Faith Bible Church of San Bernardino

10/05/2022

Fall Festival
Friday, October 31st from 5pm-8pm

Lots of FREE games and candy.
All are welcomed.

08/29/2019

Why is peace so hard to find?
By Pastor Scott

James 4:1–2 (NASB) What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel...

Have you ever gotten into a conversation that caused your blood to boil a little bit? Maybe you didn’t want to get upset or heated but it just kinda came out anyway. Maybe someone frustrated you or your plans? Maybe someone caused you to look bad or feel less important? Maybe injustice was done? Or maybe you just didn’t agree with what someone was saying? But even though you tried your hardest to respond nicely, something uncontrollable was boiling up inside. War. Instead of discussing the situation with an open mind, realizing that God has not given us all wisdom, and happily considering the other person's point of view, we attack. It has now become “I am right and you are wrong’” and “whatever it takes to win the war, the end justifies the means.”

What just happened? Have you ever gotten caught up like that? Have you ever told yourself you would be kind to someone, only to find yourself deep into conflict and battle? Why is it so hard to keep from fighting and being combative as much as we do? Why does it take so much energy to be kind when being mean and argumentative is so easy to do? James says in James 4:1-2, that it is because the flesh’s natural desire is to wage war with people.

James starts off in v. 1 “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?” with the assumption that we all struggle with quarreling and conflicts. Some might be less obvious than others about their combativeness, but we all struggle with the same thing. Why is that? Because, according to James, it is one of the flesh’s main attributes. The flesh has a specific anti-God agenda and part of that is to cause us to war with others. God wants us to love and seek peace, but the flesh pushes us in the opposite direction. This is not something we can fight. It is much bigger than us, it is something only God can fight.

This tendency that we all have is very discouraging and at times you might feel that there is no way out. But in v. 6, James says one of my most favorite sayings in the Bible, “But He gives a greater grace…” James 4:6 (NASB). What does he mean? That God is greater than all of that. No matter how messed up our lives might be. No matter what our tendencies are and how deeply ingrained they might be in our lives. No matter how powerful and persuasive the flesh might be, God is greater than it all. “But He gives a greater grace…” James 4:6 (NASB). The power we have over the flesh is found in Christ. In v. 7 he says “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7 (NASB). When we submit to God, then at the same time we are resisting the devil and God causes him to flee from us. But in order for us to be able to submit, we must first humble ourselves before God. That is why James leads “...God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” “ James 4:6 (NASB). We are not able to find God when we are seeking self (the world, the flesh and the devil). But when we stop seeking self, then we can find God and the grace needed to submit to Him causing the devil (flesh) to flee.

What about if I don’t see this warring inside of me? Then you might need to do some deep soul searching. The attitude of combativeness is so ingrained in us, much of it we don’t see because we think we are right. So we must look “...intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abide by it…” James 1:25 (NASB), so that we might start to see ourselves as God does. How do we know what it looks like? When we compare it to God’s wisdom, then we will be able to see man’s wisdom more clearly. “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.” James 3:17

08/13/2019

https://blog.tms.edu/enslaved-a-theology-of-addiction?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=75655790&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8hgds15xfgu23Z6nsxfUciZsAKrkk1FxiRGQiXo7g6DlCbhErnEkkPq9IEmdi8ZYGMVIZXFTJ2CJQpoydDeEQB3wKD4A&_hsmi=75655790

Can I ever truly be free of addiction? The answer is yes, because you are enslaved, not addicted. And there is always hope of liberation.

07/02/2019

13 Spurgeon Quotes for Fighting Sin and Shame

1. “You are a great sinner, but he is a greater Savior.”
2. “As far as God is concerned your sin has ceased to be.”
3. “God is more ready to forgive than I am ready to offend.”
4. “It is the church that is unmerciful sometimes, but not the Master: he is ever willing to receive us when we come to him.”
5. “If Christ was cursed for you, you cannot be cursed again.”
6. “He could not love us more than that if we had never fallen.”
7. “In the family register of glory the small and the great are written with the same pen.”
8. “He is not the God of the hills only, but of the valleys also.”
9. “Your sins are so gone that they cannot be laid to your charge.”
10. “I am forgiven, I am forgiven, I am forgiven!”
11. “When a man believes in Christ, he is in that moment, in God’s sight, as though he had never sinned in all his life.”
12. “Until God can change or lie, he never will bring to mind again the sin of that man whom he hath pardoned.”
13. “Just before I die sanctification will be finished.”

