The Book of James // INTERVIEW // Chapter 5

Hey guys, thanks for joining us again for our Heaker Grove podcast here.

And we are landing the plane, Jack.

That's right.

James, are you sad?

Are you sad this is our last James podcast?

No.

Are you excited?

Because I know God's got something good coming up next.

Maybe.

Maybe.

I mean, he's definitely got good things coming up.

There you go.

You don't actually have a plan for like the next thing podcast-wise.

And we I keep forgetting this too.

If people are actually subscribed to our podcast, they're getting hit with lots of different things.

Yeah.

Probably they've already heard your sermon by now before watching or listening, excuse me, listening to this podcast.

So there's that.

And I'm pretty sure, Kayla, we still have Grove Women recordings coming on there.

They're online Bible study discussion.

Grove Youth, maybe.

No opet.

Maybe not opet.

Grove and KY on YouTube.

That's funny.

You're going to have to, you know, hook Kayla up with some her favorite snacks, and she might consider putting uh Grove Youth.

We we're not worthy to have Grove Youth podcast on there yet.

That's what it is.

We can't handle that kind of content.

We'll see.

I will say those are recorded.

So if you want to go watch those, there you go.

Watch those.

Good videos.

Good videos.

But I want to say I've really enjoyed our discussions and recordings of this.

It's fun to nerd out, talk a little bit about scripture together and the book of James.

And uh kind of preparing for today, as I was writing some answers down to some questions we've been answering with each of these podcasts, I got kind of got the feels a little bit like, oh, it's it.

This is it.

We're landing the plane and uh kind of felt nostalgic for the whole journey we've been on 10 weeks.

It's a long time.

10 weeks in this in this uh five-chapter book of the Bible.

So uh as we've been doing, let's let's read this uh this chapter.

Uh I'll let you do that, brother James 5.

How many verses we got?

20.

We got 20 verses reading the English Standard Version.

We'll jump right in.

James writes in chapter 5, come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.

Your riches have rotted, and your garments are moth eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you, and will eat your flesh like fire.

You have laid up treasure in the last days.

Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence, you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter, you have condemned and murdered the righteous person.

He does not resist you.

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.

See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains.

You also be patient, establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged.

Behold, the judge is standing at the door as an example of suffering and patience.

Brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast.

You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes, and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.

Is anyone among you suffering?

Let him pray.

Is anyone cheerful?

Let him sing praise.

Is any one among you sick?

Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.

And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.

Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

My brothers, if any one among you wonders from the truth, and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

The end.

That's it.

That's it.

Yeah, I love it, man.

Uh, thanks for reading that out.

And um, I know that one of the questions that we've been answering is summarizing the chapter.

I will tell you this one was the hardest one for the first time.

This is the hardest one.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

I'm glad you said it first.

I know we've been able to do it in a word or a phrase.

I had to use a whole sentence this time.

I did two words.

Oh, good.

And I'm gonna be honest, I think it it probably covers like two-thirds of the chapter.

I can like really stretch it, you know, and be like, and I feel like right here he's saying this too, but yeah, it's like two-thirds.

Yeah, I feel confident about.

All right, you go first.

All right.

If I had to summarize this as simply as I could, I would say press on.

Um, I feel like James is ending with this final charge to press on in many ways.

The the part that I would say probably doesn't fit for as much is uh if we're gonna break James up into, I mean, I feel like most of the time we'd break this up into three passages.

James chapter five would be verses one through six, verses seven through twelve, and then verses thirteen twenty.

Um, at least that's how ESV breaks it up.

They have subheadings over top of those three sections.

Um, I feel like it's probably a stretch to make it fit for the first one.

Um, that's the warning to the rich.

Yeah.

Um, but patience and suffering and the prayer of faith uh are the other subheadings.

And I can definitely see James encouraging us to press on in patience and suffering, to press on in patience as we await for the return of the Lord to press on in our patience with one another, um, to press on towards steadfastness, yeah uh like Job and like the prophets.

Um, and then I think there's a different kind of pressing on that still requires kind of that um passion and steadfastness uh in terms of pressing on in prayer.

Uh he gives us several reasons to be praying all the time.

Um he gives us uh I feel like there's a real pressing on into the discomfort of confessing sins and praying for the sick and the faith that comes along with that, pressing on into um you know, trying to bring back those who wonder, right?

Like, you know, really pressing on uh to to seek those people out.

And and I feel like even the way his letter ends isn't, I think we both actually talked about this.

It's nothing like how Paul ends his letters you know, it's not I have a whole chapter of shout out this person, say hi to this person, man.

I miss you guys trying to come visit soon.

Uh we don't get a lot of that.

Instead, it's kind of just this um, I don't know, it's a little somber in a way, I think.

That's a very serious ending.

It's a little abrupt.

Yeah.

Um and to me, it's just like continue to press on into the things of this letter.

Yeah.

Um, is kind of the direction I went with.

And so what about you?

What you got?

Uh I had to do a whole sentence.

Okay.

I appreciate that you said, you know, being patient for the coming of the Lord, because I don't think that was an obvious theme in that chapter, but it kind of stuck out to me between the warnings to the rich about the rich and the passages on prayer and confession.

Yeah.

You know, that it was like, you know, be patient, the the Lord is coming soon.

So my I did a whole sentence.

Uh as we approach actually seeing Jesus face to face, be fair to one another, pray for one another, and help one another live a godly life.

And it felt like it took a whole sentence for me to try to summarize this whole chapter.

And it's probably impossible to really do that, but in an effort to do that, to really hit on, I do think what gets missed a little bit in that initial passage about warnings to the rich is that part where it talks about a fair wage, you know, how you did not, someone mowed your fields, but you didn't pay them, you know.

Uh, there's this fairness uh that we're called to, whether you call it, you know, uh wage inequality or or some form of a social injustice that exists, uh the discrepancy between that those who have and those who have not, that we are not to ignore that as followers of Jesus.

And that I always wondered if there's been times throughout this book that he hits on this, that it made me wonder if there are people of wealth in that church, and these are probably house churches mostly made up of Jewish believers scattered throughout the diaspora of people, uh, little house churches that started as a result of the persecution.

And I wonder if there were wealthy there, and he's really saying, you know, okay, you have to do this differently.

Don't do it like the rest of the world.

Or also if it was encouragement to what might have been mostly poorer believers in those house churches to help them understand that, you know, uh the wealth, they're oppressors, and that's not who we are.

And, you know, the the moths are gonna eat their clothes, you know, their their riches are gonna be corroded.

Uh so don't don't be jealous of that.

Don't wish you had that because what you have is way better.

Maybe it's uh tension of both of those things.

But so I think I think personally that it is both of those things.

And my initial thought is, oh man, I bet there was tension in the churches because of that.

Yeah.

Like, you know, and I mean, I don't feel this a lot in our church, even though I know there's diversity in economical status or socioeconomic status.

Right.

Um and and luckily I don't think I feel that very much.

But I think it could be there.

I think it could be I guarantee it's there, yes.

And then I also even think like, especially if you had a small house church like this context, you know, let's say there's 25 people instead of 500 people, suddenly those differences stand out a lot more.

