WEBVTT 00:00:00.660 --> 00:01:00.539 Our text this morning is from the book of James in the first chapter, and particularly, we'll be looking at verses nine through 11 as we turn there. I would like for you to turn Read along with me, but remind you that James sometimes gets shorted because he's writing to those who already know the gospel and telling us, then how do you live? He's assuming that you already know of the story of Christ, of his death, that you know that by faith, you rest in Him only all these things are there. In fact, it's been said you take a knife and cut the skin of James, and it will bleed. The Gospel, all these things are assumed on that. The question is, then, okay, now that this is true, how am I supposed to live? And so he writes about it primarily to those of Jewish background. 00:00:56.679 --> 00:01:11.939 He is, of course, himself Jewish by background, and it's sometimes called the Book of Proverbs in the New Testament, because he uses proverbs that catch in your memory and you're able to hold on to them longer. 00:01:12.659 --> 00:01:17.640 So James, beginning at chapter one and the first verse, this is God's very word. 00:01:18.659 --> 00:01:28.219 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes of the diaspora. 00:01:23.480 --> 00:02:34.039 Greetings. Con it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and that steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If anyone of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, without doubting, for the one who doubts is like the wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double minded man, unstable in all his ways. Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass, he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass. Its flower fails, his beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade in the midst of his pursuits. This is the reading of God's own Holy Word. Let's pray, Father. 00:02:35.719 --> 00:02:37.219 We do now ask for wisdom. 00:02:38.419 --> 00:03:01.919 Your word is clear. You use plain language, and yet the hardness of our hearts makes us stumble by your own spirit, open our minds and our hearts this day that we would honor you and worship you and understand your word and be obedient by faith. 00:02:57.219 --> 00:03:34.759 We ask it in Christ's name and unto His glory, amen can be seated please. It is the basic premise of the scripture that we're under trial, whatever age, whatever time, God's people are persecuted in this world, that which God declared in Genesis three, that the three seed of the serpent would be against the seed of the woman has been in place ever since that time of the fall of man into sin. 00:03:36.919 --> 00:03:56.080 And yet here, writing to people in persecution, James, as Paul does in other places, encourage us to rejoice because of what we know about the gospel, what God has said Our situation is. And he says, here, you get confused, ask God for wisdom. 00:03:57.280 --> 00:04:03.300 You're not sure exactly the way to please and serve him. Your heart is given over to him. 00:04:04.379 --> 00:04:29.660 Ask for wisdom. He never fusses at you, even though he's told you the same thing 30 times. He doesn't rebuke you. He gives to all who ask without rebuking in any way. And the confusion of our trials in a world where we have so many messages of the world coming in so many directions, some pretending to be from Christians. 00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:33.079 How do we how do we know where to go? 00:04:34.879 --> 00:04:37.939 Well, we understand where we're heading toward. 00:04:39.199 --> 00:04:59.319 As we looked last week, God is causing all these things to work together for our good to those who love Him, that we will be made like Christ. It will be justified, sanctified and glorified, and be with Him forever. We know where we're heading. We know that he's promised us wisdom and how to get there, but the. 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:06.120 The question to deal with this morning is, Well, where am I from? Where am I starting? 00:05:07.439 --> 00:05:09.300 What is my point of origin? 00:05:10.439 --> 00:05:13.860 Maps are very handy. If you know where you are to start with. 00:05:13.860 --> 00:05:42.639 That's why you go to a shopping mall. Those that are still open, maybe a map of the mall, and at some point, will say you are here, because it doesn't help very much. Otherwise, GPS is a wonderful advance, now that they have pinpoint, starting out, automatically detecting where you are. Well, the confusion of this world, we're confused at times about actually where we are, where is here? Where are we? 00:05:43.959 --> 00:05:50.439 You know, driving down the road, every man is convinced he knows exactly where we are, and we'll get there without any help. 00:05:50.439 --> 00:05:58.959 Thank you very much. And every lady says, Whatever clerk and whatever store close knows exactly the directions we need. 00:05:59.740 --> 00:06:01.019 Neither one is right. 