Movement | Inviting Our Neighbors to Join Us - James 2:14-26 | August 4
GENERATED TRANSCRIPT
Well, good morning, everyone. I'm here to preach my second sermon ever, so I'm very excited about that. I think I've got Josh beat by one sermon still. We've been going over the mission statement, and I'm going to read it over here. Then we'll get into it. We want to be a place where heaven meets earth by proclaiming the universal reign of God, embodying Jesus to our community, and inviting our neighbors to join us in becoming real people who are part of a real family and who worship the real God. I'm going to talk about the second half of the mission statement today. So, thanks, Zach, for that. I assume you wanted me to freak out partway through my sermon writing, which I did. And yeah, that's the part about inviting your neighbors to join us in becoming real people who are part of a real family and who worship the real God.
What I didn't remember, to be fair, is that Zach actually preached about "real people, real family, real God" in January, and I just wasn't here. That was partly on me. Thankfully, Zach, Josh, and Jake covered a lot of ground in the last four weeks, which gave me a lot of material to work off of as I was preparing. To start, I want to talk about becoming real people. As I'm discussing that, I want you to think back to Zach's sermon about heaven meeting earth and the concept of the temple being a place where heaven meets earth. God is now expanding that through the Temple of His people, as we're called a temple of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.
Just like with that week, I want to go back to Genesis 2 to get started. In Genesis 1:26-28, it says, Then God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.' So God created mankind in His own image. In the image of God, He created him; male and female, He created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.' This is probably a very familiar passage to most of you. A couple of things I want to call out here to discuss the concept of becoming real people. First, the term "image." The word translated as "image" here is the same word often translated as "idol" throughout the Old Testament.
Part of the reason for this is that when the people around the Israelites—and occasionally the Israelites themselves—made idols, those idols were supposed to be the image of their god. More specifically, they would place an idol in a temple. If we go back to thinking about how the temple is a place where heaven meets earth, the image or the idol was to represent and, in many people's minds, actually was the presence of whatever god was being worshiped in that temple. So when God tells the Israelites (and by extension, us) not to make any image or idol for ourselves, part of the reason is that He already did. There was no idol in the Israelites' tabernacle or temple because they themselves were meant to be the image bearers of God.
God created this temple in Eden in the form of a garden. The reason I say that is we see garden imagery carried out in the instructions for building the tabernacle and later the temple. These were calling back to the Garden of Eden with the imagery displayed in their decorations. God places His image in the garden, in that temple. Mankind is meant to be fruitful and multiply, taking God's presence and expanding it out into the rest of creation as God's representatives on Earth. This brings me to the language of "rule." Back in that time, many kings in the nations around the Israelites would have called themselves the image of God. That was something reserved just for the king in many of those cultures—a bit of a power grab, maybe a little egotistical. This teaching from God was quite subversive because He said all mankind was God's image and was supposed to rule the earth as God's sub-regents (a fancy word that means sub-rulers).
In the words of a Bible Project video I like, "The task that once belonged to elite kings now belongs to every human: to rule the earth." What does that ruling look like according to the passage? In Genesis 2, we see, The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. It looks like gardening. Of course, it's not only gardening; I may be a bit biased, but gardening is surely part of it. We can extrapolate that it's about taking creation forward. God repeatedly says it was good, good, good, very good. He doesn't necessarily say it was perfect. Perhaps I'm extrapolating here a little, but I picture a world of great unrealized potential, much raw material. God starts this project of taming the raw world with the Garden of Eden, putting mankind in it, and saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." At that point, they were just in this little garden, so they were to fill the earth and subdue it, taking God's presence and expanding it out, carrying this project forward as His sub-rulers, making this beautiful world with Him.
The word "work" in The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it often translates to "serve" throughout the Old Testament. For example, Jacob loved Rachel and said, 'I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel.' Exodus 8:1 says, Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Go into Pharaoh and say to him, "Thus says the Lord, 'Let my people go, that they may serve me.'" Numbers 8:15 says, After that, the Levites will go in to serve at the tent of meeting, when you have cleansed them and offered them as a wave offering, and so on. It's not always translated that way; it's often translated as "work" or "till" and "cultivate." Some translations use "cultivate" in Genesis 2:15, which is totally appropriate for gardening. What I want to point out, and something for you to bookmark as we move forward, is that the word used to describe work— the purpose that God created mankind for and put them in the garden for—has a strong connotation of service.