Oh, yeah.

And so I could totally see, you know, is it chapter three?

I don't know.

I'm I'm blanking right now, where he talks about the person coming in with the golden ring and the bright white clothing.

Here, sit in the nice chair.

Yeah.

And so my personal understanding of that is it's likely a real thing that happened.

And so imagine if you do have that, and it it sounds like this person or people like that person are a part of the churches.

Yeah.

And then you have people who are in a real state of poverty, yeah, worshiping together, which I think is exactly how it should be.

Right.

And yet I think the tension is probably unavoidable in a context like this one.

Yeah.

I almost feel like at the end of the day, I mean, I really kind of pushed in the sermons a couple of times to beware of uh not tying things together when we see those headings.

We wrote those headings in our English Bibles.

They're helpful, big time.

Chapters, verse chapter numbers, verse numbers.

Remember, this is a whole entire letter.

However, man, at the end of the day, it feels to me like this is a church manual that James wrote to those churches.

It's such a reference book, in my opinion, to go back and to say, well, what do we do?

How do we deal with the rich versus the poor in our church?

This socioeconomic discrepancy that exists right here in this little house that we're meeting in, you know.

I get that vibe, like it's such a reference book.

Yeah.

Uh, even in this just one chapter, you get these three to four main topics of dealing with fairness when it comes to those things, socioeconomic diversity in the church.

Are you treating, if you have wealth, don't let it have you, don't let it corrupt you, and make sure you're being fair, make sure you're being generous.

Uh, then talking about praying and confessing, and also making sure a brother or a sister doesn't wander from the Lord.

I mean, all of that sounds like such almost like a church manual to me.

Yeah.

Like this is how we are to be the church together.

It's funny, you know, like uh like UVersion Bible app does this, different study Bibles would be like, I'm feeling blank.

And you can like turn to a page that has like verses about that.

Yeah.

I wonder if the early church was like, all right, uh, we got this thing going on.

Where's James at?

Where's the book of James?

Somebody, does somebody have that, a copy of that with them?

Um flip, flip the page, flip the page.

All right, yeah, we need that right now.

Like if they were just constantly referencing back to that.

Yes, you know, I I wonder if that was taking place.

Given that this is, you know, we talked about this, I think, first episode, earliest book actually written.

Yes, you know, I mean, they had this for a long time.

Like a lot of the stuff we're reading about in the New Testament, they had this.

And so I wonder if 45 AD, man, early church, they were probably like, get us a copy of James.

Pull out James.

We we have we have some really sick people.

Wait, what are we supposed to do about that?

Oh, yeah, let's call the elders, go anoint with oil.

Like it was like a manual, like a it's really pretty, pretty amazing.

And I know we kind of works out good.

We've kind of parked around this rich versus poor tension because one of the things that we've been talking about in the podcast is is there some historical cultural context we can lean into?

And for me, this this was the one.

Like, I do think everything in chapter five feels like it's hitting on things that are happening in real life in these churches.

Yeah, this is really happening.

We we have this tension between the rich and the poor.

We have people that are becoming ill, and this is how you deal with that.

And we have people wondering from you know, they're they're making bad decisions, they're not living, they're not walking by the spirit.

Uh, so we need to make sure we uh take responsibility for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

So I feel like historical cultural context is this is real.

I do feel like I there's more of a context that feels different than ours when it talks about the rich versus the poor.

There, there's almost this vibe throughout the book of James that the wealthy in that day were, man, there was probably some very obvious oppression, very obvious unfairness that had to have taken place in order for that person to become wealthy.

Yeah.

Whereas I'm not so sure we see that obviously in our current culture.

Yeah, like I can think of folks I know who are wealthier and are incredibly godly people.

Oh, yeah.

Generous.

Yeah, so generous.

Um, I know, at least I think I know like how they got to be in that place.

Yeah.

It's like, man, super hardworking, uh, you know, very diligent, very wise.

And, you know, God's blessed them and they've stewarded it really well, and now they're very generous people.

Right.

That doesn't seem like what James is talking about, right?

I mean, he hammers the rich.

Yeah.

I don't sugarcoat it.

Like he is like that corrosion is gonna eat your flesh.

Yeah.

I mean, it is third cord.

Um I think a big part of it, uh, this was something that I talked about with students.

A big part of the context with that is he doesn't just like it doesn't stop with verse three, um, where you know he's saying that, you know, the corrosion is now going to eat them.

Yeah.

Um, I think verse four um really gives us a lot of context for why James is being so tough on the wealthy.

Yeah, yeah.

So good.

There's corruption, and they have made their money off the backs of other people who they are actively wronging.

And so with that would be like um, you know, we're used to being paid maybe weekly, bi-weekly, you know, twice a month, once a month, whatever.

Um from my understanding, they were used to being paid a daily wage so that they could go and get food for themselves or their families.

And so a day where they withheld their wages was a day that they were forced to not eat.

Yeah.

And that family was not able to eat.

So when you think about these people crying out to the Lord and the pain that it's actually causing, it's not like, oh, hey, man, I'm gonna get you that tomorrow.

And that's just, oh, okay.

You know, I've had jobs like that before where I'm working construction.

It's kind of like, you know, I'm a teenager, it's under the table, hey, I'm getting you that check when we get this job done.

We're like, yeah, whatever.

Uh yeah, I don't really need it.

We're cool.

No, that's not what's happening here.

Yeah.

What's happening here is these people are are hurting because their bosses who are wealthier than them are oppressing them and hurting their families by keeping back these wages.

And so it's no wonder that the Lord is hearing them cry out from this sort of pain that is being caused to them.

So I think it's important to realize here that um, you know, people are so quick to be like, money is the root of all evil and it's it's just bad, and wealth is bad, and whatever.

Um, I don't I think James gives us good context here for why he is being so harsh.

I agree.

I I love that.

I guess one of the things that I have been really like, ah, I just feel so grateful for going through the book of James, preparing the messages, doing this podcast with you, and then we as a staff discussing each chapter in our staff meetings, just I feel like I'm blown away at the nuance, the new nuances that just God will shine a spotlight on.

And that verse that you just read is is one for me.

Like how that is, I mean, that's a powerful verse that God hears the cries of those who have been unjustly treated in the workforce.

And that's a big deal.

Like, I don't want to underestimate that.

And I know when I got to preach this, one of the examples I used, and you know my passion for coffee, um, but we've had a partnership with Carabello Coffee in Newport, Kentucky for many years now.

We buy whole beans from them.

Well, it's grounded, it's not whole beans, but we wholesale purchase this, knowing that every time we do that, we're supporting a fair wage in Nicaragua.

And man, that just does my heart good to know that that there are people.

I mean, and in Justin Carabello, that's just his passion.

That's why they believed God led them to start their coffee shop.

It was bigger than just having excellent coffee in northern Kentucky.

It's a good business model.

It's been around, it kind of came around before the big push for single origin coffee shops.

You know, we have a lot more of them now, but Carabello kind of was on the front end of that.

It was bigger than that.

They're they're always doing it connected to a mission.

