t is not going to be very long; praise God! Come quickly, Lord Jesus! "Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us out of them all" (Psalm 34:19); praise God.
Let's turn back to James' epistle. We finished our little survey through the main topics of James on Wednesday night. Do you remember how we spent a good amount of time looking in James 1 at trials? James said, "Count it all joy when ye fall into [different] temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing" (James 1:2-4). Just thank God for that word to us in this hour in which we live. We spent some time talking about the need to control the tongue. Did anybody grab a hold of that one at all? How many of you know somebody in here who needs to work on that? Let me see your hands. Okay, none of us are looking around (amen?) because we know that it's us. We are the man (praise God!); yet we talked about how easily we overlook some topics. We are horrified by things like stealing and lying and fornication, but there is a whole lot said about the tongue; in the same list that very little member is mentioned in that, if it is not controlled, these shall not inherit the kingdom of God. That is a powerful, powerful, message to us about our loose tongues, and slander, and gossip, and murmuring. Murmuring is one of the greatest offenses so many of us commit. We need to control that, and speak things that are edifying.
We talked about having respect of persons, and those particular issues. We talked about faith without works, which is dead, as it abides alone. Then we were finishing our last session, and let's take a look again at that passage in James 5, and we want to segue to the great privilege we have of prayer: accessing the presence of God. We want to take time to talk about what prayer is all about, as it relates to us. A lot of people have a genuine question about prayer...
Praying Always, Part 2
May 3, 2009 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Our prayers, to be answered, have to be according to the will of God. They have to be prayers, as we shared this morning, that really are originating in the heart of God, in the promises of God--for them to really become effectual in our lives. So we need to know what God's doing, what God is saying in His Word. We need to be able to step back and ask ourselves what the motivation of our praying is. Is that motivation to affect our will, to get God on our timetable, to push through our agenda? We are talking about the need, then, to rest and to determine the will of God. This is the confidence, John said, that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. If we know that He hears us whatsoever we ask, then we know that we have the petitions that we've desired of Him. Our petitions, of course, as we looked at the full revelation of that, are things that are based upon knowing the will of God. An interesting quote here, and I think it was--no, it wasn't Jonathan Edwards, it was John Wesley, which makes it a little better. In this quote, it's a powerful quote, I remember the first time I ever read this. As I'm looking at this, just a flashback as a young man twenty years old. Reading this, I remember my heart being touched and saying, "Father, I want to be one of those men." Here I am forty some years later and tragically, I'm not. It's a very sobering thing to look at a life that could have been used for so much more for the glory of God. But we have time left, don't we? John Wesley wrote these words. Hopefully some young man here will hear it and do what I wasn't able to. He says these words:
Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shape the gates of hell and set the kingdom of heaven on earth. God does nothing but in answer to prayer...
Praying Always, Part 3
May 6, 2009 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Aren't you glad that you know the Lord cares? Amen? He loves us, praise God! We just rejoice in all of that goodness. Let's go ahead and turn to the book of James again, real quickly. We're probably going to look one last time at our foundational Scripture that we've been working off of, finishing up a survey of the book of James and then just segueing over into a quick look at the need to really refresh ourselves in our prayer lives, understanding that this is the weapon that God has given us. As we read in Ephesians concerning the armor of God, it says we take up "http://...the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God: [say it, what's the next word?] Praying" (Ephesians 6:17-18). Praise God! So we talked about the need to pray the Word of God, to allow the promises of God to become real, for Him to put these Words in our heart. We had the promise, as we saw on Sunday, that the "Word of the Lord does not return void, but it accomplishes that whereunto He's sent it" (Isaiah 55:11). And so in our hearts that Word of God begins to create faith because the Word says, "faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God" (Romans 10:17). We saw then that in the parable of Jesus and the sower, that Satan comes immediately for the Word's sake. As God begins to build that Word in your heart, and those promises become real, and you begin to pray effectually, and you begin to say what God says, Satan's first task is to going to be--what?--to come and steal the Word out of your heart.
How many of you've been purposing to pray and had Satan attack and try to get that seed out already this week? Let me see your hands. How many of you were aware of it this time? How many of you used what Jesus did? "Get behind me Satan; it is written" (Luke 4:8). Amen? "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Luke 4:4). The more you purpose to pray the more you're going to see that it's warfare. It needs a weaponry. "And our weapons are not carnal, but they're mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds" (2 Corinthians 10:4)...
Praying Always, Part 4
May 10, 2009 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Hallelujah! Amen! I love to hear the Word of God sung, don't you? The Word has its own anointing, and then when you allow the power of music to accompany it, it's always tremendous, praise God! When it's done unto the Lord and with that anointing that comes from within. You know, as Larry was singing--that's a tremendous version, different than the one that I heard so many times over the years, that Janet would sing. I couldn't tell you the number of times I've heard her sing the Lord's prayer. As Larry was singing that, of course, my mind goes to that one that I felt was probably the greatest of mothers that I've known. How do you like the way I'm segueing into this? Tremendous woman of God and a mother, and so are most of you, praise God. Happy Mother's Day!
We're so thankful for the example that you ladies are in a world where there's broken order, where there's selfness, ambition, ladies of a meek and quiet spirit. What a room full of beautiful ladies, praise God! All you men say it with me, "Happy Mother's Day!" Amen! Praise God. Be sure to take your wife out to dinner somewhere, buy her some jewelry and flowers. And all the ladies said, "Amen!" Hallelujah! I'm on your side ladies, you know. It's just us; we're in this together.
We want to finish up our study on prayer. As we finished our topical survey of James we, of course, were finishing with that powerful passage in the last chapter. In the fifth chapter of James; "Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray." We talked about the need to, "http://...come boldly [into the presence of God] that we [might] obtain [help] mercy in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16)...
