Measure By God

• Twentyfirst Sunday after Pentecost

with James 4:11-18

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This sermon viewable on youtube at https://youtu.be/XY5NqAECsFs

• It is half a mile from my door to the track at the middle school. Then it’s either 400 yards or 400 meters around the football field, I don’t remember. It’s so confusing to have different measures. Is a mile four laps, or four laps plus nine meters, or four laps plus a hundred something yards?

Speaking of which, remember cubits? Genesis 6, the ark, 300 cubits x 50 x 30. According to Bill Cosby* not even God remembers what a cubit is.

*If you have not heard his Noah routine from 1964, I recommend checking it out. You can find it on youtube.

Also, what reason did the Lord give for the flood?
He saw mankind’s great wickedness,
their evil hearts and inclinations.
They were based not on God but on themselves, self-reliant.

And God provides for the saving of Noah and family if they will rely on God. It’s a theme throughout the Old Testament: rely on God, it goes well.  Deviate from God, and it doesn’t.

• A cubit equals about 18 inches, or elbow to fingertips. Not real exact. An inch is about thumb-width, or the middle joint of index finger… 12 inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, six feet in a fathom, 15 1/2 or 16 feet in a rod...

Some 300 years ago a more standard measure was made, the meter. Initially defined as the length of a pendulum that takes one second to swing side to side, the meter was defined in 1793 to be one ten-millionth the distance from the equator to the North Pole. Walk a straight line, divide by ten million… one meter.

I think it’s a good measure because it’s not based on me, my arm/hand/foot.
Based on something bigger and more universal.

Today’s reading from James: self-reliance puts you above God. Don’t slander your brother or set yourself above the law, but instead position yourself in submission to God, to the law, with your brother next to you. Don’t build your life on a foundation of you and your self-assuredness, build your life on a foundation of God.
Measure yourself by God.

• Tuesday is 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s 95 theses. His goal: examine contemporary practices and see whether they’re built on God’s word or not (he claimed not).

And he sought to realign the practice of faith with God’s word.
Translated the Bible into the common language from the original languages so that discipleship could be in the hands of the people.
Also made the worship service in the language of the people, also educate the people.

• And later that’s what the Wesleys did, seek to draw the Church into better alignment with God, into Bible-based faith practice, seek to measure own life by God.

• I want to know when I’m off track.

• Hymn: (of Charles Wesley): I Want a Principle Within

James 4:11-17 (CEB)

¹¹ Brothers and sisters, don’t say evil things about each other. Whoever insults or criticizes a brother or sister insults and criticizes the Law. If you find fault with the Law, you are not a doer of the Law but a judge over it. ¹² There is only one lawgiver and judge, and he is able to save and to destroy. But you who judge your neighbor, who are you?

¹³ Pay attention, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such-and-such a town. We will stay there a year, buying and selling, and making a profit.” ¹⁴ You don’t really know about tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for only a short while before it vanishes. ¹⁵ Here’s what you ought to say: “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ But now you boast and brag, and all such boasting is evil. 

¹⁷ It is a sin when someone knows the right thing to do and doesn’t do it.ò

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 (CEB)

2 As you yourselves know, brothers and sisters, our visit with you wasn’t a waste of time. ² On the contrary, we had the courage through God to speak God’s good news in spite of a lot of opposition, although we had already suffered and were publicly insulted in Philippi, as you know. ³ Our appeal isn’t based on false information, the wrong motives, or deception. ⁴ Rather, we have been examined and approved by God to be trusted with the good news, and that’s exactly how we speak. We aren’t trying to please people, but we are trying to please God, who continues to examine our hearts. ⁵ As you know, we never used flattery, and God is our witness that we didn’t have greedy motives. ⁶ We didn’t ask for special treatment from people—not from you or from others—⁷ although we could have thrown our weight around as Christ’s apostles. Instead, we were gentle with you like a nursing mother caring for her own children. ⁸ We were glad to share not only God’s good news with you but also our very lives because we cared for you so much. ò

How Do I Get There?

• Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

with James 4:1-10

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This sermon viewable on youtube at https://youtu.be/HZxUUJjyIdg 

• In my first year of ministry I took a youth group on a ski trip. On the way home, driving the van in the dark, I knew I knew a better way home than the printed ski resort directions. My own inner pride lead to trouble as I turned a 40-minute drive into two hours, inconveniencing awaiting parents as well as a group that needed to be picked up from the airport in the van I was still using.