Yeah.

Um, and I loved getting to go there to make that visit back in 2020 and actually see those coffee bean farmers working so hard and knowing that they are doing it because they want to do it for this pastor, Luis, in Nicaragua, who's gonna pay them a fair wage for doing it.

Uh, and it's all tied together.

God is getting glorified from the bean being picked, the cherry being picked off that coffee tree in Nicaragua all the way to the purchase being made in Newport, Kentucky by someone like us.

And uh that in itself is honoring God.

Yeah.

And I think that there's a clear call here for those who are in some sort of leadership position.

You know, we might not like this is kind of specific, it seems like, to, you know, this almost sounds agricultural because of the fields that are being mowed and stuff, but um, I think we would do ourselves well to apply it to anybody who is managing, uh, overseeing, who is considered somebody's boss, um, which I think is a lot of us, you know, are we doing that in a way that's righteous?

Um, and then I think we can apply it to all sorts of fields.

And I don't want this to be, you know, I'm not throwing shade at any of these specific organizations or people, but unfortunately, we do see things where it's like, you know, I know people in the medical field who feel like I really want to do a good job and I really want to help people, but everything is.

So, based on metrics, and you know, uh, am I meeting my standards and my quotas?

Am I seeing enough people?

Uh, you know, and I really want to be able to do this, but I feel like I'm not able to do what I'm really called to do, or teachers who are like, I'm so busy with the grading and the lesson plans and the things that I'm being asked to do that I I can't do the thing that I really want to do.

And so I think there's all sorts of things in here.

I'm not saying it's the primary focus of the text or anything, but where we can see that God really does care for the work that we're doing.

He does.

Uh, from the leadership down to the worker.

Um He wants us to be able to do good work and to be working righteously.

Yeah.

Um, I think it's encouraging.

He is a fair and just God.

Yeah.

And actually, a big takeaway from that is anybody who's a believer who has the power to determine a wage in their company, yeah.

That I mean, this is a very convicting passage.

Like he hears the cries of the laborers of the field who are not being treated fairly.

Yeah.

That applies to any workforce.

And it's almost like, wow, if for no other reason but for my fear and reverence of the Lord, I want to make sure I do this right.

I'm picking the best insurance plan for my people.

I'm making sure our HR department's buttoned up, ready to go for our people.

Like there's, I think there's just all sorts of ways that we can and should apply this, where I do think it's easy to kind of read through that.

And, you know, if you're like, well, I'm not rich, so this doesn't matter to me.

Um, or I'm not in charge of anybody, this doesn't matter to me, or I'm not running a farm, so this doesn't matter to me.

You know, I'm not keeping back wages necessarily.

I still think there's good practices for us to make sure that we're following here.

It's interesting that we got to park on that for a while because I do think of all the passages, that first part of James 5, we blow by, we blow by it hard to get to the prayer and the confession.

Uh, and and um, but that that's good, I think that we parked on that for a little bit.

Um, what was your favorite verse?

My favorite verse is uh I've talked to you about this already, so you'll know where I'm going, but verse 17 says, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.

Um, if I'm being honest, the part that I love the most is just, you know, kind of 17A.

Yeah.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.

Um and it comes out of maybe one of the verses that I struggle with the most, which would be like 16B.

I'll just read all of 16.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

And we joked about this the other day.

Um, you know, you want to be like, man, this is awesome for you know, the righteous person, like our prayers matter.

But a lot of times I'm like, well, I'm not righteous.

I'm not righteous enough for this.

So it's hard to read 16, and I think it's supposed to be an equipping verse and an empowering verse.

And yet, you know, I my mind goes to you know, places in Romans where Paul is telling us no one is righteous, no, not one, and that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Um, and I'm like, so who's that?

Um and it's it's it kind of makes me struggle a little bit to be like so.

You feel more discouraged.

And yeah, I'm like, you know, we joked the other day about uh let me get a real prayer warrior uh for you.

You know, you don't want to be on my prayer list, let me get somebody better for you.

Um and then you have to remember, like, uh, you know, I've always heard uh theologians call it the great exchange that Christ takes our sin and we get his righteousness in return.

So when it says prayer of a righteous person, it's not our righteousness, it's the righteousness that we receive from Christ.

Uh and so I I get that, um, but it's hard at times.

And so 17 really helps when you know you're thinking, okay, the prayer of a righteous person has great power, and you're thinking, Yeah, but not me.

And then he says, Well, Elijah was a man.

And then my natural response is you go, Yeah, but Elijah's not just any man.

And I'm not like him.

And then he goes, Really?

Because he's got he's got a nature just like yours.

Yes.

And you go, dang it.

How'd you know what I was thinking?

Yeah.

And I love, I love when scripture does that.

Me too.

Time and time again.

I feel like, especially in New Testament epistles, you see the authors um answering the rebuttal that they know you're gonna have.

Yeah.

Uh it's just awesome.

So succinctly, too.

Like, yeah, let me tell you, he's in nature just like yours.

And then yeah, he prayed and the weather changed.

And so here's the example of it.

Like, it's it's so well written and the logical approach.

Oh God, way to write this well.

Yeah, exactly.

And so that is probably my favorite verse.

I love it.

Um, at least, at least reading it this time, right?

And we've kind of talked about how it feels like every time there's something new.

Um, but yeah, uh this time going through it, I was like, you hear people quote that second half of verse 16 so often, and you don't hear people quote 17.

Yeah, that's true.

And so 17 really helped me, I feel like, have an understanding of verse 16, but also actually get some of that encouragement and um empowerment that I think is supposed to come from verse 16 for the believer.

I agree.

And uh when I got to preach that, I pointed out very quickly that one of the biggest epic moments, maybe maybe the thing Elijah is most known for is the time that he kind of went up against the prophets of Baal and they had this basically a sacrifice off.

Yeah.

And uh, you know, the prophets of Baal was calling out for Baal to devour their sacrifices, it didn't happen.

Uh Elijah actually kind of messed with them a little bit, like scream harder.

I mean, it's pretty epic.

I think that's the part where he goes, maybe he's using the bathroom.

Yeah, I mean like maybe your God's relieving himself, maybe he's busy.

He is trash talking so hard.

I actually, I don't want to derail us too much.

I actually have heard people use that regularly as an argument that when it comes to apologetics and kind of defending the faith, we are allowed to be maybe just a little bit more aggressive, get a little stunky than than we often think, you know, because we go, okay, we need to do this with gentleness and kindness and grace and you know, be above reproach, but also maybe a little bit of mocking here and there is appropriate.

I'm I'm just saying just a little bit of a chance to do that.

Just taking cues from Elijah here.

Yeah, you know, and he's a man just like he's got a nature just like ours.

And hey, look at look at what he did.

But anyways, keep saying what you're saying.

Oh no, well, well, then the obvious awesome outcome is he soaked his sacrifice to make it even harder, and fire from heaven comes down.

But that was first Kings 17 and 18, and then one chapter later, he is so depressed, he prays for God to take his life.

Yeah, and it's just a reminder, you know, that Greek phrase there that is translated, he has a nature just like ours, that word translated with nature.

