James 4:1-10 | Faith Works: The Book of James (with Jeff Stemple)

Well good morning.

Flip side.

Good to see you guys in church.

I'm glad you made the decision to come this morning.

Last Sunday, last day, really, of June.

Glad that you're here.

Hey, if we have not met before. My name is Jeff.

I'm on staff here at flipside.

One of the pastors serving alongside Pastor Carl,

who is away at a church in Colorado this weekend.

If you've heard us talk about the Excel Leadership Network.

you maybe have heard that mentioned in one of your Bible studies,

or maybe you hear from a platform on Sunday.

we are heavily invested in Excel

because Excel is heavily invested in identifying high level leaders,

sending them out to plant churches, equipping them to do ministry

all over the world.

Really, that map in the back of the church gets overlooked a lot.

That has these little pins.

There you are. That map has these little pins in it.

Those are all church plants that we've either,

done the planning ourselves or we've helped facilitate that.

There's even because that's just a map of the United States.

There's even some that aren't in the US that we've helped plant.

and we've identified leaders to send out to help, do ministry at those churches.

So Pastor Carl is with one of those churches

that is also a part of Excel Leadership Network in Colorado,

helping them facilitate some of their ministry that they're doing.

There.

But in the meantime, that means that, we get to hang out.

I'm really stoked about the time we get to spend here this morning.

It's been a long time. I'm trying to talk to my wife.

Last night, I was trying to remember the last time,

I got to share the word with you on a Sunday, and we couldn't remember, so

I'm excited.

I'm hoping you'll be encouraged by what we're going to talk about here today.

we've been in this series over the last.

Oh, gosh. It's been a lot of weeks.

Seven, eight, nine weeks.

where we're going through the book of James and the series is called

Faith works.

We're talking about the fact that faith does work.

It's not just an idea or something that's just sort of out there that maybe

you try to understand every now and then and who knows how far you'll get.

Faith actually does work.

It makes a difference.

James talks in his book all about how that happens,

but how our faith works, that sort of the gear works behind it.

That was the that was the premise behind that.

That graphic there is it's constituted of certain things

that makes it all work together.

And that how the faith we claim

to have will actually be shown by our works.

James says it's a big deal.

It was interesting when, if you've ever looked into the Bible

theologians, if you've ever looked into the canonization of Scripture,

why the 66 books that are in the Bible are there

that James almost didn't make the cut because it was so,

what the church leaders felt was far away

from, salvation by faith alone.

Because James talks, James talks so much about works and how, the things

we do, the action we take is going to be it's going to prove our faith.

It's a book.

We talked about this.

It's a book full of teaching that's really easy to understand.

But it's really difficult to live out.

It's really difficult to understand, but it's really or it's really,

easy to understand, but it's really difficult to live out.

I always tell people, most of them,

high school students, it's.

You probably heard Carl talk over the last semester.

what started out as sort of a stopgap ended up being the entire semester.

Pastor Carl and I co-leading our junior high and high school program.

We have both done youth ministry before, but, we had to kind of kick the tires.

We were a little rusty.

And to see and to do, you know, kind of co-lead that was so awesome.

And it's so

interesting to see,

when students start to when things start to click,

when, when faith based things or the Bible things of the Bible start to click,

they get that little glimmer in their eye and they start asking questions.

And one of the first questions they ask is the or.

They make a statement saying, I hate to read,

but I'm no, I'm supposed to read the Bible.

So where do I start?

And a lot of times, especially with kids, I'll say start in the book of James.

It's short, but it's really, really easy to understand.

And it's kind of a bait and switch because they soon figure out, yeah,

it's really easy to understand, but it's really difficult to live out.

It's really big

on what I call Bible fundamentals, really big on fundamental things.

You talk to Carl, he'll talk about sports, fundamentals

of sports, fundamentals of football.

it's easy to discount fundamentals

or say I've got it or I've got it good enough.

Let's get on to something more fun or something more complex or something

more, lively.

I don't want to.

I don't want to camp out in the fundamentals.

I've got enough of it.

I always know when I come across a musician

who who's who's short circuited their fundamentals.

Maybe they haven't practiced with a metronome,

or they'll practice their scales at some point, you get to a song or.

And Carl talks about this on the football field,

like with field awareness, at some point you get to a spot where you realize

we need to go back and we need to work on the fundamentals,

because either it's been a long time or we just skipped over that part when we

went over to, to begin with.

So that's the temptation with James

is to read some of these things and think, I've got it, or I've got a good enough.

