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description=5 posts published by jazzmancf during August 2020;

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2020, sermon, 08, week, james, 2nd, peter, jazzmancf, blog, archive, for, august, pages, archives, categories, 30, part, 23, 16, 09, 07, 26,

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your neighbor all of the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments those are jesus words when we really take the time to think about this we discover the fact that the heart that loves deeply will follow god s law without ever trying to follow god s law having agape love in our hearts will preclude any action that would hurt or disadvantage another this is why jesus taught us that all of the law and the prophets hang on the commandment to love gracious father fill our hearts to overflowing with your love teach us to look past appearances and to see each person through your eyes recognizing the fullness of your spirit within them help us to love the difficult and the unlovable not because they are worthy of our love but because we recognize that we are unworthy of your love and that we choose to reflect your grace to them help us to be your voice that we may in our actions show the world the depth of your grace and the magnitude of your love amen posted in uncategorized leave a comment sermon 2020 08 23 james week 2 august 24 2020 in the second section of james letter james begins to speak about how to live your faith this is one of the primary themes of his letter so we ll be hearing a lot about this over the next several weeks james says that we must be swift to hear slow to speak and slow to become angered the comedian robert wuhl had a short running show on hbo and in one episode he made the insightful statement that we should judge slowly like the old saying that you should walk a mile in another person s shoes before judging the idea is that we shouldn t be making judgments until we have all of the facts of course as christians we are specifically called not to judge but it s entirely appropriate and even necessary for us to evaluate but even that should be done slowly listen take the time to learn and to understand a few weeks back we sang a piece of gathering music that i really didn t care for i felt that the song was well musically unintelligent i m sorry to have to describe it that way but my music education causes me to be rather critical of music in general and the things that i value most in a piece of music are creativity and at least a hint of musical sophistication to me this song had neither then i watched a video of the songwriter telling his story and holding back tears as he spoke of the tragic death of his wife and the song took on a whole new and powerful dimension for me no longer did i view the song as musically unintelligent instead i viewed it as the intensely personal statement that it is a song filled with raw emotion and a story of attempting to recover from unimaginable grief taking the time to evaluate the song with a deeper understanding allowed me to appreciate the enormous value of the song and its message how often in life do we make judgments without having all of the facts the bible tells us that god is the only one worthy to judge because he alone knows the content of each person s heart it s been said that when we judge we judge others by their actions but that we judge ourselves by our intentions god judges rightly because he knows both our actions and our intentions as for us when we have a need to evaluate we need to judge slowly in order to know as much about that which we are evaluating as we possibly can so james tells us to listen carefully and to speak less meaning that we should be listening not in order to respond but listening in order to understand and that we also need to be slow to anger because human anger does not produce the righteousness that god desires proverbs 14 29 says people with understanding control their anger but a hot temper shows great foolishness failing to understand is failing to love being patient with others taking the time to understand them showing empathy and compassion and grace are ways in which the believer exhibits god s love to others james then tells us to rid ourselves of this lack of love in our lives and to humbly accept the word that has been implanted in us reflecting jesus parable of the sower james chooses to use the word ἔμφυτος which carries the sense of something grafted or imparted something that is naturally a part of us and of course for believers the word becomes an integral part of us through the ministry of the holy spirit in our lives i m sure that james had no idea of the firestorm that he was about to create with his next statement in chapter 1 verse 22 james says but don t just listen to god s word you must do what it says otherwise you are only fooling yourselves tradition tells us that the apostle paul was converted around the year 37 and that his first missionary journey was in full swing by the year 45 according to the church fathers paul s letters received wide circulation in the church and were known to a large segment of first century christians almost certainly including james one of paul s best known teachings is summarized in ephesians 2 8 9 god saved you by his grace when you believed and you can t take credit for this it is a gift from god salvation is not a reward for the good things that we have done so none of us can boast about it the presbyterian pastor and educator r c sproul explained this by saying the man made religions of this world prove that without the work of the holy spirit people think that they are basically good and can contribute something to their salvation this strips glory from god and gives it to us for if we can do even one thing to merit salvation then we deserve some credit paul s teaching of the sufficiency of grace seems to be contrary to the teaching of james that it s not enough to be hearers of the word that you also must be doers of the word indeed our church history tells us that there appeared to be a rift between james and paul to some in the first century church and even to commentators for the last few centuries paul s teaching appears to represent that of a law free mission to the gentiles while james teaching represents a law affirming mission to jewish christians the differences between james and paul were resolved when they met at the jerusalem council where they had an opportunity to speak and to understand each other maybe there is something to that judge slowly thing as i said while there appears to be a discrepancy there actually isn t rather than trying to explain this myself i d like to quote 2 paragraphs from the christian theologian douglas moo who explained it far better than i ever could the first thing to be noticed is that paul and james are combating opposite problems in paul s statements about justification in galatians and romans he is countering a jewish tendency to rely on obedience to the law for salvation against an over emphasis on works paul highlights faith as the sole instrument of justification james on the other hand is combating an under emphasis on works a quietistic attitude that turned faith into mere doctrinal orthodoxy against this perversion of faith james is forced to assert the importance of works the second point to be mentioned is the different context in which james and paul are speaking of works when paul claims that a person cannot be justified on the basis of works of the law he is clearly referring to works that precede