Sermon Tone Analysis
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How we are present with God
Orson wells invasion
James is focusing on words.
He does that quite often at different points in this letter.
He is making the point that our words matter.
The kind of language we use and the tone of our conversations are important.
So, maybe at first glance this passing comment from James in verse 12 seems out of place—to be careful about the sincerity of our words.
At first glance it doesn’t seem to really fit with what James writes before, and set all by itself it doesn’t seem to really fit either with the verses that follow.
But given the back-and-forth way in which James brings up the importance of our words at various points throughout this entire letter, maybe it’s not out of place at all.
Maybe this is instead a tying together of the theme that James is pushing in this letter right from the start.
Our words matter.
It seems especially here before God that our words matter.
There is no such thing as a poker face that works with God.
There is no hiding from God what is really going on in our hearts and in our minds.
God always knows our true intentions.
God always knows our honest feelings.
God sees right through the smokescreen we often put up to shield our true thoughts from other people.
This seems to be what James is circling back to in this one verse that leads into the conclusion of his letter.
It is a reminder to us about what it truly means for us to honestly and authentically present with God.
It does not do any good to say the words that I love Jesus if—in fact—in my heart I do not actually embrace a true love for Jesus.
God knows it.
There is no point trying to convince God with my words that I confess and am sorry for my sins if—in fact—I am not sorry at all for my sinful actions.
Am I honest with God about what’s really in my heart?
That’s the simple meaning of what James is telling us in this verse.
Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
In other words, be completely honest with God because you cannot fake it with him.
Putting on a show of righteous piety for others to see does not impress our heavenly Father if those actions do not genuinely come from the heart.
Instead, let your time spent in the presence of God be time of open and honest sincerity.
Be real with God.
If you find that your faith is weak and you have doubts, confess that before God from an honest heart.
Be fully present with your heavenly Father as you actually are.
Stay away from going through the motions of expected religious feelings that do not actually represent your true hurts, your true struggles, your true desires, your true hopes, your true joys.
God calls himself your heavenly Father.
God calls us his sons and daughters.
He invites us to be completely open in the way we approach him as a small child would be completely open in the way he or she approaches a parent.
If you are sad and struggling, let God know you are sad and struggling.
If you are happy and full of joy, let God know you are happy and full of Joy.
God invites that kind of relationship.
It is a relationship in which we do not have to hide anything or bury any true feelings.
Let my words with God be real
So then, in our prayers and in our words with God, be fully and completely present with God.
Be who you actually are.
Do not pretend to be whatever it is you think God wants you to be, because God always sees right through that masquerade.
What does that look like for you today?
What are the ways in your own life that you have been putting on a show for God?
How have you been going from one day to the next trying to convince God that maybe you’re this super awesome spiritual person, when—honestly—somewhere deep down in your heart you know it’s not exactly real?
You see, sometimes religion starts to become more about putting on a show than about a true and honest reflection of a real relationship with God.
I pretend to be present with God.
But without an honest and authentic heart before God, I am really not being fully present with God at all.
It may be that in my heart I am actually trying to do everything that I can to push God away because I do not want to be honest and genuine with him.
The first example we ever see of something like this comes in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve sin against God.
And then, instead of coming into the presence of God with the honest and genuine confession of their action, they try everything they can to hide from the presence of God.
Growing gratitude takes time to be present with God
Hard to do when I am trying to hide my heart from God
This message today is about growing a heart of gratitude.
But here’s the thing about gratitude.
Developing gratitude in my life is really hard to do while trying to hide from God at the same time.
There might be many virtues we can say about the benefits of becoming a more thankful person.
But perhaps the biggest roadblock keeping Christians from embracing that kind of gratitude comes from our own pattern of pushing away from God, from being fully present with God.
The expression of gratitude in my life can only take shape when it is fully present with others.
And the first checkbox I have in moving toward this life of gratitude is to see that I am honestly and authentically present with God.
How we are present with each other
Let’s move on.
James launches into these final verses of his letter with some final instructions.
This might look random.
What is James going after here?
He makes a very brief reference to prayer in chapter one, and then says nothing about it again throughout the rest of the letter.
So why bring it up in such a rapid-fire manner here in these last verses?
Is it sort of an afterthought?
Is James just trying to quick tack on something completely off-subject before he hangs up?
Oh, by the way, I almost forgot.
Hang on a second, one more thing.
These verses about prayer just really float by themselves and don’t fit at all with anything else James writes in this letter.
So, what’s going on here?
I agree with many biblical commentators who note that prayer is a subcategory.
James is not giving guidelines or instructions about prayer.
Rather, he is giving guidelines and instructions on being honest, genuine, and authentic about how our faith looks with God and with one another.
And THAT is a theme which fits with the rest of the letter.
Prayer just happens to be the application of that theme in these closing verses.
Honest, open, genuine, authentic, vulnerable
In other words, these are verses from James that give us a few clues about what it means to be fully present with one another.
This is a picture from James about living with each other in such a way that we connect with an honest and authentic faith.
James says, confess your sins to one another.
Nothing cuts more deeply to the core of an authentic connection than being vulnerable enough to admit our sins to another person.
These are not just instructions from James about the busywork of Christian activity.
These are not secret clues for unlocking some kind of magical power in the way that we approach prayer.
This is about stepping into our faith in such a way that it shows up in real life connections between real people.
NOT: fake, hypocritical, two-faced
But let’s admit, vulnerability is hard.
Sometimes it’s tough to be open and honest with others.
I think we’ve all felt the nudge sometimes to make ourselves appear a little better than we actually are.
We’ve all been in situation where we see other people pretending to be something other than what they are.
We have words to label behavior like that.
Two-faced.
Hypocritical.
Fake.
It’s hard to carry on an actual meaningful relationship with someone who is only being hypocritical and fake with you all the time.
Or let me flip that around.
It’s hard for other people to truly connect with me when I won’t be honest and authentic about myself with others.
It’s tough to practice and build faith in community with others when I portray my faith in ways that simply are not accurate to what’s really going in in my heart.
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