Be Doers of the Word
Download MP3If you would, open your Bibles to the book of James. We've been working through this book as a church. And tonight, we are almost going to finish up chapter 1. And, if we have time, we're also going to have just a few minutes of question and answer time. So if you all have any questions from the last few weeks about James, you could jot them on the side, and maybe we could get to that as well.
Joel Brooks:It's one of the advantages of being a somewhat smaller church is that, you can ask the questions, and, we'll take time to do that. So James chapter 1, we'll begin reading in verse 18, the same text we read last week. Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth That we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.
Joel Brooks:For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of god. Therefore, put away filthiness and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. And be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he looks was like.
Joel Brooks:But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, He will be blessed in his doing. Pray with me. Our father, we ask that you would bless the very reading of your word. Crack open dull minds and hardened hearts to receive your glorious truth. Lord, I pray that as we hear your words being spoken, that they would be implanted in us.
Joel Brooks:The word in us would cry yes as we hear your truth. Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:I do a strange thing when I travel to different places in the world. At some point on the trip, usually it's when I get off the plane, or when I'm just about to get on the plane, I I pause, and I close my eyes, and I just smell. I just inhaled deeply, the the aromas of the place. And so when I land in Ireland, this is one of the first things I do. I'll close my eyes and I can, you know, I can hear the wind kinda rustling the the grass.
Joel Brooks:I can feel that cool moisture on my face, and you you could just smell grass, sheep, some of the ocean. And I just love taking that in because I think it's so closely associated to your memory. And, when I landed in Indonesia, one of the first things I did when I got off the plane is I took in the smell and it was you could smell humanity. That's what Indonesia smells like. It's just millions and millions of people living in close proximity to each other.
Joel Brooks:This morning when I left the house, I did the same thing. It was probably about 5:15 this morning, and I just stopped and I closed my eyes and I just smelled. It was about 58 degrees. I had cut my grass the night before, and it smelled like fall. Did y'all get up this morning?
Joel Brooks:I mean, it just, it smelled like fall and, and I love this smell because fall is my favorite time of year. And I could just tell the season is ending, this new season, my favorite season is coming, and I would I just savor the moment. James says here that Christians need to smell this way. Not not smell like fall, but we need to put out a certain aroma that lets people know that this season of life, it's it's ending, but something much better, something much more beautiful is coming. And that's what James means in verse 18 when he says that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
Joel Brooks:We looked at the this verse in detail last week, at least the first few parts of it. We saw how God and his sovereign will birthed us. He gave us new life. He gave us his transformed life. And then we received this new life when we heard his word.
Joel Brooks:And that life was sparked in us. And now the last part of verse 18 says that the reason this happened, the reason we were given this new life through the word of God coming to us was that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Now, when James calls us first fruits, he means picture first fruits. It's, when when the first of the corn grows up or the first of the peaches hang from the tree and you look at that or you taste that, you know, this is the very first of what's about to come. This is a hint of what awaits us.
Joel Brooks:And that's what James is saying here. He says that we need to live our lives in such a way that when people see us, when they rub up against us, they get a taste. They get a taste of what is coming when heaven comes to earth. So people need to see Christians displaying kindness. See us pursuing justice, exercising forgiveness, loving our neighbors, worshiping the Lord, with with faces that are radiant with joy.
Joel Brooks:They need to see these things because when they see them and when they experience us doing those things, they are in a sense tasting first fruits. They're getting a hint of what awaits and their senses are aroused to what is coming. Now let me be clear, this doesn't mean that, you know, if you live this way, all of your unsaved friends, those who don't know the Lord are gonna But what James is saying here is that we need to make sure that if they reject Christianity, it's not because they don't want it. It's not because they look at us and they see the way that we live and they're like, you're judgmental, you're hypocritical people who do nothing. So they reject it.
Joel Brooks:That's not why they should reject it. Any reason, they should look at us and say, that's so wonderful. That's so beautiful. That's so glorious. There's no way that can be true.
Joel Brooks:That should be the reason that the people around us reject Christianity is simply by our aroma. What we are radiating is they look at it and they say, I I wish it were true. Even though I don't believe it, I know I want it to be true. Just seeing the way that you live. That's what James means here by these first fruits.