He had the same passions, affections, and feelings.

Those are some of the English words that can be used to translate that Greek word there.

He felt the same things we felt, he struggled with the same things we struggled with, uh, and yet God used him to, I mean, some prayers that he prayed were amazingly answered.

Yeah.

And I love that.

You're right, that brings encouragement to verse 16.

I agree with that.

And it makes me wonder a little bit like, does that mean when he was praying prayers like that?

Was there, I'm not saying that there was, it just makes me wonder.

Was there any fear that this isn't gonna work out the way?

Yeah, I mean, like, I would have opened right.

Uh, is there any doubt?

Is there any like, oh god, I'd I'd been pretty bold here.

I just dumped water all over all of it.

Please, Lord.

Come on, you know, and so I don't I don't know for sure, but I think that that is uh were there's some doubts intermingled with that.

You know, if he has those feelings and I mean, if his nature's like ours, then maybe he didn't in that moment, but he did prior.

And as he continued to see prayers answered, he his faith was built up to the point where, you know, if he would have read verse 16, he would have said, Absolutely, and amen.

Yeah, I've seen that happen.

I've seen the prayer of a righteous person have great power as it is working.

There you go.

Um, that's awesome.

I love it.

So I want to know what's your favorite verse?

Well, we were adjacent.

Uh, my favorite verse is verse 16, and it's kind of like well, it's a lot of people's favorite verse, I think.

I think it's I've I believe I've seen it listed as a memory verse before.

I think I memorized it in order to go to Bible camp as a teenager before Bill.

Nobody's favorite verse is confess your sins to one another.

It's not.

It's like the hardest verse from the chapter.

Maybe they only memorize B.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

I actually love A.

That would be the my favorite part, is therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

And I confess this a little bit in my sermon about this passage, but I love intimate discipleship.

I love being in a small group of people where you actually do life together.

And I told our church family that before over 15 years ago, we started churchwide small groups years before that.

I want to say it was at least five years before that.

We were doing small groups in youth ministry.

Hey, yo.

Hey, oh, youth ministry, where it's at.

I was I was four.

But you probably were.

Uh like talking like almost 20 years ago?

Yeah.

Yeah.

20 years ago.

It was a radical move.

I literally had two of my former small group leaders come up to me and remind me after that sermon.

I remember saying, What are you doing?

This is a terrible idea.

Uh, that we're gonna do small groups because we literally stopped doing pretty typical youth ministry on Wednesday nights to do small groups.

We launched it on Wednesday nights in homes.

Um, but I remember just that was my true first taste of what it was like to be sitting in a room with a bunch of guys and really sharing your struggles, your sins, your addictions, uh, and saying, we're gonna pray for one another and we're gonna talk about this again next week and see how you're doing with it.

I found that to be very powerful.

And I think that I've experienced firsthand the healing that comes from being confessional.

And I do believe, especially in our tribe, the Southern Baptist tribe, which is, I would say, one of the top three, top five things clung to is priesthood of the believer.

I don't have to confess to another human, I can confess directly to God.

I think over the centuries of that, we have lost the power of confessional discipleship.

And I will say, the way I said that just now, I do see that that is something more and more embraced.

Yeah.

Uh I a lot of I even some of my other pastor friends, even locally here, have talked about how they have seen that be a powerful thing in their church.

I think to some extent, church discipline is on the rise in some churches, uh, which is a whole other topic for discussion.

Uh the way that might be done in some churches may not be um as effective as others, but I do think that the vibe in chapter five here is man, love your brother, love your sister enough to get involved, like to to to show up in those spiritual, I don't know how to struggles, yeah, those sins that are happening.

Like, we don't what is the most common thing that we could do by human nature is to not engage it, to not confess it, and to instead make it a separate prayer request in a different circle, excluding the one who is struggling, saying, This person's really kind of gone by the wayside.

We need to pray for them.

No, like reach that brother, reach that sister.

Let's let's let's be humble together and realize we are all sinners and we all struggle.

And if we create a culture where we all need confessional discipleship together, I think that can just be transformative big time.

So I love that passage.

That's my favorite verse.

And I think with what you're saying, I I don't think it's a coincidence that is it three verses later, he's talking about those who are wondering.

Um how much more wait might we be able to keep those from wondering if they're already doing confessional they didn't feel like they were walking alone and they didn't feel like, man, I have all this stuff and this stuff doesn't fit here, so I don't fit here.

So I gotta find a new path.

And that path leads to destruction.

And whether they know that or not, they're just saying, I can't be in the church anymore.

Right.

So I'm going this way.

Right.

And uh, you know, I think verse 16 might be part of the remedy to that.

I agree.

Uh, before it even happens.

And the context of that is I mean, he begins verse 16, it's the word therefore.

So whatever happened right before that is why he says what he says in verse 16 and 17.

And it's all connected that he they he gave very specific instructions that if anybody among you is sick, uh, to call for the elders of the church, call for the spiritual leaders of the church to come to you and and uh anoint you with oil and pray for you that you might be healed.

And and that it also is connected spiritually, like all of that is combined together.

You're I do think that's something that I'm still trying to figure out how it's woven through the New Testament that physical illness and spiritual wellness are connected sometimes.

And uh they seem to be combined at times in some of the verses that deal with that in the New Testament.

And you have to be careful not to make that a causality necessarily.

And I I leaned into that in my sermon.

Like I remember that.

I was happy that you did that.

Thank you.

Yeah, that that Greek word can, K-A-N there says, and if then your sins may be forgiven too, not because yeah, because you've sinned, you're sick, therefore, all of this is, yeah.

I think we have to be very careful not to cause.

Just because there is a connection or some overlap doesn't mean that these are the same things.

Right.

And I actually kind of took the approach that um kind of the reason they're clumped together, a big part of it is that we need healing in both categories.

We need physical healing and spiritual healing.

Um, but what I see primarily in the New Testament is that the spiritual healing is always elevated over the physical.

I agree.

And so I think there is often a need for both kinds of healing.

Um, but God is more concerned with us being healed spiritually.

And I've always had the approach as somebody who believes in miraculous healing, that the greatest miracle that we can have and experience is salvation in Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Like way more so than physical healing, which I believe in and pray for for people.

Um, and I want to see people healed spiritually uh through the gospel, exactly through believing in the good news of Jesus.

And so I think that there is there is uh connection here, but I just want to be quick always to emphasize um uh one, James is encouraging us to be praying for uh bold healing.

Yeah.

Um, but we all have access to a type of healing that's even greater than that, and that's because of Jesus.

So awesome.

I love that.

Me too.

I told my dad's story many times from the platform about how you know we weren't raised in church.

Dad, mom sent me and my sister to church a handful of times growing up over the elementary years, and uh, you know, his mom, my mammal, prayed so hard for the family to come to Christ eventually.

And and we did, but I really believe God used her cancer journey to reach my dad and to ultimately reach me as well.

And um, it's pretty cool to see like God doesn't waste a pain, even the physical pains to draw us to him, to get us in his arms, to get us to walk with him and to to allow him to be our shepherd, not just because we're praying for physical healing, but because we now realize our we need him at the very depth of our soul.

