James chapter 4 review

Okay, well today we're going to review chapter four. And I'm going to kind of use the format I've used in the past. I kind of like to, you know, it's pretty, you know, to review what we did in four, probably six weeks of classes is challenging because we kind of go through and get down to the details.

So I'm just going to kind of go through and pick out in, you know, maybe the first two-thirds of the chapter some kind of important verses and talk about certain words and things that kind of struck me as being kind of key to understanding this chapter.

Okay, so actually I have here, this is an outline by Brother Hal, which I changed a slight bit, and the reason I'm presenting the outline is it just kind of gives you another, we could look at this, this whole process of what James is talking about is, he's really talking about, he's talking to believers, he's talking about That they're drawn away from Christ something happens and he's addressing those issues.

So you can look at it as temptations to You know to not be with Christ so you can look at it. So the temptation to have these quarrels That's what we're going to talk about in the first three verses. We did we did talk about and Enter into conflict. There's a temptation to be a friend of the world, right? There's a temptation to be proud and There's a temptation not to be submissive to God's will in your life. There's a temptation to judge or speak against others, especially your brother. Address your brother directly. And lastly, temptation to make decisions apart from the Lord.

So that's how Hal kind of divided up this chapter back 20 years ago, almost. So then here's what I did. And you think, Roger, you didn't do a very good job. This is my division. So anyway, I'm going to use this division. And this is what we talked to. We had like five weeks of study in this. So I'm going to use these headings. So you know, dividing up the book is not inspired. Men do it.

Scripture many times shows you how to do it. So anyway, so let's look at the first two verses. And this is under the kind of the heading of quarrels and conflict and I'd like to make this maybe more interactive than I usually but you know you don't feel that you have to respond but if you you know if the spirit moves you as they say so we'll see so let's start off here it says what is the source of your quarrels and conflicts among you is it not the source of your pleasures waging war and your members you lust and do not have so you commit murder You are envious, you cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. So the first question is, James is talking to believers here, right? Probably Jewish believers, most likely. So why is he doing this? Do you think things are bad? So why is he...does something in this verse tell you why he's doing it? That's kind of my question.

And if you have a thought, if you don't, I'll just carry on. Well, we all have a sin nature. Okay. You get a gold star because that's where I'm ultimately heading here and you caught right onto it. And that's a good, excellent point. And I think we're going to see that James, even though he never says it directly, the word sin nature, he certainly talks to that point. Excellent. Okay. And then the next question is, and this is just exactly where we're headed. What does he say the source is? So in this verse right here, he doesn't say sin nature, but he says something else is the source. So what's the source that he points out?

It's in the verse. Okay, I heard pleasures in that room. Cravings that are at war within you. Right, okay, all that. He uses various words, right, to talk about that. So he says the source is, and so for the context, His answer is in the second part of verse one. It's the word pleasures, hedone. And if you look in Vine's dictionary, you'll see that it says, it's use of gratification of natural desires or sinful desires.

Little light bulbs go off in my head when I see that. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. And so I say, hmm, hmm. He must know something. He must be talking about something that we are familiar with here. So this word hedone, these pleasures have at their root the sinful desires and the root of sinful desires of our sin nature. So I kind of went down that path.

And I think, I don't know, I wasn't here for when Miles taught. I kind of think I saw Miles had one of his tree pictures in the presentation. That's back six weeks ago. So I don't know whether you remember. Anyway, it's not Miles went down that path too. I didn't listen to the class.

So James, to my mind, he's linking the believer's action to their sin nature. He doesn't say that directly, but he is by the words he uses. And he says they're waging war on their members. And this is another kind of red flag that went off in my mind. Can you think of a verse or verses that talk about, in a book, that talks about some kind of conflict in the believer? It's a real familiar chapter, real familiar book and chapter that talks about these conflicts of the believers.

Romans 7. What's that? Romans 7. Okay, well that's one place. Others you can think of? And if you don't think of it, you don't get demerits. So anybody in Zoom land out there? Okay, well if you don't, that's okay. This is what occurred to me. I thought of Galatians. I mean, it just seems like this kind of really fit well.

