7.3 - James 1, No More Than Four

In this episode, Paul and Noah each bring for discussion two high-impact points from James 1. James' straightforward, in-your-face teaching challenges us to make practical application in our lives!

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Paul and Noah both preach and teach with the Cedar Park church of Christ in Cedar Park, TX. You can visit our site at: https://www.cedarparkchurchofchrist.org/

Transcript

Noah: 0:30

Well, good morning and welcome back to the stand strong podcast. We're here at the beginning of 2025 and the beginning of a new season, season seven, our journey through James. So I'm looking forward to our time this season that we have to really dig in and dive into the wisdom found in James. And I'm really glad that you're along for this ride, that you're joining us on this journey. And I'm glad to be here with Paul this morning.

Paul: 0:57

Yes, good morning, Noah. It's good to be here in the studio. I love, like you said, I love the book of James. It is so practical. And we've been dealing with the God side of this. I mean, we just want to see God in the book of James. Then we need to see ourselves. It doesn't do us a lot of good if all we do is say, well, this is the wonderful God that we serve. Well, what's the expectation as a result of this wonderful God that we serve? So we've been going through this and I'm excited about today because kind of we had talked about Okay, we get to go through a chapter and we just get to pick a couple of things That really resonate with us or we're really passionate about sharing with people and getting people to see it's made a difference in our life We know it can make a difference in a good positive way in other people's lives. So Yeah, looking forward to that today.

Noah: 1:39

Yes today is no more than four because we each brought At max two high impact points from James chapter one, things that have, have impacted us and that we, we find there's a lot of power in talking about. And the first one that I, that I thought of and wanted to talk about is how James discusses the nature of temptation in verses 13 and following. I think that's a really. helpful passage for me because it reframes temptation. It kind of puts temptation in its proper context. There, there's a simple question about temptation that I think we sometimes get uncomfortable with. And James just kind of addresses it head on. Where does temptation come from? Where does temptation come from? And Setting aside the context of James for a moment, I think that we sometimes, our first response is, well, Satan, Satan's where temptation comes from. He's the tempter. We look at the first sin in Genesis chapter three. He's the one that slithered into the garden and, and tempted Eve. We see passages like he is a lion seeking whom he may devour. And so we think temptation comes from Satan. Well, scripture makes it clear that we're to be aware of Satan and that he is the adversary. He's the enemy. He's the accuser and we're supposed to resist him. But I think part of what's so helpful about what James says in verses 13 and following where God is not tempted by evil. He doesn't tempt us by evil, but each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. Part of the helpfulness is that if we think our temptations are only coming from some outside power, like Satan, then we're going to miss right. What's right under our noses. And the answer that James give is James gives is we're tempted by our, our own desire, our own desire. We don't require anyone. To tempt us in order to be tempted now that being said satan will use our desires to tempt us He'll capitalize on that but the true nature of temptation and I think this is Maybe the the kind of the highlight the impact point for me the true nature of temptation is that it reflects the state of our heart

Paul: 3:58

Oh Yes Yeah, that's, that's, that's an interesting statement. You know, I was, I was rereading James chapter one and thinking about some of this. James is that in your face kind of writer. Yes. I mean, he's, he's very to the point and he says, these are your illicit, unlawful desires. And you give birth to these and they produce sin in you. You're, you're responsible. You're the one. See, just being tempted is not sin. Right. But you're responsible for, for allowing your desires to be conceived, giving birth to those illicit desires. And when that happens, you can't say the devil made me do it. Right. He tempted you, but you gave birth to that desire. So keep your desires in check.

Noah: 4:44

Exactly. Cause the desire itself may seem harmless. But it is our evil desires that ultimately lead to death. And that, I mean, like you said, that's in your face. James doesn't, doesn't shy away from that. This is where it leads. It leads to death. And it's in that context that he really, he says, don't be deceived. Every good gift comes from God. And so he, then he points back to God and he says, while your, your temptation ultimately reflects your heart and this, the sin is born from your own desires. He's not just saying we can't blame God for our sin. He's reminding us that fundamentally. God is the one who rescues us from that sin and gives us strength in the face of temptation and desire. So he's really flipping that on its head. You can't point to God and blame him for temptation. Really, he's the only rescue from temptation. And I think that's a really powerful point.

