God's Grace is Even Stronger

Text: James 3:13-18, 4:6-8

Focus: Humility

Function: To help people see that humility produces gentleness, mercy and compassion.

Form: gok

Intro: The Message, 3:17-18

^17-18Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.

I mentioned last week how Scot Miller said that 9/11 was one of the biggest events in our collective history. It is certainly the biggest event since the great depression, the New Deal, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Civil Rights marches, and the breakup of the Soviet Union.

A lot has changed.

And, a lot has changed much quicker than it did in the past.

The 7 billion people alive today are more than the collected numbers of all of humanity up until 1950 or so.

Starting with the printing press, knowledge has increased exponentially.

We now live in a day and an age where almost any bit of information is readily accessible in almost every American household.

I remember attending a journalism seminar when I was in the 9^th grade. The parent driving us to Ball State University was the lead engineer at Bowmar corporation in FW.

Having found out that my interest was photography. He then proceeded to tell me that his company had figured out a way to take a picture of an integrated circuit and that by the end of the year, they would have a hand-help computer that would add, subtract, multiply, divide and do square roots.

I remember thinking to myself, “If that is true, it will change the world, just as the wheel did.”

Sure enough, my twin brother's best friend's dad was the VP of that company and he showed up in Algebra class with a prototype model of the world's first hand help electronic calculator.

And, by the 10^th grade, the local high school no longer issued slide-rules because Bowmar corporation donated 100 printing electronic calculators for the science/math lab.

To quote Brooks from the movie The Shawshank Redemption, “The world done gone and changed. It got faster.”

I realize that some of this is still new to many who are more computerese challenged. SO, I'll explain another phenomena.

Social Media has grown up with this new electronic communication age.

My mom's best friend has a daughter of whom I grew up with who never married, but instead has spent her life in Sierre Leone, Africa working to stop the human sex-trafficking that is coming from that region.

And through the miracle of the internet, she is able to have a video chat with her daughter every Friday night completely free of charge.

Apple and Google now both are marketing watches that are as fantastic as Dick Tracey's tv wristwatch.

With Social media, Facebook specifically, the oppressive regime in Egypt was over thrown.

With Social Media, the lecherous regime of the Ukraine was overthrown.

There is real power and great activity happening out there in the electronic world and all of it is just beginning.

I am sort of an electronics/computer nerd.

As a matter of fact, my social media handle is “RevNerd” instead of Reverend.

And, the social media world is not for the light of heart.

People now engage in conversations with complete strangers and because there is the anonymity of a computer screen, sometimes the attacks can get downright mean and vicious.

I think the electronic age is great and exciting.

But a lot of what goes on has a dark underbelly.

The Internet has shut down countless adult bookstores and movie houses because one can access all that smut in the privacy of their own home.

But one of the real problems is that people engage in conversations without any consequences.

And, because they like a certain view, sport, or style, the programmers of these web sites are really good at marketing directly towards one peculiar niche.

And sadly, we don't really get a good understanding of the validity of the other side's thinking.

Those who watch the 24 hour news cycles see the same thing happening. People gravitate to what reinforces their own tribe mentality.

And those pulling the strings, especially those advertising and investing lots of money in Internet communication and 24 hour news know that in order to keep people listening so that they will buy their advertisers product, they have to keep up controversy.

I find it sad that Christians can watch this kind of mean spirited behavior being demonstrated by worldly people and somehow, maybe because they see so much of it, somehow they believe that it is acceptable.

And you know that just because we see it all the time, it does not mean that the behavior is acceptable.

The wisdom that comes from God is first Peaceable.

It is gentle.

It is respectful.

It leads to(ward) community, not away from it.

We want to rise above the vitriol, not contribute to it. (AMEN)?

Yesterday, a dear saint, a devout Republican who is one of the most generous people I have ever met, he would literally give you the shirt off his back because his shirt belongs to God, not him, but, he has one rule: “you have to work for it.”

He may take a 50 year old preacher whose church had to cut back his wages because of the recession and give him hundreds of dollars a week, provided he did work, mowing the lawn, pulling weeds, fixing the tractor or whatever.

He lives by the Christian principle of generosity without sacrificing his own principle of rewarding hard work.

But we learned last week that we all sin. And this dear saint posted something about the Syrian refugees.

And immediately, someone else posted something terrible about how evil they all are because Islam is the dominant religion of Syria.

She claimed to be a Christian. So, I just posted this: “I read this somewhere... love your neighbor... ...love your enemies... ...pray for those who persecute you...” and then, from the OT, I posted the command to treat the alien as a neighbor.

All I said was Jesus' teachings and the OT principle of caring for the alien.

To which she said, nicely: “dear Phil... you are naïve... ...God would not let the Devil into heaven...