Galatians 5.17. For the flesh, another word for the sin nature, the flesh sets its desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh for these are in opposition to one another so that you may not do the things that you please. So in my mind when he says, you know, we have these these pleasures, these sinful desires, and they're waging war. Boy, it sets up that battle that the believer has between the flesh and the spirit.

So I thought it was just really cool. I mean, you look at this and you say, wow, here's James talking about stuff that Paul talks about. Amazing. Maybe they had the same source. Go ahead, Jim. I think it's correctly capitalized. Spirit is correctly capitalized. I think it's talking about the Holy Spirit. It is. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. No, I agree.

The battle is, and this is often, you know, we taught, actually we taught Galatians. Anyway, the battle is really Not between your spirit, it's between the Holy Spirit that's within you and the flesh. That's the battle. My flesh. Your flesh, exactly. So it's the Holy Spirit within you. My flesh. And your flesh. And things are not getting done because of me. You're the one, Jim, so that's the one I should come and talk with. The rest of us are, hey, we're sailing along really fine. Because of that battle, I can't do what I want to do, really. Amen.

It is frustrating. It is. Well, have you thought about this, something just kind of, and I thought of this on and off for various times. Think about the amount of scripture that is dedicated to admonitions for the believer to live a certain way. Right. I mean, it is, I don't, I haven't tallied it up, but there's just admonition after admonition after admonition. Well, I thought, well, why in the world, if we've already quote arrived, as some teach, Why all these verses about, you know, walk by the Spirit? Why all these verses that say that? There must be a reason for those verses.

And the reason is, we've got a battle. Yeah. Well, at least in Ephesians, he spends half the book telling us where we are. Right. And the other half of the book, how we should live. Exactly. Exactly. Paul does that in a lot of his letters. And I don't know how much, I've never really accrued how much time he spends how much amount of each book he spends, but at least in Ephesians it's half and half. That's true, and that's very typical. He presents the doctrine first, or what we have, and we know the picture in Scripture is we're to count upon that, rely upon that, trust upon that, believe that about ourselves so that we can walk in accordance with that.

But it is interesting. So right here, James is laying right in the line, and he's going to He's going to keep going here. He just, he hammers it, right? He's just going to say, you've got some issues here, brother and sister and Nino. And he uses some really strong words.

Okay. So that's, that's a, that's verse one. Okay. Verse two, you lust and do not have. So you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain. So you fight. So you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. Pretty strong words here. So second, it's sort of a list, if you will. And actually, I didn't mention this before. The word pleasures is a word for hedonism in the English. And so that kind of gives another little twist. It's all about the sin nature, but that's kind of where man's at.

And if it's pleasurable, how can it be wrong? There's a song that, was it Pat Boone, or how can it be wrong? his sister, daughter, his daughter. How can it be, how are the words? If it feels so right, how can it be wrong? Yes, right. If it feels so good, how can it be, I don't know. Anyway, it's basically that. If it's pleasurable, then how can it be wrong? Well, you haven't read scripture, brother, sister, go ahead.

You know, in Mount's Greek dictionary, he says, it's pleasure, gratitude, means pleasure, gratification, especially sensual pleasure, you know? Yes, exactly. It's very appealing to the emotions. Absolutely, absolutely. And that's why, you know, it's not like the, you know, It's pleasurable to sin. Otherwise nobody would do it. If it felt bad, we wouldn't do it. Otherwise it's called work.

Here's the list. Was there a question out there? Roger, you mentioned, why is there so many admonitions? And just relating that to what you just mentioned is that how would we know what the Holy Spirit's doing if we didn't have those admonitions and His perspective of our flesh and the warfare that He is waging.

Right, right. No, that's good. No, I agree. Amen. I think that's, you know, and we're reminded of that, you know, in so many, you know, verses of scripture were reminded and the admonition is to walk in a certain way. You know, walk worthy and so on like in Ephesians there. You're right. Absolutely. Okay, so... Roger, can I make a comment? Yeah, go ahead. Sure. Good morning. Good morning.