Joel Brooks:He's saying that the new life that we now have through the Holy Spirit living inside of us, radiating outside of us shows people what is to come. James picks up this theme of first fruits in verse 21 when he says that we are to receive this implanted word. And we've already talked about that. Some of this implanted word is that word of life that grows up in us. It's a plant growing.
Joel Brooks:And the result of any plant growing is fruit. It's the reason a plant's gonna grow in us, so that we will bear fruit or that we will become a doer of the word. Now, there is a danger in the evangelical church, a danger in this room. It's one I think that's especially dangerous within the Bible Belt. And you are the buckle of the Bible Belt here in Birmingham, alright, Is that we have a Christianity where people know a whole lot, but do very little.
Joel Brooks:Know a whole lot, but do very little is the same in James's day, and I think it's even more true now. Just about a month back, I spoke at the Theological Coffee House, at Urban Standard. Many of you were there. I talked on faith in the digital age. And I I just wanna revisit a couple of things I think are pertinent here.
Joel Brooks:Before 1844, no communication traveled faster than the horse could carry it. Alright? So for 1000 and 1000 of years, communication never went faster than a horse could carry it. But, well, let me just expound that a little bit more. So when you had news and stuff like that, when when newspapers printed, the news was very local, ultra local.
Joel Brooks:It was like, you know, a new grocery grocery store is opening or there's a new plow that's come to our town that you should take advantage of. So the, the news was local and it was used as a resource. It would tell you about weather patterns or when's the best time to plant your crops or what's the best type of mule to use and things like that. But then, in 1844, you had the invention of the telegraph in Morse code. And now, information can be spread in seconds.
Joel Brooks:By 18/70, the the US was already connected to India. It was already connected to Australia. And so what used to take months for information to travel, now it was instant. And the result of this was not just the speed of information that changed, but actually information itself changed. No longer were newspapers just reporting things that were local and things that were useful.
Joel Brooks:The news quickly became entertainment that you could get from all over the world. Strange, fascinating stories about faraway places. It was described as this news from nowhere addressed to no one in particular, giving people much to talk about, but little to act on. And of course, we see this today. Alright?
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna embarrass some people. How many of you know who Snooki is? Raise your hand. You know who she is. Alright.
Joel Brooks:90 something percent of the people here. Some husbands were looking at their wives going, what? What? How many of you know the name of the TV show that, that she's on? I just thought everybody.
Joel Brooks:How many of you know the TV show is canceled? Some of you, like, are like shocked crying looks. All right, you need therapy. All right. I could not point out Snooki in a lineup with 2 people.
Joel Brooks:Alright? I I couldn't I couldn't do it. Yet, I know who she is. I know what her show is called, the Jersey Shore. I know that it's been canceled because she's pregnant.
Joel Brooks:I can't escape that news. Okay? It, it, it's just everywhere. It hits you. I hate it.
Joel Brooks:Now we're bombarded with meaningless information that has no practical purpose. Alright? The fact that all of you know who Snooki is, is that gonna change your life today? Are you gonna do something differently today because you know who she is or that she's not returning to her program? Thankfully, people were saying no.
Joel Brooks:Okay? News like that has no functional purpose, and we're bombarded with it all of the time. Now, there's a danger of treating god's word like that because we are so bombarded with information like that that has no practical purpose. So we can sit down and we can watch church just like we would watch TV. You're gonna sit down.
Joel Brooks:You're gonna watch it. Watch it happen in front of you, or you can read the bible just like you would read any of the Internet news. And you're gonna walk away thinking everything I've seen, everything I just read, interesting, but it has no practical purpose for me. There's nothing I need to do after hearing this. And so you can hear a sermon about the gospel and and how the gospel should motivate us to to serve the poor, to give to the poor.
Joel Brooks:And you can you can hear that and and you can even be deeply moved by that. And so you'll want to discuss it. Maybe discuss it with your friends or your spouse on the way home. Maybe you want to go to home group where you can discuss it further. Maybe you will want to, re listen to the podcast.
Joel Brooks:Maybe you're gonna wanna tweet out some of the quotes, but at the end of the day, what have you done? You had a lot to talk about, but nothing actually happened. And we're just so used to getting news and treating it that way. Let me be even more specific. I bet if I were to sit down 1 on 1 with with most of you, you could articulate to me the gospel.