I think that's what's beautiful about all of this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I agree.

Can I ask you a another question?

Yes.

What was your favorite thing to teach from this chapter?

Because um, we spent two weeks in this and, you know, like we've said, covered some pretty big things.

So I'm curious, what did you enjoy teaching the most?

Well, it's actually your favorite part that you just said earlier.

Uh, I loved leaning into the Elijah story in the middle of that.

Because again, it's I think it's one of those things that we can easily kind of blow by, but to to talk about his story and why James would say he was a man just like us.

Elijah was quite elevated.

And I mean, people believed that Elijah had to come before the Messiah could come, and people attributed John the Baptist as being kind of like the symbolic Elijah that had come to prepare a way of the Lord.

So Elijah was very lauded.

Yeah.

You're at a Shabbat meal and they're leaving the door open for Elijah to come through.

Yeah.

I'm so glad you said that reference.

I'd forgotten all about that.

Yeah.

I don't know why that strikes me as funny, but well, I'll tell you why it's funny.

I went to Bill Clark's house one time because his son Cameron was taking some sort of, you know, church history, Jewish history class, and he had to host a Shabbat meal for us.

And we were drinking juice, and I think it was supposed to be representative of wine.

And after we had our third glass, we had to open your front door in case Elijah came.

And I don't know, I it was a very interesting night.

And uh bitter herbs are not yummy, but yeah, uh, then your wonderful wife Sherry bought us all city barbecue for participating.

That's the brisket right there, and that was awesome and so not Jewish.

Yeah, but uh the elevation of Elijah and for James, so he's so Jewish, you know.

Uh, and this was such a Jewish-ritten book to say he's just another dude, man.

Like, yeah, uh that that was my favorite line.

I actually wonder if that I didn't look into this much.

I wonder if if that would have ruffled some feathers.

Very good point.

Yeah.

Like, no, he ain't.

Yeah, don't say that.

Um staff meeting about like this guy just went right up to heaven, like yeah, uh, so he's pretty much probably some tension with how much we can say he is like us, uh, but here it is in the divinely inspired word of God.

Yeah, James used a very savage man named James the Just to just things and people.

He was every topic, man.

What was your favorite thing to teach?

Um, I think it's hard.

I have two, but I'm gonna say my favorite thing, just for some of the simplicity, even though it's not all that simple, but I I I just love it.

Um, verses 13 through 15.

Is anyone among you suffering?

Let him pray.

Is anyone cheerful?

Let him sing praise.

Is anyone among you sick?

Let him call for the elders of the church and let him pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

Um so really 13 and 14.

I think 14 gets a lot of focus because we have this really specific command and instruction.

Um, but thirteen coming before that, and you have three different things here uh where James asks a question and the remedy is prayer.

Um is anyone suffering?

Pray.

Is anyone cheerful?

Sing praise, which I think there's a prayerful uh aspect of that.

Sure.

Um, and then is anyone sick?

Well, call the elders because it's time to pray.

And so um just this idea that we need to be prayerful in all things.

Um what we said for students is just kind of summarize a lot of that second or that third section of James that we should be praying in all seasons, no matter our emotions, um, that there's healing power in the prayers of God's people, and that we need to make confession and prayer a part of who we are as God's people.

Love it.

And um I think it's like maybe the one of the most simple things in there.

Yeah.

And I'm not necessarily saying we miss it, but I think because of 14 and 15 being this really unique thing, we skip how 13 is uh very much like you know, you'll hear people be quick to quote verses about, you know, uh pray without ceasing and um you know cast all your anxieties on the Lord and be praying for to Him.

Like we have all these other prayer verses that I feel like we go too quickly, and I don't hear 13 often.

Very, very good point.

In fact, you just made me highlight verse 13.

It was not even highlighted.

You're welcome.

I even used the purple highlighter.

Oh that's my elevated oh okay.

Yeah, but yeah, I just think I think it's awesome.

And I think it was just a really good thing to teach, um, especially for students.

Uh I mean, we talk about this, we just had our prayer meeting before recording this, and we talk about um how often we're just laying up requests for healing, for physical healing, spiritual healing, all these sorts of things.

And we have staff members who are quick to share praises as well, which I love.

Oh, yeah.

But I think if we uh evaluated our prayer life, I think it would be pretty outweighed with uh the requests of the suffering, which we have an instruction here to do that.

I'm not saying that's bad.

Right.

Um, but this is in in all things, be praying and and be giving praise.

The response is to acknowledge God and all of it.

Um, the the proper response is you are acknowledging God no matter what you're feeling, no matter what you're experiencing, you're going to Him.

I like I just love that.

Me too.

Like, I appreciate you sharing that.

That's really invigorated me even more about that verse.

And I I can't remember if it was just someone that I'm friends with online, uh, that well, I'm friends with that posted this online, or if this was the verse of the day through the UVersion Act recently.

This was recently the verse of the day.

Yeah, and someone like I that I know that I don't normally see share the verse of the day posted a beautiful graphic version of verse 13.

And it just kind of hit me, even though I we'd already preached this passage, it just kind of hit me like in isolation.

If any is anyone among you suffering, let him pray.

Is anyone cheerful?

Let him sing praise.

Like, no matter what end of the spectrum you're on, we can pray and we can praise.

There's something so very encouraging about that and simple about it.

And like we don't have to let either one of those things, I don't know.

We don't have to let, I think sometimes we feel like we're chasing after constant cheerfulness.

Yeah.

And we're chasing after it.

But we can rest in there are gonna be seasons where we're we're feeling like we're suffering and struggling.

There are gonna be seasons where we feel so cheerful.

And either way, we're so connected to the Lord through prayer and worship.

And it's almost like we can be content in all of those things.

Check out the last thing on our podcast.

May 15th.

It's March.

I mean March 15th.

It's funny.

March 15th.

March 15.

Which man's he's longing for summer.

It's like 30 something degrees outside, and he's like, Maybe kind of quickly.

Let's talk about that kind of suffering that's happening right now outside.

It was 70 degrees Sunday.

It's 20 summer now.

I heard somebody make a joke about like, I guess, in Revelation, which my small group just finished our Revelation study last night.

Uh, there's a verse about like, you know, the seasons become hard to recognize or something like that.

Uh here we go.

Somebody was like, Northern Kentucky is experiencing uh the week of revelation.

Are we in Armageddon?

Yeah, we're in the last, we're in the last days.

Um seasons are hard to recognize.

That's hilarious.

Uh, I'm I already kind of probably answered this earlier.

We've been asking what do people maybe miss about this chapter?

And you know, what we talked about about fair wages and inequalities there would have been what I would have answered there.

We've already hit on that.

Did you have something different there?

Yeah.

Um, which is interesting because I actually think because of how powerful and how often quoted verses 13 through 20 are, I actually think verses 1 through 12 are kind of just missed altogether.

I totally agree.

A lot, but both of them, I can't again I kind of have two answers.

Uh, and so I'm trying to be picky here, but both of them come from that second passage, uh, seven through twelve.