00:06:02.879 --> 00:06:07.920 Well, dealing more serious matters and how to get to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving dinner. 00:06:08.939 --> 00:06:39.379 How do I approach God? How do I live for him? What do I do in this world? Last week, we considered the misconceptions of Jacob as to what God was doing, how he thought God and all these things were against him? Well, this morning, we deal with the confusion about what our situation is now, not the confusion Jacob had about where was he going, what was happening, but what's my status right now? What where am I? 00:06:40.759 --> 00:06:41.920 It's not a new problem. 00:06:43.060 --> 00:07:13.139 Just as with Jacob, we see this same problem repeatedly. You see it in the 73rd Psalm with Asaph, he says, I was confused. I saw the wicked prospering and and we're I'm suffering. And then when I entered the temple of God, I perceived therein, when I looked at it from God's perspective, I saw exactly the situation clouded by our pain, clouded by the chaos of the trials going around us. 00:07:14.339 --> 00:07:30.379 What is my status here? What is the divine wisdom? What does God say? Here is where you are, not confused, not misleading, nor misled. What is your situation right now? Well, that was Jacob. 00:07:31.459 --> 00:07:37.279 Was thinking, I'm abandoned by God. Okay, that's laid to rest. 00:07:38.600 --> 00:07:43.120 Well, then what is my status? 00:07:38.600 --> 00:07:53.980 Now is one being led by God, and James uses a parable. It sticks in your mind, and at first reading, it kind of whirls around in there and doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. 00:07:55.300 --> 00:08:04.620 Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation. You what's going on? 00:08:06.420 --> 00:08:26.360 Well, the first part is more easily understood when you realize that, though many translations have poor, the ESV has lowly, which is more accurate, it indicates a state of heart and of mind. There. 00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:50.740 Contrast it with those who are raised up in the world. Those who are raised up in the world get different treatment and enjoy different status. You see it in the US, even with a background of generations of Christian training, how the sounds like the rich can get away with anything, that if you are impoverished, you're going to be hit by everything and nothing you can do about it. 00:08:51.820 --> 00:09:03.059 It's generally about every week or so you'll see you about some elected official being pulled over drunk driving, and they'll say, You can't do this to me. Do you know who I am? 00:09:05.100 --> 00:09:11.639 And none of us, I doubt, have ever had that problem by having to say, Don't you know who I am? 00:09:14.100 --> 00:09:32.899 It's here in our country, but it's far worse throughout the world. It was worse in the time that James is addressing, it's still terribly worse. In other countries, the poor have no real rights. 00:09:26.659 --> 00:09:46.659 The poor are the lowly in status. The rich come bossing them around. I still recall an airport trip when a woman from a foreign country was trying to check in at the gate with about eight large bags of carry on. 00:09:47.980 --> 00:09:59.919 And the clerk said, No, you can't do that. You have to check your luggage. Oh, I can take this on. You don't know who I am. I can do and the clerk said, Sorry, ma'am, you can't really do this. 00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:07.799 And finally, as she was getting more desperate, she started offering sums of money. And he said, No, ma'am, can't do it. 00:10:07.799 --> 00:10:15.840 And finally, had to call the police. Because she was wealthy, she had her way. This lowly clerk couldn't tell her what to do. 00:10:18.299 --> 00:10:28.700 And so if you were poor, impoverished, you're also socially reduced, and you have no real grounds of appeal. 00:10:28.700 --> 00:10:32.779 You're oppressed, you're looked down upon in every way. 00:10:33.860 --> 00:10:52.120 That attitude is growing in our country. So hopelessness involved in it one of the great outcomes of our first OPC diaconal conference was they pointed out in assisting those who are poor for a length of time, you have to address first the hopelessness. 