We're at the end of three weeks of prayer as a church.
Back in May, we bought that space to the right of the sanctuary, the space on the other side of that wall.
We've been talking for the past few months about what does that mean and how are we going to handle that?
How do we handle the other areas of our church that need to be dealt with?
What are the next steps?
And so we decided, well, we should pray about this.
And so we spent the first week prayers of thanksgiving.
I mean, we're 10 years in.
Look what God has done.
Let's not be a people who just move on.
We want to always be people of thankfulness in all things and all ways.
And then the second week we prayed prayers of hope.
God, here's what we hope.
Here's the hopes that we have for our church.
But at the same time, we're doing that really open-handedly to say, God, like align our hearts with your heart for our church.
And then this past week, we asked you to pray all of us.
God, how do you want me to participate?
How do you want me to, because we believe if if we all, those who called us a church home, just God, how do you want me to participate?
And we're open to that answer, we're fine.
Like whatever, you know, whether we're just laying down carpet and repainting, or whether we're knocking down walls, either way, we will move forward in how the God of our church calls us to.
And all that's not just to be bigger, like more building and more people.
Like that's not what it is.
What it is is for us to be the church we've always been, and that's to be a place resting and growing the grace of God for you, for your children, for your family, for your friends, for our neighbors, for the next person, and for us to be that place of refuge that Mandy so well spoke of.
Let's pray for that before we jump into the book of James.
God, we thank you for your grace to us, that our church is not a story of our glory or cleverness, but of your faithfulness.
Help us to be who you've called us to be and who we've always been.
A place where we leave thinking more of Jesus and less of us.
And this week moving into making pledges and figuring out what it means to take a next step.
God, would you call us?
Would you inspire us?
But would it be clear in our hearts for what you have for us as a church?
And we hold with open hands all things in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, we're in our third week studying the book of James.
James is, James is very blunt.
He tells it how it is.
For some of us, that's exactly why you love James.
And for some of us, that's exactly why you've always kind of wrestled with the book of James.
James wants us not just to survive in trials, James wants us to grow through them.
James 1.12.
Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.
For when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
Now when James uses this phrase, blessed is the man, he's echoing Jesus.
If you remember the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5.10, those Beatitudes, Matthew 5.10, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Now listen to what Jesus teaches early on the Sermon on the Mount, just seven verses after we have that blessed are Matthew 5, 17 through 20.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law, until all is accomplished.
Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called the least of the kingdom of heaven.
But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven, for I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Now, what is Jesus saying?
Well, he's teaching that your righteousness won't exceed the Pharisees.
He's saying you're not that good.
You're not going to be able to live up to the law, even while the law tells us who we should be, and the law guides us.
The law also breaks us into our need of Jesus.
That the righteousness that we proclaim and have comes first and always from Christ's righteousness to us.
And Jesus uses that Sermon on the Mount to move past a behavioral spirituality to the heart and for our need.
And James is actually taking us to that same truth.
You've got to remember the book of James would have been, it was written as a letter.
It would have been read as a letter.
We wouldn't have chopped it up into 12 different Sundays over the course of fall of 2023.
This would have been read to a people from the very beginning to the very end.
And when they read that all at once, they would have come to a conclusion at the end.
Here's James's conclusion.
This is where he was driving the people.
So we have to keep it in our hearts as we make our way through it.
James 5, 19 and 20, the last two verses of the book.
My brothers, if any one among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
So the wanderer, the worn out, the broken down, the failure, the one who can't live up to so much of what James asks of us is met with full forgiveness, full righteousness.
James 1 12, back to verse 12.
Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
Point number one, transformation through trials will be part of our story.
This is the same thing we learned in verses 2 through 4.
James is revisiting that we will have trials.
Your marriage maybe hasn't ended up like you thought it would.
Your family, your children, your health, your finances.
How am I 45?
How am I 17?
How am I 77?
And this is it?
This is what I was able to put together.
The phone rings.
The test comes back.
It's not what you thought it would be.
Trials will be part of our life and our stories.
We spent last weekend with my college roommate and his family.
He lives in the promised land of Athens.
He has two boys and he has two girls.
See how I slid that in?
Last year, their little 11-year-old girl started to lose weight.
And then many other sad things started to happen to her body.
One night it was almost like her body was shutting down.
