James Inside-Out
289 | “There You Are”
Build a Whole Faith
What if faith isn’t mainly about what you know or what you say, but what’s happening inside you that inevitably works its way out into your everyday life? To close out the season, we’re diving into the book of James for a deep look at “blue-collar,” inside-out Christianity. With a high-stakes lightning round of “Jesus or James,” we see how heavily James borrows from the Sermon on the Mount. Then, we pull back the hood on all five chapters to map out how a wholehearted faith radically reframes our trials, transforms our words, and exposes the inner wars driving our outer conflicts. From practical tracking strategies in the brutal heat of life to using the tongue as a mechanical steering lever, this episode is a diagnostic check for the soul. Plus, stick around for a quick look at the road ahead as the show gears up for the Seven Sermon Summer Surfing Spectacular and a major cross-country studio relocation!
Takeaways
The Big Idea: Real faith transforms the whole person from the inside out, producing practical obedience.
This Week's Challenge: When relational friction or personal irritation bubbles up this week, pause and trace the outer conflict back to its inner root.
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Welcome and Big Idea
Bryan: wow, everybody was terrible today. And you realize it's like, no, you're the one who's the common denominator here. You're the common thread.
Ryan: Wherever you go, there you
Bryan: There you are. Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Bible geeks podcast. I'm Bryan Schiele
Ryan: I'm Ryan Joy.
Bryan: and thanks so much everyone for tuning in. What if faith isn't mainly about what you know or what you say, but what's happening inside you that inevitably works its way out into your everyday life?
James gives us one of the Bible's most practical and piercing pictures of wholehearted discipleship. All
Ryan: So in this episode, we explore how real faith moves from the inside out, transforming our words, our relationships, priorities, and actions through God's greater grace.
Jesus or James Game
Ryan: Okay, Bryan, so we're gonna talk about James. And one of the things that you and I have talked about before is how much James and the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus' teaching generally just kind of overlap each other. He's borrowing heavily from Big Brother.
And So I put together a game for you where I'm gonna give you some quotes. It's like a Jesus-said game, only you have to decide, did Jesus say it or did James say
Bryan: this feels like that "Is it the Proverbs or is it Yoda?" kind of game.
Ryan: yeah, exactly. Proverbs or Yoda. Except in this case, it's both inspired words of God. George Lucas is not being quoted.
Bryan: Yeah, thank you.
Ryan: ready for number one.
Bryan: Let's do it.
Ryan: " Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial."
Bryan: Oh. That's gonna be James.
Ryan: That is James, okay? So we got a beatitude from James. How about, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Bryan: Oh, see, that's gonna be Jesus.
Ryan: That is Jesus. Good. Two for two. "Let your yes be yes and your no be no."
Bryan: That was also Jesus.
Ryan: That was Jesus, but actually it's
Bryan: Oh! Okay,
Ryan: both say
Bryan: I couldn't fail. That's good.
Ryan: I'm gonna give you credit there, though. So that's three for three. I mean, if you're gonna guess right, go with Jesus, when in doubt, right? How about this one? "Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them."
Bryan: Well, that's, that's of course, uh, the end of the great sermon, so it's gonna be Jesus again.
Ryan: That is Jesus, but James says, "Be doers of the word and not hearers only." So there's some overlap there, but that was
Bryan: Close, but no
Ryan: mine being a clue. That's right. How about, "Mercy triumphs over judgment."
Bryan: Oh, that's definitely James. That's one of my favorites.
Ryan: That's James. That's James. Jesus says, "Blessed are the merciful," but okay. That's the first five. Now I'm gonna speed it up. Let's just, you know, last five quick answers. Lightning round, number six. "Whoever humbles himself will be exalted."
Bryan: Uh, that's gonna be James. No!
Ryan: Jesus, but it's a trick question. It's a trick question. Jesus says, "Humble yourself." James says, "Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you." Jesus says, "Whoever humbles himself will be
Bryan: exalted. Oh, they're
Ryan: what about this one? "Can
Bryan: Mmm.
Ryan: a fig tree bear olives?"
Bryan: That's a hard one. I'm gonna say that one is James.
Ryan: That is James. Jesus is like,
Bryan: a, that's a Jesus sounding one if I've ever heard one, though. Yeah.
Ryan: Yes, yeah. You'll recognize them by the--Jesus talks about it a lot too, but I'm trying to get sneaky
Bryan: Aye, that's good. This is good.
