The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

As a believer, the fact that there is a God, that He is my Creator, and that He alone determines the absolute truths about right and wrong, are so clear and so obvious to me that I have a hard time understanding how someone could not see the same thing.  Forget about all of the theology, the religious ordinances, I am just talking about the fact that God exists and that I have an obligation to recognize that.

The simple fact that we exist screams out to me that there is a Creator.  To believe otherwise requires so much faith in the feeble knowledge of man that it becomes a religion of its own.  It is a religion born out of the desire to feel good about living a life that you know is against the will of God.  There can be no other reason for rejecting what is so obvious.  It certainly is not based on objective science.

So how did man fall so far from worshiping God and what are the consequences of that rejection?  That is the topic of our lesson today.

When you think of your local church what do you think of?

In this last lesson of our study of the book of James, we learn how to care for each other.  Without question, Jesus wants our churches to be a hospital for those in need. When a Christian brother or sister is facing a trial, they should find support in the fellowship of the church.  When a person needs to find Jesus as their Lord and Savior, they should be able to find Him in our churches.  

This is the challenge that James has put before us.  We are to care for each other.  It should be evident to the world that believers care for those in need.  It should be what makes us different from the world whose main focus is to take care of themselves.  

James closes this letter with an appeal for patience as we wait upon the coming of the Lord, instruction on how to care for each other, and how the believer is to protect their witness before the world.  

We live in a world today where more Christians are being killed for their faith than at any other time in history.  Countries in the Middle East, like Pakistan, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia daily beat and execute Christians just because their faith does not match their own Muslim religion.  Places of Christian worship are destroyed by the religious intolerant.   What is sad is that the mass media and the other governments of the world have, for the most part, ignored what is going on in these countries. 

The U.S. is also following this trend.  While it is currently possible for preachers and teachers of the Word of God to tell what God has defined as the absolute truths of right and wrong, I see a time coming very soon when these same sermons will be considered as hate speech by our own government.  Preachers will be silenced from telling the world what the Bible teaches, even in their own churches.  Imprisonment, lawsuits, and persecution, will be applied to those who choose to preach and teach Biblical truths.  Our government has systematically removed God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible, from our government meetings, our schools, our universities, and the public square.  

I believe as Ronald Reagan once said, "Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we're mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under." -- Remarks at an Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast in Dallas, Texas, 23 August 1984 (President RONALD WILSON REAGAN)

Listen to this study of the book of James to learn that even in the face of the harshest persecution, God has a happy ending for us as believers.  We have the promise of the Lord’s return.  

We have the promise that the Lord will come in power and judgment.  

We have the promise of an eternity in heaven with the Lord Jesus welcoming us with the words well done.  

We have the promise of joy, unspeakable and full of glory.  

This is why we can be patient.  Why, when we are subject to religious intolerance and persecution, we can be still, and why we can be strong, for we know the day of the Lord is coming soon.  

Do you ever look at the world around you and see people who are not even trying to be obedient to God, who are only looking to satisfy their own needs, and say “Lord, why do you allow the wicked to be so successful?”

It is easy to look at countries like Pakistan where Christians are being persecuted to the point of killing them by the thousands, and ask “Lord, why do you allow this to happen?”

When you find yourself working for someone who is deceitful, dishonest, and whose sole purpose is to make your life at work miserable, and ask “Lord, why are you not judging this person?  You promise that you will judge the wicked, so when are you going to do it?”

While it is true that God will reward the obedient believer and punish those who are disobedient, the Bible tells us that it will happen on God’s timeline and not ours.  

In our podcast this week, James tells the believer to be patient until the coming of the Lord.  God will judge all men, the believer and the unbeliever.  In fact, Nothing is more certain from Scripture than the fact of God’s judgment to come.

The Bible is clear that all of us are to be judged, we are simply not going to be judged all at the same time.  Just as there are several resurrections, there are several judgments.  They are distinguished by the subjects of the judgment, the time of the judgment, the place of the judgment, the basis of the judgment, and the result of the judgment.  

If you knew the Lord was coming tomorrow to judge you, how would it change your behavior?

Does the Bible say that it is wrong to be rich?

Contrary to popular belief, the Bible actually does not condemn money.  A great many people have the viewpoint that there is something dirty about money, and those who make it.  They call it “filthy lucre.”  This is not what the Scripture says, even though you can find those words in the Bible. 

What the Scripture does say is that “… the love of money is the root of all evil …” (1 Tim. 6:10).  The key portion of that statement is the love of money.  Not the money itself, but the love of money.

The problem is not in the coin itself, or the dollar bill that you hold in your hand.  The problem is in the hearts of men and women.  It is the love of money that is the root of all evil. 

To know that this is true, think of all of the very wealthy Biblical characters.  Abraham was a man of great wealth.  Joseph was wealthy.  David was wealthy.  Solomon was wealthy beyond imagination.  If it was the money that was the problem, then God would not have blessed these men with these riches.  

Listen to this podcast to hear how the book of James does not condemn people just because they are rich but because of their wrong relationship to their riches.  James is concerned with how they get their money and what they were doing with it after they get it.  These questions are applicable to all of us.  

 

If we are to know what is good in the sight of God, then we must understand what God’s will is for our lives.  

Now, it is easy to say that we are to seek God’s will in all that we do, but how do you really do that?  How do you communicate with God on such a basic level that you can determine what His will is for your next moment?

We do this by fellowshipping with God.  This is God’s desire, to fellowship with us.  When we pray to God and God responds, that is fellowship.  It is through this fellowship that we discover God’s will for us.  It is through constant fellowship with God that we discover God’s will for the next moment, the next day, and so forth.

