BAITED AGAIN?!
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One of the first passages that I got to preach out of James in this series (James 1:12-1:18) highlights the risk of self-deception in Christian life.
James teaches that our temptations are not a result of some lure that God has placed in our path
But rather, our temptations are just like bait dangled before us by Satan,
Who crafts his lures based off of our own heart’s desires!
In this passage from the first chapter of James, we see a picture of Satan acting more like an FBI agent luring someone into a sting operation… He’s more like a prosecutor in a slick suit cross-examining a defendant, not a rock star!
When we are pulled away from God by our sin... We are pulled away by counterfeits (lures aren’t actually food for the fish)
Now, I find that this concept is actually quite strongly (if subtly) echoed in the conclusion of James’ letter, though the connection may not be initially recognizable.
What do I mean by that?
I am suggesting today that James, in this conclusion, is actually describing the most essential element of good Christian living (Manual for Christian Living)
This element of your walk with God is the best indicator as to whether or not you yourself are going after a counterfeit Christianity...
Are you attracted to the sort of good Christian living that James is describing, or are you attracted to Good Housekeeping with a Christian skin draped over it?
Are you being lured into some sort of Satanic sting? Or are you earnestly obeying God’s commandments??
Complex question!
Let’s pray and let’s get into it!
A Heart for the Wanderers
A Heart for the Wanderers
19 My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, 20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
This concluding statement might seem a bit odd or abrupt
There is no closing address or doxology, as we commonly see with Pauline letters
This is possibly a product of this letter being intended for wide distribution (Like 1 John)
And James’ letter here seemingly concludes with a commission to pursue lost members of the flock so that they might be redeemed and not lost
How does this statement serve as a conclusion to James’ letter?!
And how does this closing statement connect to his previous statements? How does this statement connect to Elijah and prayer?How does this connect to James’ commission to:
16 ...confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
To answer these questions, let’s return to the invoked image of Elijah:
Elijah was a very famous figure among the prophets of ancient Israel
He was known (as is noted in James’ letter) for great works of faith through prayer that literally changed his world (rain/no rain)
Traditionally noted as the greatest of the prophets until John the Baptist and Jesus hit the scene
Elijah and Enoch are the only Biblical figures who are translated into Heaven without seeing death!
Is James, then, in invoking Elijah, suggesting that the truest expression of God’s power in Christian life is the healing of the sick or command over nature through prayer?
Or is he perhaps hinting at something else?
To answer this, let’s briefly consider the function of prophecy in the history of scripture to see what we find...
If I were to ask today what a prophecy was, the majority of you would probably say something along the lines of: “It’s a prediction of a future event that a person receives through supernatural means.”
Or something similar, right?
Well what if I was to tell you that foretelling, the predictive prophecies (like Elijah’s prophecy concerning the rain or any apocalyptic predictions in OT or NT prophecy), was really the VAST vast minority of prophecy?
Of all Biblical prophecy, it is calculated that around 1% involves the prediction of future events
Where the vast majority of the work of a prophet is forthtelling, or conveying messages from God to a people concerning what God sees going on there.
Take the opening of Isaiah for example:
1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. 2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.
3 The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”
THE VAST VAST MAJORITY of prophecy is the conveyance of God’s wisdom to a struggling people
It is by this metric that we see that David is considered to be a prophet, though we don’t often consider him as such in our modern parlance.
Peter refers to David as a prophet in his sermon on Pentecost:
30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, 31 he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.
And while Peter here highlights David’s foreseeing of Christ’s resurrection...
Read the Psalms! The Psalter is largely composed of forthtelling of God’s sovereignty over all creation, along with his goodness and his love for his creation!
Let’s consider Psalm 16, the Psalm that Peter is quoting in this passage from Acts:
Verse 4 & verse 10 (the verse Peter cites for his sermon) are the only statements that might be considered predictive in this work
And the primary purpose of the poem is the worshipful acknowledgment of God’s saving grace and his goodness and the comparative failure of going after other gods (forthtelling!)
This actually leads into a more general point concerning what we tend to fixate on when we consider the narrative of scripture:
It is interesting to note how much we focus on the acute miraculous moments (splitting the sea, fire from heaven, stopping the rain, future predictions) when the greater miracle has always been God’s revelation of himself to us and his unfolding plan to deliver us from our descent into death and destruction!
Which is the cooler miracle really?! The red sea being split 3500 years ago or God saving my skin?!
And this consideration of the greater miracle brings us back to the closing of James’ letter...
In this address of Christian life (Manual for Christian living), James chooses to close his letter with a concern for something greater than Elijah’s miracles
He closes with a picture of repentance!
God is not like a pez dispenser for miracles in your life!
This is not what makes him so impressive!
Fire from heaven and splitting the sea is not his greatest work!