Ryan: All right, a couple more. "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks."
Bryan: That's Jesus.
Ryan: That's Jesus. James, of course, talks about it a lot, but about the tongue.
But last two. "Judge not." Just that two words. Who says that?
Bryan: Judge not, uh, that's gonna be... Okay, well, if it's judge not, then it's gonna be Jesus. Um, but if it's do not judge, then I think it's both. Okay, go ahead.
Ryan: "Speak and act as those who are to be judged," is James. All right, last one. "Love your neighbor as yourself."
Bryan: Well, that's, that's Jesus, of course.
Ryan: And it's actually both. Both quoting Leviticus, right? But yeah.
Bryan: man. I love it.
Ryan: But you did pretty good there. Yeah,
Bryan: that's a great
Ryan: the most part,
Bryan: how close they are.
Ryan: it is.
Bryan: you get that sense as you're, as you're sort of going through each of these. It's like, that was harder than I thought it was gonna be, actually.
Why James Sounds Like Jesus
Bryan: So, yeah, why are they so, why are they so similar in Jesus and James?
Ryan: Well, I think because James is seeing that the Sermon on the Mount and these words and teachings of Jesus, this is the prime directive for our faith and how we should live in the world. And so rather than developing a whole system of new teaching to confront the issues he's seeing, he just grabs a hold of what Jesus says and, for the most part, applies it to the situation in some fresh and interesting ways, full of illustrations and catchy statements and cool stuff like
Bryan: I heard, uh, so Allen, really, shout out to Allen, who did a series, uh, not too terribly long ago from James, uh, called Blue Collar Christianity. And just the idea that it was, this was like practical, everyday, kind of on the ground stuff that James is talking about here. And that just highlights, I think, especially going back to the Sermon on the Mount, how practical and on the ground and like blue collar Jesus teaching was.
You know, just really applicable stuff to the way we talk, the way we judge each other, the relationships we have, the way we deal with trials and things like that. So, I feel like if you've never noticed that connection, which I'm even just now coming to a better understanding of after that game, absolutely, Jesus and James were just grounded in practical things that change our everyday life.
So that, that's a cool way to kick this off.
Ryan: that.
Inside Out Faith Theme
Ryan: And one of the ways that Jesus and James orient our faith in a really searching kind of deep—yes, it's practical, but it's also like, get right to the heart of the issue—is demanding that we give our whole self, that we're not split, that we are perfect, not flawless, but that we are whole, that we are complete, that we are teleos, you know, in this faith, that we're not like, "Hey, I'm gonna say this and do that," or "I'm gonna do this but not really think this way in all of the areas of my life," or "I'm gonna pick and choose where I'm gonna follow the Lord."
But Jesus and James both help us to see the Lord is here and his blessing is great to help us with these things, but he also requires a lot for us. So that's what we want to notice as we go through. We're gonna fly through the book and want to notice how that kind of comes out in all of the book of James.
Bryan: Well, it's the reason why we're calling this episode Inside Out James, right? Because if Paul was upside down, James is really like you're saying, they're starting from the inside and then getting to the outside. And that's why this whole connection is so cool between James and Paul. And of course, James and Jesus.
So let's, uh, like you said, fly through the book.
So a quick one here with James. Uh, we're going through the first and only five chapters of the book of James. Um, as we, uh, as we fly through. And of course I think,
Ryan: Cherilyn's your first wife? And
Bryan: the favorite one I've ever had. So we're going to go through, wow. I hope she hears that.
James 1 Trials and Doing
Bryan: So, uh, James chapter one, uh, begins with trials and, uh, you know, really it's about interpreting how we view trials and what is going on when these difficulties come. And of course, testing of our faith, producing steadfastness here that we may be perfect.
The word you were talking about there, complete, um, lacking in nothing in verse four of chapter one, these trials are how the inside of us get integrated into our lives. It really locks in our character and who we are. And boy, Ryan, if there's something we've talked about on this podcast before, it's about how trials really do prove your character.
Cause it is, it's such about proving and who are we really, if we've never actually been tested. And
Ryan: there's this other side to it, too, which is the temptation, which uses the same word, and we're gonna come back to this later, but, you know, we see how sin and death develop from these things, but also how the crown of life comes from these difficulties if we respond to them in the right way. So a lot of it is, how do we handle the difficult things?
