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The transcription discusses the importance of behavior and character in the context of the book of James. It emphasizes that a claim to salvation is not enough and that proof of character is needed. The analogy of CSI shows is used to explain the concept of proof, which involves evidence and facts. It suggests that external evidence alone is not enough to claim godly character and that believers should demonstrate their character through their actions. some context, give us some context, too, so. All right, so to start with, just by way of quick review, if you remember, when we started this whole thing, we looked, we said, okay, there's three basic things, direction, intention, and instruction. In fact, in the first section, we see that in testing, that testing intends to instruct us. And there's two of the three themes that are there. But what we learned is the intention of testing is to instruct us, to cause us to mature, to grow. And we've seen more than that, but certainly that's part of it. We talked about the steps to obedience. We talked about sustained obedience. The two are worked together. Assuming that we get to this point of action, certainly we want to sustain that and apply the observance, the outward evidence, and the obligation. It is this behavior that we've kind of jumped off on now. In the next section, we introduced pure undeclared religion, where we're talking about the idea of a winsome attitude, a meek mindset, and then certainly a decisive focus. But the idea, backing up just a second, is that this is based off of behavior. So when we come to this point, and we get to chapter two, which is what we're in here, and we're talking about the idea of testimony and building that testimony, we're talking about doing it in terms of behavior. Now, that doesn't mean that the attitudes aren't there and that that's not all part of it. We talked about courtesy, compassion, and commitment. And when we did, we gave the example, if you remember, of the Good Samaritan and all that is coming out in that reputation, that character, because this is what's inside. There's been an interior change that Christ is using that example as to say, okay, this needs to come out. Now look at Colossians chapter three. And in Colossians chapter three, Paul says this, starting with verse 10 is good enough. You put on a new man, it's renewed in knowledge of after the image of him that created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew. Circumcision reminds circumcision. Barbarians give you a bond or free, but Christ is all and in all. And the idea here is that because of that, you are different, what's coming out is different. And the context, I mean, just put it this way. Can you imagine if all lives matter? That's what's kind of being put here. What a huge thing for the church in the first century to be putting this forward. Remember, a large majority of the church is slaves. They have no social standing. They have no standing at all. And yet they're equated in God's eyes with the wealthiest of people. Of men and women are the same. Genders are the same. Colors are the same. Skin. And so what Paul is saying is, look, there's no hierarchy here within the church. Now, that doesn't mean that there's not different roles. And some roles are gonna be different than others, and certainly that is true. But Paul says this, he says, look, put on therefore, because this is true, be holy and beloved, vows of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, forgiving one another. Even if you have a quarrel against each other, even as Christ forgave you, so do you, and above all things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And what Paul is saying is, look, all this is going to come out of a true believer. It's supposed to come out of the church. All right, so that means that, if you remember, we talked about critical theory, and I'm not gonna really talk about it this evening. But just to say this, that the whole idea is to do the opposite of what Paul is talking about. This creates class conflict. Paul is talking about doing the opposite of that, okay? And creating class unity, certainly within the body of Christ. And so, what we did is we looked at a couple different things here. We said, look, if character is going to be profitable, if it's going to have value, just a simple claim doesn't make it valuable. You can't claim to be something of a believer, as we saw in verses 14 through 17. I'm not gonna spend time going through it this evening. Anyone can make claims. Remember, we said that last week. The second thing is a claim of faith isn't of any value, because only actual belief of justification is what's really saved. Our belief, God's justification of us, actual faith should be seen, then, or expressed. Remember that. Now, remember, what we talked about here is character. Reputation is what man sees. Character is what God sees. So, when we look at these things, we understand that actual faith should be seen by those around us. If it's what's inside, it's coming out. In fact, when we talked about this, and when we closed last week, I closed with, if you remember that list of things, where this character came out of Christ, and I was reading from a Lon Solomon sermon, where he says, okay, as followers of Christ, how do you know that God cares about you every day? Well, just look and see how Jesus did. And he goes, and I'm not gonna go through the list again, but remember, we went through the list. Thing after thing after thing after thing after thing, and we said, we could see this in Christ, right? We can see God coming out of Christ, because that's what's inside, right? Okay, righteousness is inside, that's what's coming out. And then, we ended with this thought, out of Luke chapter 10, the end of that example of the Good Samaritan, Christ says, now you go and do likewise. And the implication is, this is what's supposed to be inside, and that's what's coming out. There's no value, there's no profit to those around us, if what's inside, that light, that fruit of the Spirit, that character, does not come out. And so, that's what we left with last week. Now, on your sheet, this is what you have in front of you this evening, okay? You've got these particular points that we're gonna fill in a little bit. And what I've done, what I'm trying to do is give you some outline to the book of James. What you've got previously is outlined. Basically, this is outlined, I'm breaking it down, but as I'm breaking it down, we're making these individual points. The point that we have character, and we're seeing the profitability of character, now we're gonna look at, second of all, the proof of character, okay? So, is the claim to salvation just enough? As we said last week, does faith alone save? Absolutely, but just to claim salvation is not enough because anybody can claim that. There's gotta be some profit, there's gotta be some advantage that people are looking for, that the outside world is looking for. You're gonna see that this evening, in particular, as we move through this. Remember, James has written a book about behavior. We've seen that from the beginning, but we most certainly see it on our screen here because behavior is to be courteous. Remember, again, the Good Samaritan, compassionate. It speaks of commitment, where we have that idea where we are all in in doing what God wants and obeying God. And it all comes down to determining character before God and reputation before men. Now, let's go one step further. And that's the idea of proof. Now, I don't know whether there's still CSI shows on. Do you know? Are there CSI? I have, years ago, I used to occasionally watch the CSI Miami one. And the reason I remember that I used to watch it is because I talked with Mrs. Mills about it because she watched it. Remember that? And that was something Karen and I have looked at each other a couple of times and said, that doesn't seem like a Mrs. Mills kind of show. But it was. She liked that show. And I remember coming in to church on Sunday and saying, did you see? Oh, yes, I saw it, and we would talk about CSI Miami. Well, the whole idea of the CSI shows is that it's crime scene investigation. And what they're doing is they're going in and they're finding evidence, they're finding things that prove that whatever this crime was, whatever maybe leads to finding the criminal. And one of the things they always said was, we don't speculate about things. We're not making guesses about who might have done that. We are following the forensic evidence to give us a conclusion. I think that that is very true what most of the world does with believers. They are skeptical, they are looking at believers and they're questioning and they're saying, is this real? And so the question, some question I might ask this evening is not just is a claim of salvation is enough, but is external evidence enough to claim godly character? What is proof? I mean, you got it right there. What is proof of character? So what I'd like to do is just take a minute and I'm not gonna do a long thing on this, but I wanna talk about what proof is. If we were going to define, well, we are gonna define it. As we are defining, that's a better way to say it, proof, what is proof? Evidence. It is evidence. Very good. What else? What else is involved in proof? Because it's not just evidence. You're gonna see this in a minute, I'll explain it. What else is involved in proof? I can give you evidence that Michael Jordan, I'll talk to you, because they don't care about basketball so much, but you and I can give you evidence that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time, okay? Give some evidence of that. Does that prove that it's true? Because there's a lot of people that say LeBron is, right? Not you, but, and me, we don't think that, but I'm just saying, you see what I'm getting at? So evidence is not just enough. Facts. Facts and evidence. You're on the right track, don't get me wrong, but facts are evidence. That's what evidence is. What else is involved in proof? You ought to know this. I don't. I'm thinking over here. Huh? I'm thinking. Are you thinking? All right, go ahead. I'll give you a minute to think. Well, I was gonna say facts. Because I was thinking with the Michael Jordan thing, you could say, you know, some of that could be opinion, you see if you have facts, like, okay, here's... Gotcha. Absolutely, gotcha. I understand. Facts, those kind of things. You can base it off facts. I get some credit for talking a little bit about sports. Okay, you get some credit for that. Very good. But what do you have to do? You're not just giving evidence. You got it. It's got to go one step forward. So here's my definition. You can write this down. I encourage you to write this down. You can write this down. I encourage you to write this down. So here's my definition. You can write this down. I encourage you to write this down next to proof. It is evidence that is sufficient to establish something that is true. So I can walk into a court of law, and I can have a stack of evidence. But that evidence might be circumstantial. You see? It might be just evidence that I put together. But what I've got to do is make enough, give enough evidence that is sufficient to establish before a jury that this person is guilty