#305 - The Lord of Hosts Has Heard - James 5.6-7 - Part2

Unknown Speaker (0:03): This message was recorded live at Arvin Assembly of God. What you are about to hear is a sermon preached during one of our regular church services. We pray that as you listen, the word of God strengthens your faith, deepens your understanding, and draws you closer to Jesus. Let's tune in to today's broadcast.

Speaker 1 (0:26): If you found James chapter five, would you please stand for the reading of God's word? Starting in verse one. Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire.

Speaker 1 (1:07): You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields which you kept back by fraud cry out. And the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury. You have fattened your heart as in a day of slaughter.

Unknown Speaker (1:33): You have condemned. You have murdered the just. He does not resist you. Let's pray. Father, in the name of Jesus, Lord, you know my heart and my intention.

Speaker 1 (1:48): Lord, we want to know what your word says in your word alone. Lord, help us this morning, myself and the hearers included. Let us be devoid of our thoughts and our opinions, God. We wanna know what does your word say. What is your intention to your people?

Unknown Speaker (2:09): Help us, God, to have open ears and open eyes and open hearts. Lord, bring correction where it's needed. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated.

Unknown Speaker (2:28): This morning, we begin with charge number three. James says, you have fattened your hearts. Look at verse number five with me. He says, you have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury. You have fattened your hearts as in the day of slaughter.

Speaker 1 (2:54): Now, need to get back into the progression here because James has been building his case like a prosecutor who knows exactly where he's going. Charge number one was all about hoarding. Charge number two was all about theft. And now charge number three is about what you do with what you hoarded and with what you stole. And James says, you spent it on yourself.

Speaker 1 (3:31): Every last bit of it. You took what God intended to be shared and ministered to other people. You've taken that and you've used it to build a life of absolute self indulgence. I want you to notice the two verbs that James uses here. He says that you have lived in pleasure.

Speaker 1 (3:59): You can go to that next slide, Noah. He says, you have lived in pleasure. And he says, you have lived in luxury. Now, in the original language, these are two distinct words and they are both loaded. Now the first word carries the idea I want you to follow me on this.

Speaker 1 (4:23): The first word pleasure carries the idea of softness, of ease. A life that has been cushioned or pad padded from every discomfort. In other words, you didn't have to work for what you got. You didn't have to earn your way. It's all been handed to you.

Speaker 1 (4:51): It's very interesting to me because I think that this can be a descriptive word of this very generation. Living in pleasure. Living in softness. Second word carries the idea of indulgence. It's the word luxury that's here.

Speaker 1 (5:11): Of excess. Of giving yourself over so completely to the pursuit of pleasure without any restraint whatsoever. It seems to be the theme song of our generation today is to pursue your dreams, is to pursue your education, is to pursue your interest at all cost so that you can get to the top. It's a life of luxury without thought of anybody else. Instead of thinking, how can I get ahead and how can I have security for the future?

Speaker 1 (5:53): We have total disregard to say, how does God want me to steward my life? What was God have me to do? What would make the most impact on the kingdom of God in these last days? But instead, what we are are told to do is to pursue these things. And the trophy that we have is luxury and pleasure.

Speaker 1 (6:21): We spend it on ourselves with no regard to others. And don't misunderstand me. This is not describing a person that likes to enjoy some good things in life. There are plenty of things that you can enjoy guilt free. This is a person who has made the pursuit of money, the pursuit of position, the pursuit of title, the pursuit of personal pleasure, the entire purpose of their existence.

Unknown Speaker (7:04): It is tied directly to a person's identity, who they are. And I've got to tell you, God did not make you for that purpose. He never intended for you to live isolated. I wanna bring in some context here because the way that they were living in James' day, James was able to look back in his time and he said, you know what? There's nothing new under the sun.

Speaker 1 (7:41): This is something that's very old. Look with me at Ezekiel sixteen forty nine. Ezekiel says, look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. She and her daughter had pride. Notice the phrases now.

Speaker 1 (7:58): Fullness of food and abundance of idleness. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy. Now most people when they think about Sodom and why Sodom was judged, they think of just one sin and one sin only, and rightfully so. But God told Ezekiel that that was just the manifestation. That there was something that had started way prior to the sin of sodomy, to the sin of homosexuality.