How do we handle our desires? How do we handle our trials? And making sure that it's moving us towards that right thing. And then the last half of chapter 1 is about when we hear, when we listen, are we listening and doing, as we talked about it at the end of the Sermon on the Mount and here throughout James.
Bryan: the hearing and the doing part really just speak to the wholeness of our life. Like what is, what is going on in us comes out of us. And like you say, if we have this duality or if we have this like, you know, hypocrisy maybe going on or this internal fight where internally we act one way, but externally we act a different way.
I think here, even in this, in this chapter in verse 17, we see how God is kind of the opposite of this in the way that he's described with no variation or shadow due to change. And so everything about the Lord is whole and complete and perfect and is the representative nature of him on the outside as it is on the inside.
And that's what we should be aspiring to. And
James 2 Faith and Works
Bryan: You know, getting into chapter two though, is where we start to get into some of those that I think tripped me up a little bit in our Jesus versus James game there.
Ryan: Well, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" is there in chapter 2, verse 8. That's the first section about the law of liberty, the royal law, and how we need to be loving others, and mercy triumphs over judgment, you know, and that way that we treat each other. And then it gets into this maybe most famous section of James, which is this discussion of faith and works.
And so the beginning, if we're thinking of the wholeness aspect, it's like you treat everyone with love and mercy. You aren't partial. There's not picking and choosing who deserves your mercy. And then when we get to the second half, it's about your faith isn't just a belief you have. It's something that you live out.
Bryan: Yeah. And, and that is, I mean, just in stark contrast to what we often think about belief as, you know, belief so often just feels like it's an internal mental thing. Like I've got this belief going on, but you know, you're going to prove what you believe by what you do and how that comes out in real life, how that comes out in a living faith and an active faith.
You know, and when we, when James says probably the most obvious like throw down moment here, show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works in chapter two, verse 18, you know, that is, he has a high value for works here, James does.
but works and our faith are just so integral to each other that you can't split them apart.
Ryan: And I think you said the throw-down line is verse 18, which is true, but also the next verse is pretty hardcore. "You believe that God is one, you do well, even the demons believe and shudder." And so you really see what he's combating here is belief alone, right? It's like
we hear it today all the time, that people are talking about, you know, "Well, I believe in Jesus, I believe in God, so I must be saved and I must be fine." Well, you know, the demons believe in God more than you do, believe me, you know? They know, they know who Jesus is, but they are not submitting themselves in loyalty and faithfulness, which is the other part of faith, right?
It's trust and confidence and belief, but it's also loyalty and faithfulness, and what are we believing in? That he is the king that we should submit to, and so we follow him, we believe that his way is best.
James 3 Tongue and Wisdom
Ryan: And so, yeah, that leads us through this idea of completing our faith with our works, maybe leading into chapter 3, famously, one of those one chapter, one topic things that we love as preachers, all about the tongue and our words.
Bryan: Yeah. Well, and the tongue here is just of the vehicles we can use to show love, which is also really what this chapter is about. How do we show love to each other? So often it's how we talk to each other. It's what we say.
the fact that the tongue is what is just the rudder behind our whole life and to be able to control that and to put safeguards around it is just so difficult. And it's not like James is saying anything we don't know here. Because you get to chapter three and you're just like, yep, that's me.
Ryan: Hi. And James gives this picture of, like, fire from hell is within us, and then it goes out into the world and it sets fire to—like a forest fire to everything around us, and so our words are just destroying, and then that same tongue walks over to somebody else and gives life, you know, blessing and cursing from the same tongue.
Again, we're talking about completeness, we're talking about consistency, integrity in this episode, that's what the book of James is about. The same tongue should not be inconsistent like this, it should be reflective of a person that from within has a different kind of wisdom, which is really the second half of the book, the wisdom that informs what we say, or the second half of the chapter, I guess.
Bryan: Yeah. Well, and again, he's throwing back here to some previous understanding. Like we should be so dedicated and focused on our words and what we say and being very careful with all those things. But at the same time, it's like, yeah, how do I live in this world? Who then is wise in understanding among you, you know, showing his good works in the meekness of wisdom.
And the wisdom is not some big show of bravado. It's not some, you know, I am pompously, you know, getting people to follow me. There's a lot of meekness that comes into this because it's not our wisdom. Right. And so then that leads him into this whole like fighting and bickering. He says, if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false about the truth.
Like your relationships with people are never going to work out if you are, you know, just treating each other as if you're the most wise person. If you really want to be wise, then the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, sincere.