I was just, as I keep listening to the presentations on James, I can't help myself but think that He's talking to a group of very proud Jewish believers who are proud of their law. It's almost like he's taking us back to Romans 1, 2, and 3 and showing us that all these things that he's talking about, it's impossible for us to overcome. It's the life. It's the glorified Lord. living through us. And so that's where you can get tripped up so easy with James. It's like none of this stuff can I do. It's like the Lord doing it through me, right?

Right. That's good. That's a good observation. That's great. That's great. Yeah, because he lists, I mean, he's just very practical. He's going to list right here all these things. And some of them are, you know, you kind of scratch your head. He says he's really literally saying that. And I'm going to get to that just in a second here. So here's his list here in two. You lust, or actually that word is for, it's a word for desire. You desire, do not have.

So you commit murder. Now, is that a figure, was he really saying they commit real murder, or is that, and I'm not going to address that. I don't know whether we address that or not, but I'm not going to exactly address that. It's bad, you know. Whether you do it figuratively, murder in your mind, if you murder somebody in your mind, or actually do it. Or if you use it to say that you have hate in your mind. Hate in your mind, that's good. Excellent. You're envious and cannot obtain. All this is about unfulfilled. You can't fulfill this. You fight. So you fight and quarrel. So keep on the track of this is, James is speaking to the sin nature and we have the advantage of looking at Paul. We say, well, Paul talked about this.

He talked about this sinful nature. And in 519, he said, talking about the sinful nature, the deeds of the flesh. And some of them match up exactly with what James lists. The deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. And of course, you know, Paul gives, he talks, you know, walking the spirit is admonition there in Galatians. But James is laying out for us here, here's the things that, here's what you're doing, brothers and sisters. And then he And here's an interesting thing.

The last part, the last little sentence there in 2, he says, you do not have because you do not ask. And I said, I kind of added the idea because it just kind of occurred to me that you could add in there. You don't have satisfaction because you do not ask. And it kind of occurred to me, he's referring indirectly to the only source of, you know, you do all these things because of your pleasures, your pleasure is driving this, your sin is just driving this, because you don't, the only satisfaction is in God. So he kind of ends it with, if you ask of God, He's the source of satisfaction, He's the source, He's the answer to this. And he kind of says that, just in that short little statement at the end. You don't have because you don't ask.

Okay, any thoughts about that? Or I was going to go on to, this is kind of a short, go ahead. Well, that's a good example of Paul, the thorn in the flesh, when he prayed, what, three times to take it away and God didn't. So the satisfaction came, well, I guess I'm going to live with it.

I appreciate Jim's comment that James is writing to Jewish believers and they probably had the same mindset as the Pharisees had Hey, we're Abraham's children. We can do no wrong. You know, so whatever we do is, you know, it doesn't matter because we're Abraham's children. James was saying it does matter.

Right. And he said, well, he said, and obviously it looks like they were, he wouldn't be saying these words unless they were doing these things. They were doing this. Right. And so he's, and he's, you know, whether, whether outwardly or inwardly. Right. Right. Committing murder in their mind or, you know, whatever it might be. Hershey's did it. I can't wait, you know. Right. Okay. What should they be asking? Well, you know, it doesn't... I didn't actually, you know, go down that path.

But the point is, are they going to God for the answer, basically? That seems to be, you know, you're fighting and quarreling, you're involved in all these pleasures. He says that asking, or you can say, some people have said, probably get into a whole discussion about prayer. They say, well, you know, they should be praying. Amen. They should be. Well, maybe they were coveting and, you know, they were wrapped up. They were wrapped up in their pleasures, it seems like. Wrapped up with their sin nature.

And they were not asking. You think they would ask of God. Instead of asking God, well, we're going to take it from my brother. Take it from these people. But like you said there, they had no satisfaction because they didn't trust in God for their answers. Right. Okay, so let's see what verse... We keep going with this here. And so he keeps with this idea of asking.