As believers, we have the awesome capability of fellowshipping with the almighty Creator of all things.  Yet, even as a believer we must deal with the sin in our lives or that sin will cause our communication line with God to be blocked.  Sin separates us from God. 

If you want to know good, then you must fellowship with God.  If you want to fellowship with God, then you must deal with the sin in your life.  

Listen to this podcast to learn how fellowshipping with the almighty Creator of all things is possible for you.

Can you depend on the future?

We all make plans for the future.  We plan for our kids to go to college.  We plan for our retirement.  We plan for our career.  It is considered prudent to do all of these things, and foolish not to, but can we depend on the future happening like we want it to, like we are planning for it to happen?

It would be great if we see into the future and know exactly what was going to happen, so we could better plan for the events that were going to occur.  For instance, if you knew that you were going to lose your job in a few months, you might begin to save money to prepare for it.  

This is why horoscopes, soothsayers, fortune tellers, and psychics, are so popular, people will try anything to look out into the future.  The problem is that none of these methods really work because they cannot really see into the future.  Only God can see the future.  Only God is omniscient.  Only God knows exactly what you will be doing in the next minute, the next hour, the next day, the next year, until the day you die.  

Satan cannot see the future.  Satan cannot prophesy, only God can prophesy.  So if we are to make plans for the future, wouldn't it make sense to consult the only One who knows exactly what is going to happen to us, when it will happen, and how it will happen?  God knows it all.  

Listen to this podcast to learn why it is so important to always consider God’s will for your life in any plans that you make, for it is God that commands your heart make the next beat, or He is the One that tells it to stop beating.  In this lesson, James tells us how foolish it is to leave God out of the equation when we need to depend on our future.   

In our politically correct society, what is the proper reaction that is expected of someone who has offended someone else?  Is it to laugh about what was said?  Not likely.  Is it to ignore it as something inconsequential?  A great number of politicians have learned the folly of this reaction.  The accepted, and expected, reaction is for the person to publically, sincerely, apologize and promise to never do it again.  It is interesting that our society demands this type of reaction even when the offended person is totally unknown to the person who made the insensitive statement.      

Contrast this to what most people consider the proper reaction that is expected of someone who has committed a sin against God.  The world celebrates these people, praising them for their courage, and condemning those who would point out that this act was indeed a sin against God, and that God is offended by this sin.  Not just this sin, but any sin.  

The world laughs at the idea of calling something a sin.  Our churches today are calling as good and proper what was once called sin.  They not only tolerate sin in the church, but they declare their own open-mindedness because they accept sin as normal and accepted.  As a result, church members are not dealing with sin in their lives, even though the Bible teaches that sin of any kind offends God. 

In this lesson, James describes how the believer is to react to sin that has been identified in their lives.  We are to mourn that sin.  We are to ask God for forgiveness of that sin, in other words we are to apologize to God.  We are then expected to repent of that sin, which means that we are promising God that we will never do it again.  

God expects, and as our Creator deserves, a better reaction than we give to someone, whom we do not even know, that we have offended.   

When I was a small child, I always wanted to be near my Father, because I knew that he loved me, and that he would protect me.  When I put my small hand into his big hand and we walked somewhere, I always felt secure and safe.  When he hugged me I knew all was right with the world.  

Now that I am a child of God, I want God to be so close that I can feel the warmth of His embrace.   I want God to be so close that I can put my small hand into His infinite hand and I want to walk and talk with Him.   

What is so amazing about our God is that He wants to be close to us as well.  He wants to walk and talk with us in the cool of the afternoon as He did with Adam and Eve.  The Bible tells us that there is a great gulf fixed between man and God, yet God has taken the initiative on this side of the grave.  In an act of infinite compassion God has come looking for us because we are lost.  God has sent His Son Jesus Christ to be the bridge that can bring us to God.  

God has come as far as He can.  He stops short of violating the human will.  He stands at the edge of the bridge with arms outstretched and says Come! Come! Come!

In our lesson today, James tells us how to draw near to God.  How it is possible to have a personal, up-close, relationship with the almighty Creator of all things.  

When we think about the term worldliness we think of the envy and strife that exists in our secular lives.  Political parties split, and one group becomes pitted against another.  As management and labor meet around the conference table, there is a battle going on.  In the corporate world there are climbers on the corporate ladder who are stepping on the hands of others as they go up.  In our neighborhoods, one family does not speak to another family.  Within families there are quarrels, brother against brother.

When a church allows worldliness to enter its doors, the characteristics of the world become evident in the church.  The envy and strife that exists in the world are displayed within the church.  The symptoms of a worldly church are divisions, conflict, power struggles, and open warfare among its members.  

Worldliness can be exhibited from both the pulpit and the pew.  It can pray with self-righteous eloquence.  It can find triumph in the middle of a deacon’s meeting.  It can take over a trustee’s meeting.  It can split churches over the color of the carpet, or a building program.  It will begin in a fight over who to ordain to its ministry, who can become a church member, or who can be baptized.  All are topics that can destroy the fellowship and evangelistic efforts of the church.

Listen to this podcast to learn that symptoms of worldliness are evidence of a problem that lies much deeper.  It lies within the heart of the church member.  

What is the answer to worldliness?  Prayer.  Personal prayer, properly performed, can reveal the worldliness in our hearts and can cleanse it.  James teaches us the secret of obtaining an answered prayer from the almighty, living, God who tells us that we have not because we ask not.