Speaker 1 (8:36): It started with the fullness of food, and it started with the abundance of idleness. In other words, it started with a life that was so absorbed in its own lane, its own comfort, its own pleasure, that it had no room for anyone else. It was all about them. Does that sound familiar? And then James uses a phrase that I want us all to notice.

Unknown Speaker (9:11): Look at it back with me. He says, you have fattened your hearts as in the day of slaughter. You have fattened your hearts as in the day of slaughter. This image is graphic. And it and the intention behind it is that you would stop in your tracks.

Speaker 1 (9:33): That you would stop what you're doing and you would begin to think about this image. Now in the ancient world, when an animal was being prepared for slaughter, it was fed. And it was fed and fed and fed. You wanted that animal to be as fat as can be. And so you would allow it to eat and eat and eat not because you cared about the animal, but because a fat animal would have been worth more at the slaughterhouse.

Speaker 1 (10:07): Now, the animal had no idea what was coming. It would just eat and eat and eat. Completely unaware that every meal was bringing it a day closer to the day that it would be slaughtered. And James is saying that this is exactly what these wealthy landowners are doing. They're feasting.

Speaker 1 (10:30): They're indulging. They are living lives for themselves. They had a form of godliness. They would show up to the synagogue. They would drop a a little benevolence into the plate.

Speaker 1 (10:45): But every day, they were living for themselves. And they had no idea that every act of indulgence was bringing them closer and closer to their own day of slaughter. They thought that they were living the good life. They thought they were living their best life because that's what culture had told them and taught them to do. The reality is is that they were actually fattening themselves for the day of slaughter, for the judgment of God.

Unknown Speaker (11:24): Now we've gotta ask, did James come up with this on his own? Where did he get this from? Well, we know better because of how long we've been in James. Praise the Lord for that, by the way. Now don't think for one second that James isn't drawing out of some wells from the Old Testament.

Speaker 1 (11:43): He's going to show you the heart of God. Jeremiah chapter 12 verse three. Jeremiah says, but you, oh, Lord, know me. You know me. You have seen me.

Speaker 1 (11:58): You have tested my heart towards you. And then he pauses because Jeremiah is talking about a culture and a society and a religious system that's doing exactly what James is talking about. Oppressing the poor, living for themselves, neglecting the care of the people of God. And so James is saying, God, you know me. And then he speaks directly in his prayer about these oppressors.

Unknown Speaker (12:30): He says, pull them out like sheep for the slaughter and prepare them for the day of carnage. Amos chapter six, he says, and I love Amos by the way. Amos was a simple man called by God. He was he was a farmer. He had a little ranch.

Speaker 1 (13:01): And his whole business was figs. He was a cultivator of figs. He wasn't like those wealthy elite landowners. Amos says, woe to you who lie on beds of ivory. Stretch out on your couches.

Speaker 1 (13:18): Eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall Who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments. And invent for yourselves musical instruments like David. Who drink wine from bowls. Who anoint yourselves with the best ointments, but are not grieved with the affliction of Joseph. Therefore, they shall now go captive as the first captives.

Speaker 1 (13:50): And those who recline at banquets shall be removed. Amos was describing people that were so absorbed in themselves. So absorbed in their own comfort that they became insulated, inoculated from the need that was around them. Here's the tragedy. They weren't even grieved by it.

Speaker 1 (14:19): They could hear the cry of the poor. And by the way, the poor are their very brothers and sisters. Can you imagine if somebody walked in part of Arvin Assembly of God today and said, I couldn't even eat breakfast. I couldn't even eat breakfast because we don't have food on the table. Now could you imagine ignoring your brother or sister in that moment?

Speaker 1 (14:46): Or would you not get up and say, we're let's go get you fed, and then let's get you back to God's house. You look weak. Would not a single person in here do that? I think you would. I think you would.

Unknown Speaker (15:04): Amos is throwing an indictment that the people of God knew, but yet they ignored. They were doing nothing about it. They would keep eating, and they would keep drinking. They would not even address the issue. We don't have the scriptures on the screen.

