Sermon 2020.11.15 James Part 9

Those of us who grew up in the church, learned from our earliest years about how God is eternal, infinite, and omnipotent.  Those who come to the church later in life soon learn these things as well.  We learn that God created the entire universe, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the galaxies, simply by speaking it all into existence.  And He created plants, and animals, and all living things, including us, simply by breathing life into the world.  Yes, our God is indeed an awesome God, but for all of His power, there is one thing that He is incapable of doing, and I promise that I am not being a heretic here.  God is incapable of creating love.  And the reason that God is incapable of creating love, is the fact that love can only be given of one’s free will.  And so, God created humanity, and then He set us free to live our lives as we choose, in the hope that we may possibly come to discover the incredible love that God has for us, and that we might possibly choose to respond to that love in kind.

Soren Kierkegaard tells the story of a wealthy young prince.  This prince is of marrying age and has been looking for his future queen.  The prince often traveled throughout the kingdom doing his father’s business, and one day as he traveled to the poorest part of the kingdom, he saw a woman who was the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.  As luck would have it, he met the woman as he conducted his father’s business and found her to be as kind and of as good character as she was beautiful, and after several meetings with her, he realized that he was quite in love with her, and now he has the problem of figuring out how to ask for her hand in marriage.  At first, he thinks that he will summon her to the palace, but if he did that he would never know if she really loves him or was just too intimidated by his princely surroundings to decline his offer.  Likewise, he couldn’t just show up on her doorstep in his princely regalia.  Then he thought that perhaps he could masquerade as a commoner and then reveal himself as prince after they had met and fallen in love, but then he realized that their relationship would be founded on deception, and that was unacceptable to him as well.  So, finally the prince did the only thing he could do.  He abdicated his throne, traveled to the poorest part of the kingdom with nothing but the clothes on his back, and took a job as a simple carpenter in the hope that, perhaps they would meet, and perhaps she would fall in love with him.

God IS love, and God created humanity for the specific purpose of having people who He could love, and people who would love Him, but just like Kierkegaard’s prince, God can’t summon our love.  God has surrounded us with reasons to love Him, and He created us with an innate knowledge of who He is because He made us to be like Him.  He has filled us with a need for love and companionship, He has expressed His love for us by giving us things of beauty, wonderful food, art and music, and He has gifted us with a sense of humor.  God has filled this word with the evidence of His goodness, and our search for meaning in this life should lead the humble heart directly to Him.  But for God, that’s a big if!  A few weeks ago, I quoted Blaise Pascal, who said “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each [person] which cannot be satisfied by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.  God has planted the seeds that can lead to us finding Him in our lives, and indeed the evidence is plentiful to anyone who is willing to look, but ultimately, the decision of whether or not we choose to love God remains entirely our own.

Through 21 sermons talking about the two letters of Peter and this letter of James, we have spoken at length about two different ways of looking at the world.  Both Peter and James contrast a worldly way of living that is rooted in self-interest with a heavenly way of living that is rooted in love. 

The heavenly way is not the easier way of the two.  The heavenly way sometimes involves sacrifice, as we choose to deny ourselves of something that we may want, in order to see to it that a need is filled elsewhere.  The heavenly way involves choosing a mindset that is incomprehensible to this world.  On more than one occasion the Bible tells us that the wisdom of God is foolishness to humans, and those who practice living according to God’s wisdom will sometimes be shunned or disadvantaged by a world that can’t comprehend the love that drives our actions.  Sometimes people may make fun of us because our faith, or they may revile us for our faith, or even persecute us for our faith, and sometimes that persecution may come from an apostate church that is also incapable of comprehending the love that drives our actions.

We may be denied employment opportunities because we chose not to work on Sunday mornings, we may lose opportunities for recreation because we refuse to participate in Sunday morning sports. We may lose friends because they don’t understand the change that takes place in our lives as we allow the Spirit to guide us, and in some parts of the world, our lives themselves can be threatened by our faith. 

Making a choice to follow a heavenly path isn’t one to be taken lightly.  Those folks that you hear on the TV promising prosperity if you’ll just pray hard enough and maybe send them a buck or two, are unfortunately, not preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The Bible tells us plainly that in this world we will have tribulation.  But the promise that awaits those with patient faith is tremendous, and well worth the wait.

And it’s here that we intersect with James’ closing remarks.

Remember, James was speaking to a congregation that was enduring persecution and hardship.  Judging from the previous section, it’s likely that a good part of his congregation was poor also.  James closes his letter by encouraging his readers to stand firm in their faith.

“Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming.” James writes.  “See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains.  You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.”  The Greek word ἐγγίζω (eggizo) that we translate “near” is not so much about the time of the return as it is about the imminence of the return.  We don’t know the day and time and Jesus said that He didn’t either, but only the Father, but we do understand the importance of being prepared.  Here, James tells us to be patient, using as an example, a farmer watchfully waiting for his crop to become ready for harvest.  The farmer waits with the understanding that there are things that are out of his control.  A farmer doesn’t control when or if it rains, but a farmer doesn’t just sit idly by waiting for the harvest, he must always be ready to respond to situations that require his attention. 

It’s interesting to note that there are two different Greek words that describe this patience to which we are called.  Μακροθυμέω (Makrothumeo) is used first.  “Be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return”.  The word actually means to be long tempered, to defer, or refuse to retaliate with anger.  The second word is ὑπομονή (hupomone) which is about enduring patiently.  Μακροθυμέω is the response of the believer to other people, choosing to be gracious and even tempered, ὑπομονή is choosing to be patient with circumstances.  To one facing trial, these two go hand in hand. 

I actually much prefer the King James translation of verse 8 which, instead of saying “take courage” says “establish your hearts”.  The idea is to hold fast to God’s promises and not to let the difficulties or trials of life deter you from maintaining that faith.

Throughout James’ letter, his primary focus has been living your faith.  As he closes his letter, we can look at his exhortations in two different ways.  We can, of course, view his remarks as instructions, and that is certainly an appropriate way to read this section, but we can also look at this as his final words as a checklist to look at our own lives and evaluate how we are doing in living our faith. 

Are we anxious and impatient?  If we genuinely believe in God’s goodness and love for us, then we needn’t be overly anxious about our future, because we know that we are in God’s hands.  When we do become anxious or concerned, how does it affect how we treat others.  Are we generically crabby?  (That’s me, by the way).  Do we blame others for our difficulties or lash out in frustration?  If our love is directed outward, then our concern for how we treat others should preclude mistreating them when things get difficult.  James follows this exact line of thinking with his next statement that we shouldn’t grumble about each other.  This grumbling, James says, puts us in danger of judgment.  And again, please remember that the judgment faced by the believer is different from the judgment faced by the non-believer.  Sin, in the believer’s life, has already been judged at the cross, so the believer’s salvation is secure, but we can’t forget that we also will face judgment as to how we stewarded God’s resources and gifts.

James then calls our attention to the faithfulness of the prophets, and there is an excellent lesson to be learned by studying the lives of the prophets.  Not all of the prophets were successful by worldly standards.  They were not all able to make their messages heard and accepted.  There were prophets who were ignored, were mistreated, and were killed for their testimony, and yet these very same prophets who failed in the transmission of their message are regarded as great examples of patience.  They were faithful to their calling and will receive the reward the Lord has prepared for them for their faithfulness. Our attitude should be no different.  God has called us and prepared us to serve Him.  Is that our priority?  Store up treasures in heaven, right?

James then cites Job as an example.  Hopefully, everyone is familiar with the story of Job.  It is an uncomfortable story.  Job is a faithful servant of God who God allows Satan to test.  Job basically loses everything; his wealth, his health, even his family.  Still, Job never loses his faith, even though he questions God’s actions loudly and forcefully.  Eventually Job’s health and fortune are restored by God and he begins a new family, but the message of Job is clear, and was echoed by Jesus when He said “In this life you will have tribulation”.  Difficulties are going to happen, but God is teaching us both kinds of patient endurance.  The kind that honors God by trusting in Him to provide for our needs, and the kind that honors others by not responding negatively to others when difficulties or frustrations build.

James then talks about not making oaths.  Now, this isn’t an admonition about not using impious language, it is specifically about swearing to the truth of something.  In fact, James really isn’t so much talking about the use of oaths here, as he is talking about character.  James Moo describes this beautifully when he says “Our truthfulness should be so consistent and dependable that we need no oath to support it: a simple “yes” or “no” should suffice.  Our mere word should be as utterly trustworthy as a signed document, legally correct and complete.” Is our word trustworthy?  First century Israelites commonly used oaths to support their statements, but would sometimes make their oath calling on lesser things, as if it was OK for their words not to be true because they swore by something that was inconsequential, rather than swearing by something more serious, as if the lesser oath somehow made lying OK. 

Finally, James talks about prayer.  Are you suffering hardships? You should pray.  Are any of you happy?  You should sing praises.  Personally, I think that’s a great idea!  A quote, dubiously attributed to Augustine says “He who sings, prays twice”.  Whether Augustine actually said it or not, I do agree with the sentiment!  Are you sick” You should call the elders of the church to come and pray over you. 

James then says “The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.”  James tells us that Elijah was just like us, and yet his fervent prayers kept it from raining for 3 ½ years, then his prayers ended the drought and brought back the rain.  Prayer is not about us or our abilities, it’s about God and His abilities.  We need to be faithful in prayer because it’s our faithfulness in prayer that keeps us connected to God.  Brian Lindquist says that “Our relationship with God is not primarily about the destination (spending eternity with Him in heaven) but it’s more about the process of getting there.  He wants to walk with us in, and through, every situation in this life as preparation for all of eternity spent with Him.

The choice to follow the kingdom strategy is not an easy one, but it’s well worth the choice.  It’s also not a singular event.  It is a series of choices made day by day and minute by minute.  It’s about choosing to live lives of grace and compassion.  It’s about choosing to love.  It’s about taking the actions and experiences of everyday life and consecrating them to God, with the result of making our every action an act of praise.  And as we live this life of praise, as we make the little every day choices to love and to serve, our hearts will begin to look more and more like God’s heart.  And that, my dear brothers and sisters, is the whole point of this life.  We are preparing for an eternity of service to a God whose love for us is so deep that He sent His only Son to die for us, in order that we may be reconciled to Him.

No, life will not always be easy, and we will never, in this lifetime, experience the full measure of joy that God has prepared for those who are faithful.  But it’s waiting for us my friends… it’s waiting.

Sermon 2020.11.08 James Part 8

At first glance, today’s Old Testament lesson doesn’t seem to have a whole lot to do with the subjects that we’ve been addressing in James, and yet I believe that there’s a story within, that will speak volumes, and also speak directly to James’ point; and the central figures in this little story today are going to be the Pharisees. 

Unfortunately, to modern Christians, Pharisees are often the low-hanging fruit.  Given the almost constant friction between Jesus and the Pharisees the Pharisees have become almost a caricature of themselves; so much so that we may find it hard to take them seriously, so as we think about them this morning, there are two things that I would like for us to remember.  First is the fact that these were deeply committed, children of God.  Their entire lives revolved around the worship and service of God, and in some ways, worship and service that the modern Christian believer would do well to emulate.  The second, and more easily forgotten thing, is the fact that prior to Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was not poured out on all believers.  Prior to Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was reserved for prophets who God anointed, and so the Pharisees were “flying blind” so to speak.  They did not have the advantage that we have, of God Himself guiding and instructing them, and in that light, it becomes much easier to understand why Jesus had such a challenging job reaching them with the truth of God’s Word.

In today’s Old Testament lesson we read “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.”

In Matthew 23:5, referring to the Pharisees, Jesus said “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long…”  So, what exactly IS a phylactery?  A phylactery was a small box, worn tied to the forehead, into which you have placed a piece of paper upon which you have written a Bible verse or two.  “Bind them on your foreheads”, right?  For those of us who are familiar with the old TV show Get Smart, this brings to my mind the character of Himey the robot, who always took everything just completely literally.  Now while I would imagine that walking around all day with a box tied to your forehead might possibly serve as a reminder to be thinking about God’s Word, in reality, I believe the Pharisees missed the point here, by approximately an inch to be precise.  The Word of God is not meant to be external.  It’s not intended to be merely a reminder of what we are supposed to be thinking.  God’s Word is intended to be a part of who we are.  The Spirit teaches us that to bind God’s Word to our foreheads is to internalize God’s thoughts and precepts so that they become our own. 

