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Live in the Word
January 17, 2010
James 1
by Pastor Stan
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INTRODUCTION
     We are starting 2010 doing a discipleship emphasis with the theme “The Call to Follow Christ.” All those who are called to know Christ are also called to follow Him, to be His disciple.
The workbook that we’re encouraging everyone to use during this series is based on a diagram called “The Disciple’s Cross.”
At the center of the Cross is Christ, emphasizing that being a Christian means having a real, life-transforming relationship with Christ. Following Christ, being His disciple, means abiding in Christ, living a Christ-centered life. Our relationship with Christ is not just one part of our lives—it’s the central reality of our lives. Our relationship with Christ connects to and directs everything about our lives.
 The arms of the Cross are means God employs to enable us to live this kind of a life. Each week we’ll be examining a different arm of the cross. We start this week with the “Word,” referring, of course, to the Word of God, the Bible. While all the means represented in the arms of the Cross are vital, the Word of God is the first among equals.
 The book of James has a lot to say about how to live as a follower of Christ, how to be His disciple, and James begins in the first chapter by emphasizing two critical roles the Word of God has in the life of the disciple—the disciple is regenerated through the Word and transformed by the Word.
    Cf., James 1:18-27

I. THE CHRISTIAN DISCIPLE IS REGENERATED THROUGH THE WORD (V. 18)
    -- James makes it clear that the Christian disciple is regenerated through the Word. (v. 18)
A. DISCIPLESHIP IS NOT A REFORMATION BUT A  REGENERATION.
 Discipleship does not start with a New Year’s resolution on your part to do better. Your problems are too great for that to be effective.
     You need something much more radical than a resolution or a reformation; you need regeneration, a new birth. You entered this world spiritually dead, and a dead person cannot give himself or herself life. Only God can give you the new birth of spiritual life.

B. 2 ASPECTS OF OUR REGENERATION (NEW BIRTH)
James identifies in verse 18 two aspects of our regeneration or new birth.
1. The basis of our regeneration is God’s will.
The NIV says that God “chose to give us new birth,” or more literally, “according to His will He gave birth to us.” Our salvation is rooted in the eternal decrees of God and in the exercise of His will to accomplish those decrees. God always initiates salvation.
2. The means that God uses to bring about our salvation is “through the word of truth.”
 It’s in the Bible that God reveals the truth that leads to salvation—the truth of our hopelessly lost condition, the truth of God’s love for lost sinners, and the truth of Christ’s atoning, redeeming death for us. The Holy Spirit uses the proclamation of the Gospel, the good news of God’s provision for salvation through Christ’s death, to bring the sinner to new life in Christ.
    1 Peter 1:23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
    Romans 1:16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes...
    Peter Jenkins began a five-year, 4,500-mile walk across America in October of 1973. First published as two articles in National Geographic, his memoirs then led to two best-selling books, The Walk Across America and The Walk West.
Two years into the journey, he stumbled into an Alabama revival and ended up accepting Christ. Here’s how Jenkins describes it:
“When the revival began, this guy from Texas named James Robison came out screaming and preaching and throwing his arms around. There was sweat dripping and everything. He was dressed in a three-piece suit and cowboy boots.
The two of us could not have more unalike. I was this young man with sun-bleached reddish hair down to his shoulders and an unshaven beard. But I honestly felt like when he was preaching the gospel, a huge sword was slicing me into a whole bunch of pieces.
He was saying, ‘Joining


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