Speaker 1 (15:30): But the church in Corinth went through exactly the same thing. So don't think that this just is attached to Jewish landowners. In the New Testament church in Corinth, Paul had to address the wealthy elite as well because they would get together and they would absorb observe the Lord's table. And in the Lord's table in the first century, it was much more than just taking the bread and the juice. They actually would have an entire meal that came with it.

Speaker 1 (16:00): And the rich people would go and they would start in their private rooms in the back, and they would have the best food and the choices cuts of meat, and they would go. And then you had the poor that were standing on the outside. They were made to wait. They were made to eat the leftovers. They were made to stand on the outside.

Speaker 1 (16:22): And Paul even describes that some have even passed away. And what's interesting to me is that he wrote this at a time of famine that even impacted the Corinthian church. These things should not be so. God is grieved by these things. So what's James doing?

Speaker 1 (16:47): James is holding up as he called God's word a mirror. And he he is shining this mirror into what is happening in the community of the people of God. I wanna bring this closer to home. Cause this is where the mirror can get very uncomfortable for us. Cause it's not just wealthy landowners.

Speaker 1 (17:11): It can also be for us right now in this very room. Luke 16, starting in verse 19, Jesus told a parable. He said, there was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores.

Unknown Speaker (17:46): I want you to notice something about this parable. Jesus doesn't say that the rich man was cruel or mean to Lazarus. He doesn't say that the rich man kicked him or mocked him or even drove him away. Jesus says that this rich man fed sumptuously. Fed sumptuously.

Speaker 1 (18:14): How often? Every day. Now remember, you didn't go get food and put it in a fridge and keep it for two weeks or for a month. You got your food every single day. And so this rich man had to figure out whether or not he had his own servants and chefs and all of those things.

Unknown Speaker (18:38): What he was gonna eat for that day. And he would choose the best because he ate sumptuously. But yet there was a man on the outside that was hoping he could just get some crumbs. He was within sight. He was within reach.

Unknown Speaker (19:02): And the rich man never did a thing. Maybe he noticed. I don't know. But regardless, he kept eating anyway. This is the fattened heart.

Speaker 1 (19:18): And the fattened heart isn't deliberate, active cruelty. Sometimes it's just the heart that has been infiltrated by this world system and culture so much that it is it is a one vision person so focused on their comfort and their pleasure. But when that happens, we lose the ability to be able to feel or see the person that's right at the gate. Matthew six twenty one, Jesus said, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. A fattened heart is the inevitable result of a life where your treasure has been pointed at yourself the entire time.

Speaker 1 (20:19): When everything in your life you want to flow inwardly and nothing flows outwardly, your heart will begin to get fat, it will get slow, it will get numb, And you stop feeling what you should feel. You stop seeing what you should see. You stop hearing what you should hear. So much so that your own brothers and sisters in Christ become invisible. I wanna be very direct here because James is very direct.

Speaker 1 (20:52): This is a warning that belongs to each and every single one of us, not just wealthy landowners. Let me ask you, how much of what God has given you and entrusted you is being consumed entirely on yourself? How many of your decisions about money, about time, about resources, talents are made with no consideration to anybody else? We've done a good job as a church to make it all about you. That is the culture in which we live today.

Speaker 1 (21:36): The church is about you and it's for you. I'm here to tell you, it's not about you. It's about the glory of God. It's about the kingdom of God. It's about that none should perish.

Speaker 1 (21:51): And what has seeped into this American church is we have drank the Kool Aid to think that we're gonna be hip and cool and relevant. And it's all about you. And God says none of it is about you. I came to save you so you can save others. So what are you spending your life on?

Speaker 1 (22:16): Is it all about what I can get and forget everybody else? Do you not know that you are not your own? You are bought with a price, with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. You are not to spend your life on me me me me. You are to give yourself for the cause of Christ in everything that you do.

Unknown Speaker (22:53): First John three seventeen and eighteen. But whoever has this world's goods, notice the keyword, and sees his brother in need. It shuts up his heart from him. How does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

Speaker 1 (23:26): I wonder if John talked to James. Don't just talk about it. You've gotta put some action behind it. Now John is asking a direct question here. If you have something and you see your brother k.