So much of the world, so much of Christianity has this phylactery faith going on.  A person’s Bible has an honored place on the mantle at home and every year at Christmas they blow the dust off of it so that they can read the Christmas story again.  We show our faith by holding our Bibles up for all the world to see, but where the world NEEDS to be seeing our Bibles, is in actions of love and justice and humility. 

The Bible refers to Jesus as being the Living Word of God.  Have we ever thought about what that means?  In the Greek, the word that we translate as “Word” (with a capital “W”) is λόγος (logos). At its essence, λόγος means the verbal expression of a thought or an idea, but in ancient Greek and Christian theology, λόγος represented something much more.  According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, λόγος was “the divine reason, implicit in the cosmos, ordering it, and giving it form and reason.”  In Christian theology, λόγος is the physical manifestation of everything that IS God, and this entire physical manifestation of God is expressed in the person of Jesus; The Living Word.  And the call to the Christian is for this word, this λόγος to be expressed in us as well.  It’s simply not good enough to carry our Bible verses around in a box on our foreheads.  The Word of God needs to live within us, expressed daily in our words, our thoughts, and most importantly, in our actions.

As James continues his letter, he issues a series of warnings, and each of these warnings is speaking directly to the idea of failing to have God’s word dwelling within us as an active and functional part of our lives.  He begins with those whose plans are not rooted in God’s will.  James says “Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.”  James refers to this as “boasting about your own pretentious plans.”  When God’s Word is at the center of our hearts, our plans will reflect God’s will and purposes.  These people were making their plans to benefit themselves and nothing more.

Indeed, we probably recall Jesus’ parable about the rich fool.  A farmer has an extraordinarily abundant crop.  The farmer, realizing that his barns were not big enough to hold this bounty, decides to pull down his barns and build bigger ones so he can store his surplus for many years, affording him the opportunity to “eat, drink, and be merry”.  But as we know; God took the farmer’s life that very night. 

“Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone”, James says.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 

When one’s heart is set on earthly things, one’s actions tend be self-serving.  When this farmer harvested a bumper crop, that abundance was created by God, and the crop was indeed OWNED by God, our farmer was merely a steward of the abundance that was harvested, and that abundance must have been truly remarkable because it was worth even more than the cost of the tearing down and rebuilding of barns.  I can’t help but think that a heart that was aligned with God’s heart would have been able to find a use for this abundance of grain that was better than just hoarding it.

James continues this exact thought with a sobering warning to the wealthy.  “Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you.  Your wealth is rotting away, and your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags.  Your gold and silver are corroded. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. This corroded treasure you have hoarded will testify against you on the day of judgment.”  James makes the point that, the rich people to whom he speaks have denied workers their wages.  I find myself wondering if our rich fool shared the bounty of his harvest with his laborers. 

James continues, “You have spent your years on earth in luxury, satisfying your every desire. You have fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter.  You have condemned and killed innocent people, who do not resist you.” 

It’s at this point that I would like to clarify something.  How many of you are familiar with the Biblical phrase “money is the root of all evil”?  How many are familiar with the fact that that phrase is possibly the most commonly misquoted phrase in the Bible?  The phrase, partially quoted, actually DOES say that money is the root of all evil, but that is not what the phrase was intended to mean.  Properly quoted in context, the quote is “the LOVE of money is the root of all evil”.  There’s nothing wrong with money, there’s nothing wrong with having money.  There’s nothing wrong with having a lot of money.  The problem is when the love of money, or the love of acquiring money, or even the love of attempting to acquire money unsuccessfully, supersedes your love of God, and of God’s children.  You see, this is not a teaching about money at all, it’s a teaching about the condition of the human heart.

In Genesis 30 we read that “Jacob became very wealthy, with large flocks of sheep and goats, female and male servants, and many camels and donkeys.”  And yet in Malachi 1 God, speaking through Malachi, says “This is how I showed my love for you: I loved your ancestor Jacob.”  God loved Jacob, and blessed him with enormous wealth, but Jacob was faithful, never allowing his possessions to become more important to him than his service to God. 

When Jesus said that it would be easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the disciples were amazed, because material wealth  was thought by the Israelites to be a sign of blessing from God, but Jesus knew the truth that, far more often than not, wealth is acquired by taking from others that which does not belong to you, hence James’ statement “For listen! Hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. The cries of those who harvest your fields have reached the ears of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”

In this passage, James has illustrated beautifully the divergence between the earthly and heavenly ways of thinking.  The earthly mind views the fruits of one’s labors as their own.  I worked for this, I earned it, why should I share it with anyone else?  From an earthly standpoint, this mindset makes perfect sense.  Why SHOULD we toil for something, only to give it away, or have it taken from us?  What right do others have to expect that I should give some of that for which I have worked so hard to someone who didn’t work for it at all.  Yet look deeper within these statements and a different picture emerges.  Is it possible that we can look at these statements and see selfishness?  Can we look at these statements and see a rejection of the needs of others, precipitated by an almost complete lack of love?  Jesus said that you can’t love both God and money.  The one who loves money will find themselves lacking the ability to love God’s children, because their money is more important to them.

Now, is someone who hasn’t worked, entitled to a portion of that for which we worked?  Actually… no, they’re not.  But are we entitled to forgiveness, when we are incapable of living lives that merit that forgiveness?  Actually… no, we’re not.  In both instances, the operative process is grace.  The heart that has been filled with God’s love, the heart that has chosen to look at the world through heavenly eyes, understands first, that the fruit of our labors belongs not to us, but to God.  Everything about our labor, from aptitude, to training, to opportunity, to result, is a gift from God.  And second, as we view the world through the lens of God’s extraordinary love, we can see the desperate need of others, and the believing heart rejoices at the opportunity to share what we can with those in need. 

It all cycles back to that phylactery faith.  If one wears their bible in a box on their forehead and never allows the Word to impact their hearts and minds, then selfishness and self-serving ways can easily be justified.  It’s only when we allow the Word to permeate our being that this alternate worldview begins to make sense. 

And so, how do we affect this change in our lives?  How do we adopt this new worldview?  What do we have to do to allow God’s love to reign in our hearts?  Most of you know by now that I am a huge Warren Wiersbe fan.  I think the primary reason that I like him so much is the fact that, time and time again, his observations hit the nail squarely on the head.  In addressing these very questions, Wiersbe once again provides the perfect response.  “The will of God is not difficult to discover”, Wiersbe says.  “If we are willing to obey, He is willing to reveal.”  Wiersbe continues, “It has been said that obedience is the organ of spiritual knowledge.  This is true.  God does not reveal His will to the curious or the careless, but [only] to those who are ready and willing to obey Him.”

So, let’s talk for just a moment about obedience, because, let’s be honest, humans HATE obedience.  From the time that we are toddlers, we feel an overwhelming desire for independence and self-determination.  As teens we can’t wait to grow up, because we’ve had our fill of people telling us what to do.  As adults we become irritated with people who are bossy or demanding.  The last thing that we want is someone else telling us what to do and how to live our lives. 

But here’s what we need to understand.  God IS love; and not only is God love, God is PERFECT love.  The impetus for God’s will for us is inextricably rooted in His perfect love for us.  God knows exactly what is best for us, what is right for us, and believe it or not, exactly what will bring us joy.  God wants us to be happy, to be joyful, to be fulfilled, His love earnestly desires this, and no matter how much things may seem to the contrary, true happiness is not to be found in the things of this world.  Yes, God did create the things of this world for our enjoyment and our happiness, but possessions can never replace love, and the path to true love can only be found in obedience to the will of God.  A will that has been crafted by God for each of us individually, specifically designed to lead us to a full understanding of the depth of love that God has for us, and given with the intention of filling our hearts with that love, in order that we will share that love with a world that is in desperate need.

I’ve said it before, that the very same Holy Spirit who makes Jesus perfectly God, dwells within each of us.  The extent to which the Holy Spirit will make our hearts look like God’s heart, is limited only by how obedient we are willing to be.

Gracious Father, teach us to follow you with all of our hearts.  Help us to trust in your love and to know that your will for us is designed to bring joy and fulfillment into our lives.  Help us to hold your word, your λόγος, in our hearts, and help us to be beacons of your love, shining for all the world to see, that you may be glorified.  Amen.

Sermon 2020.10.25 James Part 7

Karl Barth is widely considered to be one of the finest Christian minds of the 20^th century.  Barth profoundly impacted the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Hans Kung, and Reinhold Niebuhr, among many others, and his five-volume work on Church Dogmatics is one of the most thorough and influential studies of systematic theology written in the history of the church.  He’s also the author of one of my favorite quotes.  Barth once said “in the church of Jesus Christ, there should be no non-theologians”. 

Having an understanding of the theology of our faith is incredibly important because through that understanding, we learn how to live.  At its core, theology is the study of God’s heart, and since our goal is to make our hearts look like God’s heart, we really kind of need to know what our goal looks like, don’t we?  I’ve spent almost my entire adult life working as a retail store manager, and one of the things that is drilled into managers in training is the importance of giving clear, definable, attainable goals to those who report to you.  A manager can’t reasonably expect his staff to perform up to expectations until you’ve made those expectations crystal clear.  So it is with our faith that we want to have a clear understanding of what God’s expectations are for us, and that understanding comes from our knowledge of theology.

It would be my fondest hope that in the weeks that you have so graciously allowed me to fill this pulpit that I have helped to lead you on that journey to a better understanding of the theology of your faith, but there is a really interesting dynamic here.  In spite of all of the words spoken, Theology, from God’s standpoint, is actually just about as simple as it gets…  Love God, love your neighbor.  That’s it folks, love God, love your neighbor.  When Jesus was asked what was the most important commandment, He replied ^“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”  Those were Jesus’ own words, “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

The great Jewish Rabbi Hillel was once asked to teach the entire Torah while standing on one foot.  Hillel’s insightful reply was “That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary — [and now] go study.”  This is a beautiful response, not only for its simplicity and accuracy, but especially for its admonition to “go and study”.  Though God’s theology is incredibly simple, learning to apply that theology to our everyday lives is incredibly complex.  Karl Barth’s seminal work on systematic theology is over six million words written in five volumes, and it is unfinished; he died before he could complete it.

In the two books of Peter that we have studied together, and now in James, both writers have tried to present our Christian theology as being rooted in a choice that we each have to make either to present our lives to God, committing to spend a lifetime learning what it means to follow Him and to serve Him, or to reject God, either consciously or subconsciously, and to live our lives according to our own whims and desires.

Critics of Christianity, and really critics of religion in general, claim that people follow that which can’t be known; that ultimately, people get their minds set on one thing or another that “God told me to do” and that much of the world’s strife and suffering is a result of this line of thinking, and they’re not completely wrong.  But follow me on this, because there are some things that CAN be known… if God’s perfect commandment to love God and to love our neighbor is being applied, then strife and suffering will be completely impossible, because the actions of one who is loving will, of necessity, never hurt anyone… ever.  So those who are acting hurtfully, much as they may feel their cause to be justified, are NOT acting within the will of God.  THIS is why understanding the theology of our faith is so critically important.  Not only do we need to have a right understanding of what it means for us to serve God, but we need to be living a life of faithful service to God, in order to help the world to understand that God is not the source of earthly strife and suffering.  When hatefulness and intolerance are wrapped in the name of Jesus, it gives all of Christianity a black eye.  Our responsibility as believers is to counter that narrative by living lives of extravagant love and unmerited grace; in order that we may show the world what the heart of God really looks like.

James begins this section of his letter explaining why people do not get along.  Dissention in the church greatly diminishes our witness, and James wants us to understand why differences and quarrels happen.  The language that James uses here is harsh, but he is trying to make a point.  He is describing the actions of people who have chosen to continue to follow the world’s way of doing things.  “What is causing the quarrels and fights among you?” James says, “Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you?  You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it.  And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.” 

There are two things that are going on here.  First, James is describing the actions of the one who has a worldly heart.  It’s not a pretty picture that James paints, but unfortunately, it’s accurate.    I’ve used this quote from Richard Coble before, but it bears repeating, as it explains perfectly the worldly heart.  Coble says “[It’s the] order of human life which consistently rejects or defies God and His claims upon [humans].  It is essentially a self-centered life.  Its primary traits are the giving of great effort to gratify appetites, physical, mental, and emotional, and intense hatred of any who may resist or fail to cooperate in efforts to attain that satisfaction.” 

