In this episode, Pastors Whit George and Blake Zimmerman unpack the end of James 4 and the beginning of James 5, exploring how our plans, words, and money reveal what our lives truly orbit around.
In a culture driven by impulse and self-interest, James calls us to live differently—to see everything we have as His, to give freely, and to center our lives around the One who holds it all.
It’s easy to read the book of James as a list of moral commands—do this, don’t do that. But when we approach Scripture that way, our faith begins to root itself in performance rather than in the person of God.
James isn’t trying to hand us a checklist for spiritual success; he’s leading us toward the heart of God.
In Exodus 20, before God ever gives a single command, He reminds Israel who He is and what He’s done for them. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt.” The rules that follow aren’t arbitrary—they’re relational. They were meant to guide God’s people deeper into His heart. The same is true for James.
A faith that’s reduced to rules becomes a dead faith.
James warns against speaking evil of one another, reminding us that to judge someone else is to take a position that belongs to God alone. The proud person imagines himself above God; the wise person submits beneath Him.
Submission isn’t weakness—it’s wisdom. It’s the recognition that God’s authority is greater than mine, that His ways are higher even when they’re not clear. Every area of our lives that remains unsubmitted to Him will eventually become a place of confrontation. God gently says, “Give Me this.”
Sometimes, that means bringing Him our words—our tone, our posture, our reactions toward others. His Word confronts and convicts, but not to condemn.
When God brings something to light, we have a responsibility to respond. Grace always demands a response—it softens some hearts and hardens others.
James reminds us that maturity in faith begins with seeing God rightly. A “big God” theology starts with this truth: God doesn’t orbit around us—we orbit around Him. He isn’t just the inventor of everything; He existed before everything. He is fully satisfied in Himself, complete without our contribution.
Worship, then, is not about what we get from God—it’s about centering our lives around Him. Everything begins and ends with who He is.
Faith isn’t certainty in a particular outcome; it’s certainty in the unchanging character of God. When James says, “If the Lord wills,” he’s calling us away from self-assured planning and into humble trust. A mature Christian is adaptable because their confidence rests not in circumstances but in the One who holds them.
When faith becomes rigidly attached to a specific outcome, disappointment can wreck it. But when faith is anchored in who God is, it remains steady even when life doesn’t go as planned.
If everything begins and ends with God, the next natural question is: How do we see Him?
We see God not by imagination but by revelation. He reveals Himself through His Word and His works—through creation (general revelation), through Scripture (special revelation), and ultimately through personal relationship in Christ (personal revelation).
We are constantly drawn to what’s immediate and temporary, but Scripture keeps calling us back to what’s eternal.
As James moves into chapter 5, he uses sharp, even exaggerated language to warn about the deception of wealth. Money has a way of tricking us into believing we’re in control. The world operates on financial incentives, but followers of Jesus are called to a different economy—one of stewardship.
Everything we have belongs to God. We’re not owners but caretakers.
When we spend freely without self-denial, we train our hearts to expect satisfaction on demand. But a thriving community of Jesus followers learns to sit with desire rather than rush to satisfy it.
If culture teaches us to be impulse spenders, what would it look like for the church to become impulse givers?
That’s the picture James paints—a people shaped not by culture’s reflexes, but by God’s generosity. A people whose lives orbit around Him.
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In this episode, they reference the book The Gospel Way Catechism by Trevin Wax and Thomas West
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