They rushed to the hospital and eventually they learned that she has diabetes.
This has huge sad effects on her life now and her life of the future.
And now they live as parents and a family, they live in constant anxiety of monitoring, their phones beeping, reminding them of something or some measurement and something's off and they need to do an injection.
They do this all day, every day, they do it all night, they do it every night.
All the time.
And then we're taught just to just wait, right?
I'm so sorry.
And he said, because I was kind of waiting for him to vent or complain or blame God or, you know, you know, this is a moment, and you're with your best friend.
Let out some cuss words, you know, let it loose a little bit.
Like I was waiting, that's what I was waiting for, but he just said, we live in a broken world.
And he didn't say it as a defeatist.
He was sad.
He also didn't put a religious band aid on it and pretend like it wasn't a big deal.
He understood like James.
The world's broken, and his family lives in the world.
And he and me and you, we're not exempt from any of that.
He also knows what theologian Alec Motyear says about these exact verses.
Here's what Motyear says: God is at work in all this business of trials and persistent endurance.
God is imparting blessing all the while as well, as guiding us towards the great ultimate blessing of his total approval.
So that's the good news.
The good news is we don't have to take joy in the hurt because it hurts, but we can take joy in the transformative process that God promises to do through the hurt.
Back to verse 12.
I'll read again.
Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
The image of crown of life is an image of total approval, a dignity of position, like royalty.
That last phrase states that this is promised to those who love him.
See, our lives are shaped by what and who we love.
Now, 1 John's the good news that we love God because he first loved us.
Some of you live in Marietta, not because you love Marietta.
Heaven forbid.
Some of you live in Marietta because you love somebody who wants to live in Marietta.
So you live in Marietta.
Some of you yesterday, you went to a football stadium somewhere in the middle of the day in September.
It was so horribly hot.
It was awful.
Have you been to a college football game in September?
It is an awful experience.
And we do it.
And it's horrible.
It's awful.
We know it before.
We know it when we buy the tickets.
We know when we go.
We know it when we're sweating it out.
We're sitting there.
There's no grease coming into the stadium.
It is awful.
And we do it because we love that team.
We're miserable, but we're in love.
Our lives are shaped by what we love.
Are we in the current of God's astonishing grace, total approval of us through Christ and the growth that we have in that grace, or are we somewhere else?
James 1, 13.
Let no one say when he is tempted, I am be tempted by God.
For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
So James is taking us from the outer conflict of trials now into the inner conflict of temptation.
Point number two, resisting tempting desires of the heart will be part of our growth.
The word desire can also be covet, a longing, a longing to possess, to have that.
Temptation is the inner enticement of your heart and mind to lure you toward that which is ungodly, unhealthy, and harmful.
Five times a year in our house for birthdays, a nothing but cake shows up.
Man.
Chocolate chip, that creamy icing.
Oh, I and it's it's gluten-free, so it's healthy.
So that evening I'll have a piece of cake, a little bit bigger than normal, because it's a birthday party, so you should have a little bit bigger than normal.
The next morning I wake up and there's nothing different between a donut and a piece of cake.
So I have a piece of cake in the morning.
I usually go out to lunch, so after lunch I'll swing by the house because I don't want the cake to go bad, so I'll have a piece there after lunch.
I get home from work.
I've worked hard.
I've been working hard.
I got a lot done.
I deserve, I deserve a piece of cake.
So I have a piece of cake then.
And then we have dinner, we get kids to bed.
I usually stay up a little bit later, have a little quiet moment to myself, and it's about 10 p.m.
It's calling out.
Luring me.
So I have another piece of cake.
You know, all the other three pieces of cake didn't satisfy the longings of my heart to fulfill me and solve all my sin and shame and guilt and childhood wounds, but I'm pretty sure that the one at 10 p.m., that's that's the one.
So I go to bed having had five pieces of cake in 26 hours.
Pastor and author John Piper says this the power of all temptation is the prospect that it will make me happier.
No one sins out of a sense of duty.
Piper's saying when we talk about temptation, we're always talking about illusions of happiness.
Spiritual maturity is not not facing temptation.
Maturity is growth to walk by the Spirit, to be able to walk by the nothing bunt cake and pick up a banana.
That's maturity.
It's really hard, also.
James teaches us where the blame lies.