00:10:53.259 --> 00:10:58.600 They think I'm poor, I'm impoverished, I'm lowly, I'll never get out of this cycle. 00:11:00.460 --> 00:11:12.960 And you have to first give them the hope of the Gospel and the hope of righteous living, and give them a hope that gives them the incentive to go and to pursue these other methods. 00:11:14.039 --> 00:11:25.220 It's a hopeless, helpless, terrible thing that is taking place at the time Christians are lowly in the world. 00:11:26.659 --> 00:11:37.639 And I'm not simply referring to the fact, as Jesus said, or as this apostle said, not many mighty, not many rich, are called, but in the world's opinion, we're lowly. 00:11:38.659 --> 00:11:44.200 We're to be despised. Look at the media. What religions are they beat down on. 00:11:46.539 --> 00:12:00.840 You. Look at mockeries of things religious. Who is the most mocked, even in our own nation, we have to realize that we are the ones who are counted wrong. 00:12:00.840 --> 00:12:04.139 We're unimportant. We have no status. 00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:12.840 And so in the the minds of the world, if you're a Christian, you're the one who's the last kid to be selected on the team. 00:12:12.840 --> 00:12:22.820 You're the one who's going to be ignored, despised, etcetera, even though the world treasures the virtues that arise from our faith. 00:12:24.019 --> 00:13:10.860 The world thinks highly of honesty. The world thinks highly of our diligence, of our obedience to civil authorities, how we can bridle our tongue, not slander us, not given to road rage and shopping rage and all those things general benevolence that really hospitals were started by Christians who could not manage the expertise and the size of caring for those who were severely injured, so they set up hospitals to show hospitality to those who didn't have family to care for them, To care for them and look after them and provide for them. The world enjoys the fruit, but it hates the root and derides the root. 00:13:11.940 --> 00:13:25.039 And when you are marked as a Christian, your status has fallen drastically and will fall drastically all the attitudes which are favored by Christ are hated by the world. 00:13:26.240 --> 00:13:28.940 Pride is thought to be a good thing in the world. 00:13:30.019 --> 00:13:50.080 Self righteousness, revenge, no matter how petty the revenge, the world applauds these things, and Christ doesn't, and that's why there comes to the lowliness of being a Christian, a hopelessness. 00:13:51.940 --> 00:13:53.320 The world's never going to like you. 00:13:54.940 --> 00:13:58.360 The world is never going to think well of you. 00:13:59.559 --> 00:14:03.179 You're never going to have the favor of an unbelieving world. 00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:23.299 There is always going to be an oppression, a turning against in every sense. And as you grow in grace and in godliness and your life becomes more and more Christ like, and the world that hated him all the more, hates you all the more. 00:14:25.159 --> 00:14:32.419 And he was a man afflicted, despised, who bore our sorrows. 00:14:34.580 --> 00:14:39.019 There is hostility that often remains subtle. 00:14:40.279 --> 00:14:45.399 Sometimes it breaks out openly, but it's ongoing. 00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:59.620 It's going to continue to be, James doesn't try to gaslight you. Oh, you're going to be popular. It's going to be no, you're going to be. 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:06.000 The lowly in the eyes of the world, deal with it. How do you deal with it? 00:15:07.740 --> 00:15:09.899 He says you're rich. 00:15:10.980 --> 00:15:12.480 You're actually rich. 00:15:14.820 --> 00:15:21.740 Let the lowly who want Christian. That's not what he calls us here. 00:15:22.879 --> 00:15:29.000 Let the lowly brother now, who's writing this, James? 00:15:30.019 --> 00:15:31.159 Who is James? 00:15:33.080 --> 00:15:36.620 He's the half brother of Jesus. 00:15:38.419 --> 00:16:19.259 So he who is my flesh, brother of Jesus is now also calling you his brother as part of that family. You are a brother of Jesus Christ. You are part of the royal family of God. You bear the family resemblances, and that's the reason the world hates you. It's a part of your riches that you've been taken from your sin, your blindness, your hatred of God, your rebellion and all those corrupt things, and turned into one who loves the Lord and seeks to follow him and seeks to be obedient to him. 00:16:16.019 --> 00:16:21.919 That's why, in the Heidelberg, what are three things required. 