What happens next? Humankind says, "This is awesome; God's given us this great world," and they do exactly what He said. They're fruitful, they multiply, they take the project of creation out, they make everything better, and whatever they touch prospers. Oh wait, no—they actually start to be ruled by the very beasts they were meant to rule over and act like beasts themselves. An example of this is a theme that runs throughout the Old and New Testaments. They were tricked by a beast. They let themselves be controlled, in a sense, by the serpent. Instead of doing what they rightfully should have done and saying, "Hey, you're out of line; we rule over you, not the other way around," they failed to exercise their given authority.
That God tells Cain that sin is crouching at his door, waiting to devour him, right? Obvious beast imagery, like a bear or a lion waiting. I guess bears aren't really ambush predators, but you get what I'm saying. A lion, we'll say, waiting to devour him. We see this imagery carried throughout the Bible quite quickly with Cain's descendants. It's also very prevalent in Daniel, Revelation, and elsewhere. Obviously, humans didn't rule the way God intended them to, and we're going to jump forward a bit for the sake of time. We're going to talk about God's solution to that problem. He had to send a representative who would carry out the human role the way they were designed to do it. The way He did that was by Himself taking flesh, incarnating, and dwelling among us in the Son—one of the members of the Trinity, Jesus. He came and showed us what it means to truly rule as a human.
He comes and preaches the Good News of the Kingdom, saying in Matthew and elsewhere, "The kingdom of God is at hand." The implication, and what we learn, is that He is that King. He is the ruler, the Son of Man, who is to be seated at the right hand of God in that co-ruling throne created for mankind. But He's a King who's enthroned not by a violent military victory—at least not His own violent military victory, though you could argue something like that happened to Him. He's actually enthroned on the cross. Throughout the New Testament, His crucifixion is His coronation. He rules by service, by the washing of feet; those who will be greatest in the kingdom of heaven will be servants. He shows us what it means to rule as God designed us to rule: to serve. So, remember that word: to work it and care for it, to serve and care for it. Not that we exist to serve creation—let's not get weird with it—but you get what I'm saying, I hope.
He is the first human to overcome the beast. He does it not by a violent military victory but by submitting to a humiliating, violent death on a cross and overcoming through life and love, by resurrection. He shows the beast—the beast of sin and the beast that humans become when they submit to sin—to be the toothless thing it really is in comparison with the power of God's love. So, zooming in on this, we see that in Christ, we are part of a new humanity. Jesus is the first of a new humanity. Colossians 1:15-20 talks about this: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent.
What I want to focus on here is the language of Jesus being the firstborn. It says He's the firstborn of all creation. Does that mean He's the first created being? No, that's heresy. The Bible addresses that. He's not a created being; He's a member of the Trinity, eternally coexistent with the Father and the Spirit. John 1 is one place you can look for that, and it's elsewhere as well. So, it's not talking about that. He's not the first created being; He's the firstborn of all creation. So, what does that mean? At the end of this passage, it says He's the firstborn from the dead. He is the first of the new humanity, the first real person, as we're using the language in the mission statement. In Him, we are becoming real people as well.
We're talking about a way of living that's totally counter to the way of the world. It's not an easy way; it's extremely difficult. But there's no more beautiful way for a human to live than by following the way of Jesus. It is, in fact, the only way that counters the ways of this world, choosing love instead of power. To truly rule as a human, to be real people, is to live in a serving, self-sacrificial, loving way. We're talking about a love that is willful—not willful in a negative sense, but a love of the will, not just emotional. It's a love that allows us to rule the world as Jesus does, as servant kings, sub-rulers to God, humbly serving and gardening the world, building beauty and wholeness. After the Fall, it includes justice and reconciliation, rebuilding, and bringing healing to the world we have broken.
Jake talked last week about becoming like Jesus and doing what Jesus did, how that's part of discipleship. That's exactly what we're talking about here: becoming little Christs, spreading light and love around the world. But we're not just a bunch of individuals doing this on our own. It's not just me and God. The Bible teaches that we're saved into a community, into a family—the realest family we could ever be a part of: the family of God. So, we're not just doing this individually; we're part of this family that's more real than even our biological families. Jesus shows this, for example, in Mark 3:31-35, where it says that Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call Him. A crowd was sitting around Him, and they told Him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you." He asked, "Who are my mother and my brothers?"
Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." Now, Jesus did love his mother and brothers, guys. One proof text for that is when He entrusted His mother to John while He was on the cross. Right? So, He's not saying that our biological families aren't important. What He is saying, though, is that our true family is the family of God. Hopefully, our biological families are part of that family as well. I'm blessed to have that be true for me. But that's not always the case, right? Sometimes you might experience division between you and your family because you're a believer and they're not. But Jesus frames His movement in terms of family, and it shows us the kind of love and loyalty He expects within the church.
