Sunday, June 22, 2008 Scripture reading: James 1:19-27
19 You must understand this, my beloved:* let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. 21Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.
22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves* in a mirror; 24for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. 25But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.
26 If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. 27Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Sermon Title: "I WAS FINE 'TIL NOW" Sunday, June 22, 2008
PASTOR HUDSON: Today's passage is from
the historic letter written by James. It is a transition point
as James moves to deal with a series of
extremely applied lessons for the church that
had everyone thinking, “I was fine till now.” It is interesting
that James has not always been received well. The reason
being the letter seemed to strongly emphasize
salvation is attained through a process of works and
spiritual discipline.
What's interesting about this passage today is
James is talking about one of two options you have in living
a Christian life. One is get a grip on life, engage
it and do what you know is the right thing to do.
James understood that oftentimes even as
Christians, our choices, behaviors and actions can be
extremely destructive to others. How often in the
course of life have we found ourselves either on the
receiving end or perhaps even on the pro-active end of
an experience that just caused us heartache and pain?
We've all been there. It's almost impossible to
experience the life of a church without also
experiencing the stresses and the struggles that are a
part of that world because a church is filled somewhat
with dysfunctional believers. One writer has made a edgy
statement that church attracts dysfunctional people
the way a garbage truck attracts flies, that's not a
very polite or comforting thought, yet the point of it
is that the church contains both good and bad.
The truth is church is a place where
dysfunctional people can learn to function and grow in
their spiritual relationship. Therefore, it really shouldn't
surprise us that we sit next to, on almost any given
Sunday, people that are at various points in the
journey. Those are the kinds of realities that James is
speaking to.
His remedy for those things in this passage is to
truly let the word of God flourish within us. To take
on the mind-set of Christ so that the day will come when
we as individuals will almost intuitively or
instinctively make choices and decisions, not out of
our human initiatives, but out of a set of drives and values
that are of a much higher level.
Now for the other side of the option coin. Number two is the
focus of the First Corinthians passage about love. It's a very
familiar passage, and it tells us all about love. In
First Corinthians, Paul is talking about the powerful
action of love within the life of a believer.
The kind of love that simply says I want to be like
Jesus in the midst of my brothers and sisters and I hope that that
it becomes a reciprocal attitude.
When husbands and wives first get married, they
speak words of their undying and deeply abiding love,
but oftentimes the love they're really speaking about
is that romantic attraction that we have for one
another. Now there is nothing wrong with individuals
that see in the other a marvelous object of desire.
God created us that way, and I think that's to be
celebrated, but to understand such as the essential
definition of love is to sell that emotion short.
Love is not solely that kind of
physical attraction. Most popular movies or
literature in our culture has more to do with lust
than it does with the biblical image of one who loves
another. Lust is like many other human emotions.
It's rooted in a desire to serve self, whatever form it may take.
The bottom line is, every one of the common list of negative
emotions, whether it's anger, wrath, malice,
greed, envy, lust, you name it, are rooted in a
commitment to serve the self, to be more
self-conscious than we are "other" conscious.
Over the years as I've worked with a variety of
couples trying to sort out issues of conflict in their
domestic relationship. I have found that almost
every single one of them has to do with that person
saying I want everything to be the way I want it.
The truth of the matter is the love described in
First Corinthians should be the motivation for doing
what James speaks of, I want you to be more important
in my life than I am, to sacrifice one's own desires,
welfare or situation knowing that that is ultimately
the higher road. I can't imagine anything better than
to be known as the church where people intensely and
passionately love and care for one another. Jesus
said it is by that they will know you are my
disciples.
So what about you? What about me? What would we
like to see happen today? What I would like to see
happen is a spiritual work that brings together the
love as described in First Corinthians and the
intentional action of James and create within our
conscience a whole new level of tenderness, warmth,
and sensitivity, the desire to build one another up.
What a great, great gift that would be. Let's pray
towards that end. In the name of the Father, Son and
the Holy Spirit, amen.