Speaker 1 (23:46): Again, I'm not talking about the world because the bible isn't talking about the world. If you see your brother or sister, those that are committed to the family of God, especially in this context of community. If you have something and you see a brother or sister who genuinely needs it and you close your heart, how does the love of God live in that? How does the love of God survive in a fattened heart? The answer is it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (24:30): It cannot exist. Because love by its very nature will flow outward. And a heart that's been fattened, a heart that only looks at itself doesn't know how to love. And here's the warning, and I want us to hear it very clearly. A fattened heart doesn't always know that it's fat.

Unknown Speaker (25:00): This is probably the most dangerous thing about this. These landowners, they're not sitting around saying, you know what? Today, I'm gonna wake up. I'm gonna be hard and cruel. I'm gonna become numb and indifferent towards these things.

Unknown Speaker (25:16): They're just living their lives. They think they're living their best life. They're just enjoying what they believe God has ordained for them to have. Well, God blessed me with this, so I'm gonna spend it all on myself. They're just doing what everybody else around them was doing.

Speaker 1 (25:42): That's exactly how a heart gets fattened. It's not an intentional dramatic decision. It's a thousand little ones that happen over time. Every time that you see a need within the body of Christ and you tell yourself, somebody else will do it. Every time you spend on yourself luxuriously when you could have given.

Unknown Speaker (26:08): Every time that you put on blinders because it's a little awkward or it gets a little uncomfortable. Dismiss whatever that issue is. The heart gets a little bit fatter. Little bit fatter, and a little bit fatter. You become numb.

Unknown Speaker (26:31): You become blind. And before you know it, you're the rich man. And Lazarus is at your gate, and you're still eating. Proverbs twenty one thirteen says, whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be heard. This is a principle here.

Speaker 1 (26:59): Proverbs is a book of principles. And what this means is that a person who walks in this process, who closes their ears to the poor, who never gives of themselves, and it's not just financially, by the way. It's of your time. It's of your treasure. It's of your resource.

Speaker 1 (27:21): This isn't this isn't a sermon about serving, but there are many today in this church and in the American church that have no regard for the service of God. To serve and to expand the kingdom of God, We simply live for ourselves. Proverbs says that a person who lives for themselves, who ignores the cries of the poor, will one day find themselves in the same position and nobody will listen. This is a tragedy. Let me tell you this.

Speaker 1 (28:00): There is hope. There's good news in this. Because there's always hope in God. A fattened heart, a hardened heart can become tender again. And that really is the message in this.

Unknown Speaker (28:19): James has been saying from chapter one that God is in the business of making us whole. And wholeness means that we have a heart that is soft enough to say, God, you're right and I'm wrong. Your word is correct. I am wrong. This is what it means to be in this process of wholeness.

Speaker 1 (28:45): That we allow our ears to hear, that we allow our eyes to see. Promise of Ezekiel thirty six twenty six still stands. God says, I will give you a new heart and I'll put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and and give you a heart of flesh. God doesn't give up on hardened hearts.

Unknown Speaker (29:15): He actually replaces them. He does the surgery himself. And the result is a heart that begins to feel again. Let's go on to the fourth charge. I've gotta hurry.

Unknown Speaker (29:34): James tells them, you have condemned, you have murdered the just. Look at verse six with me. He says, you have condemned, you have murdered the just, he does not resist you. Gotta tell you, this is gonna be uncomfortable for some of you now. This verse takes everything that James has been building in it.

Speaker 1 (29:59): It takes it to the to the most extreme, darkest logical conclusion. Because this is where unchecked greed and un unfettered pursuit of self and a fattened heart ultimately lead. They lead to right here. To condemnation, to murder, to the destruction of innocent people who have done nothing wrong. And he's talking about these landowners and what they were doing to the righteous poor in their own communities.

Speaker 1 (30:36): This verse speaks to every righteous person who has been misused, who has been abused by another person, by another system, through a job, a workplace, through a relationship. It stands for people who's had money that's been stolen from them. It stands for people that have been forced off of their land. It stands for people that did nothing wrong, but they found themselves on the receiving end of everything that this world has against them. Now James uses two verbs here and I want us to really focus in on it.

Speaker 1 (31:19): He says, you have condemned and you have murdered. Now, the first verb condemned is a technical legal term. Now, it could be used both literally and figuratively. Now,

Unknown Speaker (31:33): in

Speaker 1 (31:33): the literal sense, condemned is the language, of course, of the courtroom. These these landowners were using the political legal system to destroy people who had no power or resources to even fight back. Now, in a figurative sense, it's writing these people off in your hearts. It's saying that, oh, this is just their lot in life. They're down here and I'm up here.

