Just Another Sermon

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. California was wonderful, thank you for asking. But we are glad to be back. We had 14 people sleeping in one house.

This is the time of year for reflection, looking back on the year we are finishing, looking forward to what we will do different this next year.

I hope that this year has had many blessings. I know my family and I have had our socks blessed off this year, we have loved our first year in Colorado. We have loved getting to know all of you … so far, anyway. Keep it up, we’ll stick around.

I am willing to bet (up to $5.00) that we have all had things happen this year that we wish had not.

We have sinned this year. We have done things that we should not. (I know you have!) Perhaps it was that one thing that one time. Perhaps we are trapped in a pattern of sin. I think if we are honest, each of us has experienced all of these this past year, if not just this past week. 2008 has been a year of sin.

I know, for all of us, there has been misfortune this year. Our nation’s economy is in recession and people are losing jobs, their savings, their retirements and their homes. We have had moments of intense worry, fearing the outcome of a test or a brain surgery. I know some among us have lost friends, parents, spouses and children this year. We have had moments of excessive suffering. 2008 has been a year of suffering.

Well, what is going to be different about 2009? Well, I resolve to get in shape this year, to lose 120 pounds by February. I resolve to stop smoking, to read more, watch less TV, and get out of debt. I resolve to get organized. How about: I resolve to stop sinning! I resolve to not have any suffering this year! All of these resolutions are great ideas (except losing 120 pounds, that’s probably excessive). But what is going to be different about 2009 from 2008? We have heard all of this before. We have “resolved” these things before. What is going to make anything I say different from “Just Another Sermon.”

The answer is… NOTHING. Nothing I say is going to make any difference. This really is just another sermon. Nothing I say has the power to make a difference. But this does: the word of God. This word of God: if we listen to it and then do what it says.

In fact, I’ll give you the gist of the sermon right here: if you get this, you can check out for the next 10 minutes:

Simply listening to the word of God and doing nothing is just fooling yourself; the secret to a blessed life, a changed life, is to receive and implant the word of God, then do what it says, for it has the power to rescue you, save you and heal you.

James 1:20-25

20 For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

21     Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.

     22     But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.

     23     For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror;

     24     for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.

     25     But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

James has just talked all about trials and temptations: everyone has them. Our tendency is to get angry about it: angry at ourselves that we have fallen into sin, angry at God that we are tempted or that tragedy has occurred in our lives.

What do we do when we sin. Well, eventually, we repent. And that is critically important, I do not want to downplay the importance of that at all. A major aspect of Jesus’ ministry was this message of “Repent and sin no more.” But what else do we do. Well we scrunch ourselves all up and we try to get angry at the sin, vowing, resolving, that we are NOT going to do that again! Then, all too often, we fall again. We repent, as we should. But then we scrunch ourselves all up again and vow that things are going to be different. We Christians can just live in this cycle.

That sort of anger, James says, doesn’t get us anywhere. It doesn’t help us deal with sin.

When tragedy happens, grief, anger, questions, are all a part of the healing process. But we can easily just live in the anger of it. Anger at others for hurting us or leaving, anger at ourselves, anger at God for allowing it to happen.

But that sort of anger, James says, doesn’t get us anywhere. It doesn’t help us deal with tragedy. It doesn’t achieve right relationship with God.

What is able, he continues, what does have the power to save your souls, is the word of God. Our souls are our deepest selves, our heart and mind. To save is to rescue from danger and to heal and restore. The Word has that power.

Well Duh!

Perhaps you’ve heard this sermon before. The Word has the power to save. I should read my Bible more. You have! You have heard it all before. And really, that is the problem. You have heard it all before! I have heard it all before. I am boring myself here.

This is exactly what James is talking about. THIS IS STUPID! You have heard it all before, but if you are not doing anything about it you are wasting your time! You are deluding yourself, you are here to no purpose. James uses the analogy of a man who studies his face in the mirror, walks away and forgets everything about himself. Now in Levi’s case, that would probably be a blessing, but in general, that’s just ridiculous. Why take the time to look if you are just going to forget everything. It is stupid.