The heart that has rejected God can be cooperative to a point.  But when it comes down to having one’s own way, as opposed to sacrificing something that one really wants, there will be no sacrifice, and indeed, there may be great strife as people contend with one another to satisfy their desires.

In the first century, prospective church members went through a thorough period of learning about the Gospel before they were ever even admitted to the assembly, and yet still these problems existed.  Dissension in the church is nothing new, but it’s always a problem.  Harmony among believers is something that will draw others to the church.  Lacking that harmony damages the witness of the church, and may even drive people away; especially new or prospective members.

The second thing that’s going on is a wonderful teaching about prayer that almost gets lost in the middle of James’ argument.  “You don’t get what you want because you don’t ask God for it, and when you do ask you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong.

I’m not certain, but I believe that it was my friend, Chaplin Greg Monroe, who once told me that “Prayer is not asking God to do your will, prayer is asking God to incorporate you into His will.”  The believer who has chosen to serve God prays within God’s will because the believer’s heart is attuned to God’s heart and desires the same things.  When a person prays selfishly, it’s probably a pretty good barometer of where their heart is. 

James continues by calling worldly people adulterers, but this doesn’t mean what you may think it means.  Remember that the church is called the bride of Christ.  For a couple of thousand years before the time of Jesus, Jewish theology viewed rebellion against God as spiritual adultery, and indeed this is a concept that you will find often spoken by the prophets.  A quick reading of Hosea should be all you need to understand this concept.  James is actually making his most powerful argument yet about the need to make a choice to be a follower of God rather than a follower of worldly ways.  “Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God?” James asks. 

I know that I’ve spoken about this before.  We know that God IS love, and so sometimes the warnings to humanity about the consequences of turning away from God may seem a little incongruous, but rejecting God is not something to be taken lightly.  Remember that God, in spite of His infinite power, does not have the ability to create love.  Love only exists when it is given of one’s free will, and so free will is a central and indeed indispensable, part of God’s plan.  No one is forced to love God; the choice is entirely ours. 

In one of the best sermons I ever heard on this subject, David Cotton said that ultimately, God gives people exactly what they want.  The Bible says that the wisdom of God is foolishness to man, and to those who have made the choice to reject God and to embrace the ways of the world, God’s kingdom is foolishness.  The idea of turning away from selfishness and greed and exchanging those things for generosity and compassion is laughable to those who are of the world; and so, God, lovingly, strange as is seems, will reluctantly, but resolutely, allow these people to have their own way. 

I have to be honest.  I have struggled mightily over this sermon this week.  I’ve written, deleted, and re-written a dozen different versions of this thought, because I want to present this with a sound theology, but this is one of the most challenging questions of the Christian faith. So, leave it to the Spirit to provide me with a theologically sound comment.  After all of the writings and deletions, in frustration, I opened my email to send Rev. Rack a note to ask him if he had any insight for me on this passage.  When I opened my email, the first thing that I saw was his daily devotion, and in that devotion was a quote from St. Symeon’s “The New Theologian that expressed exactly what I wanted to say. 

“God is truth and light, God’s judgment is nothing else than our coming into contact with truth and light.  In the day of the Great Judgment all [people] will appear naked before this penetrating light of truth.  The “books” will be opened. What are these “books”?  They are our hearts.  Our hearts will be opened by the penetrating light of God, and what is in these hearts will be revealed.  If in those hearts there is love for God, those hearts will rejoice in seeing God’s light.  If, on the contrary, there is hatred for God in those hearts, these [people] will suffer by receiving on their opened hearts this penetrating light of truth which they detested all their life.  So, that which will differentiate between one [person] and another will not be a decision of God; a reward or a punishment from Him, but that which was in each one’s heart; what was there during all our life will be revealed in the Day of Judgment.  If there is a reward and a punishment during this revelation – and there really is – it does not come from God but from the love or hate which reigns in our heart.  Love has bliss in it, hatred has despair, bitterness, grief, affliction, wickedness, agitation, confusion, darkness, and all the other interior conditions which compose hell.”

So, let’s take a step back and take a wide-angle view at this.  Practically everyone, and especially people who have been married for a while, are familiar with the idea that love requires some sacrifice.  If you’re blessed to be in one of those relationships where both partners are equally willing to sacrifice and both partners are equally committed to the relationship, the joy that one derives from that relationship, and the beauty of that relationship are impossible to deny.  Even among such imperfect beings as us, such a relationship can be wonderfully and magically fulfilling. 

We, the church, are the bride of Christ.  Marriage was given to us as a guide to help us to understand the nature of our relationship with God.  Given the opportunity, which of us wouldn’t choose a blissfully close and loving marriage over a marriage marked with selfishness and strife?  When we think of it this way, James is making perfectly good sense.  Why would we choose enmity with a loving and gracious God when, with a little sacrifice and commitment to the relationship, we can enjoy the greatest love we could ever possibly find?  Why would we ever turn our back on a God whose graciousness is such that He sent His own Son to die for us, that we might be reconciled with Him?

James continues: “Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him.” Blaise Pascal once said “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each [person] which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.”
When all is said and done, the question becomes relatively simple. Are we willing to commit to a relationship with God and to make the sacrifices necessary to make that relationship work?

And what sacrifices are we asked to make? James closes this section of his letter telling us just that. “So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.
It’s been said that our God is a jealous God. What that means is that God is totally unwilling to give up on us. With unimaginable love and infinite patience, God forgives us over and over and over again. He seeks us, calls us, illuminates our path to finding Him, and ever seeks to draw us near to Him.

So, let us seek to draw near to Him, in order that we may discover a love that is unlike any love that we have ever known, and deeper than we can ever imagine.

Sermon 2020.10.18 James Part 6

I love the comics.  I subscribe to a website that sends me all of my favorite comic strips in a daily email.  I got this love of comics from my mom.  From as early as I can remember, my mom spent a part of every morning reading the comics.  She still subscribes to a newspaper today, and every day she reads the comics.  After she reads them, since she knows which ones are my favorites, she cuts them all out, sorts them by comic, then by day, boxes them, and mails them to me about once every other month.  I love reading these comics, and I do so often, but speaking honestly, I think I’m about 6 months behind and I have a huge box that I haven’t even started yet.  This is just one of the many reasons why I think that my mom is so awesome. 

My all-time favorite comic is Calvin and Hobbes.  For those of you who aren’t familiar, Calvin is a perpetually 6-year-old child, and Hobbes is his stuffed tiger.  Well, he’s a stuffed tiger except when Calvin and Hobbes are alone, at which point he becomes a real tiger, and I’ll let you in on a little secret; I think the reason that I love Calvin and Hobbes so much is because Calvin is really me as a child and Hobbes is me as an adult.  For those of you who are familiar with Calvin and Hobbes, that should explain a lot!

One of my many favorite, and very telling, Calvin and Hobbes strips is one where Calvin is talking to Hobbes.  “You know what we need Hobbes”, Calvin says, “we need an attitude”.  “An attitude?” Hobbes asks.  “Yeah” Calvin replies.  “You can’t be cool without an attitude”.  “Really?” asks Hobbes.  “Sure, they’re all the rage” Calvin says, “Now what kind of attitude could we have?  Hobbes answers “We could be courteously deferential”.  With a scowl on his face, Calvin responds “Oh good, that’s real cool”.

I laughed, thinking about this strip as I was reading Douglas Moo’s commentary on James this week, because Moo was commenting on James’ passage about “the humility that comes from wisdom”.  Let’s face it, the world does not consider humility to be a virtue.  Humility is for the weak.  In a world that subscribes to the old adage to “get while the getting’s good”, in a world that exalts self over others and always looks out for number one, to be humble will likely get you bowled over as others race past you in pursuit of their own goals.  The expression on Calvin’s face is priceless as he responds to Hobbes’ suggestion, because Calvin knows that meekness will get you nowhere.  Or will it?

In today’s passage, the NIV uses the word “humility”, as does the translation from which I read the passage this morning, the NLT.  The King James uses the word “meekness”, but the word in Greek is πραΰτητι, a word that is used to describe a horse that has been trained, with the meaning of something that is extremely powerful, but is under the control of a master.  Hmmm!  How appropriate is that description?  So often it is that God’s wisdom is foolishness to the world.  While the world interprets meekness as weakness, an unwillingness to act boldly, the Godly definition of meekness is of one who has immense power, but whose power is under God’s control.

We spent a couple of months studying 1^st and 2^nd Peter and the thing that stuck with me about that study was Peter’s continual emphasis on choosing the kingdom strategy over the earthly strategy.  Here, James is essentially saying the same thing, though for the time being, he has limited his scope to talking about wisdom.

Throughout his letter, James maintains the theme of having an active, functioning faith, a faith that expresses itself in Godly action.  And James continually contrasts this vibrant, active faith with a worldly belief system that is filled with knowledge but lacks wisdom. 

The Apostle Paul speaks directly to this idea in his preface to that famous passage in 1 Corinthians 13 where he writes “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 

When we read this passage, it really brings home the point that love is the driving force behind Godly living, and so I think that what James is trying to teach us is that Godly wisdom is knowledge, that is tempered by love; that this meekness that comes from wisdom is knowledge that is under the control of a master.  The master is God, and God is teaching us to temper everything that we do with love.

In Micah 6:8 the prophet Micah, speaking the words of God, asks the question “What does the Lord require of you?”  Through Micah, God answers His own question with three requirements.  Live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.  According to Micah, this humility, this power under the control of a master is one of the three requirements for serving God.  Douglas Moo makes the point that meekness springs from wisdom.  Moo says “This Christian meekness involves a healthy understanding of our own unworthiness before God, and a corresponding humility and lack of pride in our dealings with our fellow humans”.

So, let’s think about this for a minute.  What’s likely to happen when we humans gain an abundance of knowledge about a particular subject?  May there possibly be a tendency to develop a bit of an attitude about it? 

I can tell you from personal experience that songwriters are a hopelessly pompous bunch of people.  Songwriters tend to be hyper-critical of the work of others, always picking apart the things that they think that they would have done better.  If you’ll remember, I personally admitted as much in a sermon that I preached a few weeks ago.  Remember my comment that there was a song that I found to be musically unintelligent?  Now, imagine that I was teaching the student that wrote that song.  Would my knowledge allow me to critique the song, offering opinions on how I thought that the song could have been better written?  Could I have made suggestions as to what could have been done to make the song more musically intelligent?  Could I have helped the songwriter create a more musically interesting piece of music?  Yeah…  I absolutely could have done that!  But could I have done it lovingly? 

This is the question that James is asking.  I have a lot of music knowledge, gained from years of practice and from having attended a pretty good music school, and in the world’s way of doing things, this knowledge is all I need.  But when we seek to serve God, we understand the fact that all of this is not of our own doing.  Our knowledge is a gift from God, He is the One who gave us the aptitude, He is the One who supplied the opportunities for us to learn and to hone our craft, He is the One who led us every step of the way, in order that we may learn to use the gifts that he has showered upon us, to His glory, and doing this requires more than just knowledge, it requires wisdom.  Knowledge, tempered with love.

“Who is wise and understanding among you?”James asks, “let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.”.  The Rev. Dr. Bob Utley says “God’s wisdom must have a proper motivation or it ceases to be God’s wisdom.”  You can be completely right, and yet still be wrong, because your heart is in the wrong place!

 To have full knowledge of something and to be able to impart that knowledge can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on where it is coming from!  To impart knowledge in an unloving way does not glorify God, and acting in an unloving manner can be spiritually detrimental to the person on the receiving end.  If they know you are a person of faith, and yet you act hurtfully, you significantly diminish your witness, if not negating it entirely, with the end result that God is not glorified.  Now, impart the same wisdom but do so in a loving manner and the end result is completely different; same knowledge, different wisdom.

This is where that kingdom strategy vs. earthly strategy thing comes in.  Are we genuinely seeking to serve God?  Are our actions designed to bring Him glory?  Is the love with which God has filled our hearts to overflowing shining through our lives and our actions for the entire world to see?  Or… are we seeking glory for ourselves?  Warren Wiersbe says “The wisdom of this world exalts man and robs God of His glory.” 