Um I'll say, I think I'll say both, and I'll just be fast.

Verses seven through nine, be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.

See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, be patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains.

You also be patient, establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged.

Behold, the judge is standing at the door.

Um, I'll just make it quick and share a quote that I think kind of sums up what I think we miss and why we need it.

Uh John Calvin says, No bridle is more suited to holding back our strong, our headstrong temper than the thought that our imprecation does not go off into the air, but close at hand there is the judgment of God.

Woo.

So explain that for us.

Yeah, the idea here being we grumble, we're impatient, we're judging each other, and maybe the remedy that we need for those things is to remember that Jesus is coming back and it could be at any moment.

Yeah.

Um, so I actually think it is really simple.

Yeah.

Uh, but I think we we read this and we're thinking about okay, the Lord's coming back, when is that gonna be?

And how are we supposed to act in the midst of that, uh, in the midst of the waiting, but also having this sense of urgency about ourselves as the body of Christ, which I think we should have.

Um, but I just like what what Calvin says there in terms of like it's more correct, like the way his interpretation of it is more of a correction for us.

Like, hey, you have this headstrong temperament.

And what if I told you the way you're acting isn't just going off into the air, it's not affecting anybody, but actually the judgment of the Lord is is near.

Yeah, that would probably change the way you feel about these things.

Yeah, and when I read that, I was like, well, he's right, that does change the way I feel about things.

I need to get my stuff together.

There you go.

Um, and I I need to take that more seriously because I I think we do tend to skim those verses a little bit more to other verses, and I mean there's some real application there for us.

Um, and I also think it helps us understand um more so of what our um heart posture should be in terms of uh how we think about uh the second coming and how we wait for that.

The second thing is even shorter.

I just love this verse.

Behold, we can this is verse 11.

Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast.

You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

Um, if you know anything about the story of Job, most skeptics probably point to that as one of the main examples of how um the Lord maybe isn't all good, uh, and how he allows for these really horrible things to take place.

And I'm not even saying I have all the answers and have fully worked through this, but the fact that James, James the Just, he cares a lot about this.

Yeah, cares a lot about this sense of justice, and it's been a theme throughout this whole letter.

Yeah, he says that this is the purpose of the Lord, and it shows how the Lord is compassionate and merciful, like in the story of Job, where a lot of people point to to say, that's your God.

Job's or James says, absolutely.

And when I look at the story of Job, I see the purpose of the Lord, I see how our Lord is compassionate and merciful, and that is crazy.

Yeah, and I think we miss it, and I think we need it, and I think that um, man, if this was the attitude that we had about scripture, yeah, um, going in, and I think that part of this is the Lord has to give us this, um, change our heart to see what James is seeing here.

True.

Man, if we go in expecting to see the purpose of the Lord, expecting to see his compassion and his mercy, and letting um scripture interpret scripture and letting um his ways be different than our ways.

Yeah.

And we go in expecting to run into things where we go, oh, that doesn't sit right with me.

Yeah.

Um, and then hey, God, I'm allowing you to change how I feel about this.

Like there's a a quote from a pastor that I love.

Uh, I don't necessarily love the pastor, I love the quote.

I don't know enough about the pastor to love him or not, but I think Thanks for the clarification.

Yeah, just I don't want to give too much of a cosign here, but Greg Laurie, uh, I heard him say one time that um he had a friend who asked him, What do you do when you see something in scripture that you disagree with?

And he said, I changed my mind.

Um, and this is one of those for a lot of people, I think.

Like, I wonder if at some point James read Job and he said, I have to change my mind.

I don't know.

Could be.

Yeah.

Um, and and God changed his mind to see this.

We don't know that for sure, but I just like to speculate some of those things sometimes, put myself in their shoes and see, and how did James get to a place where he could rate this?

But I said I was gonna be short about that, and I didn't I wasn't.

No, no, so what's great?

Those are my two things.

He drops Elijah and Job in this chapter both, and two epic stories.

And and I think in both of those examples, he says something about them unexpected.

That Elijah, a man like us, Job in his story, is an example of the compassion and mercy of the Lord.

Yeah, so it's so like jarring, like it's it's ingenious, honestly, yeah, that God gave James these words to write to sort of cause everyone to read it, pause, like, whoa, yeah, okay.

I wonder how much attention it caught.

You know, like I talked about in my message on uh Sunday about how Paul uses a specific Greek word that would have definitely caught the attention of his readers.

And I wonder if when James was writing this, you know, again, I believe it's fully divinely inspired, but we get some of the personality and flavor of the author in there.

Yeah.

And I wonder if James was like, just wait until they see this.

Yeah, this will get them.

Yeah.

Oh my goodness.

I love to see their faces when they open this thing up, you know.

When I think it's by no accident that in verse 9, when it says, don't grumble against one another, that you may not be judged, the judge is standing at the door.

Like you were saying, the imminent return of the Lord, the imminent day of judgment that awaits uh it should cause us to live differently.

Even if we are confident in our assurance of salvation, at the end of the day, so many of the parables of Jesus were about when the master comes back, when the king comes back from the long journey.

May he catch us living out our faith, may he catch us investing the talents, if you will, rather than burying them and not doing anything with them.

Um this is the theme throughout all of the New Testament.

It's not by no accident.

He says, Don't be grumbling, don't be grumbling against one another and let the judge show up and you're doing that.

Yeah.

Uh, and and by the way, Job's story is one where his friends were like, You must are really messed up, bro, for you to be going through all this, you know, uh, and just all of that sort of judgment happening.

Um, I I love that.

You this is so true.

I miss, I will confidently say this part of James 5 is the one I miss most.

I go through it quickly to get to the other stuff.

So this is helpful.

And something you just said made me think about this.

You because a big part of Job is, yeah, people thinking Job must have done something to deserve this.

And then we get down to verses 14 and 15.

Yeah.

And a big thing that you have to make sure that you clarify is that sin didn't necessarily cause this thing.

Right.

And there's New Testament support for that.

Um, and so it's funny that he almost gives like an ultimate preface to that, just a few verses ahead of time, being like, remember Job, remember his steadfastness.

Here's what we should see in that story.

And then I actually I don't think that those are very disconnected.

They're tied, man.

It feels like that's the whole James thing is it feels like totally separate topic changes.

And then when you zoom out, you see how they weave all together.

That's really cool.

Pretty, pretty amazing.

I love it.

So, hardest thing to live out.

Your favorite verse, man.

For you.

Oh, okay.

Um, this is something that has been an important part of my walk with Christ.

Having accountability partners, having people that I am open with and and confess to about all sorts of different things.

So I'm not saying it's hard to live out in terms of I don't or haven't, but it's maybe one of the hardest things in the Christian life to live out.

In my own experience, it's maybe just one of the most valuable things that God has instructed us to do as a part of healthy discipleship and growing in our faith and and walking faithfully with Him.

I I can't even like start to explain how much it has changed just my relationship with other people and with Christ.

And yet it is so hard.

Every time it's like it feels like it's hard every time.

And it it gets easier for sure.

Right.

I think you get a muscle memory for spiritual disciplines and you start to see the benefit and you understand why you're doing it.