Speaker 1 (32:02): It's putting people into classes and putting people into a caste system. Well, you're one of these people, and I'm one of these people. And you see this in corporate America today with the the rich CEOs and the rich CFOs and they live a life up here, but they can't mingle with the common man. And in the first century, this is what would happen. You could condemn in your heart.

Speaker 1 (32:32): You could write these people off as the other. Well, I'm not like them. And so you would never in a million years ever sit at a table with somebody that was poor. That's the figurative sense. You've condemned them.

Speaker 1 (32:53): You've written them off. Where did that come from? It didn't come from God's word. It came from the pagan, Roman, Greek culture that infiltrated Talmudic Judaism within these centuries that perpetuated a perverted political system known as Judaism. And Jesus came and he flipped the tables on that.

Speaker 1 (33:26): And so he says, you have condemned Very well likely, both literally and physically. Can I tell you that we've already discussed this in James? There there there things have been made equal at the cross. I don't care how much money a person has. They don't deserve a seat at the head of the table before a poor person.

Unknown Speaker (33:54): If you honor a rich person in your service and say here, here's the best seat, but you poor sit in the back. You are wicked and you have a fatted heart and God will judge you. Put that on social media for the fluffy Christians out there today. God still judges. This is what it means.

Speaker 1 (34:21): You have condemned. You've made a decision in your heart. You have become so accustomed to the ways of this world that you forgot where you came from, that you forgot who redeemed you. Oh, Israel, I called you not because you were the best, but because you were the least of these nations. God pulled Israel out cause he uses the foolish things of these this world to confound the wise.

Unknown Speaker (34:58): They adopted pagan philosophy at its finest. Amos five twelve. Says, for I know the manifold transgressions and your mighty sins, afflicting the just and taking bribes. Diverting the poor from justice at the gate. Now the gate is where all legal matters were decided in the ancient world.

Speaker 1 (35:32): And Amos is saying, the powerful are corrupting the gate. They're through their networking, through their partnerships, through their advocates, they're buying verdicts. They're using the legal system for their own gain. They're using it as a weapon against the very people that it was intended to truly protect. James is saying he's pointing to Amos and he's saying nothing has changed.

Speaker 1 (36:07): In the first century where the wealthy landowners are they're they're still at the proverbial gate. They're still using their power and their influence to open doors, to buy verdicts. They're still using the courts and the political system, and none of it pays off for the people who truly need it. Micah chapter three says, hear now, oh, heads of Jacob. Where are the heads of Jacob?

Speaker 1 (36:36): The people of God. And you rulers of the house of Israel. Is it not for you to know justice? Have a God is saying, did I not explain to you what justice is? The fair and equitable treatment of the poor.

Speaker 1 (36:54): That your skills would not be unjust. That you would you would come and remember the foreigner and the stranger. He says, is it enough for you to know justice? The people of God today should know justice like no other people. Not the Republicans, not the Democrats.

Speaker 1 (37:19): The people of God should know true justice. You who hate good and love evil, who strip the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones, who also eat the flesh of my people. Flay their skin from them, break their bones, and chop them in pieces like meat for the pot. Micah is crazy. He is being so graphic here to draw out exactly what occurs here.

Speaker 1 (37:56): This is what oppression actually does to people. It's not just inconvenient. It's not just unfair. It it destroys them. It strips them.

Unknown Speaker (38:08): It breaks them down. And God says, I see it. And God says, I will not be silent about it. Now notice the next verb with me. He says, you have murdered.

Speaker 1 (38:26): Now, this just like the first verb of condemn. It may or may not be literal physical murder murder. Now, the scholars you need to know, they debate this. It very well could be that there were some actual murders here. But what is not debatable about this is that in the biblical world to deprive a person of their livelihood, of the ability to make the bread for the day was equivalent to murder.

Speaker 1 (38:52): When you take away a man's ability to work, when you steal his wages, when you do not allow him to provide for his family, you are not just stealing his money. You're taking his food, his survival, his dignity. You are taking away his future. And in God's eyes, the blood of that person is on your hands. Matthew 25, Jesus says and you need to look at this through the lenses that we've been talking about.