Charles Spurgeon’s ministry was marked by physical and mental wounds. But there was a deeper grief – a sharper barb – that stung the preacher and his people: sin and shame.

06/20/2019

Midweek Fill-up, James 1:22-27
"Learning to hear the Word"

This last Sunday we looked at James 1:22-27 as it talked about “Being Moved by the Word.” On this week’s “Midweek Fill-up”, I would like to focus on v. 25 and explore how our obedience and even passion to follow the Word of our Lord is found in the amount of time we spend hearing the Word.

In the beginning of the book of James, James lays out an example of what it looks like for us to be doers of the Word and not merely hearers only. James 1:2 (NASB) says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.” This verse was more than just one of the many points James wrote to his readers. I believe it is the point of the book -- that we are to grow our faith by trusting that God is orchestrating something beautiful and perfect through the chaos of our lives. And that we find joy in the contentment that God is repurposing our circumstances into something that brings Him glory and transforms us into His image. But now he adds to that thought, explaining that our ability to trust Him, is directly proportional to the amount of time we spend hearing the Word.

In James (NASB) 1:22 he says, “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” It would be wrong to say this passage is teaching us to not be hearers of God’s Word and doers only. But that we should be both because the more we hear the Word of God the more we will do it. In v. 23-24 he says that the reason we don’t trust God and His Word as we should is because we are not good hearers. James 1:23–24 (NASB) says, “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.” He is saying that we don’t take the time to fix what the mirror of God’s Word shows us to be wrong because we don’t spend enough time thinking about God’s Word. If our time is consumed with the things of the world and we are mainly hearing from it, then it will naturally lure us away from loving God and wanting to serve Him. We will love what we spend the most time thinking about.

But we can be overcomers of the world through Christ by being a hearer of His Word. James lays this out in v.v 16-17 that we are going to continually be drawn away by the lusts of our heart until we learn that Christ is enough in every situation. And the way that we learn this is through seeing Him in His Word. James explains this in v. 25 as a person “who looks intently at the perfect law.” James 1:25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. Reading the Word and even memorizing it is not enough, we have to hear it (James 1:19-21). To “look intently into the law of liberty” is to let our mind stay on the truth of Christ as exposed in His Word. And this truth will transform us, if we allow it to stay and wash our minds, if we spend time digesting the truth, if we spend time basking in the glory of the Lord and if we respond to the Word by repenting from what it exposes in our life. According to Romans 12:2 and Philippians 2:13, the more time we spend basking in the glory of the Lord the more God transforms us into His image and strips the love of the world away from us.

You might be struggling to believe that God can turn your situation or circumstance into something that is good or you might be struggling with the truth that you are apathetic to all of this and you really don’t care that much about it. If you are struggling with any of this, then you are struggling to understand the glory of God and His goodness. The only way that will change is through “looking intently into the law of liberty.” The more time we spend looking at God and repenting from what it exposes in us, the more power we will find to overcome the lusts of our flesh, the more grace we will find to love Christ and His Word, and the more joy and contentment we will find in all circumstances.

06/13/2019

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/david-powlisons-commencement-address-unafraid-publicly-weak/

My deepest hope for you is that in both your personal life and your ministry to others, you would be unafraid to be publicly weak as the doorway to the strength of God Himself.

06/11/2019

Midweek Fill-up, James 1:2-4
"Considering it Joy because God is Orchestrating good"

How do we change the way that we think about our circumstances? What do we do when our circumstances frustrate us and we can't change it? The reality is, the more we try to change the way we see our circumstances, the more frustrated we get. There are two reasons why that is true. 1). Frustration is a fruit of the flesh, not the Spirit. So, in order to be frustrated, we have to be focus on ourselves. Therefore, the more we try to change the way we feel about our circumstances, the more it makes us focus on self, which increases not decreases, our frustrations. 2). When we are frustrated, it is because we do not see our circumstances as good. And when we see something as bad in our lives, we try to fix it. But when it can't be fixed, it is frustrating. So to tell myself to not get frustrated or even to try to convince myself that this is good when I believe it it bad, is not going to change anything. It is impossible to change the way we feel about our circumstances, but it is possible to change the way we see God in the midst of our circumstances: Worship.