Uh, but man, this idea that we go to one another with this type of openness and transparency and love for one another.

Yeah.

Um, you know, confessing sins to the people that you have hurt and asking them for forgiveness.

Yeah.

And praying with and for each other.

Uh, I mean, it's like, you know, in a in a way, it feels like God is just doing surgery on us.

Like he's just cutting out all of the bad.

He's got this tool for doing it by using the family of God.

Yeah.

But it's tough at times.

And so even though I'm like, I love it, I want it for myself, I want it for other people.

Uh, it is a difficult, difficult thing to live out.

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that, bro.

Even that's confessional in a way, to say how hard it is to be confessional.

And it is hard.

Um, I I definitely agree with that.

I feel like I, so I've shared my story before where I, when I came to faith in Christ, I had a pornography addiction.

And uh, golly, by the time I was studying to prepare for ministry, that battle that I'd been fighting was was won.

I was always very, very on my guard against it.

And so it still felt fresh to me.

And I went years before I felt like I could tell someone that I even had battled it.

I don't know what it is about sharing those kinds of things.

That's I think there's obviously a measure of humility.

I think it's humiliating to say, man, I this is something I've done wrong.

I think that some of us had different temperaments.

I have some, I know some people, they have no problem.

Like they're an open book.

They will, they're almost like, okay, maybe you want to wait till there's a little bit more of an intimate situation before you bear all your wrongs, you know, and make that a little bit more intimate.

But I think some people that are temperate are more apt to share those things.

Uh, that was not me at all, and still is not me, I don't think.

But um, I think it's good for people to hear who are listening to this that this is definitely hard for a lot of people, but it's worth pushing through.

Like to find that one trusted person.

And and I would also give the caveat of, and don't expect them to fix it, you know.

Yeah, this is not what this is about.

Yeah, this is about because I think some people will finally tell a minister, and that's their one person they'll be confessional with.

And uh, I think that then they're expecting them to come up with all the answers, and the answer is the confession, the answer is the prayer.

Yeah.

And sometimes I've felt, because he says, you know, that that you may be healed, but a lot of times I've felt uh an aspect of healing or restoration in those moments.

But a lot of times there's hard work to do after that.

You know, like I think of times where I've had to confess um to sins that have hurt somebody and said, Hey, I did this and this wronged you.

Well, they're not always just like, oh, thank you so much for telling me.

Yeah, we're so good.

Like, let me pray for you right now.

There's moments where, okay, things things sting for a second, yeah, and you gotta work through things, and the healing comes later, um, and maybe in unexpected ways.

Very true.

Um I've lived that out too.

Yeah, and so it's painful.

You know, I I just I love what you're saying in terms of we can't necessarily think that there's like this magic thing that happens in in a in a particular moment all the time.

Um, and there's more so here an instruction for a process that God says is good for you.

Right.

And uh the way that's good for you might look different in different situations at different times.

Yeah, I'm almost imagining what what if many of the confessions that happen in those house churches as a result of James's letter, you know, I'm thinking in terms of let me tell someone about a struggle that I have that I need for them to pray for me about.

But what if many of those conversations were, here's the sin I need to confess to you.

I hated you because this thing you said or this thing you did.

And you may not even know how it impacted me.

But that I felt very hurt by that.

And where I went with that was I had hate for you in my heart, and I need to confess that sin to you.

That is so intimate spiritually.

That is so next level body of Christ kind of stuff that probably answers a question that we usually answer later in the podcast.

But what could really change if we were to live it out?

What could really make the church better?

What could really make the world better?

I think it's that stuff.

I think that kind of humility of coming to the actual person that you have aught with or that you feel has hurt you in some way, or that you realize you're the one that's harboring hurt, and they probably have no, they probably didn't really do anything to cause that, but you felt it.

What if we were rather than to harbor it and as we tend to do, talk to other people about it away before we talk to them about it?

What if we were to start to really create a new pattern of confession where we're going to the person saying, hey, I gotta tell you, I'm struggling with this.

That to me is one of the hardest things to do.

And I would say for me, that is one of the hardest things to live out.

That kind of confession for me personally is hard to live out.

I just want to be encouraging.

Yeah.

I don't want to be discouraging.

I don't want to tell someone like, hey, I've had these feelings specifically about you because I felt hurt by this thing.

Whether I should have felt hurt or not, I did feel hurt.

You know, I don't want the relationship to change.

I don't want it to cause negativity.

I don't know how they're going to respond.

I do think that we have to pray that through and ask for God's wisdom, timing, who, how, and when to have those conversations.

But when they can happen, they can be very, very formative.

I agree with you because unfortunately, I think sometimes in the pursuit of trying to do this, um, I mean, this is just convicting, I think probably for everybody.

But we're negotiating with what we're comfortable with.

So I want to share the amount I want to share.

Totally.

When I want to share it, how I want to share it.

Um, and so like there's a certain aspect where I don't think it has to always be let me dump every horrible detail onto you.

Right.

Um, like I heard somebody say.

A long time ago, everything shared should be true, but not everything true should be shared.

Boom, good one.

Um, which is uh, you know, kind of a funny line in a way to me.

Um, and it feels very like I don't know if like a kindergarten teacher is probably saying that to some kid at some point.

Yeah, but like I think we need it as well.

But like I have had people, like I've I got a call one time from somebody who had hurt me, I would say they sinned against me.

I was you know, this is years later, totally over it.

And they called me and they were like, Hey, if I ever did anything that kind of hurt you or was like wrong, I'm sorry.

And it was like, Man, I'm happy that you did this, but this almost feels like it's more for you than it is for me uh because we're not really addressing anything.

Yeah, and so I think sometimes what happens, and I mean I'm guilty of that too.

Uh I've done plenty of I did this thing and it's probably not good.

And like I'm gonna kind of leave it there and see, are you gonna ask more questions about this?

Or are you gonna like it was maybe a half attempt, or yeah, and because I think we're trying to negotiate with what we're comfortable with.

I hear you.

And I and I mean it's really hard not to do that.

Um, but that I don't think that's what James is encouraging us to do here.

I think he's saying it's it's gotta get nasty sometimes.

Yeah.

Like you gotta get all the way in.

Get real, get in there.

Um, yeah.

And again, I don't think that means it has to be everything shared all the time in an inappropriate way or an inappropriate setting.

No, I agree.

Um, I think there's wisdom that needs to be a part of that.

But um I forget who I heard say this, but like confession is done on God's terms and he gets to decide what happens after that.

We don't get to to do that.

It's a good word.

Uh it is good and terrifying.

Uh I'm gonna give that quote.

I'm gonna say that was Kayla Meader that said that.

Yeah, she right here.

She just held up a cue card.

We're just reading cue cards.

We've had no original thoughts this whole time.

Kayla's telling us what to say.

Um I wanna that's just I wanna throw it.

I want to throw a Paul verse out to that, and I'm connecting dots between this James 5 passage um to a Bible study that we just ended with men at Hickory Grove.

We went through a study called In the Arena, and the last session was talking about Jesus driving out the money changers.