I mean, just that list. That's a that's a solid list there.
James 4 Inner War and Grace
Bryan: let's move on to chapter four here, because James Chapter four is kind of where we see this big battle going on. Right. There's a war around us and there's a war also going on within us. And kind of what I was just talking about there in verse one, what causes quarrels?
He says, it's your passions that are at war within you. So when Ryan, you and I are like battling it out, it's not because of a war going on between us. It's a it's a war actually that started within one of us or within both of us. Right. And that is like, that's a hard reminder right there. It's like, I just want to blame everything else, like my tongue and like, you know, you or whatever.
And I should really always be looking inwardly first.
Ryan: And it ultimately reflects a war with myself, but also a war with God, because I'm fighting him in his way, I'm pulled and divided in different ways, rather than surrendering to him and resisting the devil, you know, that's who I should be at war with. So there's all this war terminology, like you said, but he also says that these conflicts between us are coming from our desires, which was a theme all the way back in chapter 1, of, like, what we want is I want something, you want something else, and so now we're just playing tug-of-war instead of learning to love and to yield and to submit to God and to find ways to work things out that are—like, what I want is not so important that I need to light a fire in the church about it, you know, like, my own desires, which seems to be a lot of what's going on here.
And so, you know, if we start thinking about this book and the flow of it, it feels to me like there is a tone change when we get to, like, you know, verse 4, "you adulterous people," you know, or this whole section, it almost feels like a climax of the book. Yeah, exactly. Like, he is—this is the invitation. This is, like, the heart of the plea, and he gives us what to do is ultimately draw near to God, and he's going to draw near to you.
And if you do that, if you give yourself completely to him, then there is more grace that he gives to you, and there's just an utter, complete transformation where all of the conflicts and all the problems within you, between you and God, and between other people in the church start to go away with that act of repentance.
Bryan: And just that idea that he's leaning into here about friendship. You know, who are you wanting to be friends with? You want to be friends with the world? Well, then you're not going to be friends with God. You want to be friends with God and you're not going to be friends with the world. And I think that's that's why he gets like you're saying, I think that's why he gets to such strong language here.
It's like we we want to say that we'll just be friends with everybody. And like, that's never going to work. And the whole idea that James has been hitting at here and is kind of crescendoing here in chapter four is like, if you want to be a whole person, you need to make a choice. And boy, that is it is a it is a constant reminder.
And it is absolutely feeling like something Jesus would have said. And I think he did have many things to say about that.
James 5 Community and Prayer
Bryan: But in chapter five, that's where we get to some other things that Jesus had a lot to say about, which is, you know, how we relate to each other.
started by talking about trials, he's been weaving throughout the book these themes of how we speak to one another and how we communicate and how we hold together, how we treat others who maybe aren't as rich as us or aren't as, you know, strong as us or whatever.
Ryan: And so here, it's about praying together, it's about confessing to each other, it's about going through all the hard things together, it's about even at the end, you know, bringing someone back who has wandered. And, you know, so like, we need each other. So the themes that I see as he's closing up here, he's gotten to our individual hearts over and over, but, you know, we're not just individuals, we're here to hold each other up.
Bryan: Yeah, well, and I was thinking about verse 16 there, sort of like this pinnacle in chapter five where he says, "Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working." We love this verse. We talk about this verse all the time.
One of the hardest verses to actually play out in real life, though, as you think about telling somebody, taking what was hidden on the inside of you and making it visible to other people, going from the inside to the outside. And I think that is such a powerful tool that James kind of just lays there in front of us as he starts to wrap everything up.
But if we were to practice verse 16 of chapter five, I feel like so much of what James is getting at would resolve itself. We would not feel like we were different on the inside than the outside because we were connecting the two with our words, our words, and laying them in someone else's hands to pray for you.
Just what a powerful gift that we can lean on and leverage in our relationships with each other. So thinking about all of these things, you've got five chapters here and he's really leaning on community at the end of all this. W
Favorite Chapters
Bryan: hat's your favorite chapter here? If you had to grab one of the five, what would you sort of chew on as the one that you want to meditate on today?
Ryan: favorite chapter is probably chapter 4, because I love the surrender to God, resist the devil, draw near to God and he'll draw near to you, humble yourselves, he'll exalt you, that idea of like, and he gives a greater grace, but he demands everything. So that idea of like, I come to God, I take a baby step towards God, and he takes all of these steps towards me, and it's not just me, but it's not just the Lord.