So he says, you ask and do not receive. So apparently they were asking. But they weren't asking the right. So he's going to kind of clarify that. Sorry, Bonnie, if I looked ahead. You ask and do not receive because you ask with the wrong motives so that you may spend it on your pleasures. Let's just stop there. So he's telling us you're asking with wrong motives and do not receive. So let's think about this word motives.

The idea here is the word is whatever is evil in character So I found that you could actually render this, you ask evilly. That's kind of hard to say. You ask, with wrong motives, you ask evilly. And I said, wow, they're asking evilly. So they're asking, and actually I'm listening to different people talk about this. They kind of went down the path, be careful how you pray. I don't know. We'll see.

I went down a path here looking at this, so let's see what you think about this. So that, when you receive a so that, the purpose is coming after that. With a purpose that, you may spend it on your pleasures, or on your hedonism. You're asking and you're spending it on your desires, your pleasure. Okay, here's a couple of comments, and see what you think of this. I might claim this is Constable has nailed it down, but he has some thoughts here.

He says, he claims, we often ask God for things to enable us to satisfy our own selfish desires. Then he clarifies that, he says, well for example, we request more time, more money, more energy, so we can do the things we desire, but God does not desire for us. So he's kind of saying that we can pray for certain things, and I can kind of identify with what he's saying in some sense.

Sometimes, you know, you think, as a teacher, I would just have had a little more time. A little more time I could have done, you know, and in some ways the Lord's saying, well, no, you have a job and a family, you have all these responsibilities, and you already are taking away time from that already. You're going to pray to ask for more time? I mean, is that really the right prayer?

Now, I'm speaking for myself. And some people have money problems, and I have no problem with praying for more money. It would seem like it would be a good thing. But maybe you're wrapped up, you know, so I don't know. So what do you think about Constable's comment? Is that ring true, or do you think he's off the mark here? He's not off the mark.

But yeah, I think Or more energy. I mean, who wouldn't? I mean, as you get older, I'd just like to have any more energy would be fine. I think if we were more godly minded, we would ask things that are from God's will and not our own selfish, fleshly desires.

Yeah, Jim, I agree with you. The pleasures are in view here. And if it's our pleasures, then it's the wrong pleasures. It should be God's pleasures. Right, exactly. Yeah, that's good. The focus is wrong here. Yeah. We're focusing on what we think is best for us, but God may have something entirely different. Right, exactly. No, that's good.

I've got a note on that, that we talked, I think, with Miles, I don't remember who did, James, it brought the reference of James 1.5 and James 1.17. James 5 was talking about asking of wisdom, so that would be the right good point thing to ask for and then um 17 was talking about every perfect gift for being from above um but anyway god the thing that god desires for us so that kind of okay that's good no that's good that's absolutely that's a good point and you know take that back to the genesis and when when the father of man right exactly you know why is this Did He really say that? If you apply it after all these things, you'll know where it came from. Right. And what did He say?

It was pleasurable? It's interesting how the same issues come up. Same issues are there. It's pleasurable. How can it be that it's pleasurable? He just doesn't want you to eat a tree because then you'll be like Him. So there's a desire. But that's a good point. James already answered that in the earlier verses. We're asking for wisdom and things now. That's good. Okay, so this is, you know, we're going pretty quickly here. So verse 4. So now it gets really pretty strong language.

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. So why do you think, why do you use the word adulteress? And actually I saw some different, anyway, I looked up the word in the Greek and that's what it means. It means exactly what the word means, what we think the word means. Someone who is an adulterer in their marriage or whatever, it means exactly that. So why is he Why is that appropriate here, do you think? We're the bride of Christ.