And, she was pretty nice, but I was taken back by that statement. And this is where kindness comes in, I could have said, “what about Job?”

She is right, we are naïve.

We choose to live by faith, and if God calls us to treat the alien as we would any neighbor, and that is to love my neighbor as ourselves, then we have to believe that God will protect us when we are obedient to God. And, if God doesn't protect us, then God is doing something bigger than us, and since our lives were bought with the price of Jesus' blood, and we no longer possess it, we died with Jesus in our baptism to come alive to being a partner with God in God's new and better kingdom, then we are not to live in fear over the kingdoms of men. (AMEN?)

And yes, that is naïve given the global evil that is out there.

But, that is what God called us to be.

We are innocent as doves, as vulnerabnle as sheep. We live by faith, not fear.

And I needed that lady to remind me not to get upset, angry, or fearful.

I did answer her with a statement like: “I am just quoting Christian Scripture. How you listen to it is between you and God. But, I don't think faith in God is naïve.

Isn't that what James is talking about here?

Especially when James is talking about human conflict.

We are always going to have conflict.

How we love in the midst of it determines our testimony to Christ. Is it faith or fear?

Let me rearead the opening line: “You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.”

In the hiatus between the end of Chapter 3 and the first few verses of Chapter 4, we read more about the evil of conflict and human failure.

And I love verse 6: ⁶But the grace that God gives is even stronger.

God's grace is stronger, always.

Loving Others

Text: James 3:1-12

Focus: Being nice in our speech.

Function: To help us love each other

Form: GOK: God Only Knows

Intro: (Animated) Thumper, what did your daddy tell you?

Thumper: “If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.”

Being the week of 9/11, this has been a week of sad remembrances. I suppose that I was sort of lucky, spending the day traveling in my car with a precious brother and two precious sisters on our way home from AC.

It was sort of sobering to see all the flags at half mast and to have the conversations about what we were doing and where we were when those 4 planes were crashed into buildings and a field killing so many in an obvious terroristic attack.

Scot Miller made the point to me that the whole world, as we know it, changed on that day.

This morning, my grand daughters got to meet and speak with Jeanie and Nancy Hammond-Chaffey as we took an evening of respite at our Englewood, Ohio home.

It was odd, almost impossible for me to think of it when my grand daughter asked me about that day since, although she is now a teenager who seems more and more grown up every time I see her, to realize that she was not yet born on that day.

She only knows this post 9/11 world. All she really knows, all that she really understands, all that she has ever really heard about is the anger, hatred and calls for revenge as the nation still grieves the attack and the death.

I am patriotic. So, I have to remember that on that day, if we round up the number of deaths, 4,000 people -mostly American Citizens- died during that attack. And then another 8,000 combat Americans have died in our attempts to prosecute reprisals against our enemies.

And I have to remind myself that around 212,000 innocents and 50,000 soldiers, among our (show quotation marks) “enemies” have died.

And there are those who would say, “well, they attacked us and they ought to have known better.”

I understand that. And that is not really the point from this passage.

But it helps me to frame today's passage and great lessons I learned from the morning bible studies at NOAC lead by Robert Bowman together into this sermon.

Every bible study started out with this phrase: “A Certain Man Had Two Sons.”

We looked at the parable, commonly known as “the Prodigal Son.” Professor Bowman led us through the parable from the perspective of the Elder Brother, the perspective of the Younger Brother and the perspective of the Father.

I have preached that parable time and again, but never really considered something he brought to light. I agreed with him when he said it wasn't really about the prodigal, the son who left his family and returned. We most often hear the parable preached from the perspective of the waywardness, rebellion and reconciliation of a sinner who comes back to God.

I was raised in a pastor's family, but at a young age, I rebelled against my faith and my father's teaching, left the Church and was restored as the prodigal is.

Even though the parable follows the story of the lost sheep and the lost coin, and the ensuing celebration over their recovery, it isn't really about the lost son coming home.

Jesus told the parable in answer to the criticism that He was receiving because He was accused of being morally impure because Jesus was, and still is, by the way, the friend of sinners.

The story is about the elder brother's anger at the father for extending mercy to the younger brother.

I have preached that part more than I have preached about God's willingness to take us back if we have ran away from God.

The elder brother clearly resented the Father's mercy.

He was outside throwing a fit. And the father goes out to him to invite him to celebrate the restoration of his younger brother. And the elder brother goes off on his dad.

Jesus was telling those who criticized him for hanging around with imperfect people that God loves to forgive, restore and heal.

And we, we who are God's, whether we served God all our lives, or whether we came back to God after leaving, or whether it is our first encounter with the God who chose to name God's own self as “Love,” need to be happy at God's mercy, not resent the fact that others “got away” with sinning and still get to heaven.

