Read James 1:21-25
Salvation is a gift. Discipleship takes effort. Is anyone hearing this for the first time?
The real question here is do we think that discipleship is worth the effort. Is taking the risk, doing the work, and knowing both reward and hardship for following Jesus the Messiah worth it? Is it worth it?
The textbook answer is “yes.”
The answer that we want to have in our hearts is “yes.”
The answer that we want to tell our friends and family is “yes.”
So why do we go back to old ways many more times than we want to?
I want to follow Jesus and trust in the Lord with all of my heart. I want my life to put a smile on God’s face. I really do want to love my neighbor. I want people to know that I am Christ’s disciple by my love. I really do want these things.
I understand that the gift of salvation is more that I can comprehend. I sing and I believe, “Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe.” I get that. I really do.
But I also understand all too well that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Sometimes I want to do everything the way God prescribed, and it seems like I can’t do anything the way God wants me to. What gives?
Part of this is the ongoing struggle between our old self and the new creation. It’s the continuous battle between living by the ways of the world and living by the ways of God. It should get easier with practice.
But part of the struggle is simply that we don’t put in the effort. That’s blunt, I know, but part of the problem is that we don’t put in the effort.
James is clear on this. Get rid of the junk that belongs to the world and the way it does things and receive, accept, and embrace the word that lives in you. Out with the old. In with the new. Out with the ways of the world. In with the mind of Christ. Out with our own understanding. In with trusting the Lord with all of our heart.
What we learn from the Lord, we must apply in our lives. It’s like taking a 1-hour class that has a 23-hour lab. Jesus said that his yoke was easy and his burden was light. Take his yoke and learn from him, but to learn from him we must take what he taught us and put it into action—into practice.
You have heard the expression that practice makes perfect. It’s just not true. Perfect practice makes perfect. If your golf swing stinks and you practice that same sorry swing 100 times each day, your swing still stinks. You are just making it harder to improve your swing by practicing the wrong way again and again.
You will get really good at a bad swing!
You have to practice doing the right things in the right way. It’s not just, “I read the homework assignment for Sunday school. Life is gong to be a breeze from here on out.”
“Yep, I just read the 10 Commandments. Almost memorized 5 or 6 of them. I am living God’s way without exception, whoa, except I sure would love to have me a phone like my neighbor has and a Harley like the guy down the street. Man, that’s living”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m going to do things God’s way, but if that jerk cuts me off in traffic again, I swear I will kill him with my bare hands. But I’m doing this God thing. Don’t get me wrong.”
James tells us that if we read the law or hear the law or we might even add that when we are led by the Spirit to do something that we know God wants us to do, or perhaps not to do, but we do our own thing anyway, then we are a mess. He says it’s like looking into a mirror, stepping away, and wondering what we looked like a few seconds later.
But whoever looks intently into the perfect law—that is the law of love—and steps right into application will be blessed in what they do. We will be blessed for putting God’s words, his love, his commission to us into effect. That’s what we are told.
The gift is salvation. Sin and death have no say in our eternal destination. Living out that salvation—discipleship—is work. It’s not debilitating work. It’s the application of what the word tells us to do.
Love your neighbor. I can do that, most of the time it doesn’t take too much effort. I cut his grass if he is sick. Pick up something for him at the store while I am out. Speak kindly, listen to understand, and show God’s love as much as I can.
Love the alien in your land. Well, I will love the legal ones. The rest are surely excluded from that command, or not.
Love your enemies. Some things take more effort than others. If I can just get along with my neighbor who is in this country legally and is not my enemy, that out to count for enough credit that I can skip over the other two.
I can read about forgiveness and believe how powerful it is, but practicing it, that’s another story. I would rather be a Pharisee and just point out other people’s problems. I can throw me some penalty flags.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know about the plank in my eye, but to tell you the truth, I’ve grown used to it. I’m comfortable with it. I can still do my job pointing out the speck in your eye while toting around this lumber yard in my own eye.
Discipleship takes work. Putting God’s words into practice takes work. It takes practice. Martin Luther thought that 2 books should be taken out of the New Testament for two different reasons. Revelation should be excluded from what most people need to read because it’s just too hard to understand. I think we can relate to that sentiment. How many different interpretations are there for all of those metaphors, unless you believe that everything is literal. Revelation is just too hard to understand.
James, on the other hand is easy to understand, but hard to live. Who can really live by everything that James is telling us to do. Many of us get bogged down between understanding and practicing.
Discipleship takes work. It also takes vision. The proverb says that where there is no vision, the people perish. Where there is no divine guidance from God, the people run amuck.
James tells us to look intently into the divine law. Look purposefully, look with hunger for God’s wisdom, look seeking to understand the perfect intent of what God has already given us in his word.
Catch God’s vision for humanity.
What would our lives be like—what would the world be like—if we all caught God’s vision.
First of all, there would be no other gods and no coveting. We would know truth and holiness and love. We would truly honor our father and mother. The Sabbath would become ever so special to us, whatever day it happened to be on our calendars.
Theft and murder would not be the lead stories on the evening news. Lying would be a thing of the past. Unemployment for politicians would be up for a while but down for the rest of all time. I would no longer lust after anything that was yours.
This whole love one another thing would be the biggest and longest lasting movement, ever. You would not only know your neighbor but probably fix dinner for them once a week.
There would be nobody who was on the outside looking in.
Inclusion would replace disconnection. Family from our own human blood, from those connected in the blood of Christ Jesus, and those who just haven’t heard the new yet, would be one family. We would all be brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus and life would be good.
You wouldn’t worry how much money you made. You would always have enough because the body of Christ—not your government—would make it so. Everyone would work the best that they could, give from what they had, and regard others more highly than themselves.
You would find that not only were you doing so many things for so many people, but so many were doing things for you. That does not include math. You still have to do your own algebra. So many were doing so much for you.
Envision the generally accepted human wisdom that many hands make light work. That’s what we would find if we looked intently into the perfect law. There would be nothing to be dreaded. There would be no jobs that were just too hard.
I see skies of blue
And clouds of white
The bright blessed day
The dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
I’m thinking Louis Armstrong must have been looking intently into the perfect law.
What a wonderful world it would be.
And then this thing that we call reality speaks rudely and out of turn, and says: “But that’s not the world that you live in.”
The sad thing is that we listen to this voice that claims to be reality. We give it so much credibility. Why not? This perfect world is not the world that we live in.
But it’s the vision. It’s God’s perfect vision. Why don’t we catch the vision instead of listening to what the world has to say?
But the world is still going to be a mess. So what? I have caught the vision. I have caught God’s vision. I can see the desire of God’s heart and I am so ready to put his words into practice even if it takes another millennium to see the difference.
I don’t just read God’s word.
I don’t just study to understand God’s word.
I don’t just make myself put his words into practice.
I have caught God’s vision and there is no cure. I’ve got a bad case of seeing things God’s way now. I can’t help myself but live according to his word. He has revealed his will to me—his good, pleasing, and perfect will to me.
I have looked intently into the perfect law and there is no going back. I didn’t say that I read today’s Sunday school lesson. I didn’t say that I have read the verse of the day for two weeks straight.
I said, I have looked intently into the perfect law and there is no going back.
I have caught the vision. I have caught God’s vision and his way is the only way for me. I live his vision in faith and in practice.
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