00:16:23.360 --> 00:16:50.139 The last one is show your gratitude by the way you live for this great grace that is there you have been adopted. And an adopted child is as fully and as certainly and as surely a member of the family as a child, biologically from that family, in some ways even more, because it was by choice. 00:16:51.820 --> 00:17:34.880 We had four children. We love them all. Wouldn't give any of them back. They make great grandchildren and great grand great, great grandchildren. But anyway, when you go to adopt, there's someone has no rights, has no claim on you, has nothing of your family, inheritance there to lean on, no obligation, and yet you take them and they become fully a part of your family, your forever family, never to be turned away. They are as surely and certainly there as we are in the family of God, brethren. 00:17:36.859 --> 00:17:42.220 We use the term somewhat lightly when we think of each other. We call each other, brother or sister. 00:17:43.299 --> 00:17:47.200 But let's recall the root of it. 00:17:43.299 --> 00:18:36.140 We are brothers and sisters of Christ, and having been made a child of God, brought into that family, the great conqueror in our adoption is brought to us great gifts. You go on reading in Ephesians, he says he that ascended into heaven LED high a host of captive and gave gifts to men, and he gave them apostles and prophets and teachers they might be made holy. God has bestowed on you men who have been called by him, chosen by him, gifted by him, trained under his direction, that you might know more of your father and walk more closely with him to show you more and more fully your access to The Throne. 00:18:36.140 --> 00:18:45.819 You're in the presence of the omnipotent a child of the Almighty King. 00:18:47.200 --> 00:18:49.000 Your father rules. 00:18:50.619 --> 00:19:07.019 Your father rules over all things, and he calls you His child, and Jesus calls you a brother, as the Prophet said that he would be the first born among many brethren. 00:19:09.299 --> 00:19:41.920 So you lowly one, look away from your poverty and realize that the riches of heaven are yours and not know the riches that will await for us when we leave this life or when Christ returns. But already we are children of God. Already he calls us his own. Already we look on Jesus Christ as brother. 00:19:35.900 --> 00:19:42.880 Already His favor in hand, rest on us. 00:19:45.579 --> 00:19:59.920 I remember many years ago, driving in to Tucson at night, we were living there, and I'd gone to our daughter church, driving back, the sun was down, Tucson is kind of a little dip in the road, and looked at hundreds. 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:07.980 And 1000s of lights, or street lights and all the rest. And I was thinking, yeah, look how big it is. But I'm a child of God. 00:20:10.140 --> 00:20:11.099 You're exalted. 00:20:12.299 --> 00:20:13.559 You have been lifted up. 00:20:14.579 --> 00:20:54.339 Of all of the individuals in this earth, you child of God, have been made his child and adopted by him in love, as Calvin says, He who estimates this favor of God or right will regard all other things as worthless, then neither poverty nor contempt, nor nakedness, nor famine nor thirst will make his mind so anxious but that he will sustain himself with this consolation. Since the Lord has conferred on me, the principal thing, it behooves me patiently to bear the loss of other things which are inferior. 00:20:56.319 --> 00:21:46.119 We are joined with him and an indis relation of love and an indissolvable status of honor when you read in the book of Revelation, who is on thrones saints, the 12 Apostles, representing the church, and Paul argues with the Corinthians, of them fussing among each other, and says, you're going to judge angels already, he who reigns on high calls you his own and does these things because you are with him and regenerates us by the same Spirit. He joins us together. He makes us one despite whatever other differences there might be in us. 00:21:48.460 --> 00:21:53.859 I mean, we're different. You and I are different. We're all different, some more different than others. 00:21:55.059 --> 00:21:56.200 What do we have in common? 00:21:59.980 --> 00:22:29.420 We're brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, I remember in Iowa. I remember God who came, joined the church, came there to stay with his brother in law for a while till he got a job. Bobby was nothing like anybody in that church, Bobby was formerly a druggie and a drunkard. 