Verse 15 says that we are lured and enticed by our hearts, not by God, don't project it on the God.
It's not his fault.
It's our fault.
Our desires are not as they should be.
It turns out that we are beautifully created and worthy, and yet we're not perfect in our hearts and desires and motives, thoughts.
Paige Brown, she's a great Bible teacher at West End Presbyterian Church in Nashville.
She helped me think through this, this downward cycle of the heart that we see in these verses.
First step, deception, refusing to refusing to see things as God has declared them to be.
The second step, attraction or lure, looking with eyes of longing and refusing to let it pass us by.
Third, preoccupation.
Enticed by what is not true and not healthy, a controlling desire takes over.
Conception, desire meets opportunity, and sin and destruction begin.
Enslavement, the desire does not deliver.
Destruction of the heart and life begin, and the desire demands more.
So, what's the good news?
Well, James keeps going.
Verse 16.
Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
Point number three, the loving Abba is with us in our trials and in our temptation.
Almost 200 years ago, Thomas Chalmers, a great Scottish preacher, he said, the only way to break the hold of a beautiful object on the soul is to show it an object even more beautiful.
The answer of how to have a joyful, free, be godly in all circumstances is to be captured by something more beautiful and lasting than the lie, than the illusion.
Maturity is not just a negation of joy, but a falling in love with a better way.
This is why James grounds us in verse 17 to the Heavenly Father.
Now, in Galatians, that's Paul's great chapter, chapter 5, that this lavishing of Christian freedom.
Jesus plus nothing equals everything.
We're fully accepted by Christ for us, fully loved, total approval, the position that royal dignity by Christ for us, what a peace that gives us, and then the implication of that.
Lavish love is this, Galatians 5, 16.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
Okay, last verse, verse 18.
Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Interesting phrase.
He brought us forth by the word of truth, meaning all of life, all of the new life in you, is through him.
It's not by you, it's through him, it's through Christ.
And then we have this phrase that we're the firstfruits of his creatures, which we could say children, which brings me back to saying the same thing I've been saying the last month or so.
So I'll say it again.
Point number four.
We don't have to live as orphans in the world when we are beloved children of the Abba Father.
A few years ago, a story went viral where a daughter, Hannah, she bought a ring doorbell.
Maybe you have a ring doorbell.
Is the doorbell where anytime somebody just even walks by it, it shoots a little video of the audio and the video, and then it sends it to the app.
And so Hannah had it on the app, and her mom had it on the app, and Chuck, her dad, had it on the app.
And then soon later, the daughter, Hannah, she went off to college.
And that's when her dad, Chuck, every time he came in and out of the house by the ring doorbell, he would look the ring doorbell right into it, and he would leave these sweet, loving messages to his daughter.
Here's a few of them.
Hi, Hannah.
Hope everything's good and loyal this morning.
Hello, Hannah.
Hope you're having a good day.
Hey.
Good morning, loyal Hannah.
I hope you're having a great day.
Love you.
Have a fantastic day.
Hey Hannah.
Love you.
Hello, Louisville Hannah.
Happy Valentine's Day.
I hope you're having a lovely, lovely day.
Enjoy your trip to Nashville.
Good morning, Louisville Hannah.
I hope you're done off to a great start.
Have a lovely day.
I love you.
He just kept doing this.
Just day after day, leaving these messages.
And she would get them on her phone.
He said in an interview, I just made a vow to myself years ago that she wouldn't go a day without knowing a lover.
The heart of a good father is to always love his child.
And according to James, the perfect heavenly father, in his holy nature, only seeks the good for his children.
To love you without limits or conditions.
Do you remember what Jesus teaches Luke 11, 11 through 13?
What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent?
Or if he asks for an egg, we'll give him a scorpion.
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?
See, no matter how messy you are, messy your life is, God promises his presence to you.
And this changes everything else.
This changes how we walk through temptation and trial.
God loves you and He's for you.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you for your grace to us, that not by our work, but by your work for us, you can't love us anymore, and you can't love us any less because you love us without conditions.
Thank you for the great promise that you are with us in our trials and you are with us in our temptation.
May we grow in this grace, be more astonished by how beautiful you are to us.
May we find an object more beautiful than the illusions of happiness of this world.
Thank you that you love us in our mess and with our mess.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.