Okay. Excellent. That's good. That's good. Other thoughts? I'm going to give you Macaulay's answer. That was terrible. I had the advantage of it. I thought it was good. So here, this is what Macaulay says. I like this. Because the nature of Mary is exclusivity. Exclusiveness. Exclusiveness. Thank you. And adultery is a violation of that condition. Willingness violates our exclusive relationship to Christ. Pretty good, right? That's exactly right on. I mean, we are in union, and the Bride of Christ is the ultimate end of that. We'll see in Revelation, or we'll see when we get to be with Him.

But we have this exclusive relationship with our Savior, and we're going to being an adulterer and go off and do something else that's contrary to that. So the word adultery, adulterous, seems to be right on. And he doesn't say adulterers. We're the bride of Christ, so we're adulterous. So we're committing adultery.

The same thing, Israel and Jew. I was just reading about Ezekiel this morning. Israel and Jew. he related as women, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha, aloha We go off into the world. Pretty sad.

Okay. So, no, there's, you know, it seems like there's no middle ground here, you know. And that's kind of the way, you know, if we look about the picture of the, you know, the battle we have between the Holy Spirit and our flesh, you know, we're either abiding with one or the other. There's not a middle ground.

And then this verse came to mind, 1 John 2.15. do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not him. Pretty strong stuff, but pretty apropos.

So we burn our TVs, we become hermits, right? But the problem is we still got our sin nature. So here we are off in the middle of no place with nothing and we can Maybe we go after the ants and the dust go below our feet. Well, I'll play with the ants for a while. We forget about... You can't... The sin nature is still there. So, anyway. Yeah, the monks found that out. Yeah, they did. Roger? Sure, go ahead.

Does that mean that you can't watch any more CU football games? I know, I know. And this is a great year too. This is the year to watch CU football. I mean, let's rethink this. I know. It means you have to vote, you have to root for TCU. Oh, and a little birdie told me that that was what Bob was doing yesterday, so he's... Oh, I bet he was. I bet the little birdie was named M-I-K-E. Anyway, okay, that's interesting. Okay, well, not so much about this CE thing, but... No, it is.

I mean, and that's something we all struggle with, you know. We live in the world where We're of the world. I might have probably said that wrong. How does the verse go? You're in the world, but not of the world. And that's the path we take every day, every moment of our lives. Anyway, that's a whole other discussion. All right, so let's carry on here.

So you see, now we're to verse 5. Or do you not think that the Scripture... This is Andrew's verse. I'm glad you're on, Andrew. Okay. So, or do you not think that the scriptures speak of no purpose? He jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us.

So, Andrew, this is the approach I took. So, I asked later on, do you remember what Andrew said? Well, we'll see that in a second here. So, what I did, I said, well, let's go, with Andrew's experience, I said, well, I'm going to go the inner linear. That's got to answer all my questions, right? I don't know. I'm being a little facetious here. So in my inner linear, it actually suggests a word order. So this is the word ordered linear from the word search.

The spirit which he caused to dwell in us desires us with jealousy. So that's even tough. So then I said, well, I'll go to my old buddy Wiest. He's got to answer this question for me, right? And this is pretty good, I thought. The Spirit, and he capitalizes the Spirit here, who has been caused to make his permanent home in us as a passionate desire to the point of envy. Wow, now that gave me a little more of a handle. I think I got a handle on this. So then I ask, Does anyone remember what the conclusion we came to? So, Andrew, what was the conclusion from this? I'll let you speak to that.

Well, I like the Wiest a lot and I like the inner and linear. The Wiest is really good. I thought so too. And in my lesson, I was comparing it. I went back to the Old Testament. You did, you did. Yeah, to Balaam. But if you think about it, it's the same Holy Spirit, right? He would jealously desire Israel back then in that economy. And so with us, the church, he has that same desiring, I guess. Right. Absolutely. I just thought of this. we were talking about marriage and exclusivity. Well, it makes sense that he would be... It's right for a husband to be jealous of his wife, right? So, same thing. I think that's all he's saying. Yeah. No, it links back to... I agree with you. That's great.

