The first thing we did was gather in a big room and introduce ourselves. Some years ago I was part of a conference for pastors, with the goal of teaching these pastors how to be better preachers. And it’s something that impacts both the parishioner and pastor alike. ![]() But what if I was being serious? What if that was exactly what the elders had decided? What would that say to you about how this church loves? What would that say to you about how God loves? You see, this issue of partiality, favoritism and discrimination is so subtle that sometimes we don’t even know we have it. ![]() How do you feel? Okay, I’m terrible at telling a joke like that. We would never deny that God loves all people, but if you could just park down the road, I would greatly appreciate it. So if you’re like the Badals driving around in an old jalopy, you’re still welcome to be here. We’ve concluded that when people drive down Route 47, they want to see nice cars, new cars, so they’ll know that following Jesus Christ means we have nice things. Your car’s got rust on it and it looks old. If you have a car that is 2014 or older, we need you to start parking down at Jewel. We’re going to do parking a little differently now. Let me interject here for a moment a decision the elders have made that I need to make you aware of today. As Christians, we should invite them into our fellowship, lovingly engaging them as equally eligible to become heirs of the salvation found in Christ Jesus. You see, James will tell us that the subtle cancer is eroding our faith, our ability to see people as God sees them: with full respect and honor. And God help me if one of my kids would start dating one of them!” I don’t want to work or interact with them. I don’t want those types of people in my church or in my neighborhood. James, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, puts us in the test lab, looking for any symptoms throughout our lives.Īre we snobs regarding our mouths? Do we discriminate with words, ethnic slurs or nationality jokes? Are we heart snobs? Maybe we don’t reveal it through our talk or other outward expressions, but we think it. We need a physician to do special tests on us to determine if we have cancer and where it’s located. And like most cancers we don’t know at first that we’re living with it. Yet he will tell us that it’s a cancer in us. One of the challenges with what James identifies as partiality, favoritism or discrimination is that it’s very subtle. But think about it this way: Do you size people up? Do you look at people and evaluate them based on their appearance, their skin color, their age, their education, their status, their gender? Do you size people up based on outward appearances? Another person’s snobbishness can be crystal clear to us. There’s not an ounce of snobbery in me.” Snobbery is easy to see in other people. ![]() In chapter two we will be asking ourselves a question: am I a snob? I know some of you would answer, “Absolutely not. Over the course of the next three chapters, James will expand on how our conversation, compassion and conduct must be lived and not just talked about. Christianity involves two steps: knowing the Word and then doing what it says. Our conversation, our compassion and our conduct must all be conformed to Scripture. Last week we learned that a good outward expression of our faith requires guarding our tongues. So over and over again James describes what a life of faith should look like. Our life must be in step with the things we say we believe. Over the five chapters in the book of James, he reminds the church in his day-and reminds us-that if we’re going to talk about our salvation in Christ and what it means to follow Him, with the goal of bringing others into God’s Kingdom, then our walk has to match our talk. He knows that one of our great temptations as Christ followers is to talk a great game about how religious we are, how spiritual we are, but in the end our walk doesn’t match our talk. James has been teaching us how to live a practical life that honors God in all we say and do. Real Life.”, We’ve been learning from Jesus’ younger half-brother James, who walked with and talked with Jesus, who saw Him probably every single day of his young life and then into adulthood. ![]() We’re in a series we’ve entitled “Real Faith.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |