Friday, October 19, 2012

9-23-2012 - Maybe we should respect James more...


James 3:13 - 4:8
13Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. 14But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. 15Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 18And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
4Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?2You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
7Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

            What does it mean to have faith?  Often we have the idea that faith is all about our beliefs, that faith is knowing that Jesus is our savior, end of story.  But is that really faith, or is it just what we want to think of as faith?  After all, it sure makes living a life of faith easy, if all we have to do is think something.  Understanding faith as something intellectual is doubly dangerous for us Lutherans, who put so much trust into being “saved by Grace through Faith.”  Our phrase has the possibility to tell us that our faith as Christians, that our lives as Christians, remains in the intellectual.  However, we know this not to be true, don’t we?
            So then what is faith, if not just some intellectual endeavor to figure out God?  Faith is something lived out, it is trusting in God, or as James puts it, it is submitting ourselves to God.  This is perhaps the hardest thing in the world to do, to submit ourselves to God.  So often we want to be in control of our lives.  We want to decide what to do and when to do it and how we are going to do it.  We want to decide who is in and who is out.  We want to do everything under our own power as well.  I know that I have a very difficult time pushing aside pride and asking for help, and I’m sure that I am not the only on here who does. 
            And yet we are called to ask for help from our Loving God and we are called to ask for direction from our God.  And yet we don’t, because God does not bow to our will nor does God always give us directions that we may like.  We don’t want to have complete faith, to completely trust in God and ask for God’s guidance, because we are a scared and prideful people.  We are scared of losing control, of doing another person’s will, and we are scared of failure and how it may look.  And we are often too proud to admit our weaknesses or that someone else might know better than we do.
            And yet we are called to lay aside that pride and lay aside our need to control, because often those just get us into trouble.  But when we follow God, when we truly listen to hear His word in our lives, when we truly listen for God’s will instead of our own, and when we act in love and compassion according to his will instead of our own, then we can truly say we are living in faith and our lives will be all the more blessed.
            I’m not going to lie.  This does not mean that our lives will suddenly become easy, that everything that we think that we want or need will suddenly appear or that our families will become perfect angels instead of the quirky people that we all are, or even that God will lead us down paths of ease.  What it does mean is that we will be more at peace with our lives, that instead of conflict riddling our lives and leave us anxious messes, we can be a peace with our neighbors, with our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we make ourselves submissive to God, instead of submitting ourselves to ourselves, to our cravings, our desires, to the world, we gain perspective and we gain a peace that passes all understanding.  And when we submit ourselves to God we are filled with the wisdom of God, “the wisdom from above  which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.” 
            When we are filled with God’s wisdom, we are filled with mercy, we are freed of hypocrisy and partiality, we begin to see people for who they truly are, the children of God, instead of just tools to be used or obstacles in the way of our own glory.  And when we are filled with God’s wisdom, we begin to see our purpose in life, and the many gifts that God has given us, and the possibilities that God has for our lives.   In her book, Life as Prayer, Evelyn Underhill wrote, “A real man or woman of prayer, then, should be a live wire, a link between God’s grace and the world that needs it.  In so far as you have given your lives to God, you have offered yourselves, without conditions, as transmitters of His saving and enabling love; and the will and love, the emotional drive, which you thus consecrate to God’s purposes, can do actual work on supernatural levels for those whom you are called upon to pray.  One human spirit can, by its prayer and love, touch and change another human spirit.  It can take a soul and list it to the atmosphere of God.”
            We have been going through the book of James for a few weeks now, and it has reminded us of that very same thing.  As Christians, as people of faith, as slaves to God, we are a blessing to this world.  When we truly follow God, we are that live wire, which brings power and ability to others, and we are a link to God, for the love and compassion that we show are truly from God and are a source of strength and hope for many. 
            Over the next few weeks I will be praying for our community. I will be praying that we may set aside any conflicts that we have, that any selfish ambition may be set aside, and that instead that we may see God’s will for us here in Columbiana.  I shall pray that we may be filled with God’s wisdom, that we may see where God is leading us and that we may be filled with greater faith and trust in God, that we may be willing to submit ourselves to God instead of ourselves.  Yes, we are a community of faith and love here at Jerusalem, and yes we do great ministry here.  But I pray, for we are not perfect, none of us separately or together, and I pray that God may help us to see His Spirit all the more clearly in our lives, that we may glorify Him with great zeal.  And I Hope that you will join me as well in these prayers, that we may walk together as one family down whatever paths God may lead us. 
Let us Pray,
God our Father, be with your children, that we may see your will and that we may serve you in all things.  God the Son, be with us, your brothers and sisters, give us the strength to submit ourselves just as you did on the cross.  God the Holy Spirit, Fill our lives with your presence and give us the strength to trust in you. 
Amen

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