I've got a lot of it.

Maybe I don't have that, but I've got I've got enough of it.

As we read through James,

he gives really good concrete examples of stuff that we can relate to.

That's a lot of times why I tell people to start with you.

It's very relatable.

You'll be able to relate to it.

Stuff that happens at work,

stuff that happens in our relationships at home, stuff that happens

in our relationships, with with different groups of people.

There have been times where I've read through passages of James

and people's faces pop into my mind.

Conversations I've had where people have said things,

or maybe they haven't said things that I hope they would say.

And I think back, you know, as I'm reading,

these passages out of the book of James, I'm those those conversations

and those scenarios just come right to the forefront of my memory or my or my mind.

It's almost as though James or God says, really,

through the pen of James, I'm going to make it so relatable.

When you walk away from this, it's really up to you.

It's really up to you

as to what you're going to do with it and what you're going to do about it.

There's a verse of Scripture that talks about how some of the things of God

are so obvious that it leaves men without excuse.

Some of the things when you see, when you experience them

or you see them, it's

so applicable and relatable to your life that it leaves you without excuse.

Really, the ball's in your court as to whether or not

you're going to do something with it or about it.

A lot of times the Bible's been around, people,

you know, think the Bible has been around for so long.

they can say things like, I didn't grow up in church,

nobody uses words like that anymore.

It's not even my parents can say they understand what that means.

James is not like that.

There's no real loopholes we can get.

No, you know, cop outs we can take in the book of James.

He doesn't give us that luxury or convenience.

So we've been talking about some things,

well, we have an anchor verse, really.

There's this anchor verse that we have for the whole series, and it comes in

the first chapter of James.

He says, do not merely listen to the word,

the Word of God, and so deceive yourselves.

But we're going to read these four words in italics out loud on the count of three.

Ready, go!

One, two, three.

Do what it says.

Do what it says, James says.

Don't merely listen to it.

Because what happens when you just merely listen to it?

You lie to yourself.

Would you guys agree?

We can sell ourselves on some pretty crazy stuff.

I have sold myself on some things where I'm like, what was I thinking?

He says.

When you merely listen to the word, you lie to yourself.

You deceive yourself instead.

Or in addition to do what it says.

We've talked about what to do

when we face trials and troubles.

We've talked about what to do when we actually get

to a point where we can acknowledge that we lack wisdom.

For some of us, just getting to that point is a challenge.

But what James says, great, you're there now.

What do you do?

What do you do?

Do you just sit and stew and go, yeah, I blew it.

I need wisdom

on onward, onto the next thing.

Now, James says there's something you're supposed to do about that.

He talks about what do we do when we're tempted

to think more of ourselves than we ought to, or than we should?

What do we do with things like

favoritism that all of us fall into the

into the trap of having sometimes.

And Carl talked about those two laws, the royal law and the freedom, the law.

If you were here that he dove deep, that we on those two laws.

James talks about how do we approach things like

what I'm doing right now, teaching the word, what to expect

when when you do that, and how we need to think twice

about that.

We talked about what do we are, how do we approach or

what do we do with this idea of taming the tongue?

A lot of so interesting hearing a lot of your stories.

When that Sunday was over and you tried to put that into practice

during your week, oh my gosh, I can't take my tongue.

It's got a mind of its own.

I say stuff that I don't want to say, and I don't say stuff that I should say.

Trying to put that into practice.

Really easy to understand, but really difficult to put it into practice.

And then as recently as last week, we talked about how do we decipher

between the two kinds of wisdom, the earthly or worldly wisdom,

and then the wisdom that comes from heaven?

So today, if you brought your Bibles with you,

if you're old school like me and you have a Bible or,

maybe you have it on your phone if you don't have our app.

Our app has been completely revamped.

All the slides I'm going to talk about here today are on that app.

They have places where you can actually write notes to yourself.

You can shuffle it around and order it the way you want to.

And then at the end of it all, you can download it and take it with you.

so whether you're old school like me and have a Bible

or you have it on your phone, we're going to be in James chapter four,

fourth chapter of the book of James.

I'm going to read verses one through ten, and then we're going to go back

and we're going to pick it apart because it.

Carl I'm not going to say he teases me,

but he talks about how I because you just loved it.

You just love to camp out the details.

Like, I don't love it. I just hate the alternative.

But I look for patterns and I look for frameworks.