00:22:30.500 --> 00:22:49.599 He played major league baseball, made it to the big show one year, he said, Then he injured his shoulder and couldn't play anymore, but during that year, he earned a taste for drugs and drink and other things, he would go around with $19.50 in his pocket, because he said, If I get $20 I'll buy drugs with it. 00:22:53.019 --> 00:22:58.539 And the Lord turned him around, and he was the happiest, most joyous believer you ever saw. 00:23:01.240 --> 00:23:17.940 And a class of a church primarily middle class Midwestern people, he fit right in different Yeah. What was the one thing in common? 00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:20.900 He was a fellow believer. 00:23:21.980 --> 00:23:26.900 He loved the Lord, and he was one who they cared for. 00:23:28.640 --> 00:23:44.500 Toward the end of my time there, he was diagnosed with life ending disease that came shortly after I left, the people in congregation took care of him. His family didn't want him what to do with him. 00:23:46.059 --> 00:24:05.279 CONGREGATION found an apartment for him, furnished it for him, drove him back and forth to work. His license had been permanently revoked. He had so many DUIs, and he rejoiced in the Lord and testified of His grace every time anyone would come in his hospital room. What was in common? 00:24:07.380 --> 00:24:08.759 What do you have in common with me? 00:24:10.980 --> 00:24:12.539 I mean ugly, old guy. 00:24:15.059 --> 00:24:17.640 Most of you aren't ugly, not many of you are old. 00:24:19.980 --> 00:24:23.660 I don't know what you do, what your preferences are. I bet some of you don't even drink coffee. 00:24:26.180 --> 00:24:27.200 What do we have in common? 00:24:28.759 --> 00:24:43.240 We are exalted as the children of God each and every one, and that's why James goes on in the next chapter to say, when the lowly man enters your assembly, don't you dare give him a lesser seat. 00:24:44.799 --> 00:24:48.880 You treat the rich man better, and you shouldn't do that. This one is your brother, too. 00:24:51.640 --> 00:24:57.819 He says, You who are lowly, rejoice in your exaltation. 00:24:58.960 --> 00:24:59.920 You who are. 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.200 Nothing in the world and will never be counted anything in the world. 00:25:05.940 --> 00:25:12.779 God has raised you up and raises you up and puts his mark on you. 00:25:15.180 --> 00:25:28.700 And there is a bond there in this family, Tertullian, quoted in the second century, saying of the pagans would see, Behold how these Christians love one another. If they simply know the others a believer, they're willing to die for them. 00:25:30.619 --> 00:25:40.160 There's a bond there, joining us together, because we all together recognize our lowliness is a mark of godliness. 00:25:41.720 --> 00:25:49.599 The world is opposed because we're like Christ, the world doesn't like us because we resemble him. 00:25:50.859 --> 00:25:54.940 His mark is on you. It's why the world hates you. 00:25:57.759 --> 00:26:04.559 Now, granted, some of us do dumb things and get in trouble on our own, but we're talking here of a general status in the eyes of the world. 00:26:06.660 --> 00:26:13.680 It's because Christ has made you his own. Matthew Henry said it's an honor to be dishonored for his sake. 00:26:16.680 --> 00:26:20.039 And he gives his hardest task to the best students. 00:26:21.599 --> 00:26:32.720 He gives us more and more in the face of a world that hates him as we more and more resemble him, and it don't get any easier. 00:26:35.059 --> 00:26:50.559 I remember a number of years ago when my hair was much darker, speaking with a Dear Elder who was at then, about the age I am now, he said, Rodney, it doesn't get any easier. I thought it would, he said, but it doesn't, and I can tell you, it doesn't. 00:26:53.980 --> 00:27:06.539 So boast that word has connotations of a loud exaltation, shouting in triumph, your team won at the football game. You sit there in the stand and say, Oh, that's nice. 00:27:10.019 --> 00:27:29.299 Rejoice in your lowliness, because indeed, you are wealthy beyond understanding. Now, by contrast, let the lowly brother boast in his saltation exaltation, and the rich boast in his humiliation. 00:27:30.319 --> 00:27:51.940 Maybe not talking about rich in general, though that's applicatory in some ways. Not that many rich Christians along the way, but compared with most of the world, compared with Christians, to the ages, you are rich and you have no idea how rich. 00:27:53.680 --> 00:28:13.619 Number of years ago, my oldest went with me to Uganda. He was in college. The first night in country, we had a contest to see who had the biggest spiders on the ceiling in their side of the room, and who had to move their stuff more often because the rain was pouring through. 