Speaker 1 (39:38): Jesus says, for I was hungry and you gave me no food. If first century Judaism was operating the way God intended it throughout Torah, this would not have been an issue. Jesus says, for I was hungry and you gave me no food. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you did not take me in.

Speaker 1 (40:02): Naked and you did not clothe me. Sick and imprisoned and you did not visit me? Then they will answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or imprisoned and did not minister to you? And then he will answer them saying, assuredly, I say to you, in as much as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. This is what we ended James chapter four with.

Speaker 1 (40:37): It is the sin of omission. It's to know to do good and to do it not. To him it is sin. The sin of omission. It is the failure to act.

Speaker 1 (40:50): It is a closed heart. It is a fattened heart. And Jesus says that if you do it to one of your brothers or sisters, it's as if you are doing it to me. This is what we would call and identify as covenant faithfulness. Covenant faithfulness.

Speaker 1 (41:10): If you do something to my wife, you're doing it to me. If you talk bad about my wife, you're doing it to me. Why? We're in covenant. We are one flesh.

Speaker 1 (41:25): So don't ever think that if you do something to my wife, it's not gonna affect me. And in the same way, when you come into covenant with God, he has a covenant obligation as the head of the church. So today, we've got these fools running around talking about, oh, I'll bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you all about Israel. I've got something better for you. I've got the new covenant written in the blood of Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (41:55): You curse me, you're cursing Jesus. You bless me, you're blessing Jesus. And this is what Jesus said. When you do something, again, I know where our brains go. We keep thinking of the outside.

Unknown Speaker (42:14): Right now, the bible, we're talking about the inside. When you give one of the least of these, where's the least of these within the kingdom of God? That is what we call covenant. Covenant. God has a covenant obligation.

Unknown Speaker (42:40): Look at the last phrase with me in verse six. The last phrase it says, he says, you've condemned, you've murdered the just. And by the way, who's the just? The just is those who have put their faith and hope in Jesus Christ. When you do that, the moment you do, we call it justification by faith.

Speaker 1 (43:00): You are the just. If you have done that. If you've truly repented of your sins. If you're not living for yourself. If you're living for Jesus Christ, you have been justified.

Speaker 1 (43:10): It's just as if you had never sinned. God imputes his righteousness accomplished by Jesus Christ on the cross off for your behalf. So he says, you've condemned, you have murdered the just. And then this last phrase, he does not resist you. Tighten your belts.

Speaker 1 (43:34): This gets uncomfortable. He does not resist you. In other words, the righteous person. A person that is a child of God. A just one.

Speaker 1 (43:49): A worker who's been cheated, a poor man that has just been dragged into court. James says, he does not resist. He doesn't fight back. He doesn't retaliate. He doesn't organize a revolt.

Speaker 1 (44:10): Wait. What? That's a tough pill to swallow, isn't it? Why not? Because he has done what every suffering saint in all of the Bible has ultimately done.

Speaker 1 (44:23): He has placed his case in the hands of the only judge that matters. You know, in first Peter, Peter was dealing with some similar circumstances of some really bad injustice that was occurring. And I'm sure the questions of life were brought up. Why me? Why did this happen to me?

Speaker 1 (44:43): And why can't I fight back? Why can't I stand up for myself? Why can't I retaliate? Why can't I get them back? Oh, I'm gonna show them.

Speaker 1 (44:54): You know what Peter said? He said, look at Jesus, who when he was reviled, he didn't revile in return. When he suffered. Have you suffered like Jesus? No.

Speaker 1 (45:09): I don't think any of us could. But when he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to he who judges righteously. See, a righteous person, a just person, a person of God doesn't resist because they have learned what James is about to spend the next five verses talking about. We can't talk talk about it till next week. But that the starting place is to know and understand that the Lord of hosts has heard.

Speaker 1 (45:49): That the judge is standing at the door. That vengeance belongs to God, and that God is both compassionate and he is merciful. Romans chapter 12. Paul says, repay no one evil for evil. There's no causes.

Speaker 1 (46:13): Have regard for the good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, don't avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. Do you see it?