Joel Brooks:If I were to say, okay, explain to me the gospel. I bet most of you could explain it to me. And I bet if I asked you now, do you realize that Jesus, when he was ascending, he gave the command that all of us are to go and to share this gospel? And I bet almost all of you would say, yes. And then if I were to ask, are you doing that?
Joel Brooks:You you know it. You know the information. You you can you can give out the information. You know you're supposed to give out the information. Does that feel like a law of liberty to you or just a chain around your neck?
Joel Brooks:James says it's a law of liberty to be able to do that. How does it get there? When we are the person who knows what we're supposed to do, we hear those things and we do nothing. James says that we are deceiving ourselves. Look at verse 22.
Joel Brooks:But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. I came across a couple of studies. They were, published by a really well known psychologist, David Meyer. He's very well respected in a lot of journals and he's nationally known, and he published these in a book called The Pursuit of Happiness. One of the surveys that he cites says this, over 90% of managers and college professors rated their performance as superior to that over all of their peers.
Joel Brooks:Over 90% of managers and college professors rated their own performance as superior to all of their peers. Now, that's impossible. You can't have 90% that is superior to everyone. For you Aussies out there, there's a few. Over 90% or or in Australia, 86% of people rate their job performance as above average.
Joel Brooks:Only 1% rated their job performance below average. That's impossible to only have 1% of the of the general population working below average. But what this says is that we're delusional. We're delusional. All of us think we're doing so much more than we're actually doing because we've had the thought in our head.
Joel Brooks:We just think, well, I'm doing a great job because I think I'm doing a great job. James says that's delusional, and he warns us against this. Just because we hear the word of God, just because we know the word of God, just because we talk about the word of God does not mean we're actually doing the word of God. And the And the evangelical church needs to remember that yes, Jesus preached grace. He preached sweet, sovereign grace.
Joel Brooks:But Jesus also preached radical obedience along with that grace. He would preach that we are to give everything away or leave our family behind or to pick up our cross and follow him. And so, we're not only to hear Jesus and to hear the word of god, but we are also to obey it. We have to be doers of the word. Now, James is going to use a, it's an unusual metaphor for this.
Joel Brooks:It's not one I would have used, but James is a lot smarter and than I am, and really does flesh this out in a in a unique way. He uses the image of a man looking at himself in the mirror, and then walking away and forgetting what he looks like. He says, if you're like that, just like a man who hears God's word preached, you walk away and you, you don't do it. Now, in James' day, mirrors were hard to come by, just like access to the word of God was hard to come by. Alright?
Joel Brooks:It's not like here where everybody has a Bible. Alright? You would have to go to, the synagogue or to your church possibly to have some scriptures there. Not everybody had this. It was very rare, and there were not mirrors hanging everywhere.
Joel Brooks:People didn't know where every pore was on their face. Alright? There would, there wouldn't be polished, glass. What it would be is polished metal or something that you might get to look at yourself. But most people only got to see their reflection by looking into the water.
Joel Brooks:Alright? And so there these were two rare things, and that's what James is saying. There are these two rare events here, hearing the word of God or perhaps seeing yourself. Alright? So as you can see yourself and forget what you look like, don't don't do that to the word of god when you hear it spoken.
Joel Brooks:Don't forget. Instead, he says, we're to do this. We are to look into the perfect law, the law of liberty. And I love it. That word look there, in Greek, it's it literally means to stoop over or to bend over.
Joel Brooks:The images of somebody just kind of going and strolling through life and seeing something on the ground and stopping and bending over and taking time to examine it. That's what James is saying here that we're to look intently into the word. We're not to do like a passing glance, like in a mirror, but as we're going through life, don't just stroll through life. Don't just you you need to stop. You need to bend over.
Joel Brooks:You need to look at the word of god, what it says. You need to let it show you what you look like. The word of God is like a mirror. It's gonna reveal to you all of your imperfections. It's gonna reveal all of your rebellion.
Joel Brooks:It's gonna reveal all of your sin. And it's And it's also going to reveal who you are in Jesus Christ. Okay? Just like when you look in a mirror, the only reason you know something is imperfection is because you can see what should be perfect. You you can kinda see what what perfection is going to look like, and that's why all the imperfections pop out.
Joel Brooks:And it's the same way in the word of God. It's showing us our sin, showing us our rebellion. But underneath that, all is showing us what we should look like as children of God. Look at verse 23. 23 says this, if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks intently at his natural face in the mirror.
