DEEPER LIFE BIBLE CHURCH WORLDWIDE.
MONDAY BIBLE STUDY MESSAGE.
DATE: 11/03/2024
MESSAGE ANCHORED BY THE GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT.
TOPIC: THE MINISTRY OF GOD'S WORD IN HEAVENWARD BELIEVERS.
TEXT: JAMES 1:17-22.
We are going on and we are continuing in our study of the epistle of James to the believers and to everyone.
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
1:18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
1:19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
1:20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
1:21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
The word of God says, For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. How ever package, the anger of any human being works not the righteousness of God. As you wake up in the morning, you have your devotion, and you go out for your daily activities, check up your life, and lay aside every weight of sin. You don't have to be prayerful and spiritual to be naught, you don't need self-denial to be naughty. It's just the natural deprave of man. That's why the Lord tells us in His word, He says, wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. As we grow in life, that naughtiness will overflow, but as children of God, we lay aside the superfluity of naughtiness so that we can receive the ministry of God's word. We are not just to preach the word, we have to obey the word of God and do it. There are many believers in coat, there are worldliness believers in coat, there are sinful, stagnant, backward looking believers in coat, but those who are heavenly, who follow after the Lord, their purpose is to get to heaven, and they are referred to as heavenward believers.
POINT 1: THE PERFECT GIFTS FROM THE FATHER BY THE WORD.
JAMES 1:17-18.
Every perfect gift is from the Lord. Every perfect gift is from above, it came upon the people of old and is still coming down now, and it will continue until we see Him face to face.
I. The precious gift of salvation for Sonship.
John 1:12-13; James 1:17-18; Ephesians 2:8-10; Titus 2:11-14.
Salvation is a gift, is not something you earn or merit or something you strive to attain. It's a gift that you obtain. That salvation is not something you work religiously to have. It's not what your natural talent, your natural activities and ability gives you, but it's the gift of God. Salvation, forgivenness, freedom, adoption into the family of God, everything comes as the gift of God. We are the workmanship of God, created in Christ Jesus as the result of salvation, and as long as the salvation abides, then we manifests good work. Salvation is provided for all, and everyone is invited to have that great gift of salvation. Frivolity gets out when grace comes in. Foolishness, foolish talk, foolish attitude, foolish behaviour gets out when the grace of God comes in, and that grace of God teaches us to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world. Christ redeems us from common sin, He redeems us from habitual iniquity and all those collected iniquities, everything vanishes away, and He redeems us from all iniquity.
II. The purifying gift of sanctification and steadfastness.
John 17:17-23; Hebrews 13:12-14; 1 Thessalonians 5:22-24; Ephesians 5:25-27.
Every good gift comes from the Father. The reason the word of God is given to us to remove the depravity of going astray. Sanctification is not just for the early disciples, early apostles. It's for those who shall believes on Christ through the reading word of God those apostles wrote. Sanctification doesn't scatter believers, it gathers believers, it doesn't divide believers, it unite believers, it doesn't bring conflict and diversion among believers, it brings life, it brings unity, it brings unity and love, anywhere you see disunity, there's no sanctification there. Anywhere there's division, disunity, conflict, fighting against one another, struggling for recognizing, therefore they collide, there's no sanctification there, and if Christ comes and meet them in their kind of conflict and disunity, fighting for position, not fighting for holiness and righteousness, they will not get to heaven if the Bible is true, and bible is true, it says without holiness no man shall see the Lord. When believers are in conflict, the world will not believe because they are like the world and they act and behave like the world. But when we believe and we are saved and we are sanctified and we are one, and everybody can see that practical oneness, then the world will believe. There might be reproach, there might be defamation, there might be insult, there might be assault, belittling your personality, but you don't abandon Christ because of that, you go to Him for sanctification, and with all the insult and assault, you will bear His reproach. Abstain from all appearance of evil, get rid of that, maybe is not completely evil, but the people who see you will interpret it to be evil, the people who get the result of your action will judge it to be evil, abstain from all appearance of evil. Sanctification makes the church a glorious church. The people who do not pray for sanctification and desire sanctification, and they do not pursue the possession of sanctification, they don't want the church to be glorious. They want the church to be granded, they want the church to remain depravity, but the people who want the church to be glorious, those are the people that consecrate and those are the people who pray for sanctification, and they desire that the church should be holy. That's what Christ died for.