Paul: 5:39

Yeah. Did you have more on that? I was going to make a connection. No, go for it. To Matt. Well, you know, he, he ends that in verse 16, having, having dealt with what you said about the temptation. Then he just says, do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. That's not the only time he talks about don't be deceived or the possibility of us deceiving ourselves. Go to the end of the chapter, Noah, verse 26 of James one. If anyone among you thinks he is religious. And yet he does not bridle his tongue. He deceives his own heart. And then he says, this, this person's religion is useless. Now, pause. If you, if you ever hear an in your face writer say, Hey, here's how you see your religion. Now, let me tell you about it. It's useless. If or when, so he deals with the tongue and what he tells us just like temptation, the tongue, we can deceive ourselves. So I can convince myself that I am. I'm a very devout, pious, religious person, and yet I've got a heart problem that's influencing a tongue, or I've got a toxic tongue because I've got a heart problem. And James says, look, your religion is empty. It's useless.

Noah: 6:52

Yeah.

Paul: 6:53

So sometimes what we do, what I can do is I can major. In minors, I can say I'm doing all of these good things and I'm doing this and I'm doing this. I mean, I'm, I'm at services every Sunday. I don't miss a service and, but you're not paying attention to your trunk tongue. You're not trying to bribe your tongue. James will talk more about the tongue in chapter three. He even talks about the tongue in chapter four, but he makes an in your face kind of point about how we can deceive ourselves in relationship to our Christianity and our service and worship before God. And yet, if we got a tongue problem. He said your religion is useless.

Noah: 7:29

Yeah. Yeah. That idea of deceiving ourselves, like you said, runs it kind of is an undercurrent through this first section of James. And that's a warning that should stick in our minds that there are things that reveal the true nature of our state and the true situation we find ourselves in and the true value of the things that we do. And there in verse 26, James makes it pretty clear. Listen, you can, you can reveal that pretty much everything you're doing is, is empty and hollow. by what you say. And that's, that's a sobering thought.

Paul: 8:07

Yeah, we have to pay, we have to pay attention to each one of us, our tongue and the use of our tongue. I mean, I don't want to jump into because we'll get into it in chapter four, but he just, he kind of makes a point. It seems like, how does it fit the context? But he just says in verse 11 of chapter four, do not speak evil of one another brethren. Depending on the translation, you can have speak evil or slander. And look, when you talk about slandering that Christians slandering Christians and we know we've got that in our churches. We know that we've got that throughout the relationships. And James is saying, look, you can't say that your religion, or you're a pious person and your religion is useful. If you're not paying attention to how you use your tongue, and sometimes we speak evil of other Christians in our churches and our church family because we've got our own insecurities. You know, if I can run you down, if I can slander you, it makes me feel better. And I've thought over the years, how do you stop evil speaking?

Noah: 9:10

Yeah.

Paul: 9:11

Don't be an evil listener. Right. You know, so, I mean, if, if, if the person who's trying to speak evil of others, if the person who's using the tongue in a way that, that is wrong, if they don't have anybody to listen to them, you know, so I, I, I think there's a reason why James talks about the tongue, but he just kind of sets the stage here in chapter one, you do not deceive yourself. If you think your religion is really worthy of something, but yet you're not, you're not honoring God through the use of your tongue. No, you're, this man, religion is vain. It's empty.

Noah: 9:43

Yeah. You know, chapter one in many ways is a preview of the rest of the book. Cause you've got, like you talked about, he, he talks about the tongue here and then he's going to talk about it again in chapters three and a little bit in chapter four. And he talks about being, deceiving ourselves and another way he does that here in chapter one, my second one that really impacts me is when we get to verse 22 and he says, be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. Here's another context where he talks about deceiving ourselves. And this is really setting up, he's teeing up what he's going to talk about. In chapter two to some extent here, but that idea of being doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving ourselves. This is another situation where James in your face, simple teaching is something that we should appreciate about him. If we hear the word, but we don't do the word. We have tricked ourselves. We have lied to ourselves. We have deceived ourselves. If we back up a verse into verse 21, he says you know, Ridding yourself of all moral filth and evil that is so prevalent, Humbly receive the implanted word which is able to save your soul. So, this word that we're receiving is not just you know, a list of instructions and commands. It's something that's able to save us. It's a it's it's god's power to change us to transform us and to save us from our sin, but it has to be there in verse 21. He says it has to be humbly received. Which we talked a little bit about last time, but then in verse 22, he says it has to be done. There's, there's this action that's, that's required. And if we, if we, if we are unwilling. to act on the word, then we have lied to ourselves. When we act as if the word is not something that is, needs to be done, then we are deceiving ourselves. And it doesn't really get much simpler than that.