It helps me understand my faith in a really deep way. And like we were saying, it's such clear language as a call here at the middle. But man, that's almost like making me pick my favorite kid, you know, that's not very fair
Bryan: today?" Not the
Ryan: today. Okay, okay, well, I mean, there's so much here. What about you? Do you have a favorite chapter?
Bryan: I like chapter three. I just think if there's anything I need to remember, it's about my tongue. And it's like, how can I expect to be the kind of person on the outside as I am on the inside if I'm not taking care of the bridge between the two, which is so often my tongue and my words and the things I say and how I say them.
That's another one of those where it's like, he doesn't come right out and say it, but we all know that you can say the same thing with just a different tone and it completely comes out in a very different way or with different meaning. S
Workshop Practical Tools
Bryan: o this has been fun, but let's move on here to our next segment here, which is getting into the workshop.
Knowing how to use your tools safely will greatly reduce the possibility of personal injury
Bryan: Okay. So we've got this workshop theme here and we're going to start to do some, I think, very James applicable type things, which is just to get super practical. What are you thinking here in terms of what we're working on? Because there's so many things from James that we could work on here, right?
Ryan: Well, definitely. We're picking and choosing from quite a collection, but trying to get something very, very practical that maybe we don't talk about all the time when we think about James and yet is woven throughout.
Reframing Trials and Temptation
Ryan: The first one goes back to chapter 1 and that discussion of choosing your view of your trials.
And I think there's like a key to life here. Like when we choose how we're going to view these obstacles and desires and the things we go through, we decide what our response is going to be just by our view. Like the fact that the two different things, temptations and trials, which I think are appropriate to translate that way, are the exact same word stacked right next to each other.
And yet they're talking about two very different things, I think tells us that James is trying to show us that like one way of dealing with the same thing leads to death. The other way leads to life. So how are you going to deal with what you're going through?
Bryan: Yeah. So interpreting that just feels like super important to understanding and walking away from it, right? Because if you're saying like, this trial can lead me to mature, as he talks about, I think in verse three, as he's talking about the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, steadfastness having its full effect, that you may be perfect to complete lacking in nothing.
So that's that one outcome. But then you see in like verse 14 and 15, where he's talking about each person is tempted when he's allured and enticed by his own desire. When that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin when it's fully grown, brings forth death. So it's just this weird birth picture of sin and how it all started.
I just feel like the story of Cain and Abel fits so perfectly here. And there's also a discussion about anger and how all of that works in this thought process. But like temptation is going to be there. And what are you going to do with it? Like it's not that the temptation is necessarily bad itself. I mean, it could be a sinful thing, but it's that like your response is what you get to choose.
It's the only thing you can control. And how are you going to choose? Like what is it that you're going to, you come to the fork in the road, which one are you going to take? And that whichever path is going to probably come from what's going on in your heart. And I give you a real life example that I've been chewing on this for like six months and I've never really talked about it.
But I have found myself with, I want to not call it a hack because I'm trying not to treat it like a hack. So when I come across somebody that I meet or I see or you're in society and it's like, dude, we're in the middle of Arizona and it's like 110 degrees outside. People are very rarely wearing lots of clothing here in Arizona.
And so, you know, I'll be walking around and I'll see somebody out of the corner of my eye. And I have for the last six months been saying one key phrase to myself every single time as a reaction. And the phrase is image of God. And every time I see somebody who I look at and I notice that they're not clothed as well as they could be, my first thought immediately is image of God.
And that completely has like reframed the way I, my thoughts go after that. And I kind of feel like that's how this is, right? It's like, what do you, doing as a result of having trial, facing trial and deciding how you're going to respond to that beforehand is such a helpful way of not having to figure it out in the moment.
And for me, with that specific temptation, it is reminding myself that God is the creator of every person. And it's not just in those scenarios too. Like I've found myself doing it when people annoy me or people are like, you know, taking too long at the grocery store or whatever. It's just like, man, image of God.
Ryan: Well, and that's James. That's James 3, right? With the same tongue, you curse the person made in the image of God. Paul says it a little differently in Corinthians. He says something about this person for whom Jesus died is another way to get there. But that's really helpful. I like that. And I like the idea you said of being ready ahead of time, deciding that it's about who you are.