And it’s here that James gives us that contrast between the heavenly and the worldly.  “But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth.  Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.  For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. “

Those who are of this world believe themselves to be in competition with the rest of the world.  This “take what you can before someone else takes it from you” attitude is the antithesis of how God calls His people to live.  Let’s take a quick look at the first century church, as described in Acts 4:32-35.  “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.  With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all, that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

Does anyone remember the story of Ananias and Sapphira?  In Acts 5 they sold some of their possessions to give to the community of believers but kept some of the proceeds for themselves.  There wasn’t anything wrong with their keeping some for themselves but apparently, they presented the gift as if they had given everything.  In so doing, they revealed the condition of their hearts.  Their giving was motivated not by a selfless desire to serve, but rather for appearances.  Peter called them out on their actions and spoke of their gift, saying “While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”

Worldly wisdom creates strife and dissension as people contend with each other for available resources, for acceptance, for admiration, or for status.  There is neither room nor reason for this in God’ kingdom.  Once believers understand how deeply we are all connected, once believers understand the depth of responsibility that God has given to each of us to care for one another, that is when we begin to understand the wisdom that comes from heaven.  Verse 17: “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” 

And so, just like Peter, James has set this contrast between heavenly and earthly wisdom.  James makes clear his conviction that good works are the natural by-product of a faithful life.  Douglas Moo says “It is clear that James does not view wisdom as a series of correct propositional statements but as a quality that motivates certain kinds of behavior.”

Our care for others is inexorably rooted in our Godly wisdom, and the things that we do for others are done in meekness, not only that in our actions not we, but God may be glorified, but also that those in need are spared the embarrassment of the publicity of gifts that have been given in order to glorify the giver.  Earthly giving is always transactional.  I had a boss once who was a genius in the area of customer service.  Time and time again I watched him turn irate customers into smiling, happy people.  He knew how to bend just enough to satisfy the customer, but his mantra was “never give something without getting something”.  He had mastered the worldly art of schmoozing, but his motives were always self-serving; satisfy the customer so we can make more money from them.  Godly giving is not transactional, Godly giving is rooted in grace. Our actions, as believers, are simply a by product of WHO WE ARE IN CHRIST.  DR. Utley says “If you don’t care about people who are in need there is something wrong with your wisdom.”  As believers, we always want our hearts to be in the right place, and so we must continually seek the Spirit’s guidance as we seek to live and to act with the meekness of wisdom.

Warren Wiersbe hit the nail right on the head when he said “Meekness is the right use of power and wisdom is the right use of knowledge.”  

As we leave here today, let us carry with us this wisdom from above, and let each of us seek to be a person with immense power, under the control of a master.

Sermon 2020.09.20 James Part 5

There’s a story that’s making the rounds on Facebook.  I don’t know if it’s true or not but it’s sort of an illuminating story, so I thought that I would share it with you.  In the story, there’s a car, and the back of the car is covered with Jesus bumper stickers.  You know the car, you’ve all seen it… What Would Jesus Do?  Honk if you love Jesus, Keep Christ in Christmas, and my personal favorite, In the event of rapture this car will be unoccupied…

It seems that there was a road rage incident, and the driver of the Jesus bumper sticker car was loudly and profanely berating another driver for some infraction or another.  There’s a police officer in the vicinity, and the police officer pulls over the Jesus bumper sticker car.  Instead of simply asking the driver for license and registration, the officer demands that the driver exit the vehicle and then places the driver in handcuffs.  After sitting the driver down in the back seat of the squad car, the officer runs the driver’s ID, and after running the ID, the officer helps the driver out of the back seat of the squad car and removes the handcuffs.  The officer then explains to the driver that he saw all of the bumper stickers on the car, and then he heard what the driver was saying, and he just assumed that the car was stolen.

It’s kind of a funny story, though if it’s true, I doubt that the driver was amused, but this story speaks to the lesson that James has for us today. 

James actually begins the chapter with a brief statement about teachers.  There were three prominent ministries in the first century church, apostles, prophets, and teachers.  There was a prestige attached to these ministries and so, not surprisingly, there were quite a few people who wanted to hold one of these positions.  James comments that not many people should aspire to be teachers, making the point that those who teach will be judged with greater strictness.  Douglas Moo says “The importance of the teaching ministry renders it liable to a closer scrutiny, and that failure to discharge the ministry faithfully will bring a correspondingly more severe penalty.”  Jesus said that “To whom much is given, much will be required”, and so those with a gift for teaching accept the responsibility, knowing that they have been entrusted with guiding others in their faith journey.  

And there is another responsibility as well.  Not only do teachers need to make sure that their teaching is theologically sound, they also have a greater responsibility to live their faith.  When the teacher’s words are in conflict with the teacher’s actions, their witness is severely compromised, and so it’s not enough for teachers to talk the talk, they need to walk the walk as well.  I’m sure that James wasn’t trying to discourage teachers from using their gifts here, I think that he was just issuing a warning to those who may be seeking an office for selfish reasons.

Next, James begins his discussion about the tongue.  “We all stumble in many ways”, James says, “Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check”. In the coming verses we will talk about the difficulty of maintaining control over the tongue.  What James is saying here is that one who is able to control their words, one of the most difficult tasks for the Christian, will be able to control the other parts of their body as well.  Yes, we do all stumble, and in many ways, but we, generally, and teachers especially need to be careful with their words.

In learning to understand the power of the tongue, James gives us three examples of things of which the tongue is capable of doing.  First, he teaches us first that the tongue has the power to control direction.  Using a bit in a horse’s mouth or a rudder on a ship as an example, James makes the point that the tongue is small, but it has great power.  Warren Wiersbe observes that both the bit and the rudder have to work against opposing forces, the bit works against the wild nature of the horse and the rudder steers the ship, sometimes in opposition to the wind.  For the believer, the tongue is working against the old, sinful, nature.  When faced with circumstances that are difficult or stressful, it’s tempting to allow the old nature to take over, but then we end up saying things that we maybe shouldn’t say.  The tongue has the power to do wonderful things, to teach, to encourage, to express love, or empathy, or compassion, but it also has the power to do great damage, saying hurtful things.  And hurtful words never really go away, do they?  How many of us can remember something hurtful that was said to us many, many years ago?  The believer needs always to remember how powerful words can be, and this is why James takes the time to help us to understand the importance of controlling the tongue. 

Second, James teaches us that the tongue has the power to be destructive.  He tells us that “just as a small spark can start a great forest fire, the tongue is also a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body”.  He is accentuating the fact that the tongue is capable of inflicting great damage.  Not only can the tongue say emotionally hurtful things, the tongue can also lie, sometimes creating circumstances whereby people can actually be endangered.  There may be times when it is important for us to have information that is critical to our well-being, but sometimes there are conflicting messages about that information, with the information being distorted by other factors that may not have your well-being at heart.  When we are presented with conflicting information with regard to what is best for us, it can sometimes be difficult for us to discern what is right, and getting it wrong may have the potential to be harmful.

 Unfortunately, the world is full of examples of self-centered people lying for personal gain at the expense of others.  For those of us who are a little older, we remember well the voices telling us that smoking wasn’t harmful.  Even though researchers have learned that the tobacco companies knew very early on that their product caused cancer, they continued to lie in order to protect their profits.  How many lives were damaged because people didn’t know what to believe, and how many other examples are there of intentional disinformation that has damaged lives? 

Incidences of this sort reveal the depth of selfishness that exists in the human heart, and when we examine this, we understand exactly why Jesus tells us that we must be born again.  From massive, intentional, disinformation campaigns, to supposedly innocuous little white lies, the unrenewed human heart seeks its own advantage without regard for who may be hurt in the process.

Jesus said “But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you.   For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander.  These are what defile you.” 

A person’s words reveal what is in their heart, and for those whose heart has not been renewed by God’s Spirit, their hearts are filled with envy and jealousy.  The theologian Richard Coble describes the unchanged heart as “That order of human life which consistently rejects or defies God and His claims upon humans.  It is essentially a self-centered life.  Its primary traits are the giving of great effort to gratify appetites, physical, mental, and emotional, and intense hatred of any who may resist or fail to cooperate in efforts to attain that satisfaction. It’s not hard to see how this mindset could result in hurtful words directed towards those who hinder one’s selfish pursuits.

If we ever wondered what is the meaning of taking up our cross to follow Jesus, this is one of the great examples.  As believers, we are called to love others, and sometimes loving others can mean that we don’t get what we want.  But this is exactly where it becomes really interesting, because when our hearts are renewed, we no longer want the same things. 

This is why Jesus says that His “Yoke is easy and His burden is light”.  While we may be forgoing something that we might have deeply desired before the transformation of our hearts, as the love of God and the love of others fills our hearts, what is important to others becomes important to us.  To the unrepentant heart, this looks like sacrifice.  To the owner of an unrepentant heart it is incomprehensible why one would actually choose to deny themself of an advantage or an amenity, but the believer, seeing a need in others, finds within their heart a deep desire to fill that need, and rejoices in the opportunity to do so, even though it may mean that they give something up in the process. 

Lastly, James teaches us that the tongue has the power to delight!  “With the tongue we praise our Father”, James says.  When our hearts are filled with gratitude for what God has done for us, our spirits burst forth in praise.  As we grow closer to God, we come to understand the depth of His love for us, and the renewed heart returns that love to the extent of our capabilities, but then James completes his sentence with “and with it we curse human beings who have been made in God’s likeness.”  James says that out of the same mouth come both praise and cursing, and that that should never be. 

Throughout his letter, James has been consistent with his message to love God and to love others.  His emphasis on works springs from the teaching that having real love for others means loving them enough to care for their needs, to be burdened by their sorrows and their difficulties, and to rejoice with them in their joys and their triumphs. “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?”, James asks. “My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives? or a grapevine bear figs?  Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.” 

And it’s here that one of the great dichotomies of the Christian life becomes apparent.  While we have this new nature that recognizes and honors each and every person as a beloved child of God, our old nature is still very much alive and well and acting in our thoughts, and in our words, and in our actions.  Warren Wiersbe spoke of this conflict when he said “The Spirit may use the body to glorify God, or the flesh may use the body to serve sin.  When a sinner yields to Christ, he receives a new nature, but the old nature is neither removed nor reformed.  For this reason, there is a battle within”. 

James is right, blessing and curses shouldn’t come out of the same mouth, but let’s be honest, sometimes people can be exasperating.  The call to love is deeply challenged by the unloving actions of others, and the temptation to revert to our old ways of doing things can be overwhelming.  The driver of our Jesus bumper sticker car certainly understood this.  Even for the heart that has been renewed, there is still difficulty that we face in interacting with a difficult person. Learning to look at the difficult, the arrogant, the rude, the selfish, and the unloving, with eyes that see a beloved child of God is extraordinarily difficult, and sometimes we fail in that task.

This can be discouraging, but let’s talk about that for a minute.  As I have often said, there are several different Greek words that are used in the Bible that we translate into the English word “sin”, and all but one of these words carry some form of meaning of committing an evil act, having the propensity to commit evil acts, or failing to prevent an evil act; pretty much how most of us interpret the word “sin”.  When we hear the word “sin” we tend to think of it as being something evil.  But by far the most common of these Greek words is the word ἁμαρτία which is a word that an archer would use if he shot his arrow and hit the target, but missed the bullseye.  It is a word that literally means to miss the mark or fail to achieve a set standard, and it is a word that could appropriately be translated imperfection. 

As believers, one of our responsibilities is not to become discouraged by sin, or imperfection.  We learn from our mistakes and our imperfections, and we understand the fact that, as Calvin said, we are reformed, and always reforming.  The Christian experience is one of continually growing in Christ likeness, and though we may suffer setbacks, we take heart in the words that the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3: “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.  All of us who are mature should embrace this point of view.”

As I said last week, when we are “freed from the guilt of sin, the knowledge that we are still a sinful people, loses its ability to discourage us into inaction.  We have been freed, not to seek our own desires, but rather to unleash this new found love that resides in our hearts and actually make a difference in the lives of those we meet.