00:28:15.180 --> 00:28:34.819 They honored us with giving us chicken to eat, but it was Olympic quality. Chicken, the bones would break before the muscles would tear, going hut to hut, evangelizing, where children were running around and maybe had a shirt and the toy to play with was Daddy's machete. 00:28:39.380 --> 00:28:40.779 Good thing there was no litter. 00:28:42.640 --> 00:28:44.259 They couldn't throw anything away. 00:28:46.240 --> 00:28:52.299 So we came back, and our flight left from Uganda to Kenya to skip a airport in Netherlands. 00:28:53.980 --> 00:29:13.019 And we're sitting there, and he looks around, he turned to me, he said, Dad, everybody here has more things of value in their pockets right now than the average Ugandan family owns, in total, and he never complained again about poverty. 00:29:16.079 --> 00:29:34.819 You have vehicles that will drive when you leave here, you'll go home, place where you live that has a roof on it has air conditioning and maybe even heat by now, electricity, running water. You got clothes that you're wearing. 00:29:34.819 --> 00:29:38.240 Go home and you'll change clothes. You'll have food there. 00:29:40.039 --> 00:29:52.779 Family, you're richer than most people throughout history have ever been, and we sometimes get distracted. 00:29:53.799 --> 00:29:59.920 Sometimes the Lord gives a wake up call with two little rainstorms you've had here recently. 00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:07.019 He Helene and Milton, and they caused great destruction, didn't they? 00:30:11.220 --> 00:30:12.059 You're still here. 00:30:13.619 --> 00:30:14.700 Yeah, you got problems. 00:30:16.019 --> 00:30:18.660 You got housing repairs. You got to do. You still got a house. 00:30:18.660 --> 00:30:27.799 Most of you family is here, you're still rich even with those things. 00:30:29.180 --> 00:30:37.940 But that storm was, in a sense, God's wake up, because, like James says here, like the flower of the grass, he'll pass away. 00:30:37.940 --> 00:31:32.059 All these things can disappear very, very quickly, flower the grass talk about in Palestine, out in the desert regions and the climate. There is a notes here in Isaiah 40 about how the flowers wither and fail quickly. Here it's November. Flowers are still blooming when the Spanish came and found Florida, they named it Florida because it was a land of flowers blooming all the time. There in Palestine is real in that area, when rains next day, you got flowers and you've got flowers for a week or two, particularly when this soroco comes the dry wind coming off the desert, they wither up. 00:31:34.220 --> 00:31:40.839 Matthew Henry says, the worldly wealth is a withering thing disappears pretty quickly. 00:31:42.400 --> 00:31:45.759 $1,000 isn't much to have, but it's a lot to need. 00:31:47.619 --> 00:31:53.380 What you have disappears and can disappear and will disappear and go quicker than you thought possible. 00:31:54.880 --> 00:32:09.420 And resting on those things means that you're resting on a pile of sand that's being eroded the whole while, and James says, Rejoice in your humiliation. 00:32:11.220 --> 00:32:18.420 You got nothing, not simply in terms of the world, but in terms of God. What are you going to bargain with? 00:32:20.339 --> 00:32:21.559 He doesn't need you. 00:32:23.960 --> 00:32:26.180 God doesn't need you. What are you going to do for him? 00:32:29.240 --> 00:32:32.539 What are you going to do? Other than be an example of His grace. 00:32:34.160 --> 00:32:38.000 You can do wonderful things and say, Here, Lord, look at all this I've done for you. 00:32:40.519 --> 00:32:59.799 Remember that heretical poem that goes around God has no hands but our hands to who the masters will Well, yeah, he does. He does what he pleases, and you got nothing to bargain with him about. 00:33:02.380 --> 00:33:05.099 Lord. I tithe. Who gave you that money to start with? 00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:09.960 You got no leverage? 00:33:11.519 --> 00:33:15.779 Well, Lord, if you'll do this for me, I'll do what? Nope, no bargains. 00:33:18.119 --> 00:33:27.259 You may be rich in the eyes of the world. You may be lifted up in the things you have and the status you have, but you got no privilege for that. 00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:32.359 You come before God just like the poorest beggar. 00:33:33.859 --> 00:33:44.200 Only thing you bring to Christ is your sin and your need of a Savior. You You're humiliated. 