Sermon Central
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Studies In James
Contributed by Glenn Pease on Mar 31, 2021 (message contributor)
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1. James The Practical
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
All Scripture is inspired of God and profitable, and not just the parts you like best. If you pick and choose, you will be an unbalanced Christian. What you have may be good, but it will never be God's best.
A contemporary author who loves mysteries describes his frustration when the mystery gets too great. A friend gave him a mystery book to read, and soon he found himself deep in the midst of the sinister plot. "Imagine my consternation," he says, "as I came to the end of the ...read more
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2. Successful Suffering
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
The difference between tragedy and triumph is all in how you count your trials. James says by an act of the will count it all joy when tried.
Imagine the testing of the body in such a sport as football. To be on your feet and seconds later brought to the ground hard and fast. Then to get up and do it again, and again, and again, but constantly moving forward. All of that falling is not what wins the game, but whether or not you win ...read more
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3. Don't Waste Anything
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
James says to Christians who are struggling with life's adversities-don't waste anything in life-not even your negative experiences, for they contain great potential.
Marcus Bach in his book The Power of Perception tells of how great worth is found in waste. An old lead and zinc mine had been abandoned for years. It appeared a worthless worn out pit with all its value exhausted. But when man developed a new need, a need for Tungsten, the waste deposits from ...read more
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4. Persistently Patient
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
Those who do not learn this lesson, and who just cannot accept their limitations, can never become mature adults, let alone mature Christians. Maturity is directly dependent upon one's patience.
All our lives we are being tested on our ability to wait. Those who fail to learn early become candidates for insanity. Nothing is more frustrating than to have an impatient mind in a world where you cannot control all that is necessary to fulfill all your desires and dreams. Gutzon Borglum, who ...read more
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5. Who Can Be Perfect?
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
One of the most wide spread heresies among Christians is the idea that all God cares about is getting people saved. The Bible, however, makes it clear that God is not satisfied until His children are perfected, and made complete and mature in Christ.
Mozart was only 25 years old when he settled in Vienna in 1781. Ten years later he was dead, but his commitment to perfection made his mark live on and crown him as one of the princes of music. Those ten years were years of struggle for survival. He lived in poverty with little food, and often ...read more
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6. Asking God
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
Effective praying is simply the result of effective Christian living. A good prayer life is the practical result of a life of commitment to Christ.
Two brothers came to the U.S. from Europe in 1845 to make their fortune. The older brother had a trade for he knew how to make sauerkraut, and so he took a wagon train west to California to raise cabbages. The younger brother went to school to study metallurgy. Several years passed, and the younger ...read more
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7. Christian Dignity
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
Every nobody can become somebody, and that is why everybody is worthy of investment. This is God's view of man, for it was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for the ungodly. God is no haphazard and foolish investor.
An old business man once spoke at his club and told of how he made an investment which brought him great dividends, but for which he did not have to pay a cent of taxes. One night as he closed his store he found a dirty boy of 12 crouched against the building trying to protect himself from the ...read more
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8. Christian Humility
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
God wants all believers to have a sense of dignity and security, but if they find it in power, possessions, or position, rather than in Christ, they have no greater security than the world has which passes away.
A young girl from a very wealthy family decided to write a story about poor people for her assignment in school. Her story began like this: "Once upon a time there was a poor family. The father was poor, the mother was poor, the children were poor, the butler was poor, the chauffeur was ...read more
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9. How To Receive A Royal Reward
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
How do we receive this royal reward? James says the road to this reward is the road of endurance. Kings only want tried men in their army, and so how much more does the King of Kings want tried men and women to serve with Him?
In modern educational psychology we read such statements as, "Learning takes place only when the act that is performed is reinforced or rewarded." And, "Without reward, people fail to learn." Educators are more and more realizing that rewards play a major part in teaching that ...read more
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10. Angry Saints
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
James does not say we are to eliminate anger. He says we are to be slow to anger. James is too realistic and practical to think that the saints will never feel angry.
Near the end of the last century a group of minors in a mid-Western state became angry. They expressed that anger by igniting a carload of coal and pushing it down the mine shaft. Like most who act in anger, they could not foresee the long range consequences of their action. When the burning coal ...read more
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11. How To Be A Biblical Believer
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
In verse 25 James sums up the two requirements for being a truly biblical believer. Be receptive and be responsive. You start with a positive attitude and follow through with practical action.
Can a Christian be non-biblical? Can he defend teachings and practices that are contrary to Scripture? Can he reject those who are taught in God's Word? The Bible itself and history answer, yes. Yes it is possible to be a Christian who is more in love with his own opinions than with the ...read more
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12. How To Test The Reality Of Your Religion
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
A Christianity that is not practical is not a real Christianity. If it does not control your conduct, and change your character, and make you more sensitive to the will of God and the world's need, then you better stop and ask some questions about the reality of your religion.
An anthropologist once visited a Bantu village in South Africa to study the customs of the very primitive people who lived there. When he returned to the U.S. he sent back a sun dial to those people to express his thanks for their cooperation. The natives were delighted with their gift, and they ...read more
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13. How To Escape The Power Of Prejudice
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
Psychologists tell us that all of us have our in-groups, and out-groups. All of belong to certain categories, and there are others outside of those categories, and so all of us are in a position to be prejudiced against out-groups.