And the most interesting pattern or framework in these first ten verses

in the fourth chapter of James

came to my mind, and I want to share that

with you this morning, but I want to read it all first.

So, Tom, I'm going to ask a follow along with me right there

at the first verse he says, what causes fights and quarrels among you?

It's a question. And then he moves on.

If you're a parent, you've asked your kids stuff like this.

Like, you know what?

This is just for you, that I already know the answer to this.

he says, what causes fights and quarrels among you?

Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?

You desire, but you do not have.

So you kill, you covet, but you cannot get what you want.

So you quarrel and you fight.

You do not have because you do not ask.

And when you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives

that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

You adulterous people.

Don't you know that friendship with the world means empty against God?

Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world

becomes an enemy of God.

Or do you think Scripture

says without reason, that he jealously longs for the spirit?

He has cause to dwell in us, but he gives us more grace.

That is why Scripture says God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.

Submit yourselves, then to God.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Come near to God and he will come near to you.

Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded.

Grieve, mourn and wail.

Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.

So this passage comes in two halves.

And those two halves like kind of like a book.

You got the left side and you got the right side,

and in the middle the spine or or the hinge

between these two halves is is one word.

It's a very interesting, very interesting way these verses are structured.

But I want to talk about this, this left side, verses one through six,

verses one through six, or what I call a scathing rebuke.

That's just a fancy way of saying a bad scolding.

If you were following along.

When I was reading those, especially from the beginning,

you might have been like feeling like a teenager who's being sat down

and given a talking to.

Where you just comes right out of the gun, but right out of the chute says this.

What what

what causes fights and quarrels among you?

Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?

You feel like you're being sat down and given a talk, like you've done

something wrong, like you're being scolded.

Here's the deal.

If we're being honest and we're in church, let's be honest.

Yeah.

Most people then would you agree that you're most people

and that I'm most people, most people, when they're asked that question

right there.

And this is why James moves on so fast.

Because he's like a prayer.

I want to hear the challenge here.

It what causes fights and quarrels among you?

Most people would say

them, him or her.

They back those people back there.

They're the reason we're fighting.

You're not going to believe what they said.

You're not going to believe what they did.

You're not going to believe that they didn't say what they didn't do them.

They're the problem.

If they would just recognize

how right I am and how wrong they are, we would not have a problem

if they if the whole world would just straighten up and fly right.

We wouldn't.

We wouldn't have a problem.

Most people, if we're being honest, would say that.

So interesting.

We have our, high school group on Wednesday night

and, you know, there's there's

the first ten minutes where everybody's just kind of meandering around

and filtering in and, and some, some high school students,

will filter in and I can tell when they're having a bad day.

They're just wearing it.

They either don't care or they don't have the tools to mask it yet.

And they're just wearing it.

And I'm like, I don't know that I even want to ask them,

because there's going to be a fire hose that comes back at me.

But every now and then I go, what's wrong?

And I just brace myself, you're not going to believe what my teacher said.

I can't believe this.

Some of the principal again, my mom, my dad, they won't let me have my phone back.

I've.

They've had my phone for five months and it's all out there

that the the world is the problem.

I'm not the problem. They're the problem.

Would you guys agree?

We can act like teenagers sometimes.

But James says, hold on a second

before you start shooting from the hip, blaming everybody else.

I would like you to, for just one moment entertain the idea that these

these quarrels and these fights come from right here.

They come from within you.

James says. Let's just start there.

Let's just maybe entertain that idea that these fights and quarrels,

they come from things that for whatever reason, you've decided

you can't live without, or maybe that you're entitled to.

James says.

That stuff, it battles within you.

He says, forget about everybody else.

You can't even get this stuff squared away in yourself.

And you think bringing somebody else

into the equation is going to help sort it out.

These desires, they battle within you, they change minute to minute.

You wake up one morning and all of a sudden, oh, like,

I can't live without that.

When? Yesterday.

What was that? I couldn't live without

James.

As they battle within you.

And then he really starts to pick this apart.

Verse two, he says you desire, but you do not have.

So you kill rights, you covet, but you cannot get what you want.

So you quarrel and you fight.

He says these unfulfilled desires, they lead us to kill.

No pretty severe word.

And I think we can all think of times where maybe we've heard of this,

this happening.

Somebody wants something so bad they commit murder.

But more often than not, this killing is what I call relational death.

Relational death, the death of a relationship,

the death of a dream, or the death of an opportunity,

the death of a potential to mature or develop character.

James says.

These desires that battle within you, they kill the short circuit.