00:33:46.000 --> 00:34:06.779 God by His grace, Child of God has pierced through the blindness, pierced through the false confidence of I'm strong, I'm vigorous. I can serve him doing this, and I can do that, or I have these resources, or I'm able, he pierces through them and says, You got nothing. 00:34:08.579 --> 00:34:26.420 You got nothing, dude, you got no privilege or entitlement there at all. Your status in this world gives you no advantage, a helpless and hopeless sinner begging for grace. 00:34:30.260 --> 00:34:36.019 He says, exalt in it. Rejoice in it. That's the kind of people God saves. 00:34:37.639 --> 00:34:59.920 That's the kind of people God saves you. And God receives you in your deflated arrogance the same way he did the lowly he does for us, that which we cannot do, he gives to us that which we do not. 00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:36.320 Have he overcomes our sense of self worth, self righteousness, self importance. Shows us the reality of our lowliness and our need of grace and mercy that we come pleading for that and he humiliates us and brings us low that we might find great riches, that we might find true riches, an exaltation beyond anything the world can think of or offer. 00:35:38.539 --> 00:35:50.920 So he says, if you are confident of your resources, your ability, your your rank in the world, or wealth, or whatever else. Don't rejoice in them, but remember, they're going to disappear. 00:35:53.199 --> 00:36:40.519 You know the old joke about the funeral procession? They ask how much the man left behind? The answer is, everything be gone quickly, whether by death, by someone going bankrupt, by theft, by whatever health and strength disappear just as quickly also the temptation to think they will endure is to be confronted by Christ's remembrance that we are not having that security, the grace of God has called us to recognize that brevity and to look to Him and to realize what We have now is His provision. 00:36:41.780 --> 00:36:46.239 He's put these things in our hands to be used and served. 00:36:46.840 --> 00:36:48.159 They can be stripped away. 00:36:50.019 --> 00:37:09.000 You only stand by grace, even as we speak rejoice, the status will be removed, and you'll be seen before eternity in the angelic host as once saved by grace. Meanwhile, he says, The rich man fades away in the midst of his pursuits. 00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:16.920 When your pursuits, use it pursue things, you are going to lose it, so use it properly. 00:37:13.380 --> 00:37:49.599 Your necessities, your investments, care for the family, relief of the poor brother, who is so lowly that everybody simply looks down with contempt on his need, rather than reaching to help him come out of that need. See, there's going to be an end to both, an end to the lowliness, an empty to the highness. There's going to come an end to the need for provision and the abundance that some have all fades away, and Christ only remains. 00:37:51.219 --> 00:38:09.539 So James says, that's that's where you are, you who are lowly, rece you who are rich, rejoice in humiliation. 00:38:12.179 --> 00:38:19.980 That's Christ's work in you. And you see why this is built on the gospel. What's the first beatitude? 00:38:22.500 --> 00:38:34.880 Blessed? Are the poor in spirit, James is simply echoing what Jesus has said. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 00:38:37.699 --> 00:38:39.380 We come today to the Lord's table. 00:38:42.139 --> 00:38:45.280 How many of us earned the right to be there? 00:38:48.280 --> 00:38:53.920 How many of us can come boldly and say, Hey, this is mine. I deserve this. 00:38:56.199 --> 00:39:04.860 We come lowly, we come with a confession, I have nothing to offer. Christ has given to me. 00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:10.079 I have nothing I can say. I can exalt Him. 00:39:11.280 --> 00:39:59.920 I come humbly to receive from him, his body, his blood. I need his grace, and he gives it, and he shows it and says, Do this in my church so you never forget you don't feed yourself with the goods of salvation I give to you come. He says, and feast you who are poor, let's pray, Father, we thank you for your great grace, thank you for the abundance of your love and mercy toward us, for showing us reality. 00:40:01.320 --> 00:40:13.079 In teaching us who we are in this world that you've made we thank you Lord for stripping us down that we might see how wealthy we are. 00:40:14.699 --> 00:40:31.820 Now we ask for grace to honor you by living before you as those entirely depending on your mercies, and as those who have received those mercies, we come in Christ's name, Amen.