It's like the Daniel 1, verse 8, "Purpose he purposed in his heart." You're deciding who you are, which decides how you're going to determine it. And it's a part of that, I think, is being aware and just acknowledging, accepting that as Paul and Barnabas went around telling the churches in one of their missionary journeys, "Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom."
You know, "Continue in the faith through many tribulations." It will not be easy. Who gave you that idea that it's going to be easy? The whole thing, what James is telling us is the whole thing of this life, of how you get better, is through tribulations, through trials. There is a purpose to it rightly handled.
And so that's a part of, I think that's a part of how all things work together for good. Romans 8, 28 is, it's not working together for good for everybody, it's working together for good for those who love the Lord, who are handling things with a particular viewpoint. And so it's not only God working these things out, but we are putting ourselves in a position for him to work development and growth and character in us as we view these in a particular way, not like getting mad at God or at life, or complaining or grumbling or getting discouraged so that we're so down that we're choosing the wrong thing.
Not that there's anything wrong with getting discouraged sometimes, but we have to keep a hopeful, faithful, God-word orientation in our trials, and that'll change where we come out of it.
Bryan: And that God word focus is, I think, you know, where he goes into verse 17, every good gift, every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights. And you just think about like, where does all the good stuff come from, you know? And if this bad situation can actually turn out to be a good thing for me, not to say that God put that bad situation into my life, but that God is able to take a bad situation and turn it into a good thing for me is like, it's exactly why the story of Joseph and so many people like just resonate with everyone.
It's like God, God can take what evil is going on in the world, what hard, hurtful things you're experiencing, and you may not be happy about it, but you can find joy in it. You know, as Paul would talk about in Philippians and of course here, just this idea that we can be and choose joy, like going back to our happiness versus joy episode.
I feel like this is always something that we get to choose how we view our trials, but maybe that's the first of three things we can get into here in the workshop. Let's
Words as a Lever
Bryan: talk about my favorite one, which is James chapter three and the tongue. How are we using the tongue as a lever here in this verse?
Ryan: Well, and think about that, what you just said, using the tongue as a lever, you know, like a device, a good engineering device, right? Whenever we think about the tongue, usually I think of the tongue reveals what's in the heart,
Bryan: Okay.
Ryan: which is true, absolutely, Jesus says that, James says that, but here we're talking about using the tongue to get the rest of us track, not just get your heart in track inside out, but like outside in, get your words on track as a way to get your heart on track.
And here's what I mean by this, see if you can come along with me on this. You know, he says we all stumble in many ways, amen, amen, good, I'm glad that James acknowledges that, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's a perfect or complete person, able also to bridle his whole body, and then he uses these two analogies of bits and of rudders.
And what are bits and rudders there for? They give direction, they point and direct where the rest of the horse or the rest of the ship goes. They're very small, that's part of the metaphor, but the other part of it is, he seems to be saying we can direct where we're going to go if we direct what our words are.
And if you look at the way he spends the rest of the book, like on both sides of this chapter, James 3 is right, obviously, in the center, on both sides, he talks constantly about what we say and how that shapes who we become, right? Like, think about right after the trial thing, you know, the beginning, James 1, 2 through 4, if anybody, you know, through this we become a perfect man, and then if anybody isn't perfect yet, if you lack anything, what should you do?
Use your tongue to pray with faith. Prayer shapes everything. That's one of just, you know, dozens of ways he does this here. Does that make sense to you, or does that seem like a stretch that
Bryan: I'll
Ryan: the tongue not only reveals? Yeah.
Bryan: the end because James 5.13, "As anyone among you suffering, let him pray. As anyone cheerful, let him sing praise. As anyone sick, let him call for the elders of the church and let him pray over him." Like all of these amazing things that he's talking about there are all vocal words. So if
you're hoping, I feel like to kickstart your inside, sometimes how you kickstart the inside is by leaning into the right words. And I think that's why sometimes we have these, we called them trellises or we call these habits that like just really help orient our face towards Christ. We have these habits that hopefully, as we read, as we sing, as we confess, as we use our mouth in these different ways to reiterate to ourselves what's important and why it's important.
I think it's why I try to view that like image of God phrase, not as a hack, but just as like a, it's a reorientation and it's something I can say. And of course I'm not actually saying it out loud, but it's something I can think to myself and that then changes the temperature of what's going on inside.
So I totally, I'm with you. I think what we say can work outside inward and then hopefully we'll sort of kind of get ourselves inside outward.