These things,

the short circuit, the work God is trying to do in your life.

And and there's a death that suffered.

Second half of verse

two, you do not have because you do not ask.

And when you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives

that you may spin on what you, that you may spend, what you get

on your pleasures.

It's tempting to think, oh, all I need to do is ask.

I mean, by the way, Scripture does say ask and you will receive.

Knock and the door will be open for you.

It's not what James is talking about here.

It's very tempting.

Think, oh, all I need to do is ask. I'm going to do that.

Kind of like a genie.

I mean, he's going to grant me three wishes.

I want a hot girl, a hot car, and three more wishes.

James says.

That's not what I'm talking about.

And it's almost like he says, and I knew you were going to go there.

So let's talk about what that means.

When you do ask, you don't receive because you have the wrong motives.

Your heart's not in the right,

your heart's not in the right place, and it's all about you.

Therefore, you still don't receive because you've got this battle

going on inside of you.

My first semester,

sorry, my first, youth ministry semester was just junior high.

That's all I did. I hung out with junior highers.

It was the craziest, smelliest time of my life.

And I dug up this idea at this point, and I want to share it with you.

It had been a long time ago.

When I was preparing for today.

I thought, I haven't seen that a long time, so I dug this up.

We went through a series like this back then, and I and I asked them this

when you're really praying

about something, you really, really want to ask two questions.

Who is this going to help and who is this going to hurt?

Who is this going to

help, and who is this going to hurt?

This can be a game changer right here

with those desires that battle within you.

Who is this going to help and who is this going to hurt?

One of the things we talk about in leadership

all the time is there's no way to please everybody all the time.

That is true.

But just asking this question right here helps you sort through saying,

you know what? That's all me.

That's just me.

And that's serving me and my desires

and my idea of what I think or how I think things should be.

This decision I'm praying about, who's it going to help

and who's it going to hurt.

He goes on in verse four

back, you adulterous people, don't you know what friendship

with the world, that friendship with the world means enmity against God.

And it's like father's last name, where the letters are reversed.

What does it mean?

Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes

an enemy of God.

That's what he's talking about.

He says, when we do these things talked

about in the first three verses,

when we're ruled by our desires, when we have this battle

that goes on within us, he's saying we become unfaithful people,

or what the old Testament calls covenant breakers or idolaters.

The desires come from a place that longs to be like the world.

And when we when we have those desires,

we put these desires in the place that was only meant to be filled by God.

And therefore he uses the word adulterous.

The love of the world,

friendship with the world

was interesting.

We talked about this in youth ministry one time, and somebody,

one of the kids said, hold on a minute, I know enough Bible

to know the most famous verse in all of Scripture, John 316.

It says, For God so loved the world.

God so loved the world.

But this is telling me

the almost what I think the exact opposite, the student said.

I said, that is a great point.

Let's talk about that.

There are two different ways or two different angles

to approach this idea that we need to talk about.

When God says he loves the world,

he's talking about his people, his creation,

that have always really been rightfully his.

And he wants to redeem that creation.

He wants to redeem those people.

That's what it means when it says God.

So for God, so loved the world,

but we as his people, as that creation,

we are not going to love the world like that.

If left to our own desires, we will not love the world like that.

We will love the world for what we can get out of it,

if left to our own desires, will love the world for what we can.

Just just milk it dry

that sinful part of the

earth, or what's called the flesh

that keeps us running in circles,

chasing things after, chasing after things that will never fulfill us.

That's why he uses that strong language

of adulterous people.

And then finishing out

this first section, verse six,

verse six says, he gives us more grace.

God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.

So things are starting to look up a little bit.

I love this scripture, never gives us a scolding

and then says, now go to your room and good luck figuring that out.

Scripture always gives us hope.

It never hangs us out to dry.

It always gives us hope.

And verse six starts

to hint at the solution.

Talking about how even after all the stuff that we've just

the first five verses, even after all that breaking down the problem like we have.

Second, James says, I'm going to need to just really break

this problem down so you know exactly what I'm talking about here.

After all of that,

we have God's grace.

You hear us talk about it all the time.

His undeserved favor and blessing.

James says it's still present and it's still available.

But the real description of the solution is one word.

It's that hinge.

We talk about that these two halves swing on the antidote to falling victim

to all the stuff we've talked about verses one through five

comes in the very first word of verse seven.

You may have I flick to it, prematurely up there.

I got to warn you, it's a word that everybody,

if you're a human, you hate this word.