Anyone who says that implies that living an evil life is more fulfilling that living a life of love, mercy and sacrifice.

Both children were pretty selfish and were only thinking of themselves. The younger brother when he squandered his portion of the family wealth on self-destructive living. And the elder brother when he initially refused to forgive.

But Professor Bowman said something I hadn't considered before.

I was thinking I was a pretty good bible scholar up until this point. I was feeling sort of smug when he was saying it isn't about the prodigal, the parable is about the elder brother.

But I always thought it was about the elder brother's refusal to be happy at the father's mercy. I always wanted to name the parable “the ungracious brother.”

But my smugness was dashed, and rightly so, when Professor Bowman said it out to be named: “The unfinished story of the elder brother.”

Because, we do not know if the brother changed his mind, agreed with his father's joy over the restoration of the lost son, or if the elder brother chose not to.

In the OT narrative. Esau, who was cheated, tricked, lied to and outright stolen from chose to forgive the younger brother even though his entire family was thrust out of the line of heritage that eventually made up the nation of Israel.

He was the better man.

But then, Cain murdered his younger brother.

Professor Bowman pointed out that Jesus leaves us with the tension, the unresolved mystery of exactly what the elder brother choose to do.

And, he said, that is where we are at.

Do we choose to forgive, or do we choose to continue to resent.

When I heard that I thought, “can I too, be happy about grace and mercy, or do I resent it?”

At one time in my youth, I was trained to run sound equipment, how to mix sounds to improve the voices of the singers/actors for either a concerts or a theatrical productions.

I was running the sound board for an outdoor Christian festival near Angola, Indiana in 1977.

A man was singing and sharing his story of how after years of self-destructive living, he was restored to God and his own family and the concert was a wonderful celebration of God's grace and forgiveness.

Standing near me were two members of Christian musical family who have regularly been featured on Gaither Homecoming videos and concerts.

The father, and leader of the musical family, in a fit of what seemed to me to be jealousy said: “I don't get it, we have been serving God faithfully for over 50 years, we have never sinned, backslid or fallen away and this guy gets all the credit for getting to do his own thing and people are happy about it?”

He was the elder brother.

And before we judge the elder brother, it is important to remember that his gripes were indeed legitimate. He was faithful. He was hard working. He took care of his father. He never disobeyed. He was hard working, conscientious and sincere. He was a great son. He was the son that father should indeed be proud of.

He did everything right. And the story wasn't finished, if he truly was a righteous man, then when the father asked him to be happy with the father at the joy that his brother survived his indicretions, he may have seen it father's way. Professor Bowman kept pointing out that we are not perfect, and sometimes, when we are angry, we need a reminder to consider things from God's perspective and celebrate with God the fact, power and joy of God's grace.

AMEN?

I love the Hymn, “I love to tell the story of God's love” because it reminds me of the good news of the gospel. Every time someone is restored from a self-destructive life to one of love and sacrifice for the Kingdom of God, I, We, all rejoice.

Amen?

The next day, Professor Bowman told the story from the younger brother's perspective and pointed out that we really don't know why the younger brother left. He may not have felt like he had a real chance, never measured up to his elder brother, it may have even been a mutual decision by the youth and the dad for him to leave. It was a great message as well.

And the next day, he tells the story from the Father's perspective.

A Certain Man Had Two Sons.

And the Father loves them both.

The Father wanted the sons to love each other.

And if the younger brother had legitimate reasons for leaving, and then when he got alone and away from his elder brother, and squandered his inheritance on self-destructive living, that is the best translation from the Greek that the KJV translates “riotous living,” we shouldn't be to hard on the man.

The Father clearly loved both sons and wanted them to love each other.

Their animosity, anger, fighting or whatever, was breaking the Father's heart.

Jesus wanted those who thought they were better than others to consider just how much the Father loves both.

God's love for us does not stop toward us, even if we reject God. God is love.

That is my favorite “self-description” of God for God's own self. LOVE.

Now our text about the tongue.

The text clearly says that what comes out of our mouths is clearly a matter of what is in our heart.

The parable teaches us that even the best of us -whether it was the elder or the younger brother- but the emphasis is that God loves both the best and the worse of us.

9/11 happened. And God loves our enemies. The elder brother wasn't happy about that fact.

But God's heart is an heart of love.

(Prayer to heaven) Pray with me, please. “God, help us love like you love.”

How Comfortable Are We?

Text: James 2:1-14

Focus: Prejudice

Function: To help people overcome prejudice

Form: Expository

Intro: How comfortable are we with the word Sin?

What about the word Evil?

What about acceptable prejudices?