or innocent. You see? To produce in them a belief in this truth. Do you see? This is a great definition. And it is worth writing this one down, having that record of this one. Because evidence that is sufficient to establish a thing is proof. Now, let me just take a second, and while you're writing, just ask you some rhetorical questions. Did we land on the moon? No. A lot of people think we don't. We didn't. Did Lee Harvey Oswald assassinate R.F.K. or R.J.F.K.? Some people think we didn't. They didn't. And see, to those people, there's not enough evidence, sufficient evidence to establish that that's the truth. Okay? Was the 2020 election stolen from Donald Trump? You know, that just opens up a whole interesting conversation, right? People are looking and saying, give me proof. Did Jesus rise from the grave, from the dead? You see? Lee Stroman has written a number of books that prove that and talk about the proof, the evidence that is given that is enough evidence. I encourage you to read his stuff. It's really good, because he was a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, I think. And just an alcoholic, just had nothing to do with Christianity, came to Christ, and everything changed for him. And he's an author now. You know who Lee Stroman is. You know who Lee is. You've got to know who Lee Stroman is. Okay. So, he's an author, and he writes books. He talks about the, particularly, because he was an investigative reporter. And he's always looking for proof, and that's what he did. He went to do a story and a study on whether Christianity could be proven to be not true. That's where he started. He was looking for evidence, and what he found was just the opposite. Came to Christ and wrote about what he understood, what the evidence was that he found. Is it snowing right now, outside? This office, this building? No. Is that chair able to hold your weight here? Okay. Is Thurman really a Russian spy? I know. You wonder sometimes, don't you? Is Jesus at the right hand of God the Father right now? You see? Would taking English classes help me to understand and speak the English language better? Hopefully. You'll like this one. How about this? Will the Golden State Warriors win the NBA championship this year? Don't think so. Don't think so. Will we eat dinner today? Tonight? Okay. Will Jesus return to rapturous church as I'm talking about pre-meal, pre-trib? You see? What we're talking about is that asking these questions and what we're looking for is proof. You see? Now, if we're doing that, and what we're trying to accomplish is proof, why? And so that I'd like to, before we get to James, turn over, since you're in Colossians, you're not that far from Romans chapter 12. You don't even need to turn to this if you don't want. You know these verses. I'll just read them to you. But it's worth seeing because the entire chapter is worth going through. I'm not going to go through it all this evening for sake of time. But he says, I beseech you therefore, because of all the 11 chapters of theology that he's just put in place. He says, look, by the mercies of God, because God's merciful, present your body, the living sacrifice, holy acceptable to Him, to God. That's just reasonable. That's your reasonable service. Okay? I like the KJV on this. It's just a reasonable thing. That's what we do. Okay? Because of his verses, because of all the theology that I've just put in place, everything that I've told you, it's worth doing. Now, what's the next verse? Don't be conformed to this world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you might, what, Thurman? Proof. There's the word. That you might, watch this, give evidence sufficient to establish that a thing is true. Okay? To produce belief that this is true. Who do you think Paul's talking about trying to prove this to? He says, look, this is how you're going to prove this. You're not going to be conformed to this world. You're going to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You're going to do what's good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Who are you trying to prove it to? Do you need to prove your salvation, your transformation, your redemption to God? Then who do you think he's trying to prove it to? Of the people. Exactly. Which is why he says, look, every man among you ought not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, verse 3, but to think soberly. And then he goes off on this whole listing of things that are going to help do this. It's interesting. The idea of the, in fact, Phillips, J.P. Phillips, in his paraphrase, takes this particular verse, verse 2, and he talks about don't let the world squeeze you into its mold. Instead, let God remold you as a transformation from within. So that what people are looking at is the opposite of what they see when they look at those that are part of that world system. Does that make sense? And so then, verses 3-8, he talks about all these spiritual gifts that are given for the members of the body of Christ. In 9-13, he talks about how to exhibit those gifts. In verses 14-16, I'd love to drop it and stop there for a while. He talks about the idea of exhibiting those gifts. And then he says, in verses 17-21, that this is what's going to be seen. And that people are going to respond to the exhibiting of the godly character. In other words, he ends by saying, don't be overcome with evil, but instead overcome evil with good. Because it's just not profitable, it's just not valuable. And not only that, it doesn't prove. Back to verse 2. You see? So, this is my question. And this is my point. Why... I don't care how I was going to do this. So, yesterday, I started making