At that time, the family was the core social unit. It wasn't like how we think of it today, where we might imagine a husband, wife, and kids. It was actually your patrilineal family, meaning the family line through your father. Your closest social relations would be your brothers and sisters, as well as your father. And I guess your mother, though the emphasis was particularly on brothers and sisters. That's one reason why it's particularly important that throughout the New Testament, Paul and others frequently describe believers as brothers and sisters. They're constantly saying "brothers and sisters," "beloved brother," and using other similar language. This emphasizes that the closest social bond among humanity is the brotherhood and sisterhood of believers. That's what we're saved into when we're saved into the family of Christ.
This idea challenges the way of the world, depending on where you are. For us here in America, it challenges our individualism. We have a tendency to make decisions based on looking out for number one, as they say—making decisions based on our own individual freedom. But what we're actually called to do is, as was customary in that world and time, look out for our brothers and sisters in all our decision-making. In everything we do, we put the group first. This is called a strong group culture or strong group mentality, where you're not putting the individual first, nor your individual freedom, rights, likes, or desires. You're putting your brothers and sisters before yourself.
This also challenges the tribalism we see in our culture and in many cultures around the world. We adhere to social tribes of some kind, and this sorting might happen differently in various parts of the world. Sometimes we put that even before our loyalty to our brothers and sisters. This is addressed in the New Testament, for example, in Galatians 3:26-28. Although I belatedly realized I should have had a slide for it, it says: "So in Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Paul addresses some of the major social dividing lines in his culture and even within the church at that time. The division between Jew and Greek, in particular, is a major theme in several New Testament books. These divisions weren't just between non-Christian Jews and non-Christian Greeks but between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians who were clashing within the church. Paul says, "Hey, you all are family. Whatever ethnic or religious background you come from, it doesn't matter. Whatever tribe you're part of in this world, it does not reach the level of importance that the family of God should hold in your social sorting." In our time, we might say, "There is neither Republican nor Democrat, Israeli nor Palestinian, rural nor urban," etc. We could come up with many different divisions that people put weight on in our world, different tribes that people join, sometimes even before their faith. That's flagrant idolatry. We're called to look beyond that and have our first loyalty to the family of God, not to any tribe or kingdom of this world.
Now, moving on to the next phrase: "worshiping a real God." What does it mean to worship? The phrase doesn't say "our real God"; it says "The Real God." There's only one. The immediate inclination is to contrast the term "real" with "false," right? Other religions worship false gods, or people worship themselves, which is a form of a false god. People worship sex, power, money, or leisure—all false gods of this world. Yes, part of worshiping the real God means we worship the one true God and not a false god. But we need to understand what it means to worship. Often, without really thinking about it, we equate worship with belief. We implicitly change the term "worship" to "believe in the real God." While belief is part of it, let's talk about what belief really means.
Partway through 2021, I started memorizing the book of James. I highly recommend scripture memorization for many reasons. It's a great spiritual practice, and I'd love to talk about that more, but that's not the focus here. What I do want to point out is that as you memorize, you end up meditating. You say the words repeatedly and think about them. As I memorized this book, I repeatedly meditated on a passage in chapter 2, repeating it over 100 times since 2021. I've probably meditated on it even more as it becomes part of my mental background understanding of the world. That's one of the benefits of Scripture memorization. The passage, James 2:14-26, says:
"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, 'You have faith and I have works.' Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness'—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way, was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead."
This passage has been somewhat controversial in the history of theology. Martin Luther famously struggled with the book of James, feeling it conflicted with the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. While I'm not here to delve into the history or the conclusion of that debate, what I want to focus on is the relationship between faith and works. The text emphasizes that true faith is not just intellectual assent but is demonstrated through action. It's a living, active faith that naturally produces works. Faith and works are not separate entities but are deeply intertwined. As James points out, even demons believe in the existence of God, but that belief does not lead to righteous action. True faith, then, goes beyond mere belief; it manifests in how we live our lives and how we treat others.
What I want to talk about is what faith and belief look like. The word "belief" and "faith" are actually the same word in Greek, "pisteuo." It's translated as "belief" often, for example, "Whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life" is probably the most famous use of the word. The way I've come to understand this passage, partly through memorization and other things that have happened in my life, is this: you believe what you do. Now, that probably needs a little explanation, so I'll attempt it. Your actions reveal what you actually believe.
If I sin, let's say I lie on my timesheet at work, and maybe I justify it by thinking, "They're not paying me enough to live here in Boone. I have to buy groceries and pay my rent, so I don't know what else to do." I have all the reasons that make me feel I need to commit this fraud and steal from my employer. What I'm actually saying, though I might not intellectually believe this, is that my way—this sin I'm about to commit—is better for me and more justified than God's way, which He commands. Whether I intellectually believe that or not, I'm showing by my actions what I actually believe when I commit that sin. This applies to any sin we commit; we're showing a lack of faith. When we sin, we're demonstrating that we believe something contradictory to God's word.
