinful state of the world

which is also anything secular or apart from God

obvious things: Lust, Jealousy, Greed

also things we don't usually think of as evil

The music we listen to

Is it sinful, lustful, blasphemous, use evil language

The TV or movies that we watch

If we choose to befriend sin and lust and evil things

even if they don't seem evil to us or to culture

It means we are making ourselves enemies of God

So If we don't want to be an enemy of God How do we not befriend the world

Judge all of our words and actions and the things we watch and listen to to the word of God

As cringey as it is we ask ourselves what would God think of this

Because His opinion and what he says truly does matter if we care about our standing with God

We might have to make changes in our lives

maybe it is cutting out some music you listen to because it is normalizing detestable sins in your mind

for some people maybe it's the language you use

If we choose to not tame our tongue like we talked about last week we're choosing to be an enemy of God

This leaves a hard decision for us

we have to choose between some of the things in this world that give us pleasure

drugs and alcohol

sex and/ or lust

gossip, slander, bad language

and we have to choose either those things or God

There's no in between

theres no third option

We don't get to have both

If we want those pleasurable things then we choose to give up our relationship with God

because he will not be a friend of sin or evil

And if we want a real and authentic relationship with God

we must give up our worldly practices

but if we choose God and we slip up it doesn't mean we're going to hell

we must repent

but more importantly our true desire must be God

We cannot fool God he knows what we desire and where our heart is set

This goes back to what we talked about in James 1:14 "but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed"

Our desires are the things that play out in our lives

So if we want unity if we want to be a friend of God we must fix our desires on Him

Verse 5 This separation between the world and God is because He does not want to share our hearts with something or someone else especially sin

6-10

Humbly Submit

James lays out how we should be a friend of God and our role in the relationship

If we want grace we must humble ourselves before God

If we are not willing to drop our pride and recognize our imperfection and our rightful place we cannot be a friend of God

Submit yourselves to God

To serve God we must submit to His authority and be obedient to His word

Our relationship with God is master and servant

Our God's name is Lord which means master or ruler with authority and power

That's who He is and if we wish to have a relationship with Him we have to submit ourselves to be His servants

Resist the devil

We must flee from sin to be a friend of God

So often today we here of so many Christians saying well I'm forgiven so it doesn't really matter what I do

or I believe in God and I'm going to Heaven so I can sin and it won't really matter

The bible calls that a license for immorality

Jude 1:4 "For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord."

These people were telling themselves "it doesn't matter I'm saved" "I believe so I can sin all I want and just ask for forgiveness"

The bible says these people are condemned to hell

They don't really know God, they don't have a real faith, because if they did they wouldn't have just used Jesus as a get out of sin free card

Paul talks about this as well Romans 6:15-16 "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! 16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?"

A lot of Christians at some point had this level of faith

But if that's where you are now the scary reality is thats not a saving faith

thats not what genuine faith in Christ looks like

Jesus tells us that in Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’"

The word Jesus uses for knew here is ginosko which means to know deeply in character through a relationship

We learned that the only true relationship with God is as a servant

so if we want to have saving faith it only comes through humbling ourselves to be servants

and submitting to His authority and being obedient to Him by resisting sin

Luckily if thats where you're at in your faith James lays out these steps for us to find genuine faith

He says draw near to God and He will draw near to you

If you want to see God, seek God

Read your bible

Start praying

Not just basic simple prayers

but ask God to reveal Himself to you

ask Him to deepen your faith

and actively work to find Him

Go to church

Ask questions to understand God better

Your pastor

Me

Mason

Have a faith conversation with anyone

Cleanse your hands, purify your hearts

The bible says the word of God is written on our hearts

meaning even if you're not a Christian even if you've never read the bible you know what is right and wrong

James says if we want to find God, start by cleansing ourselves of our sin

and start doing good

Verse 9 James says we can't walk through life just hanging out having a good time not caring about things

He says part of the path to knowing God is recognize our state of sin and actually being moved by it

The sins we commit are serious and they are evil and if we just gloss over them and move on we will never understand the weight of sin

But Romans 6:23 says "For the wages of sin is death"

our sin has the power to kill us and it did

our sin is what separates us from God not just the idea of sin or our imperfection but every action of sin means that we deserve death

We have to recognize the weight of our sin to stop sinning