notes. And I started making some notes on things. I won't tell you the whole story, but a lot of times when I'm doing receipts, it's mindless work. I'm listening to a podcast, I'm doing something, whatever, and I'm thinking. And I stop, and I'm writing notes, and I'm making stuff, whatever. Well, I have these little squares up there that are part of a calendar that I have. It's a golf calendar that Karen gives me every year that I peel it off every day. I keep those little squares for notes. When I'm on the phone, I grab all those things and I write down the notes. You know, phone call in the back, whatever. Well, I had four of them. Taped them together. And said, hey, that's about 17 inches. Sure enough, there it was. I made a copy of it on 17-inch paper. I thought, I'm just going to take that home, and then I'll make notes on the side of what I want to say, and put all this together, which I did last night. I thought, okay, this is great. Now, I'm going to take this and I'm going to put it on paper that fits, you know, half by 11, which is half of 11 by 17. And I said, you know, and I thought, today I thought, wow, I like these notes just like they are. So, this is the 511 by 17 sheet. And I know you didn't care about having all that explanation, but Thurman, you got it anyway, so there you go. Why do people believe something? Have you ever thought about that? Why do people believe you or not believe? Why do people believe that the earth is flat? Do you think people still believe this? They're called flat earthers. They literally believe, and I know people, I actually know some people like this. They believe the earth is flat. Really? Why? Why do people believe things? Why do people believe that 1 plus 1 equals 2? And not 3? There's proof. To the flat earthers, they look at this and they see proof. So, the question that we've got to answer is where does that idea, where does it all come from? Why do they see proof here and not over here? Where does that come from? That will help us to understand how we can be a better testimony. That's our goal, remember? Testimony given, evidence given, right? We're to give this evidence that we're talking about down here, this proof. So, it will help us. So, number one, if you take notes, you see why believe. You see that right there? And when we talk about the idea of believing, it is the idea of being convinced. You see, of this belief. Or to produce convincingness of the truth. Convincingness is now a new word. Confidence, reliability, that what's being told to me is true. You see? So, there's three basic things. You could add more. I'm giving you three basics that I think are most critical. And, in fact, I believe James is saying these are the most critical things having to do with the belief system. Okay? So, now turn with me back to the book of James. We're now finally getting back to James. Assuming and understanding that we are looking to prove this testimony. Give evidence. Okay? Give evidence to an unbelieving world. Assuming we're going to do that, how will they believe us? Number one, people believe because, let's put that next to the first little dot there. People will believe because they are exposed to a concept. Okay? They're exposed to a concept. You sat in probably first grade and the teacher was up there and she exposed you the concept that one plus one equals two. Right? That's a concept, right? It's an educational concept. If I talk to your wife, she could talk all about the educational concepts. And we understand that. And Thurman, your belief in that began there. You were exposed to that. Right? Okay. Okay. Look at what James says. Starting with verse 18. I'm sorry. And by the way, you'll notice each one of these sections that we're going to look at. This is 18, 19, 20. Each one of these sections ends with faithful that works is dead. Okay? So that's how you can know that he's making three separate points in all this. So the second of the points is proof of character. And he says, okay, yea, a man may say, thou hast faith, I have works, show me thy faith. Without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. These are the couple of verses that drove Martin Luther nuts. Crazy. He hated it. The idea of exposure to a concept is that it has been seen. In fact, that's what James says. Thou hast faith, I have works, show me. Let me have some exposure to my eyes. I want to see it for myself. Think of Thomas. Yea, yea, yea. You guys are saying Christ raised from dead. Yea, sure. Until I what? Until I touch it, see it, until my senses perceive this, and I'm exposed to it, I'm not buying it. So let me paraphrase this verse for you. Rather than just go word by word, let me paraphrase it. Expose me, this guy, this unbeliever is saying, expose my eyes to your faith. To your belief system, to your trust, to your confidence. What you have confidence in. Without some action, without some deed, without some external lifestyle. You see what he's saying? You expose my eyes to this. You convince me of your faith without some kind of action. Because, he says, I can show you what I believe by the things I do. By my lifestyle. See what he says there? You show me your faith, you say you have faith, and I have works. So show me your faith without your works, without some deed. You show it to me, I want to see it. Well, I'll tell you what, you'll be able to tell my lifestyle by the way. If you look at me, right? You can tell if I like alcohol if I go to the bars a lot. You can tell if I don't like alcohol, I don't go to the bars a lot. Right? And that's what he's saying there. There's some exposure that is there. And that's just how everybody does it. Of course. Right? We