For the one whose heart is filled with God’s love, James makes the point that in loving others, we are loving those who are made in the image of God.  And so, all of this comes back to what we have been talking about all along, and that is making our hearts look like God’s heart. 

There is no greater example of the love God holds in His heart for us, than to look at what Jesus did for us.  So great was His love for us that He went to the cross.  Every year on Good Friday we read the passage where Jesus asks if there is any way for the cup to be taken from Him.  Jesus didn’t want the cross.  He didn’t want the suffering, the pain, or the humiliation, and yet His love for us superseded all of his own desires and needs, to the point of giving His life… for us… because of love.

The call for us, and indeed the challenge, is to allow this incredible love of God to so permeate our hearts that that love becomes readily apparent in our actions… and in our words.

Amen.

Sermon 2020.09.06 James Part 4

James begins the second section of this chapter with another parable.  A person encounters someone who is poor, and is lacking food and clothing.  This person wishes the poor person well, saying “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” then continues on their way.  

“Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” is an interesting passage.  The “go in peace” part is a standard Hebrew form of dismissal; much like we would say “see you later”.  But it’s the “keep warm and well fed part” that needs a little explaining.  Likely stated in the Greek in a passive voice, this phrase takes the meaning of instructing the poor person to do something to help themselves; to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” as it were.  “Keep yourself warm and find yourself something to eat” might be a better translation of a phrase designed to encourage the poor person to find their own way.  How prevalent do we find this mindset today when discussing the poor?  One of the best ways to ease the conscience when confronting poverty is to blame the poor for being poor.  When one assumes that their troubles are brought about by laziness, one creates an excuse for not having to be bothered to extend any help, because surely if these people will just get their act together, then they will be able to help themselves without needing anybody else’s help.  Then everyone can congratulate themselves for having given this poor person the swift kick that they needed to put them on the path to personal responsibility.     

James is having none of this!  He makes the point that, not only do these empty words do nothing for the person in need, these empty words do nothing for the person speaking them either. 

I’d like to step away from my remarks for a moment to tell the story of a person with whom I became friendly.  He worked at a fast food restaurant that was close to where I once worked so I saw him rather often, probably too often.  He was a Christian, and had one of those wonderfully, continually, upbeat, personalities that I so wish that I had; a person who spread joy to everyone he met.  He was meticulous at his job, always repeating your order to make sure that he got it exactly right.  When they were busy he moved quickly, trying to make sure that people weren’t kept waiting, and no one ever left the counter without him giving them a big smile and saying “God bless you today”  As someone who has spent an entire adult lifetime as a retail manager, I would categorize this gentleman as a dream employee.  Someone who took great care to do his job efficiently and accurately, all the while being a great ambassador for his company’s brand. 

This friend of mine dropped out of high school to take a job to help support his family when his father died.  He eventually married and had two children of his own, and bought a small house in a not very nice neighborhood.  Lacking a high school education, his job options were quite limited, and he never had the time to get a GED because after he leaves his full time, nearly minimum wage job at the fast food place, he takes a bus to Home Depot, where he works overnight, full time, at an also nearly minimum wage job stocking shelves.  Even with two full time incomes, he can’t afford a car, and he barely makes ends meet, he is missing two bottom front teeth because dental care is an unaffordable luxury, and the little amount of time he gets to spend with his children is precious to him, because working 80 hours a week doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for family, so he cherishes every minute that he gets. 

And this is the “lazy” poor person who some people think needs to get his act together.  The world sees this man, sees his well-worn clothes and his missing teeth, and somehow sees him as being less than fully human.  Somehow, he isn’t seen as being deserving of earning a living wage.  He isn’t seen as being worthy of having healthcare or dental care.  Meanwhile, the people who take advantage of his lack of education and his social status and pay him so little that he has to work two full time jobs, are seen as being successful people, and are called role models.  These are the folks being led to the prime seats in the assembly, just like the folks we talked about last week, while my friend is invited to take a seat on the floor.

Are there some people in this world who are genuinely too lazy to work and who game the system for anything and everything that they can get out of it?  Of course, there are, and there always will be.  My wife worked almost her entire adult life for a Legal Aid organization.  Her job was to help indigent people find attorneys that would help them with their legal problems, without charging them.  She hadn’t been working there for long at all, when one day she told me that if you decide that you are going to help people, you are going to be used by some of them.  And she said that being used is just the price that you have to choose to pay when you are choosing to help those who are in need.

If we have love in our hearts, the sufferings of the poor and the marginalized become personal to us, we find their poverty to be completely unacceptable, and we will find ourselves not only seeking to help when we are able, but also to become a people who advocate for fairness and justice. This is really the essence of what James is teaching us here.  The difference between speaking about having love in your heart and actually having love in your heart is that actually having love in your heart will move you to act in ways that just wouldn’t happen if that love did not exist.  The heart moved with compassion for someone who is hungry will do whatever it is able to alleviate that person’s suffering.  This is the natural and unavoidable extension of God’s love, working in our hearts.   These aren’t works that are saving us, because the salvation has already happened, once and for all.  No, these works are works that are the evidence of the heart that we have allowed God to remake into His image.

But now, James wants to take this a step further.  “In the same way,” James says, “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”  It’s important to understand here, that James is not saying that your works contribute to your salvation.  James is saying that your salvation precipitates your works.  Warren Wiersbe explained this beautifully when he said “We are not saved by faith plus works, we are saved by a faith that works”.

James then makes a powerful statement, but before we talk about that, please let me give you just a little bit of background.

In Mark 5 we read the story of Jesus encountering a demon possessed man and driving the demons out of the man and into a herd of pigs.  The pigs, now possessed of the demons, ran down a hill into a lake and drowned.  What is interesting in this story is what the demon said to Jesus. “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

In Luke 4 Jesus is teaching at a synagogue in Capernaum.  A man with a demon was in the synagogue and he cried out “Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

James makes the point that, simply to recite the Shema, to confess that The Lord our God is One, isn’t sufficient to save a person, because even the demons believe that God is One, and they shudder at the thought.  The demons in these passages instantly recognized Jesus as the Holy One of God, yet their confession of Him does not represent a saving faith.  And the reason that it doesn’t is because there is no love in their hearts that precipitates loving acts.  Douglas Moo says “Genuine faith must go beyond the intellect to the will.  It must affect our attitudes and our actions as well as our beliefs.

Last week we spoke of the “Royal Law” as a law, the foundation of which was love of God and love of others.  Now, James teaches us that the very foundation of our faith also, is loving God and loving others. 

One cannot have a personal experience of the magnitude of God’s love without being profoundly affected by that experience.  Those who respond positively to God’s love will find that the Spirit will completely re-create their hearts and their attitudes. 

I often say that the object is to make our hearts look like God’s heart, and indeed the Spirit will instill compassion and grace and empathy in our lives, the likes of which we have never before experienced.  When Jesus said that we will be born again, He meant it!  Through the Spirit, those who are willing, will indeed become an entirely new creation. 

Now, none of this means that sin disappears from our lives, but two things definitely happen with regard to sin.  First, this new found love in our hearts means that some things that we may have done in the past will become things that would be unthinkable for us to do now, so the quantity of sin in our lives will decrease.  The second thing that happens is, freed from the guilt of sin, the knowledge that we are still a sinful people, loses its ability to discourage us into inaction.  We have been freed, not to seek our own desires, but rather to unleash this new found love that resides in our hearts and actually make a difference in the lives of those we meet.  Our friend Peter had already met Jesus, but after the miraculous catch of fish when Peter first saw Jesus’ power in action, Peter said to Jesus “Go away, Leave me, Lord! I’m a sinner!” and yet Peter, freed from the bondage of his sin, became a man whose words and actions changed the world forever!

Next, James turns to Abraham, the father of the Jewish faith, to illustrate his point.  James mentions Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac as proof of his righteousness.  This story was quite commonly used in Jewish teachings so it’s not surprising that James would reference the incident also, but James has a slightly different take on this from the traditional Jewish interpretations.  Douglas Moo says “Abraham’s faith was a working faith, an active faith, a faith that was not so much the source of his works, as it was a constant partner of his works.  This constant cooperation of faith and works is highlighted with the use of the imperfect tense of the Greek verb συνήργει, a word that we translate “working with”.  The imperfect tense indicates continual or repeated action.  Faith was not something that Abraham exercised on one occasion, it stimulated, directed, and cooperated with his works.  But Abraham’s faith not only did something to, or with his works; his works also did something to his faith: they completed it. 

Abraham received approval from God because of his faith, expressed in his actions.  Of course, Abraham was the quintessential Jewish man of faith, and as one who had been richly blessed by God, it would be expected that someone of Abraham’s stature would show the fruits of his faith in his actions, but then James continues this thought with a somewhat less than stellar example. 

Rahab lived in Jericho, in a house that was built into the city wall.  Rahab was most likely a prostitute.  When the Israelites sent spies into the city of Jericho to evaluate the defenses, before they invaded this land that they had been promised.  The king of Jericho found out that the spies were in his city, and were staying with Rahab, and he sent messengers to Rahab to tell her to turn the men over to him.  Rahab hid the spies and told the messengers that the spies had already left the city.  After the messengers left, Rahab said to the spies “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.  We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed.   When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.”  Rahab then asked the spies if they would spare her life and the lives of her family when the Israelites invaded, which they did.

Rahab is mentioned in Hebrews 11 where her action in hiding the spies is accepted as evidence of her faith.  Rahab hid the spies at great personal Risk.  She made a statement of faith to the spies, and she also predicted that the Israelites would defeat the Canaanites. This woman, of questionable background, who had no previous experience with the God of Israel, nevertheless, believed in God, and her faith was exhibited in her actions.  Rahab is one of only two women mentioned among the faithful in the book of Hebrews.  Of course, after Rahab and her family were spared in the invasion of Jericho, she became a Jew, and married a Jewish man named Salmon.  Salmon was the father of Boaz, who married Ruth.  They were the parents of Obed, who was the father of Jesse, who was the father of King David, So Rahab was King David’s great grandmother, and as we all know, Jesus was a direct descendant of King David.

James wraps up this section of his letter by saying “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”  James has no interest in barren, intellectual, faith.  James is calling for a vibrant, active faith; a faith driven by love of God and love of others; a faith that acts justly and mercifully simply because it has no other mode of operation.

I’d like to close with the words of Martin Luther.  His words here are made all the more interesting because they are from the introduction to his commentary on the book of Romans.  In introducing Christianity’s single, most eloquent, exposition of salvation by faith alone, Luther had this to say:

“Oh, it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith.  It is impossible for it not to be doing good things incessantly.  It does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has already done them, and is constantly doing them.  Whoever does not do such works, however, is an unbeliever.  He gropes and looks around for faith and good works, but knows neither what faith is, nor what good works are.  Yet he talks and talks, with many words, about faith and good works”.

My dear friends, may God’s love fill your hearts this day and every day, in order that His love may become a spring from which flows a river of compassion, and justice, and mercy.

Amen

Sermon 2020.08.30 James Part 3

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  Isaiah 55, verses 8 and 9.

OK, so it may be a little odd that I start a sermon on the book of James by quoting Isaiah, but a lot of the thrust of what James has to say today is centered around this teaching from Isaiah.

James begins this section of his letter with a little parable.  A man in fine clothes and a man in raggedy clothes enter the assembly.  The man in the fine clothes is ushered to a prime seat, while the man in the raggedy clothes is told that he can stand over there, or worse, maybe sit on the floor here by my feet.

Unfortunately (Or maybe fortunately) humans do not have the ability to know what is in another person’s heart.  It’s for this very reason that we are specifically instructed not to judge, and yet it’s something that we do every day, isn’t it?  We can’t help but do it, because, as I said last week, sometimes it’s entirely appropriate, and even necessary for us to evaluate things, and the challenge for the Christian is to learn to evaluate rightly, or more appropriately, learn to evaluate justly.  That’s right, I said “justly”, because our raggedy friend in the parable has just been treated unjustly.

I think that we will all agree that fairness is a significant component of justice.  To treat people fairly, we must accept them without being swayed by appearances, and this is James’ point.  Even Jesus’ enemies recognized the fact that Jesus was not moved by appearances.  In the 22^nd Chapter of Matthew, when the Pharisees attempted to trap Jesus by asking Him if it was appropriate to pay taxes to Caesar, they said to Him: “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are.”