Do not try to tell me you like this word.

You do not like this word.

None of us do.

Some of us hate, hate, hate this word.

It's got negative connotation.

So much so that some of us don't like to say it.

But we've just gotten the scolding. So we've.

We've got a thick skin by now. Right?

Somebody say it first word in verse seven.

Submit.

throw up in my mouth.

We hate this word, you guys.

It's a horrible word.

We human beings hate it.

We Americans really hate this word from America.

And this country was founded on people who would not submit.

We wouldn't even have our country if people submitted.

Many of us

would rather break before bend by submitting.

Just don't do it. A lot of us would say, no way.

I'm not submitting.

Or maybe you catch us on a good day and we go.

I'll submit they're there, but never there.

Saw what happened when my mom submitted a saw.

What happened when my sister submitted to her

coach saw what happened when my brother submitted to his teacher.

No way. nope. Not going to do it.

I'm going to use the platform as a confessional right now,

one of my guilty pleasures is, mixed martial arts fight, UFC.

UFC fight.

My. I'll be watching them on my phone, and my wife will come.

By God, are you watching a garbage again?

I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy's getting the crap beat out of him.

How much blood can come from one guy's nose?

And the thing, the one of the things

I love about mixed martial arts fight

is that one of the things that differentiates it

from a boxing match is you can win one of those fights by submission.

You can cause a guy chokehold, armbar, whatever, tap out.

I'm going to cause you so much pain.

You're not going to get knocked out. You don't have a say over it.

Then you don't.

Conscious or a technicality? No.

The judges decided that I'm going to cause you to lose the tap out.

You're going to admit right here, now that you've lost

and you tap out

one more way.

Our culture attaches negative attributes to this idea of submission.

When you submit, it means you lost

contest over.

He goes home with the belt.

I go home with a bruised ego, a bruised jaw, and maybe a consolation prize.

But it says submit yourselves then to God.

Submit yourselves to God.

One more biblical thing that's countercultural.

You know,

this is so interesting.

It says, submit what

yourselves.

There are some if you're a theologian or you like to

you like to do Bible study type of stuff, that kind of weeds.

There's a theme that weaves through the Bible, and

there are some things that God calls us to do to ourselves

when we talk about finances.

One of the things when it talks about debt is God says, free yourself.

It's not like God leaves.

He abandons us and says, this is all you.

He says, you're going to need to do

what James talks about, though, and get some skin in the game.

So it's free yourself like a bird

from the hand of the Fowler, or a gazelle from the hand of the hunter.

Humble yourself so that God can lift you up.

And right here it says, submit yourselves

to God.

One more biblical thing that's countercultural,

because what happens here is when we submit to God,

that's where the winning starts, James says.

That's where the winning begins.

That's how we start to have victory over these things, like fights

and quarrels and these desires that battle within us.

James says, you want victory over that. Submit.

Submit to God.

Amen.

That one word when use right here.

It means if you if you ever do word studies, it means subordinate.

Become a subordinate.

Another word that doesn't really have positive connotations either,

but it has this idea of I don't get to do whatever it is I want to do.

I don't get to strike out on my own.

I don't get to call the shots and make my own rules.

I'm subordinate to someone bigger than me.

I'm subordinate to something bigger than me.

And it has this idea of a continual day

after day process.

I didn't just submit that plan when I was in college to God,

and now I'm free to do whatever I want to do.

Or now that I'm married, I don't have to do that submitting

that I did back then.

I'm continually working on this process of being subordinate to something

that's bigger than me, and doing this, I start to win.

It's crazy.

It's counterintuitive, countercultural.

He goes on to say, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Come near to God and he will come near to you.

Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts.

You double minded. Humble yourselves.

There it is.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Grieve.

Morning wail. I skip. Verse nine. Grieve. Morning wail.

Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.

The problem with all of this, or the problem

many times with all of what we just read, is this.

We do the things it talks about after the submit part.

Without the submit part.

I talk to people all the time who will say things like,

I'm just trying to resist the devil. He's coming at me.

I read about his schemes and his plots and his ideas to destroy my life,

and I'm just trying to resist

trying to dig my heels in,

pull myself up, up by the bootstraps and resist.

Or they'll say, I'm trying to walk with God.

I'm trying to stay close to God.

But when I talk to to young people, I'm trying to stay pure.

I'm trying to just not screw up, trying to have a pure heart.

James would say to all that stuff, fantastic, great.

But have you submitted?

It all hinges on this one word submission.