Joel Brooks:That phrase, natural face, literally is the face of your genesis. It's the face you were made to have. Okay? The face you were created to have. And so this is James' point.
Joel Brooks:He's he's saying as you as you take time to stoop over and to examine god's word, he is going to show you what you were supposed to look like, the face that you were created to have. And you're gonna see that how you were created to be a child of God. You were created to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. You were created to work into in the garden and have dominion, righteous dominion over the world. You were created to love mercy and do justice.
Joel Brooks:Created to worship the Lord your God. Created to love him and to love your neighbor. You were created to experience the fullness of joy and to be in the presence of god forever. You will see that. That is who you were created to be.
Joel Brooks:It's the face of your genesis to be a beautiful child of God forever. And as the word of god shows us that what we were created for and we can see that beautiful image, it no longer becomes the law, no longer becomes a law of condemnation, it becomes a law of liberty. It sets us free from all the things that are holding us back to be the person that god wants us to be. So, we're we're now free to be a generous person because when we look into the law of god, it shows us that we don't need money as an idol. We were not made to have money as an idol.
Joel Brooks:That God's the one who takes care of us, and when we see that, it liberates us from the chains of money. We're now free to serve because when we look and we see that person who God's created us created us to be sees, we see, we're liberated from the need to be served. We're not we're not made like that. We can now serve others. And we're not just set free to be free, we're free, we're liberated through this law in order to do a work.
Joel Brooks:We have to hear and we have to do. Now, a question that I kept thinking of as I was going through this, actually, it comes up a lot in home group. I lead a home group. I've led several, and it's always kind of an awkward time when you're the pastor and you're leading a home group. Alright?
Joel Brooks:Because one of the questions I always ask is, alright, who can tell us a little bit about the message on Sunday? And, there's this awkward silence, really awkward for me, and I can deal with awkward silence, but, you know, you always get somebody like, well, we were in James. Right? Yeah. We were Yeah.
Joel Brooks:We were in James. I'm like, oh, oh. It it just kills me. We we forget. We forget.
Joel Brooks:But but why are we such forgetful people? And I kept asking that as I was reading this text, why are we so forgetful? And and there are many reasons, but I wanna give just 2. Reason is if I give more, you'll forget. Okay?
Joel Brooks:Alright. So for home group this week, you can remember these two things. Alright? Write them on your palm pilot. Your palm.
Joel Brooks:One one of the reasons we forget is lack of repetition. Okay? Lack of repetition. We need to keep reading and rereading and rereading the word of God. And let me just say, a lot of us read poorly because we just kind of read it.
Joel Brooks:We need to read asking the Holy Spirit to anchor these things in our soul and for our soul to cry yes as we read these. We need to ask as we're reading the bible to say, lord, is there anything you want me to do from this? How can I worship you after I've read this? What this this week, lord, holy spirit, show me this week how I can apply this text in my life. That's how you read.
Joel Brooks:You don't just read, and you reread it and you reread it, asking god how you can joyfully, obediently obey what you've just read. And another reason you need to keep repeating and repeating God's truth, This is under 1 a, so it's actually kind of 3 points. Alright? But it's not. It's really 2.
Joel Brooks:Alright? This is 1 a. Is you are wired to remember the negative and not the positive. Okay? If I tell my wife a 1000 times how kind she is.
Joel Brooks:A thousand times, I do that maybe for 3 years. And in a moment of anger, I say, you are so unkind. What will she remember? She's gonna remember the one negative word. It's it's I mean, we're we're all that way.
Joel Brooks:No matter how many times we we're told wonderful, beautiful things about us, When there's that one negative, that's what we fixate on. That's the thing that gets under our skin. That's the thing that we're gonna re remember. We're wired that way. And so, although we might hear God's truth saying, you're a beautiful child of God.
Joel Brooks:You were created for more than this. And we hear it and we hear it and we hear it. The moment one little thing from the world comes, one little negative thing comes in, it's like, it changes everything. And what we need to do to counter that is just keep reminding and keep reminding and keep reminding ourselves of god's truth. 2nd, the first reasons that we, we don't read and reread.
Joel Brooks:We don't repeat. The second reason we forget, it's going to sound somewhat unusual, but it's proximity. Proximity. I don't know if any of you read the Birmingham news. I know somebody here writes for them.