Love demands that we not be swayed by appearances.  But more often than not, that’s not what we’re doing, is it?  Lacking the ability to see into a person’s heart, all that we have to work with is what is apparent.  And so, when we do evaluate, we do so mostly on the basis of what we see.  But this is not a new phenomenon, it’s been this way forever.  Who remembers the story of the anointing of King David?

God told the prophet Samuel to go to Bethlehem to meet Jesse, in order to anoint one of his sons to replace Saul as king of Israel.  As they assembled, Samuel was first introduced to Jesse’s first-born son, Eliab.  In the Jewish tradition, the first born would be the natural choice, and Eliab must have been an impressive looking young man, because Samuel’s first impression was “Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord”.  But God said to Samuel “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Jesse then had seven other sons, in birth order, pass before Samuel, and each time Samuel said that the Lord has not chosen this one.  With all of the sons seemingly having passed before him, Samuel asked Jesse if he had another son.  Jesse said “Just my youngest, David; he is out tending the flocks.”  Now, first you need to know that not only was the youngest in the family the least important, but also that the job of shepherd was such a dirty job that shepherds were always considered ritually unclean; always.  Secondly, shepherds were looked down upon as menial workers, unworthy of one’s attention; so much so that David was not even considered to be worthy of attending this meeting.  They sent for David, and, as is so often the case, God chose to anoint as king the one who, by earthly standards, was the lowest, and the least important.

No, God’s ways are not our ways.  And let’s not forget that the first to worship the baby Jesus were shepherds also.  Throughout the Bible, God chooses the lowly, the unimportant, and the marginalized to be the bearers of His word.  God consistently uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wisdom of the wise, and the weak to shame the strong.  In the words of Mary that she spoke in the Magnificat, “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”  If God holds the poor and the marginalized in such high regard, should we not also evaluate with great care so as not to discriminate?

In studying this story, it’s readily apparent how important it is to judge slowly, to consider every available fact before making an evaluation.  No, we can’t see a person’s heart, but we can see the fruit of a person’s actions.  James makes the point that, this well dressed person who was directed to the prime seat in the assembly is the same one who is exploiting his workers and dragging people into court, most likely to collect money that was owed to him.  Remember that they had debtor’s prisons then, and you could be jailed for not paying your debts.  The evidence of where the rich man’s heart stood was displayed in his actions, and yet still he was treated deferentially. It is for this reason that James says that those who determined the seating arrangements had discriminated among themselves, and had become judges with evil thoughts.

I thought that the phrase “evil thoughts: was an interesting choice of words by James, and indeed James goes on to explain his choice.  James makes the statement that “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, which is to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.  But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.  Last week I made the observation that failing to understand, is failing to love.  Here, James makes the same point.  Our highest calling as Christians is to love.  James refers to this as the “Royal Law”.  Remember that, when the Pharisees and Sadducees were questioning Jesus and they asked Him what was the greatest commandment, Jesus responded “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

We can think of this passage as emphasizing love as a primary responsibility, but I think that James wants us to take this thought even further.  In James’ use of the term “Royal Law”, he uses a plural word to describe a singular law.  As such, Royal Law has to mean something more than just to love.  The Theologian Douglas Moo states that we should take this passage to mean “the entire sum of the law”, or as a “characterization of the entire will of God for Christians”.  Moo goes on to explain “If James says that the Royal Law is to be fulfilled according to the commandment of love, he probably describes not the manner in which the law is to be kept (meaning fulfilling it by loving others), but rather is describing the very nature of the law itself. It is a law that has at its heart the demand that Christians love their neighbor.”

James saw clearly, not only the fact that this judging according to appearance was sinful, but also that it was a sin that was rooted in a lack of love.  If we are being loving, as we are called, we recognize each person’s worth based on the knowledge that this person is a beloved child of God.  Their status, their appearance, and the abundance, or lack of abundance of their possessions will not factor into what we think of them, because without regard to all of the external appearances, they are still a beloved child of God.  And guess what?… James says this isn’t just about the rich and the poor.  “If you show favoritism”, James says, “you sin, and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.”

Is wealth a criteria for judgment, is status?  Is what a person does for a living a criteria for judgment, or the size of their house, or the make of their car?  How about intellect?  Is someone valued more greatly because they seem to be more intelligent?  Are other cultures valued as less than our own, or other races?  Is it appropriate to judge someone based on who they worship, or who they love?  Are people valued differently because of those things?  At what point do we get to determine that another individual is not a beloved child of God?  …and if the answer to this question is “we don’t”, then we need to be loving these people… all of them.

Jesus came into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  If we are to emulate Jesus, then we need to realize that we are not here to condemn the world either.  God did not put us here for the purpose of telling people how to live their lives.  God put us here in the hope that each of us, individually, would choose to ask God to allow us to become a part of His grand plan to seek and to save the lost; that each of us would choose to allow God’s love to so deeply permeate our lives, that we reflect His love to a world that is in desperate need of discovering that love.

James closes this section by saying “Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.  Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

In the Greek, James stresses the words “speak” and “act” by preceding each word with the Greek word οὗτος which we would translate “so”, but in the Greek this word is used to add emphasis to the word that follows it, not unlike our following a word with an exclamation point, or printing it in bold, or italic, or both.  In addition, as Moo says, “The verbs are in the present tense, emphasizing the fact that this emphatic manner of ‘speaking’ and ‘doing’ is not to be considered an individual action, but rather to be considered a way of life.  So, we are called to live continually, speaking and acting, as those who will be judged by “the law that gives freedom”.

The phrase “The law that gives freedom” is actually a difficult phrase in the Greek, with a lot of disparity among commentators as to its exact meaning, but given the fact that the phrase is linked to the “judgment without mercy” phrase that follows, I really like R. C. Sproul’s explanation:  “When James speaks of the “law that gives freedom,” he is speaking of the whole law of God as interpreted by Jesus. Because the ceremonial law has been fulfilled by Christ, we are no longer bound to keep its ceremonies and rituals. However, the Law’s sum and essence — loving God with all our hearts and loving our neighbors as ourselves — still binds us today.”  The Bible is clear about the fact that true believers will not face judgment for their sins.  Our sins are covered by the atoning death of Jesus.  But the Bible is also clear about the fact that believers will be judged according to their actions.

Paul spoke of this judgment in 1 Corinthians 3 where he said: “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care.   For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.   If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work.  If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward.  If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

Of course, the believer would never act out of a mercenary desire for reward.  The renewed heart that God creates in each of His faithful children acts out of love, not out of selfish desire, but God does allow us to consider the reward that awaits His faithful servants, and what a glorious reward it will be! The Bible tells us in Revelation that “God’s dwelling place will now be among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”  Heaven’s very foundation will be love, and we can’t even begin to comprehend the joy that awaits us.  Right here and right now, we have an opportunity to build up treasure in heaven, and the best part of all of this is that we get to build that treasure, simply by loving God, and by loving people.

Love God, Love your neighbor.  All of the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.  Those are Jesus’ words.  When we really take the time to think about this, we discover the fact that the heart that loves deeply, will follow God’s Law… without ever trying to follow God’s law.  Having agape love in our hearts will preclude any action that would hurt or disadvantage another.  This is why Jesus taught us that all of the law and the prophets hang on the commandment to love.

Gracious Father, fill our hearts to overflowing with your love.  Teach us to look past appearances, and to see each person through Your eyes, recognizing the fullness of Your Spirit within them.  Help us to love the difficult and the unlovable, not because they are worthy of our love, but because we recognize that we are unworthy of Your love, and that we choose to reflect your grace to them.  Help us to be your voice, that we may, in our actions, show the world the depth of Your grace, and the magnitude of Your love.  Amen.

Sermon 2020.08.23 James Week 2

In the second section of James’ letter, James begins to speak about how to live your faith.  This is one of the primary themes of his letter, so we’ll be hearing a lot about this over the next several weeks.  James says that we must be “swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to become angered.  The comedian Robert Wuhl had a short running show on HBO and in one episode he made the insightful statement that we should “judge slowly”.  Like the old saying that you should walk a mile in another person’s shoes before judging, the idea is that we shouldn’t be making judgments until we have all of the facts.  Of course, as Christians, we are specifically called not to judge, but it’s entirely appropriate and even necessary for us to evaluate; but even that should be done slowly.  Listen!  Take the time to learn and to understand.

A few weeks back we sang a piece of gathering music that I really didn’t care for.  I felt that the song was, well, musically unintelligent.  I’m sorry to have to describe it that way, but my music education causes me to be rather critical of music in general, and the things that I value most in a piece of music are creativity, and at least a hint of musical sophistication.  To me, this song had neither.  Then I watched a video of the songwriter telling his story, and holding back tears as he spoke of the tragic death of his wife, and the song took on a whole new and powerful dimension for me.  No longer did I view the song as musically unintelligent.  Instead, I viewed it as the intensely personal statement that it is, a song filled with raw emotion and a story of attempting to recover from unimaginable grief.  Taking the time to evaluate the song with a deeper understanding, allowed me to appreciate the enormous value of the song and its message.

How often in life do we make judgments without having all of the facts?  The Bible tells us that God is the only one worthy to judge because He alone knows the content of each person’s heart.  It’s been said that when we judge, we judge others by their actions, but that we judge ourselves by our intentions.  God judges rightly because He knows both our actions and our intentions.  As for us, when we have a need to evaluate, we need to judge slowly, in order to know as much about that which we are evaluating as we possibly can.  So, James tells us to listen carefully, and to speak less, meaning that we should be listening not in order to respond, but listening in order to understand, and that we also need to be slow to anger, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.  Proverbs 14: 29 says “People with understanding control their anger; but   a hot temper shows great foolishness.”

Failing to understand is failing to love!  Being patient with others, taking the time to understand them, showing empathy and compassion and grace, are ways in which the believer exhibits God’s love to others.

James then tells us to rid ourselves of this lack of love in our lives and to humbly accept the Word that has been implanted in us.  Reflecting Jesus’ parable of the sower, James chooses to use the word ἔμφυτος which carries the sense of something grafted or imparted; something that is naturally a part of us, and of course for believers, the Word becomes an integral part of us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

I’m sure that James had no idea of the firestorm that he was about to create with his next statement.   In chapter 1 verse 22 James says “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.”

Tradition tells us that the Apostle Paul was converted around the year 37 and that his first missionary journey was in full swing by the year 45.  According to the church fathers, Paul’s letters received wide circulation in the church and were known to a large segment of first century Christians, almost certainly including James.  One of Paul’s best-known teachings is summarized in Ephesians 2:8-9 “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things that we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”  The Presbyterian pastor and educator R. C. Sproul explained this by saying “The man-made religions of this world prove that without the work of the Holy Spirit, people think that they are basically good and can contribute something to their salvation. This strips glory from God and gives it to us, for if we can do even one thing to merit salvation, then we deserve some credit.”

Paul’s teaching of the sufficiency of grace, seems to be contrary to the teaching of James, that it’s not enough to be hearers of the Word, that you also must be doers of the Word.

Indeed, our church history tells us that there appeared to be a rift between James and Paul.  To some in the first century church, and even to commentators for the last few centuries, Paul’s teaching appears to represent that of a law free mission to the Gentiles, while James’ teaching represents a law affirming mission to Jewish Christians.  The differences between James and Paul were resolved when they met at the Jerusalem Council, where they had an opportunity to speak and to understand each other.  (Maybe there is something to that “judge slowly” thing!).

As I said, while there appears to be a discrepancy, there actually isn’t.  Rather than trying to explain this myself, I’d like to quote 2 paragraphs from the Christian Theologian Douglas Moo, who explained it far better than I ever could.

“The first thing to be noticed is that Paul and James are combating opposite problems.  In Paul’s statements about justification in Galatians and Romans, he is countering a Jewish tendency to rely on obedience to the Law for salvation.  Against an over-emphasis on works, Paul highlights faith as the sole instrument of justification.  James, on the other hand, is combating an under-emphasis on works, a quietistic attitude that turned faith into mere doctrinal orthodoxy.  Against this perversion of faith, James is forced to assert the importance of works.”