Oh, and the only other thing I had was, and it's still an open question with me, is whether the spirit lusts against the flesh and that lust and this jealously desiring, is it the same thing or is it just a shade different? And I don't know. I'm not sure I can answer that either. Could I share something? Go ahead, Roy.

In the Amplified, it takes into account the previous verse 4, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Being a friend of the world means you're lusting with jealousy after the things of the world. Do you really think that the Holy Spirit that's been placed in you Does that, does he lust after the things of the world with, he wants it? Is he jealous of the world? That's the context and that's the way it's taken by the way and I sort of lean that direction that what he's saying is, are you thinking this Okay, okay. I had not thought of that approach, Roy.

Interesting. Interesting. That's good, too. That's good, too. I like that. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. Okay. Well, this is the way I went. Sorry. Okay. So the key word is jealousy here, right? And God's jealousy, it seems like, via the Holy Spirit, seems to be what he's talking about. And look at the next verse. It starts with but, in contrast to that. Right. That's a good point. Good point, Roy. So I basically went back to verse 4 and I said, but this is in contrast to loving the world. So I was doing a contrast here. So I use this verse.

I was trying to get the point that God is jealous for us. We're His temple, so I use this verse. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? and that you're not your own. So I thought it was almost like God is, the world is tugging you, this is a little bit different than what you said Roy, the world is tugging you one way and the Holy Spirit is tugging you the other way. That's kind of what I, you know, that's the path I went down. But I see your point from what you said too. Anyway, so.

Also, 2 Corinthians 6.16 It says, what agreement does God's sanctuary have with idols? For we are the sanctuary of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell among them, and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. God jealously desires.

He wants, I mean, we're his children. If you see your children off doing something, you yank them away from, yeah, Ronnie talks about her family, and then we do it too. We like to have our kids playing with our own family. I mean, not that when she was a little girl, her mom would quietly shoo the other kids out the door and say, well, you girls play together. They had three girls, so they could do that. So, you know, you desire your own to be with you and, you know, not to be, quote, corrupted by the world. That all comes out of his love, doesn't it? It does. It does.

Okay, so that's kind of the path I went down. So let's go ahead and address the next part of this here. But, Roy's right, but in contrast, he gives greater grace, therefore he says, God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Okay. So I like, you know, Andrew pointed this out. God is giving mega grace. I like this. You know, it's given, it's Burma say, teensy-eensy grace. He's given mega grace. I like that, right?

And boy, that just goes right into what we've been talking about. the main service and the law came in so that transgressions would increase but where sin increased grace abounded all the more and you know that word that Greek word there is the idea of super abounding and I like what we said and it's not just super abounding but you got more added on top it's super abounding plus I mean that's God's grace but what's interesting here is and this this just really I had not seen this before Maybe you can guys help me out here a bit. Now based on this mega grace, he says God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.

So why is the main issue pride? So how does pride So why pride contrasted with his grace? I guess that might be the question. So why is pride the main issue? He's opposed to... Why wouldn't he just say I'm opposed to the... Isn't it a matter of focus on yourself versus him?

Okay, good. Good, Roy. Good. Okay. Let's see what I said here. And for... So I kind of went to this verse about lovers of self. This is self-focus, lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful. Arrogant is really the core word of that. It's a word for pride, proud, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy.

So what is our definition of humble? Is it not the correct submission to the Lord? I think I have, okay, actually, let's go to humble here. So why does God give grace to the humble? It seems like, you know, when I thought about this, you know, God has this mega grace, right? He just said that. But God gives greater grace, right? So he's already given us greater grace, but he kind of, he's qualifying it a bit. And I thought, wow, this is interesting. He's qualifying it a bit. So let's look at humble here first. And it isn't that he doesn't give grace to everybody. He gives mega grace to those who will receive it correctly.