Joel Brooks:We all read the Birmingham news, I know. A few a few weeks ago, they, they published some polls or or surveys that they had done about giving. And Birmingham is actually one of the most generous cities in the US, 3rd most generous city in the US. But what fascinated me was when they broke it down. The poor give, percentage wise, 3 times more than the rich.
Joel Brooks:Three times more of their income than the rich do. So don't for 1, don't ever think, oh, once I get a little more money, I'll give more. Never happens. Once you get more money, you give less. Okay?
Joel Brooks:The poor gave 3 times more. But this is what really fascinated me. It said, but the rich who live in close proximity to the poor gave twice as much as the rich who didn't. So the rich who had poor neighbors gave twice as much away as the rich who were in some gated community, isolated. Being in close proximity to the poor reminded them that they need to do something about it.
Joel Brooks:Listen, you, you, you can read how you're supposed to care for the poor. You can read how you're supposed to fight injustice, but unless you are in close proximity to these people, you're going to forget. Let me give just a personal example. Not everybody's called to live into the city. I recognize that.
Joel Brooks:All right? Not everybody's called to do that. But certain things now I remember are in focus that would have not been on my radar. Alright? If if I was living in a nice place in the suburbs, I would not even give a thought about education, about how how it's unjust that there are some, you know, 56 year olds, who will not have the ability to go to a good school.
Joel Brooks:It would not have crossed my radar. I would have read about the poor. I would have read about injustice, all of that, but it would have never I would have never done anything. I would have forgotten it the moment I left the church. But now that I live in the city and I just live a few blocks away, where are my children gonna go?
Joel Brooks:And now, education's on my radar. I'm not gonna forget it. It's like, I need to fight for justice because I'm invested in it, because the poor are around me, because I'm in that. And so, just proximity to this, also, it stirs me up to remember to fight for these things, The same goes with evangelism. If you never come into close proximity with somebody who doesn't know the Lord, sharing your faith isn't even gonna be on your radar.
Joel Brooks:You're gonna hear a sermon about evangelism, you're gonna be like, yeah, that's great. Let's talk about it. But how are you gonna be a doer of the word? You're gonna have this theoretical knowledge of the poor, but no real knowledge of it. You're gonna have this theological or theoretical knowledge of, evangelism, but but no real application of it.
Joel Brooks:And so if you put yourself in proximity in where you live or where you work or where you just hang out, you're gonna be reminded to be a doer of the word. Let me tell you, you you need to let the word shape where you live, where you work, where you hang out. Okay? It needs to influence this. Let me just close by saying, of course, in all of this, Christ Jesus is the ultimate doer of the word.
Joel Brooks:I want you to hear me say that. He's the one who does the word. A matter of fact, he did it so well, he's actually described as the word made flesh. He so embodied the word in in action, in deed, and and in words spoken that he was called the living word, the incarnate word. He lived a righteous life we should have lived.
Joel Brooks:He died the death that we should have died. Hear me say that. But I want you to hold 2 things intention. Okay? It's what James is getting at.
Joel Brooks:We love when Jesus says, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That's like the law of liberty. It's like, I could come to him and find rest. Jesus also said, If you wish, of anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and to take up his cross and follow me. Alright.
Joel Brooks:Hold those 2 next to each other. If you're feeling really heavy, come to me and I'll carry your burden. Hey, if you wanna follow after me, you've gotta carry a cross. Jesus, I thought you just said, you're gonna take away my burden, but now you're saying, here is a burden. Here's the cross, and you've gotta carry it.
Joel Brooks:To understand what James is saying here when he says the perfect law and the law of liberty, you need to hold both of those things together. Alright? When Jesus says, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He's saying, I'm gonna give you rest for your souls. The big burns, the big weights in life are gone.
Joel Brooks:There's no longer a punishment for your sin. All of your shame, all of your guilt has come on me, and you bear it no more. But I am still calling you to radical obedience. And now that I have told you what to do and there's not it doesn't crush you under its weight because you don't have to try to do it in order to perform for me, in order to be righteous, which is crushing. I've now taken away that crushing weight.
Joel Brooks:Now you're free to serve. You're free to follow me. You're free for radical obedience. That's what Jesus is saying here. You gotta hold both of those things together.