Speaker 1 (46:38): A righteous person, a just person, one who has been hidden in Christ Jesus, they don't resist. This is difficult for us because we've got goons at the White House that wanna quote scripture and pray prayers as if they are the instrument of the wrath of God for righteousness. The Bible calls us not to avenge ourselves. This is not weakness. This is not defeat.

Speaker 1 (47:21): This is not resignation. In fact, men, this is so contrary to your nature, but it is one of the most powerful things that a person can do. It is handing your cause and your case and your injustice into the hands of the one who never gets it wrong. To judge Jesus. Now here this morning, just wanna speak to two different people in the room.

Unknown Speaker (47:57): First person is maybe you've been wronged. Maybe you've been hurt. Maybe you've been cheated. Maybe somebody has stolen from you. Deeply, deeply wronged.

Unknown Speaker (48:13): Maybe you've been unjustly condemned by people that have more power or authority to you through your through your limited worldly eyes. Maybe you've been silenced or exploited. Maybe at this point, you haven't fought back yet. Maybe because you couldn't. Maybe you had no other choice.

Unknown Speaker (48:33): I don't know. But maybe it's because you knew that God saw and that God heard. And you've been putting your hope and your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to know this morning that he has truly truly heard you. You need not forget that.

Speaker 1 (48:55): That is what James is telling the people of God. James is not excusing the behavior. He's not excusing the wrongs that have been done to them. James cares deeply for these people, but he wants them to remember that God has heard and that God knows and that God's care. And so you need to know even from John from John to Paul to go back to the end of James chapter five verse six.

Speaker 1 (49:27): James sees that you haven't resisted. And you need to know that's not weakness. It's not foolishness. It's not losing. It is the most spiritually powerful posture that a child of God can take.

Speaker 1 (49:45): Because it says that I trust God more than I trust my own ability to make this thing right. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God. James says, see you. Psalm 37 verses twelve and thirteen says, the wicked plots against the just. There's that word.

Speaker 1 (50:12): Just. And gnashes at him with his teeth. But the Lord laughs at him for he sees that his day is coming. Psalm thirty seven twenty eight. For the Lord loves justice.

Unknown Speaker (50:29): You wanna talk about justice coming? The lord loves it and does not forsake his saints. I hope you know a saint isn't a dead person hung up on a wall. You are a saint. If you have been born again, you are a saint and a child of God.

Speaker 1 (50:49): And God does not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever. God has seen. God has heard. And maybe this morning you're not in that camp.

Speaker 1 (51:11): And maybe you have recognized yourself or some tendency throughout these four different charges between last week and this week. Maybe you've maybe you've been hoarding what God wants to flow through your hands. Maybe you're living life because it's all about you. Your time, your treasure, your talents, it's all being spent on you, you, you, and you. And maybe you see yourself in that.

Speaker 1 (51:44): God wants you to know it's possible for you to change. We're not talking about condemnation, but God gives us an opportunity for honesty, a time to respond to the preaching of his word. Because the same God, the Lord of hosts, the Lord of Sabaoth, who hears the cry of the oppressed, also can give grace to those that have a fattened and hardened heart. When you cry out and say, God, I don't wanna live this way. God, help me to live for you.

Speaker 1 (52:17): God can come and touch your heart. God can change you. You don't have to live this way anymore. James four six says, God resists the proud. That's if you walk away, and if God has touched your heart and you recognize it, and you do nothing, Pride.

Speaker 1 (52:40): God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Ezekiel eighteen thirty and thirty one says, therefore, I will judge you. Oh, house of Israel, everyone according to his ways says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions so that the iniquity will not be your ruin. Cast away from all your transgressions which you have committed and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

Speaker 1 (53:12): Now notice this part. For why should you die? Oh, house of Israel. Notice the heartbeat of God here. He doesn't want you under his judgment.

Speaker 1 (53:27): He wants you to turn. He is speaking to the people of God through his word. Why does God do that? Because repentance is always available. The door to grace is still open.

Speaker 1 (53:44): Acts three nineteen. Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out. So that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Times of refreshing. That's what's waiting on the other side of repentance if you would do that.

Unknown Speaker (54:06): Not just forgiveness, not just the not just a clean slate, not just blotting things out, refreshing and renewal. Would you stand to your feet with me this morning?