• On “friendship with the world” (from James 4:4)
Ross King wrote a song called Clear the Stage.
(click here for lyrics) (click here for youtube)
“Anything I want with all my heart is an idol.”

• James 4:7 “Submit yourself to God.”

How shall we submit ourselves to God?

For one, refer to the instructions. Frequently.

And don’t try to go it alone!

The fourth and fifth step of AA include making a list of personal failings AND THEN admitting them to another person.

Why? Because of the power in saying something out loud to another.

• John and Charles Wesley, young in ministry, 1720s, holiness clubs

Imagine living these questions:

1. What known sins have you committed since our last meeting?
2. What temptations have you met with?
3. How were you delivered?
4. What have you thought, said, or done, of which you doubt whether it be sin or not?
5. Have you nothing you desire to keep secret?

(click here for more: Five small group questions and 21 smallergroup questions)

http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2008/may/accountability-questions.html

• Hymn 399 Take My Life and Let It Be

James 4:1-10 (CEB) (formatting by KWB)

4 What is the source of conflict among you? What is the source of your disputes? Don’t they come from your own cravings that are at war in your own lives? 

² You long for something you don’t have,  so you commit murder. You are jealous for something you can’t get,  so you struggle and fight. You don’t have  because you don’t ask. ³ And then you ask and don’t have because you ask with evil intentions, to waste on your own cravings. ⁴ You adulterous, unfaithful people!

Don’t you know that “friendship with the world” means hostility toward God? It means that whoever puts the world before God becomes God's enemy. ⁵ Or do you suppose that scripture is meaningless? Doesn’t God eagerly long for our faithfulness in the fullness of life he has given to us? ⁶ But still, God gives us even more grace. This is why it says, God stands against the proud, but favors the humble. ^{[Prov. 3:34]} 

⁷ Therefore, submit yourself humbly to God.
Resist the devil, and he will run away from you.
⁸ Come near to God, and he will come near to you.
Wash your hands, you sinners.
Purify your hearts, you double-minded.
⁹ Cry out in sorrow -- mourn, and weep!
Let your laughter become mourning 
and your joy become sadness.
¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. ò

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

• Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

with James 3:13-18

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• Sometimes you read something again for the first time,
do you know what I mean?
The list of attributes in James 3:17
has been that way for me for several weeks.

“But the wisdom from above is first pure,
   then peaceable and gentle, and willing to yield,
   full of mercy and good fruits,
   and without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”

And I’m not sure I’ll ever “get there” as a disciple – I’ll never get so good as a disciple that I can stop growing,
and where I am now, that’s okay.

• When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
When did you know? Did you become that?

PK’s story.  My teaching morphed from classroom and subject  to church and theology and life. Wanting to share with others what I love.

• “Who is wise? Show by your life that your works are done
with gentleness born of wisdom.” (James 3:13)

This passage reminds me of a phrase from the book Alcoholics Anonymous:
If you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you’re ready to take certain steps.

What do we want in life?

Wholeness. Belonging. Security.
Wisdom. We want it to go well for our children.

We are willing to order our lives (show by your life) to bring these things about.

We order our lives by Gentleness/humility born of wisdom.

• Wisdom from above is pure, peaceable and gentle…

These have to do with our relationship to others. 

Three points:

1   We are in relationship with others.

2.1     Consideration for others is the highest virtue

2.2     Imposition of self is the lowest.

3.       The fruit/harvest of considering others is peace.

• Well for our kids, but how about for us now?

 Opportunity. Meaning. Connection. Service. Through congregation

• Hymn  600 Wonderful Words of Life

James 3:13-18 (NRSV)

¹³ Who is wise and understanding among you?

   Show by your good life that your works are done
      with gentleness born of wisdom. 

¹⁴ But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your
   hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. 

¹⁵ Such wisdom does not come down from above,
   but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 

¹⁶ For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there
   will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 

¹⁷ But the wisdom from above is first pure,
   then peaceable and gentle, and willing to yield,
   full of mercy and good fruits,
   and without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 

¹⁸ And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace
   for those who make peace.ò

Colossians 2:2-3, 6-7 (NRSV)

² I want [all] hearts to be encouraged and united in love,
so that [all people] may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself, ³ in whom are hidden
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. …

⁶ As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, ⁷ rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Give Feet to Faith

• Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

with James 2:14-26

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This sermon will be on youtube at https://youtu.be/EFfc8TNFO54

• Heartbreaking week in news,
and so much media focus on the wrong things.