Arturo Tosconini became famous in the world of music because of the power of prejudice. He was a young cellist with a touring opera company from Italy. In June of 1886 they were in the greatest opera house in Rio de Janerio in Brazil. The house was packed with shouting people, but what they were ...read more
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14. How To Tell If Your Faith Is True.
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
When you think of some Christian you greatly admire, you are usually thinking of their loving kindness and Christian actions, and not their views of the trinity. It is by behavior that we impress people with our Christian faith and not by our belief.
The passage we are looking at has been greatly misunderstood. Some have thought it contradicts what Paul says about being justified by faith. James says we are justified by works. They appear to be holding opposite views, but a close study of the words reveals that they are in perfect agreement. ...read more
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15. Teaching Can Be Dangerous
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
The New Testament takes teaching so seriously that it demands only the most qualified be allowed to do it. The modern church takes teaching so lightly that it will allow anybody who is willing to do it.
Roger Williams was the founder of the First Baptist Church in America in 1639. He was considered a trouble maker and a nuisance by most church leaders, and they wanted to get rid of him. They finally were able to banish him. Williams told this story to illustrate his experience. There was a ...read more
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16. The Small Is Significant
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
The two great commandments of Christ are to love God with all our being and our neighbor as ourselves. Keeping the second commandment is a matter of good relationships with other people, and this is a matter where the tongue is the key factor.
The story is told of a man who had lived all his life on one of the small islands of the South Pacific until he came to visit America. He crossed the continent by train, and spent days watching the landscape. When the train crossed the Mississippi River, and he was told how much further he still ...read more
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17. A Subject In Everyone's Mouth
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
Satan has one last strong hold in the Christian life, and as long as he can maintain some control of the tongue he can do a great deal of damage, even through a child of God.
Vance Havner tells the story of the old colored manny who was in quite a serious auto accident. Where there is a wreck, of course, there is soon a lawyer, and he said to her, "Auntie, you ought to collect some damages from this." "Damages!" she responded. "Man, I'se ...read more
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18. The World In The Church
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
The church to whom the Epistles were written were already far from the ideal. The battle with the world in the church began immediately, and it was just this battle that was the cause for much of the New Testament to be written.
Theodore Reik tells of how an Austrian Jew was trying to find a refuge from Hitler. He went to a travel office to select a place to which he could flea, and with the help of the clerk he began to consider the possibilities. But each country had some difficulty connected with it. In one you needed ...read more
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19. God's Marriage Problem
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
God is not a bachelor. He knows about the problems of marriage from the inside, for He has struggled with it ever since He chose Israel to be His bride.
Nothing can be so funny as that which can be so tragic. There is nothing funny about tragedy, but one of the paradoxes of life is that tragedy produces so much humor. Tragedy and comedy are so close they are Siamese twins. There is nothing funny about a concussion, for example, but if you get one ...read more
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20. In Harmony With Heaven
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
Happiness is a by product of a life in harmony with God. If you seek it as an end in itself, you inevitably fall into the deception of the world that says self-indulgence is the proper path.
Russell Delany, professor of philosophy and evangelism at the Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City, has said that our great need today is: Not for better legislation, but for better legislators. Not for better business, but for better business men. Not for better banking, but for better ...read more
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21. Sins Of Omission
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
The basic definition of sin is missing the mark. It is missing the opportunity to do good, and choosing instead to do evil, or to do nothing at all. And the nothing at all is often overlooked as being a part of the whole problem of sin.
We are tempted to do evil, but seldom think of the reality that we are also tempted to not do good. It is possible to be doing nothing wrong, and still be living in sin, because of what we are not doing. This is the surprising truth that James hits us with in 4:17 where he says, "Anyone, ...read more
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22. The Church And Healing
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
Healing has been a Christian weapon to destroy the works of the devil from the beginning. Some form of healing should always be a part of the ministry of the church.
One of the enjoyable experiences of being a parent is the experience of exercising the gift of healing. Maybe you are unaware of the fact that you possess such a gift. I was until I noticed how effectively my wife was using it. I then became conscious of the fact that I had the same amazing power ...read more
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23. Sickness And Salvation
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
When we see that the New Testament concept of salvation includes deliverance from sickness as well as sin, we will cease to limit it to only one aspect of our being.
When Jesus preached in the synagogue of His home town of Nazareth, the people were skeptical of His claims, and His power. Jesus said to them in Luke 4:23 you will surely say unto me this proverb, physician, heal thyself." Criticism of the physician is of ancient origin, and had become a ...read more
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24. Spiritual Healing
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
So much sickness is psychosomatic, that is, it is in the body but caused by a mind filled with guilt. The cause is spiritual, and so a real healing must also be spiritual. This can only come from Christ.
Opportunity not only knocks, but sometimes it even breaks the door down, but still we miss it. Such was the case in the sad story of the great Viennese surgeon Dr. Lorenz. When he was in America some years back he was flooded with more requests with help then he could begin to meet. One woman who ...read more