Paul: 11:53

Yeah, in chapter two, he's going to talk about practical faith, saving faith, genuine pure faith. And he just sets the stage here in chapter one, you've got to be a doer, not simply a hearer. This, I went to church this week, I went to church today, I heard a good sermon today, I agreed with everything I heard today, is not enough. You know, Christianity, or, yes, Christianity is a do religion. And James says, it's possible to hear only and not put your faith into practice. Yeah. And so, being a doer of the word, who's the one that's going to be blessed?

Noah: 12:37

Right.

Paul: 12:37

It's not the hearer.

Noah: 12:38

It's the doer, right? It really reframes the idea of what it means to receive the word. I think sometimes we we Undercut the idea of what it means to be receptive I mean if someone's trying to give you advice, you know If if you're just in a situation in life where you're not sure what to do And there's someone that you go to for advice or they come to you and say hey I can see you're struggling with this. I want to give you advice You and you listen to everything that they say, you patiently listen. But the whole time you have no intention of doing anything that they advise you to do. You may appear receptive. You're not actually, you're not receptive. And, and here again, if we're supposed to humbly receive the implanted word, Oh, we're good at listening. We've got our daily Bible reading. We read through it. We listen to the sermons or the podcasts or whatever that, but we don't really have any intention of acting on it. That's not really being receptive. That's being a hearer only and not a doer. And we've deceived ourselves.

Paul: 13:47

Yeah. He told 19, be, be swift, ready to hear. So how do we genu, how do we genuinely express that we have a heart that is receptive, eager to hear the humility and faith to put into practice now what we've heard? So you know, yeah, that's a very pregnant text here, a passage in chapter one. Noah, since I had verse 26, notice how James ends in verse 27. Now, he had said in verse 26, look, you don't need a useless religion. Don't just think you're religious. Be careful. Where's your faith? How are you practicing what you hear? Verse 27. So here's pure and undefiled religion for God and father is this. To visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Pure and undefiled religion. That's a whole subject right there. If you were just going to say, okay, well, James, what do you mean by pure and undefiled religion? But you know, honestly, Noah, most of the people I talk to, they understand those terms, pure and undefiled.

Noah: 14:53

Yeah.

Paul: 14:53

So how do I know my faith is pure? How do I know my religion is undefiled? Pure and undefiled. How can I genuinely demonstrate before God and others that my faith is useful and active? Well, live a moral life. Keep yourself unstained from the world. Don't see how close to sin you can get without sinning. Realize the desires, don't give birth to them, deal with them honestly. And, and don't allow this world to influence you in effective and negative ways. I mean, there's right and wrong. Be a doer of what is right. Be righteous in your conduct. If your heart's tainted, You're going to have some actions that are impure. And we get that. Keep yourself unstained from the world. We get the morality side of our Christianity, man. Have we heard sermon after sermon about that? How many sermons do we hear in our pulpits? How often are we having discussions in the context of a Bible study or a reading of James one about our faith, Christianity, as it relates to. orphans and widows. And I have to be honest, look, I could have been that guy 10 years ago that, that needed those sermons and needed somebody to hit me over the head with a club. And I can just tell you things that I've seen, things that I've been a part of, I wasn't practicing pure religion. It wasn't mean that didn't mean I didn't care. It just, I wasn't aware of some of these things. And part of that was Western America and where I lived and the culture and things, you know, that had to do with me. I just didn't know about opportunities. I wasn't aware of some, especially as it related to orphans.

Noah: 16:33

Yeah.

Paul: 16:34

But when you become aware of certain situations and you have an ability and an opportunity, thereby, here's now responsibility. James says, okay, where's your faith? Right. In relation. And so I started going through the text, like Old and New Testament. How often God revealed his heart towards orphans and widows. And James talks about visit. Visit is not a Okay, how am I going to I want to say this and be fair. Visit is not simply, you know, send a card or make a phone call. I'm not saying those are unimportant. Especially to widows in our churches. But it's, it's the active for. It's, it's a useful faith. Yeah. And so if he just finished talking about faith as it relates to our conversation, the tongue, now it's faith as it relates to compassion and service, helping the hurting and orphans and widows. That's, that's something that we need to open our eyes to.