On the other hand, let's say someone sins against you, offends you, or mistreats you, and you want to get them back, to give them what they deserve. But instead, you treat them with kindness and turn the other cheek. You may not even believe it's going to work, but by obeying Jesus' command, you show that you have faith in His way. Even if intellectually you're thinking, "This will just mean they mistreat me more," you're demonstrating your belief in Jesus by your actions. When the world offers you the power to force others to submit to what you think is right, even if it's for a good cause, but you choose not to use that power, you're refusing the corrupting grasp of power and following the way of the servant King. You're showing that you believe in Jesus, even if it doesn't make sense to you. That's what I'm trying to convey here.
Maybe a quiz will help get my point across. Raise your hand if you believe in chairs. Come on, hands up; play along with me here. Keep your hand raised if you believe in them enough to sit on them. Good, everybody has faith in chairs, right? Now, raise your hand if you believe it's important to wear a seatbelt when you ride in the car. Good. Keep it raised if you always or usually wear a seatbelt. Good, James, I see you're not lying. Now, here's the real test. Raise your hand if you believe flossing is good for your gum health. Raise your hand if you floss every day. Some of you have dead faith in dental floss.
That's my point: when you're worshiping a real God, it means more than just believing the right things about God or believing in the right God. It's more than that; it's giving Him the respect of taking what He says seriously. It's seeking to live more like Jesus, who showed us not only who God is but also what it means to be a real human. He showed us the real God and what real humanity is like, inviting us to be part of this real eternal family. So, it's a faith that's revealed by action, as the passage about Abraham says: his faith was revealed by his works. That action is following the way of Jesus.
Some of you might have noticed that I skipped a part of the mission statement. Did anyone notice? Yes, why did I skip "inviting your neighbors to join us"? Good job, Julie. I didn't skip it because I don't want to talk about it, but I wanted to set the stage for what we're inviting people into. What I want to say about this is, how could we not invite people into this? We've been brought into the greatest story ever told, and it's ongoing. We're invited to be active participants in it. How could we not be active participants in this? What else is there even to do with our lives? How can we keep it to ourselves?
Josh and Jake already talked quite a bit about how we do this. Josh talked about proclaiming the universal reign of God—the Kingdom of God. It's something we do in both word and deed, telling people with our mouths the good news of the Kingdom and living as Kingdom people by Kingdom principles. This includes helping your neighbor, sacrificing yourself when there's no obvious benefit to you, like Elizabeth, who spends a lot of her time with the Jewish community in Boone, being a light among them. It's like Rebecca opening her home to both us and those outside the family, inviting people in, even though she has the best reason to be closed off.
Jake expanded on that, talking about living incarnationally, embodying Christ, and being His hands and feet to the world around us. Just like Jesus, we enter into people's lives, living incarnationally, and being like Him, doing what He did. We're to be salt and light in this world, filling it with beauty, striving for wholeness, justice, and reconciliation.
That's kind of the how in very short of this. And yeah, I guess to end, I just want to tell a personal story from when I was a kid. It might sound like it's going in a weird direction at first, but bear with me. When I was 12, I read Matthew 12, where Jesus talks about the unforgivable sin—blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I quickly began to wonder what that could be and soon started to obsess over it. Before long, I thought I'd committed it, and though I didn't, I was, of course, very distraught.
This is actually fairly common, as I've learned through the popularization of the internet, and perhaps it has happened to some of you. But at the time, I figured this meant I was going to hell, which was probably my worst fear. Part of what I realized and feared was that somehow, even as a 12-year-old, I recognized that I had my whole life ahead of me, and it wasn't even worth living if I wasn't going to serve Jesus. So, I decided that even if I was going to hell, I would spend my life telling other people about Jesus. In hindsight, that was probably a pretty good realization for a 12-year-old, but I'm not saying this to toot my own horn.
Pretty quickly, I became distracted by dreams of being a Navy SEAL, and a lot of weeds grew up in my heart over the years—things God later had to pluck out. For a long time, I didn't rightly prioritize telling other people about Jesus. Thankfully, God held on to me despite my stupidity over those years and eventually renewed my heart, for which I'm grateful.
But I think what I want to point out is that 12-year-old me grasped something crucial that I had to relearn later. It's the idea that my life would be wasted if I didn't spend it following Jesus and inviting others to do the same. That's true for all of us. This is the mission God has given us, and really, why do anything else but worship God, glorify Him, and invite others to do the same? So, to paraphrase John Piper, let's not waste our lives. Let's be a part of God's mission.