“The second point to be mentioned is the different context in which James and Paul are speaking of ‘works’.  When Paul claims that a person cannot be justified on the basis of works of the Law, he is clearly referring to works that precede conversion.  The works in James, however, are the works that stem from, and are produced by faith: works that follow conversion.”  So James and Paul were actually talking about two different things, and as it turned out, they were in complete agreement.

Paul himself verifies this thought multiple times.  In 2 Corinthians 5:10 he wrote “For we must all stand before Christ to be judged.  We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.” Also, in Galatians 5:6 where Paul said “What is important is faith, expressing itself in love.”  And again, in Romans 2:13 where Paul said “For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight.”

Paul Schreiner says “James teaches that there is an organic relationship between genuine faith and works. If we truly trust Christ, that trust shows up in how we live.  Works evidence our faith.”  Even Calvin weighed in on this thought when he said “Obedience is the mother of the true knowledge of God.”

Returning to the passage, James tells his readers that if we only listen to the word and do not do what it says, that we are fooling ourselves.  He likens this to a person looking in the mirror and then immediately forgetting what they look like.  Merely to glance at our lives, like glancing quickly in a mirror, and not taking the time to examine what we see, may fool us into believing that everything is fine, but of course it isn’t.  Every one of us fails to love as we are called to love, and looking deeply into our lives and actions is necessary for believers, in order to reveal our deepest needs.

We find many people in the Bible who look deeply into their lives, and the result is illuminating.  Does anyone remember Moses’ response when he met God at the burning bush?  He covered his face because he was afraid to look at God.

Upon being called by God Isaiah said “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”

And our friend Peter, upon having Jesus’ power revealed to him, fell to his knees and said “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m such a sinful man.”

Looking at the perfection and the majesty of God reveals how short we fall of His glory.  I’ve often said that the prevailing experience of my Christian life has been the fact that the closer I get to God, the farther away from Him I realize that I am.  These famous saints of the Bible saw, in their encounters with God, the chasm that separates the holy from the unholy, and their response is indicative of the awe with which they viewed God and the inadequacy that they felt in His presence.  But how incredible a gift is it, that through the work of Jesus, we have the privilege of standing before God clothed in the robe of His righteousness and holiness!

Looking deeply into our lives is uncomfortable because it reveals the depth of our sin, and that would be tremendously discouraging, were it not for this wonderful gift of redemption that we have been given; a gift described in 1 John 1:9 where we are promised that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

How can we ever begin to thank God for this incredible gift of grace?  Thankfulness isn’t wallowing in remorse over our sins.  Thankfulness is rejoicing in God’s gracious forgiveness, and responding to that grace with a compelling desire to follow and to serve God.

If our heart is not engaged in the process of becoming like God’s heart, then we are not on the path that we should be traveling as Christians.  Warren Wiersbe says “Too many Christians mark their Bibles, but their Bibles never mark them.”  James is completely correct that hearing is not enough!  We need to allow God to transform our hearts in order that we may become a people who learn to live justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly.

James calls us not to deceive ourselves, but to look deeper into the “Perfect Law that sets us free” in order to do what it says and not to forget what we’ve herd.  The transformation of our hearts begins when we recognize the extent of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus.  Our sins are forgiven and we are freed from their bondage.  In gratitude, we choose to seek God, to follow Him, and to allow Him to create in us a new heart with the capacity to reflect the extravagant love with which He loves us.  This is the blessing that James promises to his readers at the end of this section.

James then returns briefly to his comment about being slow to anger, reminding us of the importance of controlling our tongue.  Words have power, and love requires us to guard what we say.  Since the essence of obedience to the law is to love, we need to allow love to dictate how we speak, and even how we think of others.  Proverbs 12:18 says “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”  On multiple occasions in the Bible we are told that our words, both good and bad, spring from our hearts, and only the one whose heart is transformed by God’s love through the Spirit has the capacity to reflect God’s love in their words.  James closes the first chapter by saying “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.”

This caring for the poor and the marginalized is another recurring theme in James, and indeed reflects the words of Jesus from Matthew 25 when He spoke of separating the sheep and the goats, with the criteria for judgment being whatever we have done for “the least of these”.  We’ll be digging into this a little deeper in the coming weeks.

Lastly is James’ comment about not being corrupted by the world.  Remember that the word “Holy” means to be set apart.  When we think about setting ourselves apart from the world, it’s important that we understand what a life that is set apart for God looks like.  I’d like to share a few thoughts on this subject from two of my favorite commentators.

Warren Wiersbe says “It is important that we, as priests of God, maintain our separated position in this world.  We must not be isolated, because the world needs our influence and witness; but we must not permit the world to infect us or change us.  Separation is not isolation; it is contact without contamination.”

And Charles R. Erdman says “The phrase ‘the world’ pictures the sphere or form of life from which God is excluded, the spirit of which is selfishness, the prince of which is Satan.  One who belongs to God must not be controlled by worldly precepts, by selfish motives, by sinful impulses.  On the other hand, they must be transformed by accepting the will of Christ as the controlling principle of their life.  Their character and conduct will not be determined by a mere imitation of Christ, but by His transforming energy.

Are we living through the process of making our hearts look like God’s heart?  Let’s have a good look in that mirror and see.

Sermon 2020.08.16 James Week 1

There is some pretty significant scholarly debate over the question of who wrote the book of James.  The author identifies himself only as James, a servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ.  In the original Greek the word “servant” is δοῦλος which means “slave”, so the author is claiming to be a slave of God, and of Jesus.

There are four people named “James” in the New Testament, the Apostle James the son of Zebedee and brother of John; the Apostle James the son of Alphaeus, sometimes called James the Younger, or James the Less; there’s James the father of the Apostle Judas the Zealot who is also called Judas the son of James, or Thaddeus (Please don’t ask me to explain that one); and finally there is James, son of Joseph, the half brother of Jesus.

Now there’s no rule that says that the author has to be someone mentioned in the New Testament, but the author speaks with an authority that would be unlikely to be found in the person of someone who didn’t merit mention anywhere in the New Testament.  Very little is known about James the Younger, and even less is known about James the father of Judas, so that leaves us the more likely sources of James the son of Zebedee and James the half brother of Jesus, but James the son of Zebedee was martyred in the year 44, and internal evidence in James strongly suggests that this is too early for the authorship of this book, so most scholars concede that the likely author is James the half brother of Jesus.

It should be noted that this controversy is relatively new, as James the half brother of Jesus is traditionally regarded as the author of the letter.  Origen who lived from 184 to 253 was the first extant author to refer to the book of James as scripture, but there are multiple allusions to James in earlier writings though it is not certain that they were drawn from James.  Jerome, who lived from around 347 to around 419 included the book of James in his Latin translation of the Bible that is known as the Vulgate, and he further identified the author as the half-brother of the Lord.

As far as the date of authorship is concerned, internal evidence indicates that the author had an awareness of Paul’s contention that salvation is by grace alone apart from works. So the letter likely wouldn’t have been written before Paul began his ministry. Paul’s thoughts on salvation by grace appear to be at odds with one of the primary messages of James that faith without works is dead.  It really isn’t at odds, and we’ll spend some time talking about that next week.  Also, the letter makes no mention or allusion to the Jerusalem Council, which was held in the year 48 in which James played a key role.  As such, it appears that the letter was written sometime between 45 and 47, which would make it the earliest book of the New Testament.

Before Jesus was crucified, James did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, but according to 1 Corinthians 15:7 the resurrected Jesus visited James, and James became a believer, eventually becoming the head of the church in Jerusalem.  James was a devout Jew, and the Jewish influence permeates his letter, and yet James always ties the Jewish Law to Jesus. When James spoke of the Law, he did use the traditional Jewish description “The Royal Law” but he also referred to it as “The Law of Liberty” and “The Perfect Law”.  Jesus had said “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them”, and indeed James places a great deal of emphasis on interpreting Jewish law through the words and teachings of Jesus.

We will often hear James referred to as “James the Just”, and indeed his reputation is one of being an extremely pious man.  It has been said that James had knees as hard as a the knees of a camel because he spent so much time on his knees in prayer.

In 48, a group of Jewish Christians from Antioch had a disagreement with the Gentile Christians.  The Jewish Christians were claiming that in order to be Christian, you had to be Jewish first, and so the Jewish Christians were demanding that the Gentile Christians be circumcised and follow Jewish law.  Paul and Barnabas did not agree and so they and the Antioch Christians turned to the church in Jerusalem for an answer, convening a meeting headed by Paul, Barnabas, Peter, and James.  First Paul and Barnabas made their case that circumcision should not be required, then Peter relayed his stories of the Holy Spirit being poured out on Gentile believers, reasoning that if God had accepted them fully as they were, then there was no reason for the church not to.  Finally, James issued his opinion.  He declared that the Gentile Christians should not be troubled with following Jewish law but he recommended some guidelines that would prevent the Gentile Christians behavior from offending the Jewish Christians.  James’ solution was agreed to unanimously.

It’s interesting to note the fact that one of the key arguments in favor of James’ authorship of this letter is the fact that the statement of James in Acts 15, made during the Jerusalem Council, bears striking stylistic and grammatical similarities to the Book of James.

It’s also interesting to note the fact that, in his statement in Acts 15, James said “God wanted to show His concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for Himself.  This is the first time the phrase “A people for Himself” had been used of anyone other than the Jewish people; and as such, this was a powerful statement from James, according equal status to all Christians, Jewish or Gentile.

According to the Jewish historian Josephus, James was stoned to death in 62 AD.

There is an interesting aside to the passage that reports the death of James in Josephus.  The historical reference to Jesus in Josephus’ book “Antiquities of the Jews” is widely thought to be tainted.  In the passage, the narrative speaks glowingly about Jesus, referring to Him as Messiah.  Even though this passage occurs intact in the earliest and most reliable texts of Josephus, scholars mostly agree that the original words of Josephus were embellished, most likely by a Christian amanuensis or scribe.  The fact that this reference to Jesus is likely tainted, leads some to disregard the passage entirely, and to use the passage as proof that the story of Jesus is fiction, and that the Jesus passage in Josephus is not proof of Jesus’ existence.  However, these folks fail to contend with the passage where Josephus reports the death of James, where Josephus very matter of factly identifies James as the brother of Jesus.  As careful a historian as Josephus was, to have mentioned the name of Jesus here without any explanation of who he is, is a strong indication of the fact that Josephus must have identified him at an earlier point.  Even if the Jesus passage was embellished, it’s pretty clear that the passage existed in some form prior to its having been embellished.

James touches on a number of subjects in his letter, and many scholars believe that the letter is actually derived from a collection of sermons that were preached by James.  He sometimes skips around from subject to subject so there may be some places where the text seems a little disjointed.  However, that doesn’t detract from the force or the importance of James’ message.

James begins his letter by telling his readers that they should “count it all joy” when facing trials. As the first century church began to develop, Christians had a lot of trouble in Jerusalem.  They were ostracized from the community, they were contending with a famine that hit Jerusalem at just about the time that this letter was written, and many Christians had lost jobs because of their faith due to the fact that employers would no longer associate with them, and so, times were difficult.  James addresses this by teaching his readers that trials produce steadfastness.  A better translation of the Greek word ὑπομονή would be “patient endurance”, which is the exact same word that Peter used that was translated “perseverance” when Peter said “add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.” According to Douglas Moo, this patient endurance is the goal of the process.  “Not a passive patience”, Moo says, “But an active strength which will stand firm in the face of the most severe circumstances, always an appropriate response to temptation, but never to people”

Clearly difficulties surrounded the growing first century church and James encouraged his readers to utilize the trials as an opportunity to learn to rely on God and to develop a patient faith.  James then ties this thought to prayer.  In times of trouble, turning to prayer allows God to give wisdom to His children, which is a critical component of the patient endurance James is calling us to develop.  James then speaks of double mindedness, which actually results from divided loyalties.  In prayer, we are not so much asking for our will to be done as we are asking to be incorporated into God’s will.  When our loyalties are divided between God and the world, James tells us that we must “not suppose that we will receive anything from the Lord”.  “God gives generously to all without reproach” James says, but our prayers must be made in faith and without doubt.

James then turns to a theme to which he will return several times in the letter.  “Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation.  The word “lowly” is the Greek ταπεινός which gives the sense of poor and powerless; those to whom I often refer to as “the poor and the marginalized”.  James will have some pretty harsh things to say to the rich later in his letter, but in this passage, the sense is one of a wealthy Christian refusing to take pride in his riches.