Ryan: gives us a very visible place to work. Like, sometimes I don't really know what's going on with my heart, but if I can notice what I'm saying, then it does reveal something, but I can work on that and sort of reverse engineer my heart, you know, to get back to it. And I feel like that's a part of what's going on here.
He's talking about all of this, you know, you speaking against a neighbor or a brother. He talks about you, you know, grumbling, you saying, "At such and such a time, I'm going to go to such and such a place, and I'm going to do this." "Let your yes be yes." All of these things, I mean, over and over again. So, like, whenever I'm making all of these different kinds of declarations, I can notice, and that becomes a battleground where if I can work on, "When a trial comes, I'm going to give praise, even through it, instead of thanksgiving."
When something good happens, when I'm having a problem with a brother, when I'm, you know, whatever, how am I going to handle it? And then that starts to shape my heart, which goes with the faith works idea. Outside, inside, inside, outside. And
Finding Inner Conflict
Bryan: I think that's a way of summing up even what this third workshop key is that we're going to talk about here, which is finding the inner conflict beneath the outer conflict. So if we've talked about trials and our words, now it's like, why when we feel something on the outside, why is that not just all that it is sometimes?
What's going on under the surface? What's behind all of that? And kind of figuring out what is motivating all of that is, like you said, with words, it can be easy because you can listen to yourself. I say easy. It's not easy, but it's not easy to listen to our words and pick up on things that maybe other people would be, which is why confession and community is so important.
Side story there. But what happens, what is the benefit, I guess, of seeing and observing yourself on the outside so that you can diagnose the real issue under the surface? Like why should that be a practice that we have regularly?
Ryan: Well, first of all, it can be another alert, alarm, you know, another moment that interrupts us. Whenever we, if we're paying attention to, I have a conflict here. There's a conflict with a brother or a sister. There is a conflict with my spouse or kids or friends or whatever. Or even an inner conflict, you might notice that. But typically, we might notice the relational conflict and say, "Okay, what is underneath this? Is there something that I can look at within myself of where I'm grasping something?" Because he says, "The issue is your desires. You should be asking God, but there's a particular way you need to be asking God for the things you desire, and that needs to help you align your desires so that they are revealing someone who is a friend of God and prioritizing God's will as you're asking."
And so, like, this all gets worked out to where the conflict sends us to look at ourselves, point at ourselves, you know, as Jesus says, you know, "Take the plank out of your eye," and then to see where am I conflicted and how can I yield to God and find inner peace that would be reflected. Usually, when you deal with people who are, I mean, I don't want to just, again, I'm pointing outward, I know, but there are certain people that you just can't seem to avoid, nobody seems to be able to avoid conflict with them.
And it just becomes pretty clear as you're dealing with them that there is something, there is a tension and an anxiety and a dividedness within them, it seems, that is just spilling out to everyone around them. And if you could help them find peace in the gospel of Christ and really yield and submit and trust God and pray and all the things James tells us to do, that will change their relationships, you
Bryan: Yeah. Hey, thanks for stepping on my toes, Ryan. I appreciate that. I love it.
Ryan: Are you saying you're the person who has trouble with everybody?
Bryan: Yeah. No, it's so good though. It's so funny. It's like, I feel like every one of us have seen those kinds of people, but also, I don't know, maybe I'm overemphasizing everyone else's feelings about this, but I feel like we all kind of feel like that sometimes.
Ryan: Sure,
Bryan: Like when you just, you have moments where it's, and maybe you're just having a bad day, but like everybody you bump into is like at odds with you and it's a challenge to deal with.
And then you get to the end of the day and you're like, wow, everybody was terrible today. And you realize it's like, no, you're the one who's the common denominator here. You're the common thread.
Ryan: Wherever you go, there you
Bryan: There you are. So I feel like, you know, as you get into chapter four here and you start thinking about what James is offering for us as a solution, it is humility, which is not
the solution we always want to bring to the table. And like you're saying, how can I bless somebody? How can I serve somebody? What can I bring to this discussion that would bless the lives of somebody else? And if we're not thinking about how to be humble, then maybe we are missing the point of how to deal with these conflicts.
Cause you're never, like I'm never going to be able to fix everybody around me, nor should I try. I need to just make sure I've got myself on lock and I've put myself into the servant role. And again, kind of like chapter three, uh, yeah, that's not easy to do.