understand that. But the question that's kind of there is, is exposure enough evidence or proof? Just being exposed to that, is that enough? No. Because you could be faking it. There are churches that have people... Some people get exaggeratory in all this. There are churches full of people that aren't believers. I don't know that that's true or not true. But I do know that in churches there are people that are not believers that look like it. Right? And for absolute certain there's a lot of people outside of the church that might be believers that look like they belong in with the world. Right? Okay. So just exposure isn't enough. That's a favorite tact of those that lie, as a matter of fact. They just say enough. They fake it enough that people believe. We have a media that's full of that kind of an idea. They are just... That's my mom and dad in town. And that looks like it's the light that's there on the table. I guess they've got it sitting on the ground or something. I don't know. Anyway. Let's see if they change it now in a little bit. Anyway, that's what the media does. That's what politicians do. They just say it over and over and over and over and over and over again and then it must be true. No. That's not the case. That doesn't... You might just say it because you say it enough doesn't make it true. But a lot of times people do believe it if you say it enough. Right? Okay. Especially if the people that are saying it are somewhat trustworthy in their reputation. Which leads me to point number two. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. Boy, it would be fun to spend a couple of weeks on that verse. We're not going to do it. We're not even going to spend just a few minutes. The second thing is a relational confidence. Okay, so it's not just that somebody exposes you to this concept, but if you trust them, you might believe. Right? If your mom or dad tells you something, you might believe it. If the teacher tells you something. If Walter Cronkite says it, buy it. But the opposite might be true as well. If some politician that you don't agree with says it, what do you automatically do? You disbelieve him. You see? That's the relational confidence angle that goes along with this. You will believe. You will have confidence and trust. Let me paraphrase this. You believe with confidence that there is a monotheistic God. You've got great confidence and trust in that. You've done well. But I've got to tell you, the devils believe that also. That there is a monotheistic God. But they fear him. Now what's the difference here? What's the difference between the devils and us? Relationship. Exactly. One trusts, one fears. And it's based on the relationship status. A relational status. Again, I would love to dive into this, but I'm quickly running out of time. My relationship has grown beyond fear. Has it yours? To trust. That's the idea. But even if you trust the one who delivers the concept, you still might not believe. Okay? You might say, yeah, you know, that's an interesting idea. And I know you've got a lot of, you know, you know a lot about this stuff, but I'm not buying into it. Right? So there's one more thing that you need to understand and throw into this. And that is experiential understanding. Okay? Or knowledge. Look at what he says. But will thou, what's the next word? Know. Know. O vain man, or foolish man, that faith without works is dead. Now, without breaking all this down, I actually am going to probably talk about this again next week on this particular slide, because this is a transitional verse. What he's talking about is experiential knowledge or understanding. Now, in the Bible, we have three different things that go along with this. You have knowledge. That's the facts. Okay? We have facts. We gain facts, information. That's knowledge. And understanding, to the Greek mind, is the idea of taking that and in your imagination, understanding, and in your thinking, maybe let's use that terminology. What can I do with this? If we use chapter one in the Greek language that Paul writes, it says this. The eyes of your understanding being wide that you may know what is the hope of God. In other words, the eyes of your understanding are open, and then you understand, you know, your eyes are open. You see something. Okay? It's not just a concept being given. It's not just a who's giving the concept. It's that, oh, your eyes are open. We pray for this all the time. I remember when we got up to Syros over there, I prayed all the time that their Muslim eyes would be open to what we're telling them. They didn't believe. You know why? Because they might understand the concept, which they did. We had a relationship with them. They still didn't believe. You know why? Because there was no experiential understanding. Their eyes were not open. The Bible talks about the blindness of people's hearts. They just refused to recognize the truth. Will you understand this experientially? Will you take this in? Faith that is not experienced is what? Dead. It's useless. It's just a concept until you accept it. 1 Corinthians 2, verses 12-16. I'm not going to read all of those for you, but basically tell us this. Now, we have received, not the spirit of this world, but the spirit of Israel. We've received it. We've taken it in. And then he goes on to explain all this. Natural man does not understand the things of God because he's not received it. You see? He's not taken it in. Now, I would love to make a redemption, salvation application here, but that's not the context. I will tell you that both Arminian and Calvinist ideas come out of these particular verses that are both wrong. And the reason that they're wrong