conversion the works in james however are the works that stem from and are produced by faith works that follow conversion so james and paul were actually talking about two different things and as it turned out they were in complete agreement paul himself verifies this thought multiple times in 2 corinthians 5 10 he wrote for we must all stand before christ to be judged we will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body also in galatians 5 6 where paul said what is important is faith expressing itself in love and again in romans 2 13 where paul said for merely listening to the law doesn t make us right with god it is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight paul schreiner says james teaches that there is an organic relationship between genuine faith and works if we truly trust christ that trust shows up in how we live works evidence our faith even calvin weighed in on this thought when he said obedience is the mother of the true knowledge of god returning to the passage james tells his readers that if we only listen to the word and do not do what it says that we are fooling ourselves he likens this to a person looking in the mirror and then immediately forgetting what they look like merely to glance at our lives like glancing quickly in a mirror and not taking the time to examine what we see may fool us into believing that everything is fine but of course it isn t every one of us fails to love as we are called to love and looking deeply into our lives and actions is necessary for believers in order to reveal our deepest needs we find many people in the bible who look deeply into their lives and the result is illuminating does anyone remember moses response when he met god at the burning bush he covered his face because he was afraid to look at god upon being called by god isaiah said it s all over i am doomed for i am a sinful man i have filthy lips and i live among a people with filthy lips yet i have seen the king the lord of heaven s armies and our friend peter upon having jesus power revealed to him fell to his knees and said oh lord please leave me i m such a sinful man looking at the perfection and the majesty of god reveals how short we fall of his glory i ve often said that the prevailing experience of my christian life has been the fact that the closer i get to god the farther away from him i realize that i am these famous saints of the bible saw in their encounters with god the chasm that separates the holy from the unholy and their response is indicative of the awe with which they viewed god and the inadequacy that they felt in his presence but how incredible a gift is it that through the work of jesus we have the privilege of standing before god clothed in the robe of his righteousness and holiness looking deeply into our lives is uncomfortable because it reveals the depth of our sin and that would be tremendously discouraging were it not for this wonderful gift of redemption that we have been given a gift described in 1 john 1 9 where we are promised that if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness how can we ever begin to thank god for this incredible gift of grace thankfulness isn t wallowing in remorse over our sins thankfulness is rejoicing in god s gracious forgiveness and responding to that grace with a compelling desire to follow and to serve god if our heart is not engaged in the process of becoming like god s heart then we are not on the path that we should be traveling as christians warren wiersbe says too many christians mark their bibles but their bibles never mark them james is completely correct that hearing is not enough we need to allow god to transform our hearts in order that we may become a people who learn to live justly to love mercy and to walk humbly james calls us not to deceive ourselves but to look deeper into the perfect law that sets us free in order to do what it says and not to forget what we ve herd the transformation of our hearts begins when we recognize the extent of what god has done for us in christ jesus our sins are forgiven and we are freed from their bondage in gratitude we choose to seek god to follow him and to allow him to create in us a new heart with the capacity to reflect the extravagant love with which he loves us this is the blessing that james promises to his readers at the end of this section james then returns briefly to his comment about being slow to anger reminding us of the importance of controlling our tongue words have power and love requires us to guard what we say since the essence of obedience to the law is to love we need to allow love to dictate how we speak and even how we think of others proverbs 12 18 says there is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts but the tongue of the wise brings healing on multiple occasions in the bible we are told that our words both good and bad spring from our hearts and only the one whose heart is transformed by god s love through the spirit has the capacity to reflect god s love in their words james closes the first chapter by saying pure and genuine religion in the sight of god the father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you this caring for the poor and the marginalized is another recurring theme in james and indeed reflects the words of jesus from matthew 25 when he spoke of separating the sheep and the goats with the criteria for judgment being whatever we have done for the least of these we ll be digging into this a little deeper in the coming weeks lastly is james comment about not being corrupted by the world remember that the word holy means to be set apart when we think about setting ourselves apart from the world it s important that we understand what a life that is set apart for god looks like i d like to share a few thoughts on this subject from two of my favorite commentators warren wiersbe says it is important that we as priests of god maintain our separated position in this world we must not be isolated because the world needs our influence and witness but we must not permit the world to infect us or change us separation is not isolation it is contact without contamination and charles r erdman says the phrase the world pictures the sphere or form of life from which god is excluded the spirit of which is selfishness the prince of which is satan one who belongs to god must not be controlled by worldly precepts by selfish motives by sinful impulses on the other hand they must be transformed by accepting the will of christ as the controlling principle of their life their character and conduct will not be determined by a mere imitation of christ but by his transforming energy are we living through the process of making our hearts look like god s heart let s have a good look in that mirror and see posted in uncategorized leave a comment sermon 2020 08 16 james week 1 august 24 2020 there is some pretty significant scholarly debate over the question of who wrote the book of james the author identifies himself only as james a servant of god and of the lord jesus christ in the original greek the word servant is δοῦλος which means slave so the author is claiming to be a slave of god and of jesus there are four people named james in the new testament the apostle james the son of zebedee and brother of john the apostle james the son of alphaeus sometimes called james the younger or james the less there s james the father of the apostle judas the zealot who is also called judas the son of james or thaddeus please don t ask me to explain that one and finally there is james son of joseph the half brother...