Noah: 17:34

Yeah. Yeah. The, the Christian standard version says to look after orphans and widows as opposed to visit to look after. And I think that that communicates a little bit more clearly. What other translations put as a visit? What, what's going on here? Is this, like you said, the showing of compassion and this, this is faith. This is religion. This is holiness, not only by what we avoid, not only by exception or subtraction, as we sometimes hear it said, this is holiness in compassion. A positive sense as well. What are we devoting ourselves to? What are we, what are we spending our lives on? Not only by what are we avoiding, which is important, but what are we embracing and what are we showing in this case, the compassion and the care. And I think frankly, part of the reason that we struggle with this is it's overwhelming because we don't have to look around very far or very hard. to find the downtrodden The the abandoned the overlooked the widow and the orphan now. It's easier to avoid Here in our culture and in our communities than it is if you go over to the other side of the world It's easier to To not see it, but really if we spend much time We'll find it. It's really not hard to find. And then, like you said, we have to deal with the burden that comes with that. And that's difficult. It's uncomfortable. And each of us have to be able to work through what responsibility that puts on our lives. But the fact is again, James, Simple teaching. Hey, this is what we're called to. This is what is acceptable and pleasing to God.

Paul: 19:27

Yeah, for the sake of time, I don't want to take everybody unnecessarily so through a journey in Scripture, but I think it's, I mean, you can read the latter part of Matthew 25 to see how it relates here to practical, useful faith. I make sure our religion is useful, I mean, to demonstrate our true piety and devotion to God. Jesus says, when you care for those that need to be cared for and help the hurting, you're helping me, you're caring for me. That's Matthew 25. We'll get to this in James 2, when he talks about genuine faith, you know, in James 2, 14 through 17. There's a lot of Old Testament passages Noah, you know, especially in the book of Job. And you, you think you wouldn't find some of this in Job, and Job's not bragging about himself. He's just simply defending his integrity to his supposed friends who were falsely accusing him. Right. And when James was defending his integrity, here's what he says. James, Job. When Job was defending his integrity to his supposed friends, he says this in Job 29, I rescued the poor who cried for help and the fatherless who had, who had no one to assist them. I made the widows heart sing. The point was he was helping them find relief in times of distress and still in Job 29. I was eyes for the blind, feet for the lame. I was like a father to the poor and took the side of strangers in trouble. How do you explain that? Because Job knew the heart of God. I mean, Deuteronomy 10, Deuteronomy 24, God executes justice for the orphan and the widow. He shows his love for the alien by giving him food and clothing. I mean, there's, there's a lot of passages, even in the Psalter and the Psalms. Where God is telling us something about how he cares for, he's a father to the fatherless. And how can it, how can we say that we have active faith? And again, not all of us have the same ability and so we don't all have the same opportunities or responsibility. But I think James is again, the in your face writer, he's saying, Paul, just don't deceive your heart. Really examine your faith as it relates to opportunities that you may have to do good, especially to widows and orphans.

Noah: 21:40

Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's powerful stuff. Well, we said no more than four, so we've talked about the nature of temptation. We've talked about controlling our tongue. We've talked about being doers and not hearers. And we've talked about pure and undefiled religion. I think that's four. Yes. All right. Well, we got to let them go then.

Paul: 21:57

All right. Chapter two. Thank you for listening today. And, and keep studying the book of James. There's so, so much there. If you see something in a chapter, if you see something in the book of James, as we're journeying through James and you want to reach out to Noah, I say, Talk about this, or we'd like to hear a little bit about this. We'd love to hear from you. We're just, we're just thankful that you're joining us in this journey through James, Lord willing, we're coming to chapter two now, Noah, and kind of, we're going to follow the pattern we've set in this season. So we're going to look at God. We want to see God first in James chapter two. And then after we see God, then we want to see ourselves. So Lord willing, next episode, looking into James two, just want to see God.

Noah: 22:35

Yes, absolutely. Looking forward to next week. We are thankful to be on this journey along with James and his plain teaching and the wisdom found therein. To our listeners, thank you for coming along on this journey. We pray that as we all seek to pursue that pure and undefiled religion before God and And not only to seek to keep ourselves unstained from the world, but to serve others and show the compassion of God that we can, we can stand up in the face of this cruel world that we live in and that together we can stand strong.