If you lead a life chasing after these signs… you’ll be dissatisfied and you’ll miss the greater miracle!
To see the work that God considers to the greatest… let’s again refer back to the ministry of Jesus:
In Luke 5, Jesus heals a paraplegic man who is lowered down through a roof to where he is speaking before a crowd.
Paralyzed guy, world without modern medicine, 0% chance of ever walking
And Jesus, after witnessing this desperate act on the part of the crippled man’s friends, says this:
20 And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”
what what what?!
This is essentially how the crowd reacts, with the present scribes and Pharisees accusing Jesus (in their hearts) of blasphemy..
And how does Jesus react (again, to their thoughts)??
22 When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, “Why do you question in your hearts? 23 Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralyzed—“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.”
In this moment in scripture, we see that Jesus considers the forgiveness of sins to be an equivalent miracle to ending a lifetime of paralysis!
Power over disease and death = Power over the effects of sin = Power over sin
God, who spoke every created thing into existence and has ultimate authority over all things within creation
God, who can split seas and mend spines with a thought
Does these amazing things so that we might understand his capacity and his desire to fix the brokenness inside of us!
And furthermore, the weight of scripture and history shows us the miracle that God is most concerned with!
God has always had a heart for the wanderers! Now, as a Christian, do you?
Conclusions on Conclusions
Conclusions on Conclusions
As we consider the conclusion of James’ letter and the conclusion of our study into the complex nature of Christian life...
Remember that the closing to James’ letter is actually drawing the audience back to the true foundations of the entire story of scripture!
From the moment that sin entered this world until the moment that Jesus returns...
There is no greater miracle that will ever be witnessed than the redemption of lost sinners from death!
Have you ever wondered why Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest of the prophets when John the Baptist didn’t call fire from heaven or stop the sky from raining??
7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
John the Baptists’ primary work was baptism, an ordinance representative (in John’s time) of the remission of sins
There is no greater purpose in your life as a Christian than to take part in God’s redemptive work!
All the big-hitters of the faith had a heart for the wanderers!
As we talked about last week, we so often gravitate towards what we think is the GI JOE work of Christianity
we like to think of ourselves as John Rambo on the frontlines of a spiritual battle (and sometimes you really are! Don’t get me wrong!)
Sometimes we mistakenly think that the John Rambo work of Christianity is healing the sick, calling fire from heaven, etc...
But far more often we mistakenly think that the John Rambo work of Christianity is pointing out others’ sins while building up or maintaining our “pristine” reputations…
In other words, we are still pretty big on forthtelling, I’m just not so sure the words we use to talk about each other come from God...
When you look at the impact of “Christians” in our culture (social media personalities, politics, a confrontation in the parking lot of McKay’s, etc.), are they more concerned with seeing people redeemed from the sin that is destroying them… Or are they more concerned with public opinion and winning the argument?
When it comes to your interactions with wandering believers and sinners in your life… are you more concerned with their repentance, or are you more concerned that they (and everyone else) knows that you disapprove?
Are you following the manual? Or are you going after a counterfeit that feeds your ego on the front end and leaves you empty and alone in the long run??
Because that’s not what Jesus or James seem to say about Christian living!
James’ epistles says that Christians are called to care for those who will never be able to repay us!
27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
And we are told that saying Christian things without doing them is worthless!
17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
We are called to watch the way we speak, to exercise wisdom and understanding in humility (because we all have influence on someone!):
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.
And we are told that the way we talk about one another reveals the true nature of our attitude towards God:
11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.
And now, here at the closing of this long discourse on the nature of interactions within the fellowship of believers...
James has chosen to conclude with a commission to have a heart for those who are wandering in their faith.
James has just defined several ways that we can diagnose whether or not our faith is wandering, and then he has concluded with a command to help those whose faith is wandering!
Kind of a satisfyingly closed loop if you think about it!
Have you dealt someone kind of flinching away from the lessons of James??? Perhaps God has given you a rescue mission! Perhaps it’s GI JOE TIME!
The most essential element of good Christian living, according to James,
Is neither great finances nor faith-healing (Chapter 5)
It’s not about winning theological debates or getting your way in the direction of the church! (Chapter 4)
It’s not about attaining complete control over the flock or being perceived as wise (Chapter 3)
And James makes it super obvious that Christian living is not about getting ahead in this life (Chapter 1&2)
trials, wisdom, wealth...
Christian living, according to James, has, from its founding, been defined by the perfect love of God being revealed through broken humans!
Christian living is not defined by our righteousness and our upstanding reputations.
Christian living is defined by our understanding that God has been so good to us!
Christian living is defined by the redemption from death and sin that comes with changing your mind about God!
Christian living is defined by the “I must” energy that we bring to taking care of one another.
Christian living is supposed to be defined by genuine love!
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
What is the most essential part of Christian living for you today? Don’t settle for bait!