III. The powerful gift/gifts of the Spirit for service.
Acts 1:4-5,8; 2:33,38-39; 1 Corinthians 12:1,7-11; Luke 11:13.
The power of the Holy Ghost is the gift of God. In Acts 1:8, the Lord says, but ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Beyond Jerusalem, beyond the first century, until the end of the world that we need to be evangelizing and preaching the gospel, we need the powerful gift of the Spirit. The promise of the Holy Ghost power is for everybody. All these gifts of the Spirit works the same. Every gift is from the Father, ask, and it shall be given to you, if you ask, you will receive it. He will give you the appropriate gift IN Jesus' Name. Salvation, available for everyone, sanctification, available for everyone, the baptism in the Holy Ghost available for everyone IN Jesus Name.
POINT 2. THE PROFITABLE GRACIOUSNESS AS FIRSTFRUITS THROUGH THE WORD.
JAMES 1:19-21.
The word of God gives us a lot. When we hear the word of God, it turns our lives around, and we become the firstfruit of the word. Every member of the church, everyone, the word of God speaks to everyone. When the word of God comes, we don't separate and isolate ourselves, we don't promote ourselves to a self made throne. We allow the word to penetrate and be profitable. Lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness. There shouldn't even be any naughtiness and filthiness of any shape. When there's pride, we cannot receive the word of God, when there's invested intrest in filthiness, stubbornness, stony heart, we will not be able to receive the word of God with meekness, we will be fighting against ourselves, but we lay that aside so that we can receive the word of God in meekness.
I. Renewing the ennobling wonders of swift hearing/slow speaking.
James 1:19; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Ecclesiastes 5:2; James 1:26.
Every candidate of heaven should be swift to hear, slow to speak. What brings division in the family and in the church is that they are swift and too fast to get angry. What brings conflicts, tearing apart in the family, what brings conflict and protest in a nation is that they are slow to hear and too fast to get angry. If we are going to have peace in the church, in the family, in the community, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. As we come to the house of God, let your hands and feet rest, let your eyes look up and let your ears be opened to the word of God, let people see the peace of God in your life, let people see the quietness, the serenity and the respect and honour you have for God in His house in you.
II. The Renouncing of the ensnaring works with sinners' superfluity.
James 1:20-21; 1 Peter 2:1,11; Romans 13:12-13; Hebrews 12:1-2.
Sinners have their sinfulness and naughtiness, if sinner doesn't have naughtiness, there will be no need of salvation, but sinners are naughtiness and they need salvation because of their naughtiness, but when their naughtiness flows to the preachers, that's evil, but God wants us to have renounce for all those ensnaring works of sinners' superfluity. If there's confusion, angry, commotion, and wrath in the church, sinners will not be saved. If the preachers are angry and everyone is full of wrath, there's no Salvation for the sinners that come there, and their work is a waste of their time. Go back to Calvary because the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. For us to be in good relationship with God, for us to be fit for the service of God and for God to recognize that we are serving Him, for us to be of any benefit to the people we are sending the message to, we need to lay aside all malice. Settled anger is malice, and if you're before the Lord all the time, you will lay aside permanently all malice, all guile, all hypocrisy and all envying and all evil speaking things. If you're born again, if you're a candidate for heaven, abstain from fleshly lusts that war against the soul.
III. Retaining the engrafted word for sustained salvation.
James 1:21; Mark 4:20,24; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Acts 17:10-11.