It was a really powerful lesson on being angry but not sinning.

And one of the things that was pointed out in that study is from Ephesians 4 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up.

And then it says, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

And the the uh Joby Martin, the pastor of 1122, Church of the 1122, that was giving this teaching really leaned into as fits the occasion.

To your point, not everything that is true needs to be spoken.

It needs to be considered.

Is this the right time, the right place, the right purpose?

And I love that.

Like, yeah, so if there is, um, there is some time, there comes a time when it's like, yeah, this is how you feel, this is what was hurtful, but when do you say that?

And and pray that through.

The Lord will give you wisdom in those things.

And I think that's important to add to this conversation.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think, oh man, that's just so good.

Um I could go down a rabbit hole.

I I'm not going to, but that is really good.

And I love the the context that it adds to this.

Yeah, so good.

Now, I feel like I've answered some things we normally ask already.

What where are you?

Where on your list of things to talk about about James, what have we left out?

What have we not said about James 5 that you believe really needs to be said?

Um, the only thing I would add, because I I'm kind of with you, we've covered a lot of ground.

Um, and I actually think you started to hit on this really well, but there's been such a theme of humility throughout the whole book of James.

Yes.

And so when I continue to think about what do we need and how would it impact the world and the church, there is so much humility in this entire chapter.

Again, I agree to the point where I could almost change my word and go back to humility.

Just humility.

I almost think that you could do that for every chapter.

Yes.

There is humility in um not being an oppressive boss who says, I'm not paying you, and you want to get paid, I'm doing what I want to do, I'm making myself wealthier.

Like there, there's so much pride in that, and the answer is uh humble spirit to say, no, you know, I'm not better than you.

Um, and I count others as more significant than myself.

And so I'm gonna pay you fairly.

Yeah, I'm gonna bless you, I'm gonna bless your family with what I have.

There is humility in saying, I'm I gotta be done grumbling with uh my family in Christ.

I gotta be, I gotta be more patient.

I think there's so much humility in that.

There's so much humility in saying when I'm suffering, the answer is to pray.

When I'm cheerful, the answer is to pray.

When I'm sick, the answer is to call and ask people to come and pray.

There's so much humility in confessing sins.

Goodness, that's next level humility.

Uh, and like you said, sometimes it feels humiliating.

Um I I think there's humility, even in the last two verses, of um man, I'm gonna be humble enough to not like because I think if you're prideful and you have these um apostates who are wandering away from the church, a prideful person could say, Well, good, you know, the way they were living.

Good riddance, get out of here.

Yeah.

Oh, you don't want to be with us, you know.

But the humble person says, I gotta chase after them.

So I just think there's so much humility and selflessness in that that is required for living out James chapter five.

Oh, and I think you nailed it.

I um I agree.

I think um my big sort of final thoughts of James 5 and even the book of James has been submitting yourself to the Lord like we can't do any of these things without Him.

You know, apart from Christ, we can do nothing.

You know, even the whole book of James leaning into things like taming your tongue, um, making sure your faith is working, you know, faith without works is dead.

How do you have a faith that's productive, that shows up in your deeds and how you treat one another, having humility to invite people in to praying for you.

That takes humility to do that.

In fact, you know, we didn't really talk a lot about this, but um we have had our deacon body go to people's homes with, we go with and we show up with a flask of oil and we anoint them with oil and we pray for them.

But I will tell you that that is a very, very small uh percentage of praying that has been done that way.

And by the time we're doing that, people are extremely scared and extremely desperate.

Um, and this is like, and just and that's okay.

I I think that's fine, but it's just kind of a reminder of like, what does it take?

Where do you have to be for you to finally be in a state of humility where you're like, I'm waving the white flag.

Like, I will, I will let people pray for me about this.

I will confess that I struggle with this and invite people to help me with this.

I it's like this huge surrender book that I think God gives us uh that's super practical.

I think that's why people love it.

It's I get got that proverb-esque feel to it, but we must be spiritually sadistic because James is so hardcore.

It is blunt, hardcore to the point.

Um, and I think that causes us to really say, you know what?

Um, I need to humble myself.

And how does that look to do that?

I agree with that.

Yeah, I love I love that you pointed that out.

And uh one of my favorite commentaries really, really pointed out the fact that um verse 14 says, let him talking about the sick person, call for the elders, or you know, like request maybe family members to call on their behalf would maybe be another way for that to practically happen.

But this idea that uh the elders aren't just knocking on doors and saying, We got the oil, is anybody in here sick?

Um there is humility and them asking.

By faith, you're inviting that.

Yeah, and I do think that that's something that I haven't thought about very much before and um really kind of changed my view and appreciation for what that process is supposed to look like for us to do that well.

So I think that's cool.

Very good stuff.

Again, so much humility in that.

Any practical advice as we wind down, James, that you would give people?

None.

Come on, man.

There's a little something.

Oh man.

I think what I was thinking just while you were talking a moment ago about how much we love James, is that there's such a difference, and I have to catch myself with this a lot because I I love the Bible and I love Bibles physical, just the actual thing of a Bible.

That's a whole other podcast we will do one day.

We'll have to have video for that.

So that when I'm talking about different weathers, people know.

Um I think the thing here is it's one thing to memorize certain verses from James that you really like, and it's another thing to live that out.

It's one thing to really like to read the Bible, and it's another thing uh to say, no matter how uncomfortable that is, I'm gonna do it now.

Yeah.

Um, honestly, I I mean, I'm speaking for myself here.

There's been so many things, probably I've caught a few things in every chapter where I've said, goodness, that is convicting.

Yeah.

And man, am I falling short.

And at the same time, I'm I'm preaching those verses and I'm I just love them and I love what they're saying.

Yeah, and I I want it for other people, and I'm looking at it and saying, I need that too.

Yeah.

And so my encouragement to myself and maybe somebody else listening is don't just love uh that we went through this book as a church.

Don't just love that you got to hear Bill nerd out on some Greek words.

Don't just love those verses that you quote a lot uh and that you heard your mom or your grandma, your dad, or your grandpa quote, but like actually love his word enough to to live it out, which is part of chapter one.

And I think it's it's really difficult at times, but he's given us um some really powerful and clear instruction here.

I love that.

That's a great note to end on, man.

Thanks for sharing that.

And time is short.

That was another theme in there.

Time is short.

Live out your faith, do it, do these things, put it into action.

Um, you won't regret it.

Won't regret it.

Thanks for listening, guys.

We really appreciate it.

And keep tuning in as we keep posting our sermons, as we keep posting uh uh Bible studies and things that we put in our podcasts.

We just want it to be a blessing to you.

So keep tuning in.

Jack, thanks so much for nerding out with me in the book of James, man.

It's been fun.

It has been fun, it's been awesome.

We'll do it again soon.

Yeah, we're just doing the same thing five chapters of James every month.

I'm just kidding.

We'll repeat it.

Kayla would love that.

Kayla would love that.

Kayla, thanks for hanging in there with us for long form podcasting.

Now we're going to close this podcast and use the restroom.

Just to use it.

God bless you guys.

Thanks for tuning in.