Ryan: And what chapter four then does for us, and these principles of humbling yourself, is it allows us to give these things back to God so that it's not ultimately... As much as James is about doing, it's not about try harder and be perfect. As much as he uses the word "perfect," it's not about saying we should never stumble.
No, he says we all stumble in many ways. What he means with the "perfect," if you look at what the Greek word means, he's talking about us wholly giving ourselves our trust, our allegiance, our devotion to the Lord and letting him conquer and his kingdom take over more and more of us. And so when we do that, he gives more grace.
He draws near to us. He exalts us, if you look at that section in James 4, 6, 10. This is the heart of the book to me. It's
Bryan: Yeah.
Ryan: like, yes, he demands everything. He is a jealous God, and he gives everything. He will help you become who you're meant to be through it all.
Radical Faith Wrap Up
Bryan: But isn't that, you know, as we sort of wrap this thing up, isn't that where James is leaning on Jesus here as, as just the story of what God has given to us and how much he's given to us and these things, these difficult things that Jesus taught in his great sermon and throughout his life, these difficult things that James is bringing out here that we're supposed to practice and do.
It is like you say, not, it's not just a checklist of things that we knuckle down and try to do. It's a response to the amazing gift that God is already and continues to give us. And that is like, again, the, the more I can lean on verse six here of chapter four, that he gives more grace, uh, the more I can extend that grace to others and the more I can, you know, live in community and deeper and more meaningful ways.
And the more I'll appreciate Jesus and what he means to me as the one who enables me to do any of this stuff.
Ryan: Amen. Yeah, the idea that...I mean, I'm going to all the different ways Jesus says these same things over and over again. Just where we started, right? You know, "Seek first these things." That's where your heart is, where your priority is. All the rest will be given to you. And, you know, the Lord is not leaving us alone to figure all of this out.
He is calling us to be absolutely radical in our devotion to him. I mean, like, we're the weirdos who give up everything, who, you know, sell everything to buy this pearl of great price. But we are receiving more than we ever could imagine in it.
Bryan: Real faith is radical. I like that. I think it's what, what this is all about, what James is all about. And it's what Jesus taught, you know, even in his sermon at the end of it all, I think he had a lot of people like picking their jaws up off the ground of, of how radical all of this really was. So I've enjoyed this conversation.
I think James is one of my favorite books, you know, just from that standpoint of being so practical, but so much of an inside to the outside kind of thing where it's, it's hitting it all across the board. It's, it's from the inside all the way out. It's holistic, the word I love to use about these kinds of discussions.
So thanks for the game. Thanks for putting all this together. It's been a bit of blast to think about James, just the way that he is like Jesus in so, so many ways, almost like they were related.
Ryan: And yet James doesn't call himself his brother. He calls himself his servant, which is the other reason that this reflects everything that Jesus has to say. We're all servants together of this one great Lord.
Season Break and Moving
Bryan: So this ends our season here. We've had a great, I don't know, I want to call it spring, but now it's almost summer here season of the Bible geeks. And so we're going to take a little bit of a break over the summer. We are going to do a seven sermon summer surfing spectacular. Again we're going to have a whole bunch of guests come on in and we'll drop their sermons here into the feed and you'll get to hear from them.
It's really cool stuff we're looking forward to over the summer while it's super hot outside. And I don't know what's happening in the fall, but I know I'm not going to be in Arizona. I'm going to be, I don't know, we haven't even talked about this on the show, but yeah, so I'm moving to Indiana. So I'm going to be in Ryan's neighborhood in his neck of the woods.
So if I don't know, schedules get a little weird and episodes sound a little funny when we come back, you can give more grace for that because it's going to be a weird summer for me. So yeah, anything going on with you Ryan over the summer? Oh,
Ryan: Oh man, I'm excited for you to get up here and become a Hoosier. And I, yeah, All the fun stuff of summer. It's beautiful out here. Not hot and oppressive like it is where you live.
Bryan: it's so bad. So, so bad.
Ryan: So yeah, just excited and excited to get some of our friends on here for the summer spectacular of sermons that we've got coming.
Final Thanks and Blessing
Bryan: All right, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning into the Bible geeks podcast. You can find us on our website at biblegeeks.fm. You can find show notes for this episode and your podcast player of choice or there on our website as well. Reach out to us, contact us, let us know if you have any questions that we can help you with and until the next episode or maybe until the summer season ends and the fall season begins, may the Lord bless you and keep you.
Ryan: Shalom.