is because they look at this as a salvation verse. It is not. In fact, I was reading from one particular reform, and by the way, they've got some really good stuff on this particular site. From the Gospel Coalition, which I have quoted before in a positive way, says this. If Paul were the author, and James is the author here, he might explain redemption and justification, but James never mentions the cross or atonement, never speaks of justification by faith or redemption. Indeed, the absence of these elements prompts observers to wonder where to find the gospel in James, especially since he mentions Jesus' name twice in passing. James does mention faith 14 times, but 11 of them occur from James 14-26, which is what we're studying right now, which stresses that faith without deeds is dead. So, we need to understand the way James here is presenting the gospel. No, he is not. He's talking to believers. He's talking to the church. You see? He's not talking about the gospel. He is not talking about redemption, salvation. You know, he's missing the point. James is not speaking about the gospel or salvation. He's talking about sanctification, being faithful, and that coming out of us. The context is that the problem is that a hidden faith, a hidden belief system, a hidden trust, a hidden confidence, if it's hidden, is as if it were dead. It not only has no value, but it has no proof. You see, if the faith that we have doesn't come out, James is saying, In the midst of our sanctification, our growth, our maturing, in the midst of following after God, obeying, it might as well be dead. And so at this point, the unbeliever can look at this dead-looking believer and say, Okay, you're no different than me. Right? You are no different than me. Your faith, your commitment has no profit. There's no advantage to what you're saying. It has no proof. You've got no evidence that you are any different than me. In fact, we can give biblical examples from all through Scripture of people like this. Paul says, Demas has forsaken me. It looks like he loves this present world more. Jonah says, No God. And the people on the ship don't even know that he's a follower of Jehovah God, of Elohim. Solomon, at the end of his life, looks as worldly and ungodly as anybody around. And yet we know Solomon is a believer and a follower of God. You get the idea? And so the unbelieving world looks at this and says, He's no different than me. Why do I, quote unquote, convert? In chapter 3, verse 18, we're going to see James talk about this. I'm not going to go there. In Galatians chapter 5, though, we see Paul talk about this when he says this, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, love, suffering, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. This needs to come out. Just like what comes out of the works of the flesh are evident. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hate. You see, this is what comes out of the unbeliever. This is what comes out of the believer. It needs to be coming out. It needs to be, as Paul said, evident. In Ephesians chapter 5, he says this, He says, be imitators of God, followers of God, like your children, walking in love as Christ has done. But fornication, uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be named once among you because it's not fitting for saints. This is what should be coming out of believers. In John chapter 15, we find that Christ is talking about that example of vines. He says, look, vines aren't producing fruit. He says, I'm going to lift up. I'm going to chop up. I'm going to discipline them. I'm going to work with them. I'm going to work so that what comes out of them is the fruit that should come out. Now, it's very hard to say that everybody's faith is going to come out in the same way. Number one, we have different temperaments, right? So we're all going to be a little different in all of this. Number two, we find in Matthew chapter 13, in the parable of the sower, that some of the ground, even though it's good, it sprouts up. Some of it only gives 30-fold, 60-fold. Some gives 100-fold. Now, a lot of people will say that's because there's sin in their lives, and I think that that can be true. There's things that keep it from growing. But also, some people are only capable of 30%. Some people are only 60. Some are 100. But I will tell you that will come out, like he did with Zacchaeus in Luke 19. Remember Zacchaeus? Climbs a tree. Christ says, I'm coming to your house today. I'm coming to your house today. And there's a whole song about it. He comes to his house. Sits down. Must have been quite a meal. I imagine those disciples said, now this is going to be great, because Zacchaeus was extremely wealthy. May have been one of the wealthiest people in all of Israel at that time, if not the wealthiest. Because tax collectors, and you know the story how they extorted money, especially from the rich and whatever, and that's how they made all this money. They said, okay, I'm bidding $1,000 on this region. And he was in Jericho, if you remember, and that's not far from Jerusalem, so that would have encompassed all that big city of Jerusalem, and all the rich people lived in Jerusalem. It's like, you know, say I'm going to collect taxes out of Orange County, California. Or, what is it, Nassau County up in New York. You know, I'm going, or Palm Beach County in Florida, Palm Beach, whatever that is. You know, rich, very wealthy areas, you know. And he bids on that, and Roman government says, great, get $1,000, anything you get beyond that, it's yours. So Zacchaeus was very wealthy. Christ comes into his house, sits down, they talk, whatever they talk about, we don't have a record of. But at the end of this, you get ready to have dessert and coffee, and Zacchaeus says, look, I'm telling you that I'm all in on this. Half of what I have, half of what I have, okay, $500 million if he has a billion, is going to the poor, right now. Not only that, but of the rest that I've got, and he uses a very interesting phrase, he says, if I have defrauded, stolen from anyone. Now, that's kind of like one of those things where you say, I heard Juan Pablo, and I'm not going to talk about this, he says, but that's kind of like one of those politicians, and they're up in Washington, D.C., those politicians say, well, if I offended you, well, yeah, you did offend, okay, whatever, but if I stole, that's not what he's saying. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, literally, the Greek is saying, since I stole from these people. Now, let's understand what he's talking about. He didn't steal from everybody. He did not need to steal from me. I couldn't, there wasn't much to steal from, much to get, you see. But what he's doing is he's stealing from those guys that are making hundreds of millions of dollars every year, living up there in luxury. You know who he's talking about? Pharisees, Sadducees, those guys. He has extorted, and they couldn't tell you, because he had right there with him the Roman army, because that's who he's collecting for, and they're backing him up, and so he goes up to Pharisees, whoever he is, Paul, maybe at that time, and says, Paul, look, you know what? I know you got it, and where I'm just getting 1% from all these people that are not wealthy, that's all they can do. I'm going for 60%. Tax rate for you is 60%. And so what he said is, whatever I took from them when I extorted from those rich people, I'm going to pay it back 400%. Four times. And you know what Christ says? I can tell you right now, This is not just a show. Salvation has come to this house today. You know what he said? I can see it, guys. Can't you see it? It's a good chance that Zacchaeus is part of the Jerusalem church, by the way. Maybe by that time he's dead broke, I don't know. I suspect he continued to be a tax collector, because he was so good at it that they made him in charge of a whole bunch of other tax collectors. You can go back and study that in Luke 19. So he may have continued to be a tax collector. And they could make a very good living just being legit about it, right? Even 1%, if he's collected from 1% from everybody, he would be pretty good over what the tax was. Alright, so the point of all that story is to say that there are legit examples in Scripture of those that don't finish strong. And then there's the Zacchaeus' where it's clear that he is a believer. I'll pause another one. Man, is he all in or what? Right? God is the one that judges. I don't have the time to go to 1 Corinthians 11 other than to say this, that when it comes to the Lord's table, we find that there are some that are just not, they're just taking this off handedly and not confessing their sin. And that's why they're sick and weak and even dead. God says he judges this. But I will tell you this in conclusion. This is sanctification. You see? This is the evidence that we're talking about. The one true evidence of salvation is sanctification. You can write that down, right next to sanctification of the Father. The one true evidence of redemption is that people grow and mature. Some of them, it takes a long time. Some of them grow in spurts and they fall back. They take two steps forward and one step back. Some of them grow and then they just level off and stop. At 30%. At 60-fold. You see? So some of them, we understand it's all going to be different. But sanctification is the one evidence of salvation. And everything that's involved in sanctification, through the Spirit and all the other things that we talk about, it will come out one way or another. Remember Ananias and Sapphira? It came out, didn't it? Not saved because it came out, was Zacchaeus. But because he saved, it comes out. But sometimes it's hard to tell. And this is what Paul tells the Corinthians in chapter 3. He says, look, some of you are just immature. Some of you are carnal. I can't tell where you are. This is what James is saying. It's just very dim sometimes. I can't really see the light very strong. Even as believers, I just can't see it. And as we said last time, that light will always infect the dark. And that's what we mean by living out our faith. You can call it lifestyle evangelism if you want. It comes when we are squeezed. That's the beginning of James. When we are facing that testing and adversity. It comes out when we obey, when we are following very closely. And people see that. And it comes out when we bear fruit. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering. And that's really what James is saying. It can come out when the rich guy comes into your assembly and you don't give him any more emphasis than the poor person that comes in. It will come out. Now watch this. That's what a testimony is. Isn't it? Look at the top there. Evidence is given. Expressing the truth. A witness. Or some proof. So what James is describing is exactly what we are looking at and what it is supposed to be. This is a testimony. We've got one more point and we'll do that next week. Thank you Lord for your work. For the time to study this evening. Thank you for your care for us and all that you do for us in bringing us along and not leaving us alone to stumble through. But indeed you bring us along. You test us. You spike us when we need it. You work in our lives. Thank you for what you do. You're so good to us. In your name we pray. Amen.