Let those questions sit in the back of your mind

And let me begin the answer to those questions with a couple of verses that really shocked me!

In 3^rd Greek, we had to translate the book of James. It is a little more difficult that 1 John, but a heck of a lot easier than Hebrews.

And I have to tell you, verses 10-12 really shocked me when I read what I was actually reading. Let me re-read them:

¹⁰Whoever breaks one commandment is guilty of breaking them all. ¹¹For the same one who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not commit murder.” Even if you do not commit adultery, you have become a lawbreaker if you commit murder.

Listen to those words in context and see if you don't hear it as well.

James is saying: “You do well to not commit adultery to prove that you are pure Christians, but let me expose your hypocrisy in this, get ready, even though you are sexually pure, by the rules, what about your murders?

Does anybody else find this shocking? It is worded as if murder was common, and acceptable as long as they were sexually pure.

Let me make an obvious metaphor here. I believe in sexual purity. I am glad to be a one woman man. But, I am not proud of it. What I am happy about is God's grace in spite of me.

But, having said I believe in that moral purity that he is talking about, the respect for my wife, my marriage covenant, the promise to “cling only to her” and her pledge to “cling only to me” has given my life a central pillar to which I am grounded.

God gave me to the Church, and God gave her to me.

And, I absolutely love the way you respect that boundary. Thank you!

I don't know if murder was more common in whatever circumstance that James is writing in. That is really hard to believe. Unless he is including all warfare, self-defense, all hatred, unforgiveness, bitterness, envy and strife. Maybe he is. But I doubt it.

Either way. The context is clear, you can't hide behind the cloak of sexual purity and high moral standards and use that to get away with ignoring the basic command, and it is right here in the text, it is the reason why James is a liberating and freeing book. Because in the book, James is explaining exactly what Jesus meant when Jesus said, “a New Command I give you, `LOVE ONE ANOTHER.'”

Can I get a witness? AMEN!

Here is what matters to God, loving each other in very practical, actionable ways.

Period. We love God by loving others. Jesus said it, “Do you love me? Love others.” Literally, He said: “Obey Me.” But again, He made only one commandment primary, the new commandment and James is setting us free from all the old code of the law with this one simple phrase. He states it two ways: the “Law that sets us free,” (Verse 12), and “The Royal Law, or The Law of the Kingdom,” (Verse 8). I like the NRSV “Royal law.”

So, to say “love me by loving others,” is probably the easiest way for me to sum up the whole command of scripture. And James makes it pretty easy.

And remember, the obvious metaphor is real obedience and love for God isn't merely adhering to a code of sexuality as proof of your true witness for Christ when one uses that as an excuse to ignore the much more weightier command to love one another.

Those who use that excuse to break the command of loving others, according to James, place themselves out of grace and a works oriented salvation.

So, I can see Martin Luther's problem with this book being a works oriented book. It would be much easier to have to obey a simple list of don't's in order to be saved. Lists of rules, especially -if we think we can pick and choose which ones- take us out of grace (but not God's love. Hear both of those phrases again.

Lists of rules keep us out of grace. But, hear this part, Nothing takes us out of God's love.

Now, in a sense it is indeed shocking, but nothing like the images that so many of us saw this week on Media and Social Media.

A little boy Aylan Kurdi, was found by Turkish police washed up dead on the shore. The man from Human Rights Watch, who first posted the picture online said this: “I dress my child every morning. When I put my Child's tennis shoes on him every morning, he knows that he is loved. It is a symbol of love and care. That parent dressed his child that morning with the same love for him.”

And yet, an acceptable prejudice in our culture are immigrants and refugees who are demonized as those who are taking our jobs and destroying our way of life.

Don't worry, I am not going to lay that child on our shoulders this morning. I know that we care and we cannot change what happened there. All we can do is brighten the corner where we are. And we do. Hope Church does that.

And, there is nothing at all comfortable in our hearts about the plights of refugees across the world.

We can't save the world entire.

But we can save the one next door.

Here is another problem for me. This passage, if taken to its extreme, could legitimatize the demonization of the rich by us, or Christians.

Riches are not evil. Making an idol of riches is wrong.

But that isn't our problem.

And praise God it isn't!

I started out with the question, how comfortable are we with the word sin?

And we aren't.

And we aren't for a good reason.

Sin could mean shame.

Most often it does imply shame.

And Jesus has set us free from shame.

And we are set free with the simple command, “love one another.”

We can't change the world entire.

But we can hope for the world entire.

We can love the world entire.

And we can love God by loving the ones that God has given to us to love.

I want to help Syrian refugees. I will never call any immigrant anything other than the one word that Jesus gave us for them, and that is “neighbor.”

Here we are God, willing to love everyone else.