Talk to people

all the time who have every reason in the world

as to why they should not submit, submit in their finances,

submit in their employment, submit in their relations.

And here's the thing many of those reasons are really, really valid.

Your boss may very well be a jerk.

Your spouse may very well be

being irrational and unreasonable.

Talk to teenagers all the time.

Your parents may very well be being overbearing and overprotective.

Those reasons that you have for not submitting

may be valid reasons.

When I talk to kids, they'll say, you know, my parents are such jerks.

They won't let me do this. They won't let me do that.

The most interesting conversations I've had, especially with older teenagers

that are just trying so hard

that they still live at home, but they're trying to not live at home.

And the most interesting times in those conversations

are when I look at them and I go, you're right,

I no, I'm not used to being told that.

What do you mean? I said, you're right.

Your dad was wrong.

Shouldn't said that.

I shouldn't have done that.

And they just kind of look at me.

Puzzled, I said, but but consider this for a second.

What if you're submitting?

What if your choice to come under the authority of

when they know you don't want to, when they know you don't want to?

Was the thing

that made this whole relationship turn around.

What if your refusal to submit is actually achieving the exact opposite of what

you really, really want just by that one choice to 2 or 2 not submit?

You could cause this whole thing to turn around.

The key thing to keep in mind here is we're not.

We're submitting to God

now, but the way that fleshes out we hate it

because a lot of times it seems like we're submitting to a person.

People are flawed and they're sinners, and they have these

these faults that we know a past that we know about things that we

and we have all these reasons

that we shouldn't submit.

But when we submit to God.

Those people just become the tool

by which he starts working.

We see it all around here all the time.

You'll never submit to a God you can't see until you first submit to a person.

You can see,

say this all the time with kids who are really struggling with parents.

You'll never submit. I just,

I just want to be with God.

I said, okay, but you'll never submit to that God

because you're refusing to submit to this parent.

Now, I'm not saying stay in a truly abusive situation.

That's not what I'm talking about here.

But after prayerful consideration, if the if the answer keeps coming back to you,

I'm not submitting.

That's omitting. I'm not submitting the answer.

It's pretty obvious.

So the application this week, again, like we talked about,

a lot of this stuff is real easy to understand.

But when the rubber meets the road, it's difficult,

difficult to put into practice

comes in a two part question, actually, two questions that form a whole.

Where in my life do I need to submit?

And really answer honestly.

For me, back in the winter

of 2004, the place I really needed to submit was in my finances.

And I knew it.

And I'd known it for months and I was like, oh no.

That thought would come into my head about getting my finances squared away.

Start tithing. Nope. Can't do it

because I was married and it wasn't just me.

I was gonna have to make a phone call.

Jen, I think we need to start tithing.

What is it for you?

Maybe it's your marriage.

Maybe it's your relationship with your coworkers.

Maybe it's your relationship with your coach, your team, your teachers.

Where in your life?

Where in my life do I need to submit?

But I can't let us off that easy

because it's one thing to identify the problem we talk about.

we've got these younger youth leaders coming up,

and we've kind of had to pass the torch to them in this regard.

You're not allowed in youth ministry to gripe unless you have a solution,

because you're a problem identifier.

You're not a problem solver.

We want problem solvers.

We've identified the problem when you ask where

and you answer, where in my life do I need to submit?

You've identified the problem.

But the second part is this what is the action that accompanies my submission?

This is where it gets tough,

because then you've got to make phone calls,

and then you've got to sit down with pieces of paper,

and then you've got to make really tough decisions

and talk to people who are involved in those areas.

One more way the book of James is so relatable.

It's so good and easy to understand, but it's really difficult

to put into practice.

So that's my prayer for us.

This week, is that we can take one more step as we go through the book of James,

and getting closer and closer to putting our faith into works.

I'd like to close right now by praying for us,

and then we're going to continue on with the rest of our service.

I'm really glad you came this morning.

I hope you were encouraged. Let's pray.

God, thank you so much for today.

Thank you for your word that it does what you say it will do,

and that is not return to you void that it goes out and it,

cuts to the heart of the issues that we're dealing with.

sometimes that cutting metaphor is not so much of a metaphor,

because that's what it feels like sometimes.

So if this, this, if this cut us this morning, God,

I pray that you will help us to heal in the way you want us to heal.

Give us strength, give us guidance, give us wisdom,

help us to

continue to walk out this life with you.

We love you and we ask all these things in your name.

Jesus. Everybody said Amen.