Which should motivate people more:

people dying after disasters

or football players kneeling?

Visiting preachers at Marshall University this past week, shouting through megaphones that people are going to hell because of a variety of things.

My friend’s church which was vandalized
after it put up a rainbow flag.

These and other events lead me to ask:

• What is my job? What is our job?
To share the love of God with people in a hurting world.
To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
Be witnesses in every aspect. Make disciples (be one first).

Be imitators of God, and walk in love, as Christ first loved us and gave himself up as a sacrifice for us. – Eph 5:1-2

• In a section in James on treating other people well, with dignity and humankindness, you do what you can  to demonstrate your love  by how you treat people.

And how I treat people depends not on their worthiness
OR whether I think they’re doing a good job or not.

How I treat people depends on my view of their humanity,

And my prayer is that my vision is like that of Jesus (be imitators…)

• And that my actions be motivated by my God….

and that when I see suffering, I act for relief.

And when I see injustice, I act for justice. 

And oppression, righteousness.

And abuse of power, I speak truth to it.

• The man asked God Why is there so much suffering in the world?
And God replied I was just going to ask you the same thing.

• Jesus is WYSIWYG.
God demonstrates his love for us in this way,
that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8).

Jesus gave of himself completely for us,
became one of us, becomes part of us.

• Hymn  618 Let Us Break Bread Together

James 2:14-26 (CEB)

¹⁴ My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do nothing to show it? Claiming to have faith can’t save anyone, can it? ¹⁵ Imagine a brother or sister who is naked and never has enough food to eat. ¹⁶ What if one of you said, “Go in peace! Stay warm! Have a nice meal!”? What good is it if you don’t actually give them what their body needs? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith is dead when it doesn’t result in faithful activity. Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

¹⁸ Someone might claim, “You have faith and I have action.” But how can I see your faith apart from your actions? Instead, I’ll show you my faith by putting it into practice in faithful action. ¹⁹ It’s good that you believe that God is one. Ha! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble with fear. ²⁰ Are you so slow? Do you need to be shown that faith without actions has no value at all? ²¹ What about Abraham, our father? Wasn’t he shown to be righteous through his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? ²² See, his faith was at work along with his actions. In fact, his faith was made complete by his faithful actions. ²³ So the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and God regarded him as righteous. ^{[Gen 15:6]}
What is more, Abraham was called God’s friend. ²⁴ So you see that a person is shown to be righteous through faithful actions and not through faith alone. ²⁵ In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute shown to be righteous when she received the messengers as her guests and then sent them on by another road? ²⁶ As the lifeless body is dead, so faith without actions is dead. ò

I Am My Brother's Keeper

• Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

with James 2:1-13

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• Although we just read James 2:1-13, let me turn to the story of Cain & Abel, in the 4th chapter of Genesis. Cain is Adam & Eve’s firstborn, and he worked the soil. Abel is Cain’s younger brother, and he kept flocks. Cain “brought some fruits of the soil” as an offering to God, and Abel gave fat portions from his best animals. God accepted Abel’s offering but was not pleased with Cain’s, and Cain slew Abel. (Genesis 4:1-9). Cain’s anemic answer when God asked about Abel’s whereabouts: Am I my brother’s keeper?

• James answers the question: Yes. I am my brother’s keeper.
And my brother is in peril, my sister is in peril.

My brother is in jail and the mother of his children is an addict who sometimes sells herself to get another fix and not only are her children my children she’s my sister.
How shall we treat them when they knock on our door?

My brother receives a disability check although I’m not sure what the disability is. There are five people living in my brother’s home and I’m not sure they have electricity and there is mold.
How shall we treat my brother when they knock on our door?

My sister’s divorce ate up all her money and her ex is bleeding her dry financially and emotionally by taking her to court for made up issues.
How shall we treat my sister when she knocks on our door?

• James answers the question: treat her like you’d treat your doctor. Treat her better than that. Have mercy and compassion on her, and be an advocate for her.

My brother is late. My sister has messed up.
It costs me on multiple levels to be gracious to my brother.

Give grace anyway. You have received grace,
a gift paid for willingly by another.

As grace-needy as your brother is, so much are you.

• Receiving the poor, indeed, preferential treatment of the poor
is a way of living grace.