And yet… we do this all the time. I have listened to at least one sermon per week just about every week for my entire life. Well over 1000 sermons. Many of you are older and have listened to many more. Rod, you’ve probably heard or given 10 times that many, right? How many of those have we done anything about? How many have affected our lives in the slightest degree one way or the other? Some, certainly; but we often listen, nod our heads, say amen, and go on with life as usual.

We read this book in the sermon. Perhaps you’ve read it all the way through. Perhaps you can quote passages, and some of those have shaped your lives. But how often do we read, nod our heads, say amen, and go on with life as usual.

For me, the answer the answer was “all the time” for years of my life. I would come, sit in the pew, and assume before the Scripture was opened that I had heard it all before. I was doodling on the bulletin or vacantly staring in the general direction of the pulpit. It looks like I’m listening, but I am really thinking about lunch. Wasting time is what I was doing, because it didn’t become action.

If that is all we are doing this morning, we are wasting our time. So what does James call us to do instead?

Putting aside moral filthiness and excessive wickedness

First, like discarded clothing, James says, we put aside both our moral filthiness, our continued sin, and our excessive difficult circumstances. We repent and ask forgiveness for our sin. Getting angry about it doesn’t get us anywhere. Focusing all of our attention on the sin doesn’t help us out. Likewise, we have all had experience with tragedy. Our anger gets us nowhere, dwelling in the tragedy just prolongs the pain. We grieve, we mourn, we even question, and we press on.

I do not want to trivialize this step. Sometimes that sin and tragedy is incredibly difficult to leave behind, that clothing just doesn’t want to come off. So this is important: this is not a precondition. James does not say “before you do anything else, get rid of all sin.” Instead, he says “even as you discard the sin, even as you wrestle to leave the pain and anger of misfortune behind you… at the very same time…” you Receive and Implant the Word of God.

Receive and Implant the Word

Even as we discard sin and misfortune we receive the Word of God implanted. We don’t just live in that cycle of sin, repentance, resolution and failure. We receive the Word of God because it has the power to save us and break that cycle.

In humility we receive the Word of God. The humility is important: if I come in with the attitude that I have heard it all before, I won’t hear anything new. I come to the Word, aware that is Living, that it has the power to speak truth and power into my life, that it has the power to save me because it reveals and communicates the presence of God, the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us; and it does exactly that. The Word “implants” in my life, it takes root and grows and develops within me.

This can take effort. The word in verse 25, to look intently, is like one who cranes his neck sideways to look into something. We look intently, we take considerable effort to understand this law of liberty, the life, words and commands of God that give abundant and everlasting life. We receive and implant the Word in humility.

Do It

Then we do it. In the words of Nike commercials everywhere, we Just Do It. We have taken the time to look intently into the word. We took time to study the Scripture. We, as a church, pay a guy to study the Scriptures and teach us about them every week. We invest in the Word. To then do nothing with it is Stupid! Like the man who forgets his face after looking in the mirror.

Receiving the Word should have a tangible affect in our lives, changing and shaping our day to day in thought and deed.

When we read that Jesus command us to love God with all that we are: let’s do it!

When we hear that Jesus commands us to love each other as ourselves: let’s do it!

When we know, we have heard, that Jesus commands us to go out and make disciples: let us do it!

I know many of you are out there doing just that. You have known and experienced the power of the Word when you put it into action. For the last several years I have been challenged by this, and I have a long way to go. But am I excited by the way I am growing, by the way Anna is growing, as we listen for the Word of God and we follow. My very favorite thing about being a part of this church is how everyone is involving themselves in the ministry of the church. Yet we are the Next Step church, and God has a Next Step for each one of us here: a step into deeper relationship with him, a step into greater love for one another, a step out to reach the lost. I challenge you, at the start of this New Year, that 2009 would be a year of living out the Word of God, being changed by it, that each person here would not waste their time, hearing and going on with life as usual. I pray that we would each set aside sin and misfortune, receive and implant the Word of God in humility, and go and do it.

Then, as James says in verse 25, we will be blessed in what we do, for what we do will be the very Word of God, given flesh in our world.