We can not receive the word with pride, we cannot receive the word when we are thinking of our selves all the time, and thinking of our self esteem all the time, and thinking of position. The word of God levels us to be meek. There are people now a days, that when they refer to apostle Paul, some of them will just say brother Paul said, but they do not take the words of Paul seriously, because they think Paul was a man like them, the Lord says He will reveal unsearchable mistry to us. When He revealed Peter with the word, Peter recognized him. God will open the eyes of those who are contradicting the Bible, the word of God. If you listen to those fake preachers, it will bring doubt in your mind. Everything is the word of God, what you read in Genesis is not the word of Moses, it's the word of God, what you read in Romans is not the word of Paul but the words of God, everything we read in the Bible is the word of God, and Jesus said any man that will take away from the word of prophecy, the Lord will take his part from the book of life. Be very careful never to pick and select the word of God like other people do because they day is the word of man.
POINT 3. OUR PRACTICAL GODLINESS IN FAITHFULNESS TO THE WORD.
JAMES 1:22.
If you're going to be faithful to God, it demands faithfulness to His word. The godliness that is practical, you can see it, it's not just a profession of mouth, it's not history, but when you look for the result of knowing the Lord, you will have the practical godliness. If we are going to be faithful to God, faithfulness demands faithfulness to His word, faithfulness to His servants He sent. Faithfulness to God demands that we pray after listening to the word of God, and we are faithful to that call and consecration, devotion unto the Lord. We should be doers of the word and not preachers only. Many preachers preach on tithes and offerings, but they never give any tithes and offerings. They tell the congregation to stay together, but they can not stay together. They are preachers of the word and not doers of the word. They preach against sin, but they are not doers of the word. They are preachers only. And there are members of the church that come to church everytime. They read the word, but they are not doers of the word. We are not to fool ourselves thinking we are going to heaven when all we have is hearing the word and not doing the word. Get born again, get sanctified. Be ye doers of the word, not the hearers only. Some preachers tell the couple to love their wives, but their home is like a military cantonment, they are not doers of the word. They are deceiving themselves that they will get to heaven because they are hearers of the word, but it's the doers that will get to heaven.
I. The doers of the word in all.
Romans 6:17-18; James 1:22; Colossians 3:14-17,23-24; Philippians 4:8-9.
The doers of the word are sincere to their neighbors. When you hear the word of God and the grace of God comes in, you're now doer of the word, and you do that from your heart.
II. The deceivers in their waywardness without salvation.
Mathew 7:21-23; James 1:22; Luke 12:47-48; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.
Understand, there are two places in eternity, those who are not in heaven will be in hell forever and ever, and the Lord says not everyone that says unto Him Lord, Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of God. There are people who carry the label of the names of their denomination, they called Jesus Lord. If they are not doers of the word, they can not enter into the Kingdom of God. Many people who are popular, they are respected by their congregations and there's respect outside, people don't know their private life, the more popular they become, the more pride they become, and their proud they become, and their pride can even push the word of God and exalt themsleves above the word. Baalam prophesied, yet God was not pleased with him. Judas Iscariot also went out with other disciples, he also cast out the devil, it's not just miracle and healing, it's being saved and live that saved life at home and everywhere you find yourself, it's not just preaching sanctification and godliness, it's practicing and living in that godliness. Praise God you'll get to heaven.
III. The disciples committed to the word of the scripture.
John 8:31; 15:4-8; Acts 20:32; Revelation 3:8-9.
Maybe mistakenly or deliberately you've taken something belonging to other people, money, property or whatever or you have done what you shouldn't have done, and then you discover that Christ can come at anytime, and the righteousness of the faithful is no more reflected in your life, you will make your way right, or maybe you discover you're going back, you will go back to God and continue in the word of righteousness. Your righteousness must exceed external righteousness. God makes grace available that we seek His grace, and we seek His goodness and His godliness, and we follow peace with all men and holiness without that Holiness no man shall see the Lord. Every one of us will continue in His word IN Jesus Name, and where we are become slack and careless, we will go back to Calvary for purging, and readjust our luggage, I pray, none of us will receive the grace of God in vain IN Jesus Name. The word will work effectually in every hearers.