I am poor with respect to God,
and I receive God’s favor by grace not by merit.

I wish to thank God, to pay it forward, to imitate God.

• “You will never be asked to forgive someone else
more than God has forgiven you.” – Rick Warren

• “People won’t listen to you or take you seriously unless you’re an old, white man, and since I am an old, white man I’m going to use that to help the people who need it.” Patrick Stewart, advocating for Amnesty International. (I shared this on Oct 27, 2013, my fourth Sunday here).

• Hymn  434 When the Poor Ones

James 2:1-13 (CEB)

2 My brothers and sisters, when you show favoritism you deny the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has been resurrected in glory. ² Imagine two people coming into your meeting. One has a gold ring and fine clothes, while the other is poor, dressed in filthy rags. ³ Then suppose that you were to take special notice of the one wearing fine clothes, saying, “Here’s an excellent place. Sit here.” But to the poor person you say, “Stand over there”; or, “Here, sit at my feet.” ⁴ Wouldn’t you have shown favoritism among yourselves and become evil-minded judges?

⁵ My dear brothers and sisters, listen! Hasn’t God chosen those who are poor by worldly standards to be rich in terms of faith? Hasn’t God chosen the poor as heirs of the kingdom he has promised to those who love him? ⁶ But you have dishonored the poor. Don’t the wealthy make life difficult for you? Aren’t they the ones who drag you into court? ⁷ Aren’t they the ones who insult the good name spoken over you at your baptism?

⁸ You do well when you really fulfill the royal law found in scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself. ^{[Lev 19:18] 9} But when you show favoritism, you are committing a sin, and by that same law you are exposed as a lawbreaker. ¹⁰ Anyone who tries to keep all of the Law but fails at one point is guilty of failing to keep all of it. ¹¹ The one who said, Don’t commit adultery, also said, Don’t commit murder. ^{[Exod 20:13, 15]}  So if you don’t commit adultery but do commit murder, you are a lawbreaker. ¹² In every way, then, speak and act as people who will be judged by the law of freedom. ¹³ There will be no mercy in judgment for anyone who hasn’t shown mercy. Mercy overrules judgment.ò

Isaiah 58:6-9 (NIV)

⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. ò

on WV Day of Hope

• Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

with James 1:12-27

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A video of this sermon can be viewed at https://youtu.be/_zTmOtAW8Mk

Today is the 3rd Annual West Virginia Council of Churches Day of Hope, a Celebration of prevention and recovery for substance use disorder in WV. Apportionment offerings are used in our Annual Conference to fund substance recovery ministries throughout WV. When congregations neglect not to pay apportionments in full, actual ministries actually go underfunded.

• Alcoholics Anonymous is one of the oldest recovery programs, and a template for many other recovery programs. Founded 250 miles from Bville in Akron OH in 1935.

One of my previous churches hosted an AA meeting. I didn’t know a thing about AA. No actual knowledge about it and I never asked anybody. I vaguely knew there were 12 steps.

The word “alcohol” is mentioned once in the 12 steps. Also the word alcoholics once. First and twelfth step. I was surprised when I discovered that.

The 12 steps are not about alcohol,
not about not drinking.

AA considers alcoholism a spiritual malady (p. 64), the fruit of resentment and anger and fear. Things happen in life, some people respond with resentment anger or fear, unhealthy ways, and also some people reach out for alcohol to help soothe the resentment and anger and fear.

Also since alcoholism is a spiritual malady,
it is NOT a problem of willpower.
A spiritual problem requires spiritual solution.

• Romans 7:15, 18-21, 24-25 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. ²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.  ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

• AA’s solution (or rather suggestion) is to turn life over to God, to turn resentments and anger and fear over to God, who is able and willing to save.

• because God is good, God is giver of good gifts (James 1:17)

And because sin – literally “missing the mark” – comes not from God but from the fruit of our own desires. (James 1:13-15).

• So questions for you:
Who plants seeds in you,
What kinds of seeds,
and who would you have tend your garden?

• Prayer for God to grow in me and be gardener of me.

• Hymn  114 Many Gifts One Spirit

James 1:12-27 (CEB)

¹² Those who stand firm during testing are blessed. They are tried and true. They will receive the life God has promised to those who love him as their reward.

¹³ No one who is tested should say, “God is tempting me!” This is because God is not tempted by any form of evil, nor does he tempt anyone. ¹⁴ Everyone is tempted by their own cravings; they are lured away and enticed by them. ¹⁵ Once those cravings conceive, they give birth to sin; and when sin grows up, it gives birth to death.