Joel Brooks:The law is the perfect law and it's the law of liberty. We see both of those in the cross of Christ. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, I ask that through your spirit, you would implant these words that are from you, grow them into fruit, make us doers of the word. Pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen. We've got just a few minutes before I want us to to take time to pray. Do you have any questions about James 1? We're actually gonna finish up the last couple of verses of James 1 next week. Go ahead, Christopher.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, be doers of the word, not hearers, and see it in yourselves. I was gonna get your view on, whether there is such thing as a nominal Christian. And if so, what does that look like?
Joel Brooks:Okay. The the question is, is there such thing as a nominal Christian? And if so, what does that look like? I'll say this, that a lot of my friends are pastors who kill themselves on Sundays, like, just trying to get people to do things, trying to get people to do things, and the reason is they're trying to get dead people to float, dead people to swim. Alright?
Joel Brooks:And and you kill yourself as a pastor, like, swimming over here, trying to keep this person's head above water, then you go over here, trying to keep this person's head of water, and you just wanna say, they're dead. Okay? Dead people don't swim. You need the spirit of god to come in them to ignite something. I I believe that there are a lot of church pews filled with people like that.
Joel Brooks:Absolutely. As we looked in James, talked about if you're a Christian, you have received an implanted word. Wow. And the implanted word, when when you hear the word of God now says, yes. Yes.
Joel Brooks:That is a sign of being a believer. And if you can hear the word of God and it doesn't have that effect on you, you need to you need to reflect on it. You you you need to carefully reflect on that. What because if the spirit of God is inside of me, if the living word's there, I need to be saying amen and yes to this. At the same time, I wanna give room for what we would call as Christian sanctification, and that, man, there are some Christians who who, when they're saved, are still morally, ethically horrible people.
Joel Brooks:I believe that because sanctification has just begun. Now, if they're still morally or ethically horrible people 5 years from that point, you seriously would have to question if the spirit of Lord is in them. But we do need to give grace and room for sanctification, and that's why you don't know is is he perseveres to the end. We can look over their whole span of their life to see, whether they were Christian or not. Anybody else?
Joel Brooks:Good question. James is easy. Right? Oh, Joy. We still we still have a couple of commentaries.
Joel Brooks:Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:It it's it's interesting because when we think of the law, we associate restrictiveness, and the law usually brings out sin. I mean, if if I were to hold up or if if I were to put a sign in front of my house that says, please do not throw rocks at my house. Okay? I've never once had somebody throw a rock at my house. I promise you before the sun set, I would have broken windows, because that is how we like to respond to law.
Joel Brooks:Nobody tells me what to do. Okay? It restricts my personal freedom, and the reason is because our hearts aren't changed. But when you get that implanted word or as Jeremiah 29 says Jeremiah Yeah. Jeremiah 29.
Joel Brooks:When it's, written on you, or is it 31? My mind just went blank. 31. And the law of God is written on your hearts, now it's a living law. Now now now it is a freeing law because you're no longer doing what you don't want to do, you're doing what you want to do.
Joel Brooks:You're crying yes. You know, I want to do this. And if anything, you would find things like giving 10%, that's too restrictive. Now I'm free to give whatever. I can give it all away because my identity is not wrapped up in how much money I have.
Joel Brooks:So it isn't that, you know, I told you that was the original term that intrigued me about James is when I read law of liberty. I was like, law of liberty, and I had to start zeroing and studying more. Good question. Anybody else? One one more.
Joel Brooks:Go ahead, Melissa. Yeah. The question is, are are all Christians called to poverty, or to give up all their inherent wealth? I would say you don't see that in scripture. Like like, even the story of Jesus and the rich man, particular to that rich man, he told the rich man, sell everything you have, come and follow me.
Joel Brooks:You know? But if you're in there going, that probably shows where your heart is concerning riches. You know, that it's still an idol in your life. There's numerous rich people throughout the Bible who don't sell everything they have that are written in a very positive light. They would open up their church or their homes to become churches.
Joel Brooks:They would give generously to Paul. And so you you don't see that, that you're to absolutely forsake everything. I do think every Christian needs to be willing to. Every Christian needs to be willing to. Every Christian needs to be able to hold everything they have and say this is not an idol, this is not an ultimate for me, and I can hold it loosely.
Joel Brooks:Because the moment you hold on to it as an ultimate, saying that's my God. And and there are there are no gods before our God.
