Sermons

James' message to us is that we war with each other, with ourselves, and with God. The only answer to this is submission, drawing near, and humility before God; to bring deeds & faith together reflecting a heart for God. Submission is a military term. If a private starts to think he can make the calls of a general the war is hamstrung, but if he knows his place the general can map out a path of victory. We are too often the private saying we know better than the general; and we become a part of the problem, rather than the solution. Lot moved into Sodom and brought trouble to his family. David committed adultery and brought trouble to his family and kingdom. Jonah disobeyed God and almost sent a shipload of sailors to a watery grave. In each case, there was a wrong attitude toward the will of God. We need to understand the will of our general in the battle of life. And when we do so we become the peacemaker. Yet too often we regard the will of God as something dangerous or distasteful. However, the whole council of Scripture proclaims the opposite, that to be outside of the will of God is the dangerous and uncomfortable place to be. You have heard people say, “I would love to give my life to the Lord, but I’m afraid he will ask me to do something dangerous”. Yet, Scripture teaches that the best place for you to be is in God’s will. James outlines three attitudes we take towards God’s will: we can ignore, disobey, or just obey. What are we choosing to do?

We have been discussing conflict - which we all eventually have. Six:Eight will have it and that is not necessarily a bad thing. In all my years of church I have been impressed with the fact that we endeavor to deal with conflict. We have the best of intentions. We may argue tactics, strategy, and philosophy of ministry, but everyone wants the Body of Christ to grow. We have the same goal in mind, but how that looks in practice is sometimes different. How do we grow towards Christ together as a community of faith?

We live in a paradox, in tension. A tension which lies somewhere between God’s grace and power in my life and being just a robot. That tension of what I want to do, and what I should do. That is why a parent can say to their child, “I know I did it, but you are not allowed" - because there is a right and wrong. And, we do not always do what is right, but we know what it is. The danger in not fully understanding grace is that you can live in cheap grace. You can over spiritualize things and think that you are saved by grace and allow yourself to rest on your laurels, "God will take care of it, I don’t need to concern myself." But there needs to be intentionality in our spiritual formation; we need to think with our brain and act with our tongue and hands.

In the 1800’s there was a tightrope walker named BLONDIN. A story is recounted of Blondin crossing over the Niagara Falls on a tightrope, which he reportedly did several times. At one of these times he turned to his audience and asked them, “How many believe I can walk across this tightrope over the Falls pushing a wheelbarrow?” They were sure he could. Then he asked, “How many believe I can push a wheelbarrow
across the tightrope with a man sitting in it?” Again, a loud encouraging cheer. Blondin then pointed to one of the most enthusiastic men in the audience, and said, “Okay, you get in the wheelbarrow.” The man declined with a nervous laugh. There is often a great difference between belief, or the faith we SAY we have, and the action of faith we really have. I believe in Jesus, but do I exhibit faith in Jesus? We are going to coin a new verb today. You understand faith as a noun this morning, but hopefully you will see it more as a verb today: Faithing.