¹⁶ Don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ Every good gift, every perfect gift, comes from above. These gifts come down from the Father, the creator of the heavenly lights, in whose character there is no change at all. ¹⁸ He chose to give us birth by his true word, and here is the result: we are like the first crop from the harvest of everything he created.

¹⁹ Know this, my dear brothers and sisters: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry. ²⁰ This is because an angry person doesn’t produce God’s righteousness. ²¹ Therefore, with humility, set aside all moral filth and the growth of wickedness, and welcome the word planted deep inside you—the very word that is able to save you.

²² You must be doers of the word and not only hearers who mislead themselves. ²³ Those who hear but don’t do the word are like those who look at their faces in a mirror. ²⁴ They look at themselves, walk away, and immediately forget what they were like. ²⁵ But there are those who study the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continue to do it. They don’t listen and then forget, but they put it into practice in their lives. They will be blessed in whatever they do.

²⁶ If those who claim devotion to God don’t control what they say, they mislead themselves. Their devotion is worthless. ²⁷ True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us. ò

What God Wants of You

• Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

with Romans 12:9-21

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This sermon can be viewed on youtube at https://youtu.be/YhX1uJE5cQU

• “think of the various tests you encounter as occasions for joy.” – James 1:2

The trials we face right now are numerous.
Harvey, Irma, maybe Jose on the way.
Dozens of lives lost, thousands devastated,
billions of dollars of damage. Trials.
Not back to “normal” for millions for a decade.
Some will give up. Some will rise above.

I won’t say God plans hurricanes,
rather they are part of a habitable planet
AND God can work anything for good (Romans 8:28).

In the aftermath of disaster, communities come together,
lives become shared.

• Trials in James: actual religious persecution,
threat to life and limb.
The result: the spread of gospel.
What will you stand for? Know your why.

James offers encouragement to persevere, endure, not give up,
because through perseverance God gives maturity, wisdom.

James even says if one is lacking wisdom, perhaps they stopped short.

• God wants you to fail. (don’t stop the quote there! That’s not the end goal. The end goal is maturity, wisdom, and one does not achieve wisdom and maturity without failure along the way).

CS Lewis wrote that God wants his children to learn to walk, and so he takes his hand away from them and is pleased with their stumbles.

The Rev. Samuel Wesley chided his wife Susanna one time, telling her You’ve told the same thing to that child twenty times! Replied his wife “Had I satisfied myself by saying the matter only 19 times I would have lost all my labor, for it was the 20th time that took.”

• God delights to give maturity and wisdom. As any parent desires for their child to grow and delights in the watching.

And consider Jesus’ words in Matthew 7: Is there a man among you who would offer his child a stone when he asks for bread? Or a snake when he asks for fish? If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.

• God delights in you and desires that you achieve maturity and wisdom.

• (story of man who received the command from God: push on this rock. Man pushes, grows strong, but does not move the rock. Man cries out to God, dejected. God says I asked you to push, and you did. I didn’t ask you to move the rock; I’ll do that.)

• Hymn  539  O Spirit of the Living God

James 1:1-12 (CEB)

1 From James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To the twelve tribes who are scattered outside the land of Israel.

Greetings!

² My brothers and sisters, think of the various tests you encounter as occasions for joy. ³ After all, you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. ⁴ Let this endurance complete its work so that you may be fully mature, complete, and lacking in nothing. ⁵ But anyone who needs wisdom should ask God, whose very nature is to give to everyone without a second thought, without keeping score. Wisdom will certainly be given to those who ask. ⁶ Whoever asks shouldn’t hesitate. They should ask in faith, without doubting. Whoever doubts is like the surf of the sea, tossed and turned by the wind. ⁷ People like that should never imagine that they will receive anything from the Lord. ⁸ They are double-minded, unstable in all their ways.

⁹ Brothers and sisters who are poor should find satisfaction in their high status. ¹⁰ Those who are wealthy should find satisfaction in their low status, because they will die off like wildflowers. ¹¹ The sun rises with its scorching heat and dries up the grass so that its flowers fall and its beauty is lost. Just like that, in the midst of their daily lives, the wealthy will waste away. ¹² Those who stand firm during testing are blessed. They are tried and true. They will receive the life God has promised to those who love him as their reward. ò