If we remember when Jesus told the disciples that it is more difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle and the disciples asked “Who then can be saved?” Jesus responded “What is impossible for man is easy for God”.  Of course, there will be wealthy Christians, but wealth carries with it many impediments to the faith and so the wealthy person who “boasts in humiliation” is a person who recognizes the blessing that their wealth is, and doesn’t follow the ways of the world in acquiring or maintaining that wealth.

James then returns to the thought of trials, first encouraging his readers by saying that those who persevere will gain the “Crown of Life, which God has promised to those who love Him”. And I’d like to point out that in the ancient Greek world, there were two very commonly known types of crown.  διάδημα is the royal crown that would be worn by a king.  στέφανος is the olive wreath worn on the head that is given to the victor in a game or competition.  The crown to which James is referring here is the στέφανος, the crown of victory.

James then takes a moment to speak of temptation.  He wants to make known the fact that God does not tempt.  He explains that God cannot be tempted with evil, nor does He tempt anyone.  Temptation, James explains, is a result of a person’s own desires.  James then speaks of the dangers of temptation when he says “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.  Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.  While James’ approach is different from Peter’s, the call to choose the kingdom strategy is apparent in James’ letter also.

Douglas Moo, in his commentary on James says “The various hardships and afflictions that meet Christians in the world can produce spiritual perfection and lead to God’s reward if they are endured in faith.  However, they can have a harmful effect if met with the wrong attitude.  One such wrong attitude, James suggests, is to blame God for the enticement to sin that accompanies trials”

James closes out this section of his letter saying “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.  Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Far from being one who tempts us, James makes the point that God is the author of every good and perfect gift.

As I reach this point in the sermon I’m kicking myself for not having chosen “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” as the closing hymn for today, but I am going to quote the first verse:

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father.

There is no shadow of turning with Thee.

Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not,

As Thou has been, Thou forever will be.

Great is Thy faithfulness,

Great is Thy faithfulness,

Morning by morning new mercies I see.

All I have needed Thy hands hath provided,

Great is Thy faithfulness Lord unto me.

 

To all who ask God, He gives generously, and without reproach.

 

 

 

Sermon 2020.08.09 2nd Peter Week 3

For 11 weeks now we have been studying the letters of the Apostle Peter.  In the closing chapter of his second letter, Peter wants to remind us of what we have learned, both from the ancient prophets, and from the Apostles of Jesus.  Peter says that he wants to stimulate wholesome thinking and refresh our memories.  He then continues his discussion of false teaches.

The end times and the return of Jesus were hotly debated topics in the first century.  There were many who believed that some of the things that Jesus said indicated the fact that His return was imminent.  In fact, it is thought that a person or persons in the Thessalonian Church were forging letters from Paul that taught about the end times.  This is why Paul made a point of telling the Thessalonians that he wrote part of his letter in his own handwriting, so that they would know that the letters from him were genuine.

While we know that Jesus said “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” (Mt. 24:34) and “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the Kingdom of God has come with power.” (Mk. 9:1).  We also know that Jesus said “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mk. 13:32).  Peter addresses this controversy head on.

First, Peter reminds us that there will be false teachers who will scoff at the truth.  They will try to make the case that since Jesus had not returned yet, He wouldn’t be returning at all.  The scoffers make the argument that the world has continued on in the same way for thousands of years and there is no reason to expect that things will suddenly become different.  Peter answers their argument by reminding them that the Bible teaches that there have been dramatic changes in the past.  He cites two examples, the fact that God created the earth, separating the land from the water, and that God brought the Flood through which He saved Noah and his family.

“And by the same word”, Peter says, “the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.”  Peter’s apocalyptic vision of the destruction of the current heaven and earth by fire is one found repeatedly in the Bible, and indeed alluded to by Jesus Himself.

Stepping out of the story here for a moment, as we read and study the Bible, particularly the study of the end times, it’s important to know that when Jesus spoke apocalyptically, most scholars believe that He spoke of multiple events.  The majority of the apocalyptic 24^th chapter of Matthew is thought to be speaking not of the Day of the Lord, which Jesus said would come without warning like a thief in the night, but of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

And by the way, for those like me who enjoy seeing a prophecy fulfilled by someone who is completely clueless about the prophecy, when the disciples commented to Jesus on the magnificence of the stones of the temple, Jesus said that “Not one stone will be left standing on top of another”.

The first Jewish revolt was so difficult for the Romans that when Nero gave his annual address to the Senate, he skipped the traditional opening greeting “Caesar and the Legions are well”.  So fierce was the Jewish resistance to the Roman attempt to put an end to the uprising that Nero sent his best general and future Caesar, Vespasian with four legions of troops, plus help from King Agrippa II to quell the uprising.  Vespasian, who knew absolutely nothing about Jesus, was so enraged by the ferocity of the resistance that the Jewish historian Josephus tells us that Vespasian gave the order that not one stone of the temple was to be left on top of another.  And so, a man with absolutely no knowledge of Jesus or His teachings, unknowingly fulfilled the prophecy.

So complete was the destruction of the temple that modern archaeology has confirmed only two stones to have been a part of the original temple.  The wailing wall, which does still stand today, was actually part of a retaining wall that was built by King Herod to expand the Temple Mount, and was not a part of the original temple.

Contrasting the comment of Jesus that the Day of the Lord would come without warning, when Jesus spoke of the destruction of Jerusalem, He listed several signs of its coming, nearly all of which, thanks to Josephus, we know actually happened as the Lord predicted.  So, we need to remember that when Jesus speaks apocalyptically, there are a few different events about which He may be speaking.

Anyway, returning to our story, Peter addresses the argument about the apparent delay in Jesus’ return by saying that “A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.”  Peter says that the Lord is not being slow, He’s being patient!  (You know, love, joy, peace, patience) Peter reminds us that God is being patient for our sake, because He doesn’t want anyone to be destroyed but wants everyone to repent.

Peter then describes the events of the end times, saying “The heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.”  Peter then says “Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live.”

Warren Wiersbe gives a compelling illustration of this.  Imagine a titan of industry, a person with vast wealth who has built an enormous industrial empire.  As the earth is destroyed, in the blink of an eye, his empire, everything he built, everything into which he poured his heart and soul, is completely… gone.  And as he stands before God, God asks this man to show Him what he has accomplished with his life; and the man has absolutely nothing left to show.  All of his life’s work has been destroyed.

The things that really matter in this life are not what we acquire, but rather what we give.  Have we shown love today?  Have we made a difference in someone’s life today?  Have we fed the hungry, clothed the naked, or healed the sick?  Love, and the outpouring of that love are the things that we will still have intact and undamaged when we stand before God.

After sharing his apocalyptic vision, Peter again issues the call to follow the kingdom strategy rather than the earthly strategy.  In light of all this, Peter says, we should be making every effort to live peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in God’s sight.  We are called to be holy.

Once again, I’d like to step away from the story, because Peter has raised an important point, and I’d like to address a common misconception.  I believe that when most people hear the word “Holy”, the tendency is to interpret it as meaning moral goodness, and while there is nothing wrong with Christians using that interpretation, that’s actually not what the word means.  In the original Greek, holy is hagios, which is a word that means separate, or set apart; something that is other than the ordinary.  We, as Christians, hear the call to holiness and we panic, because we know that we are imperfect beings, incapable of the moral goodness that we think that holiness demands.

The Presbyterian pastor and educator R. C. Sproul once said most insightfully “Ordinary experience, even for the most devout Christian, is basically profane.”  But when you get right down to it, it’s just foolish of us to think that God doesn’t know this.  Am I right?  So why would we think that God would ask us to do the impossible?  God isn’t asking us to do the impossible, what He is asking, is for us to be set apart for Him.  Yes, we are incapable of keeping God’s law, but that doesn’t mean that we should not long to keep it.

Throughout his letters, Peter has constantly reminded us that our faith revolves not so much around what we do, as around who we are.  Remember that this was the very issue with the prophet Balaam last week, who seemed to be doing everything exactly right, but because he was seeking personal gain, God called his path a reckless one.  Christianity is a matter of the heart.  When we love God with all of our hearts something happens inside of us that fundamentally changes the way we think.  As the Holy Spirit is born within us, He begins to change our hearts into hearts that resemble God’s heart.  Holiness is not about being good.  Holiness is about being set apart for God.  Holiness is about allowing the Holy Spirit to change our lives, to change our way of thinking, and ultimately to change who we are.  Goodness is simply a by-product of that process.

Our responsibility is simply to love God.  To tell Him that we recognize the fact that we are His children, and that our desire, is to belong to Him.  What happens after that is explained beautifully by R. C. Sproul: “What makes something sacred; what makes something holy, is the touch of God upon it.  When the One who is “other” and different, touches that which is ordinary, it becomes extraordinary.”

You, my friends, are extraordinary.  Every one of you.  God has touched each of us.  God has called each of us to be something that is other than ordinary.  He has called us to live lives that reflect His extraordinary love.  He has called us to be people of extraordinary grace and compassion.  No, we’re not going to be perfect, but that’s kind of the point.  When an ordinary person does extraordinary things, those extraordinary things become a sermon unto themselves.  The world is astonished by the extraordinary.

I read a hilarious post on Facebook a few years back.  It was written by a woman who had lived her entire life in a rural town in the deep south.  This was a woman who grew up accustomed to southern hospitality, and the common courtesy that is a part of that culture.  She had taken a new job and soon found herself driving to New York City for a meeting.  She wrote this post at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike.  After commenting on the fact that she thought that she was going to be run off the road doing the speed limit because everyone else was driving, as she said, at eleventy hundred miles an hour, she said that when she held the door open for someone at the rest stop, they thanked her as if she had just donated a kidney to them.  This common courtesy to which she was accustomed as a part of her culture turned out to be uncommon in New Jersey culture, and, to her great surprise, was recognized as the uncommon thing that it is here.

God is not calling us to perfection, at least not yet.  God is calling us to make a difference.  We are sent to seek and save the lost.  Peter just finished telling us that “God does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.”  Our hearts should reflect this desire of God’s heart, and we also should be about the task of bringing others to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  Remember our titan of industry, standing empty handed before God?  How much better would it be to be standing before God in the company of those who stand there with you because of the love that you exhibited that made a difference in their lives?

Returning to our story, Peter reminds us that, so great is God’s desire that all would turn to Him and be saved, that He is patient, even to the point of waiting for thousands of years, to allow every single one of His beloved children the opportunity to discover the depth of love that God has for them, and to choose to return that love.

There’s a whole different sermon in Peter’s next statement, as he recognizes the Apostle Paul and categorizes Paul’s letters as scripture.  Without going too deeply into this (and maybe I will at another time!), Peter, an Apostle and contemporary of Jesus, recognized the letters of Paul, as authoritative.  As archaeology is beginning to give us an understanding of the fact that written versions of scripture existed long before the mid 300’s as was once commonly thought, Peter’s testimony here is important in establishing the authenticity of the Bible as something that was in its formative stages during the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus.

Peter ends his letter with an admonition not to be fooled by false teachers, and then reminds us to grow in the grace and epignosis of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Remember that epignosis is the word that means to have knowledge that impacts the way that you think and act.  Throughout Peter’s letters he has expressed the importance of knowledge.  Study is an indispensable part of being a Christian.  We don’t need to become Bible scholars.  We don’t need to learn other languages or study the history of Bible times (not that you couldn’t!).  But what we need is consistent time reading the Bible prayerfully.  God has promised to honor that, and as your epignosis of Jesus and His life and teachings increases, not only will you be brought closer to God, but your effectiveness in seeking and saving the lost will grow as well.

If you’ve driven by Hope Church lately, you’ve seen one of my absolute, favorite quotes on our sign.  It’s from Saint Francis, and it says “Share the Gospel, use words if necessary”.  (And thank you Bill Heller for choosing that quote).  The love and the grace that we show will speak to the world in ways that we can’t even imagine.  God is calling us to show that love and grace in our ordinary day to day lives, in order that our lives may become extraordinary, and that we may become a witness to a world in desperate need, of the extraordinary love and grace of the God who created us, and loves us beyond measure.

All glory to Him, both now and forever.  Amen.