In our men's discipleship class we have been going through the Gospel Primer by Milton Vincent. The point of the Primer is that our attitudes and actions in life will change when we spend more time changing the way we see God in our lives. And the best way to do that is through meditating and focusing on Gospel truths; 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NASB) But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. One of those truths is that God will take every circumstance, past, present and future, and will cause it to be the refiners fire in our lives, which changes us into being more like the Christ. Romans 8:28 (NASB) And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. That is why God said through James in James 1:2 that we can and should count all circumstances as joy, because God is orchestrating them all to be the very mechanism that transforms us into His image. So much so, that He says in James 1:4, the more we we count our circumstance as joy or see God as doing good through them, the more we will be transformed into His image.

So how do we do that? When we get frustrated, we should preach the gospel to ourselves. Or in other words, we should continually wash our minds with the gospel truth that God in His great love and mighty sovereignty is orchestrating every circumstance in our lives to transform us into who He wants us to become. And if we continue to drink in that truth like sitting under a waterfall, our minds will be transformed and our faith will grow. We will begin to believe what we couldn't believe, that the situation we thought was bad, God is orchestrating for good, And the more we think about that gospel truth, the more we will believe it is true.

Try this for the rest of the week and see what God does in you.

Truly,

Pastor Scott

06/11/2019

Mid Week Fill-up, James 1:13-15
"We are lured away from God because of what we treasure."

This last Sunday, as we were going through the book of James, we looked at James 1:13-15, "Putting Blame Where it Belongs." James is dealing with young believers who had to flee the motherland, only to trade one form of persecution for another. He implies that in the middle of their persecution and trials, they began blaming God for their circumstances and also blaming Him for the way they responded to them as well. However, James brings clarity to this form of blame shifting and directs the real source of blame to our own lusts. We can not blame our circumstances, people, demonic influence or anything else for our sin — the blame lies in our hearts.

But the reason we all blame shift is because the truth of how often and deeply we sin is just too hard to bear at times. So much so, that we would rather lie about it than tell the truth. So, in order for us to go any further with this, we have to put our faith in Christ as our Lord and Savior. And if we do, then we are assured that our relationship and status with God is built on what He has done on the cross and not what we have or have not done. In the Gospel we find forgiveness our our sins. So if we are forgiven, there can be no guilt or shame. Then with the cross in our sights, we can bravely deal with the truth in our hearts.

James explains in 1:14 that the reason we sin and especially during trials is because of the lust that lies deeply in our hearts. James 1:14 (NASB) But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. A lust is something we crave or treasure more than God. We can lust for money, reputation, success, looks, love and most importantly for what self wants which is in conflict to what God wants. These cravings or treasures act like bait on a hook and when we take that bait, it drags us away and consumes us. The bait looks more appealing than what God can offer, but in the end it is only trying to destroy us.

To defeat the lust of our heart we need to change what we love. First, we cannot change what we love, but God can. We love the things of this world because they seem more attractive than God. The reason for that is that we don't understand His beauty and don't spend enough time enjoying and worshipping Him. 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NASB) ...beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. The more we enjoy how much He loves us, cares for us and sacrificed for us, the more we start to see His beauty. And the more we understand how every word of Scripture reflects the glory of God, the more attractive and enticing He becomes. So we can change what we love by changing where our thoughts spend the most time.

The Second way to change what we love is by calling our lusts ‘evil’ and ‘destructive’. The reason we lust for them is because in our minds we consider them as joyous, appetizing and good. But victory is found by confessing them to God as evil and destructive. Philippians 3:8 (NASB) More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord... We lust for them because they seem good to us, but if we continue to transform our mind with the truth and call our lusts what they really are (which is evil), then by faith we will start to believe that. And the more we see God as attractive and sin as unattractive, the more we will find victory over our lusts.

Finding victory over certain lusts and sin is going to take some time. It will not look like a finish line but as the layers of an onion. We will gain victory over one layer, only to find that there is more. But the true victory is found in the process. And the process is learning more and more to see the beauty of God and at the same time confessing sin more and more. We might not find the victory we are looking for in every area, but with this process you will find the glory of God which we all should be seeking.