So here in Romans 12, be of the same mind toward one another. Do not be haughty. This is describing being humble. Do not be haughty in mind. Be associated with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. So I was trying to get a grasp on humility. I thought that verse kind of spoke to it. Not to be wise in our own estimation. So anyway, in another verse, whoever exalts himself shall be humbled. Whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

And I thought about Paul here. and the thorn in the flesh. And let's see. Remember it says in there, he talks about the fact that why did he receive the thorn in the flesh? He says, didn't he say to humble himself? I may have it off a little bit, but to humble himself. And once he realized that, once he realized that he might become proud, he said, once he kind of caught on, he changes in mid-verse, he just all of a sudden, well if that's the case, then I'm going to get excited about my tribulation.

That's what you want, God? I got the message. And he kind of catches on to that. Go ahead, Roy, you had something? Well, just that what he's saying is, my grace is sufficient for you? Exactly. It's James here. My mega grace is sufficient for you. Right. Now, that's great. Good. It seems to me that when somebody's pride is put up a wall, between himself and God. He thinks he has it all. He knows it all. He doesn't need God anymore. Right. You know, and that's why God opposes the proud. Right. Right.

I want to just share one thing here. We're almost running out of time, but this is a little thing from Macaulay I thought was good. So he looked at this little, this verse here and he says, we know we see, we see four concepts about God's grace in this verse. First, it's available. He gives it.

Second, must realize it's adequate. It's greater grace. It's mega grace. Third, must realize it can be hindered by pride. That's pretty cool. And fourth, must realize it's conditioned grace to the humble. So our mindset affects how we see God's grace. It's interesting. And that's something I haven't actually picked up on. I thought that was just really really neat here.

You know, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. He's given grace to all men, just a common grace you could say. He's given specific grace to believers, but this is almost like an interpersonal grace if you will. Once you see your relationship to him, And you've humbled, you know, humility is in that picture. It's like Paul, once he realized, he got excited about God's grace. And God's grace involved him suffering. I know, isn't that cool? Wow, that's really cool. Family grace. Okay, I like that. I like that. That's why Paul says a lot of times he rejoices in the suffering. And he counsels people to rejoice in their suffering.

Okay, well, we're going to run out of time here, but let me just point out one thing here real quick. Okay, here, I'm just going to, I'll do number one. Okay, and I hadn't noticed this, and I'm not sure, I've forgotten who taught this section. Anyway, I apologize if I'm repeating what you said. Anyway, this section starts from 7 through 11 in this chapter, starts a section where he has these imperatives to these 10 imperatives. So I went through and I listed all the imperatives.

And you can look in the notes. I sent them out there, buddy. And these are based on the greater grace and the believer being humble. Humble attitude. So he goes through each one. And number one is, you know, be subject, submit yourself to God, you know, line up. This is a cool term. This is a law we know. You line up. under God, you rank under, like in the military, and it goes on.

It goes on to each of the ones. It goes on to resist the devil, and he will flee from you, draw near to God. And so it goes through all ten. It goes through all to verse 11. So read those, look in the notes. It's all cool. So I just kind of went through in that mindset and looked at each one of these imperatives. And they're all instructive.

They're all instructive about how the believer is to I can resist the devil. I'll just go real quick here and I'll call it quits again. But resisting the devil, and this just lines up beautifully with Ephesians. Because the word resist is this idea to set against or to cause to stand. And what's the admonition? The admonition in Ephesians is stand firm. And this word is, take your stand. I thought, man, this is just so cool. Paul and James are lining up in the way they phrase things through the Holy Spirit. So we're in the defensive posture, as we talk about sometimes, in terms of the devil's concern. So just some cool things. Each one of these 10 imperatives are really cool to look at and consider. Okay, so we're going to start next week on... Andrew's going to start next week, I believe, on Chapter 5. So, any last questions here before we close? Yeah, great class, guys.

Thanks for all the participation and I appreciate that. Okay, so let's just close. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time today, Lord. Thank you for the blessings we have. And just thank you for your greater greats. Thank you that we can come to understand that and humble ourselves. Not with sackcloth and ashes, like the picture of that, but just in knowing you and knowing, understanding your purpose and submitting to that and walking with you day by day. We thank you for your spirit that shows us Christ. We ask in the Savior's name. Amen.