I.
The first area we demonstrate wisdom
and justice for others in our lives is an area most of us never
think of, our speech, how we talk to each other in the church.
A.
Charles Osgood today
remarked on the 30th anniversary of the CBS Sunday
Morning News and how our world has changed since 1979.
1.
Osgood said there is more
communication, more contacts, but it is not necessarily more
meaningful.
B.
I had not
noticed this before, but Dr. Pheme Perkins’ commentary on James
made me look at how this entire letter addresses the best way to
use words and language in our church.
1. Listen first to the
other person,
1.
Do not interrupt,
2.
Give the person who is speaking your
full attention,
3.
Wait to speak,
4.
Turn a critical gaze inward,
a.
Radically reform your own life by
looking at how you speak to your neighbor, how you think about
them, before you talk.
5.
Do not use an oath or swear, say
only “Yes” or “No.”
6.
Pray for others.
7.
Lastly, most importantly: accept the
Word (with a capital “W”) that has power to save lives!
C.
Says James: we
may look at our natural face in the mirror, but it is so easy to
forget what I saw if I am only a hearer because looks
alone are deceiving. Furthermore, we are prone to lie to
ourselves.
1.
If you remember the Mirror of
Erised in the second Harry Potter novel, the frame of that
magical mirror has some words etched on it that when reversed,
read, “I show not your face but your heart’s desire.”
Harry Potter sees his parents and family stretching back for
many generations. Harry does not really understand how the
Mirror of Erised works, but he becomes obsessed with it. He
returns to it night after night. Albus Dumbledore, the
Schoolmaster becomes aware of this and informs Harry that the
mirror does not predict the future; nor does it reflect reality,
but rather the desires of the viewer.
2.
But this mirror is important. In
addition to reflecting your desires, it also provides clues into
the nature of the one who is looking into it.
3.
Voldemort, the personification of
evil is unable to unlock the key of the Mirror of Erised, which
suggests that only the righteous may hold the key to the Mirror.
D.
Likewise the language,
the words of Scripture reveal the true picture of what we really
are.
1.
Not
all who glimpse the truth about themselves act on what they see.
2.
The pages of the Bible fully reveal
the image of God more perfectly than any mirror.
a.
That image came into being through
words, God’s word spoken in our creation.
3.
God’s Word of truth is implanted
within our beings.
4.
James has a special term for this, “the
implanted word.”
a.
“emphytos
logos”
in the Greek.
5.
Think of that small electronic
chip which parents are able to implant into the family cat
or dog, or a small child, so that we may keep track of them,
prevent them from getting kidnapped.
a.
We cannot control what our child
thinks and does, but with the implant we know where they are at
all times.
b.
So also God does not control us,
because James says we are under “the perfect law of liberty.”
c.
Still his implant is a perfect gift
of His love.
6.
This implant is also the way God’s
Word of Truth gives birth to the whole community of faith...
a.
our words, our language, how we
think about one another.
E.
God’s Word is
inborn within me, it is “deeply rooted” in me.
1.
But it is not an innate or natural
quality of the soul.
a.
You and I receive it in meekness,
b.
as opposed to that soul or mind
which is so often driven about by human passions.
II.
So I want to let loose that image of
god that is deeply implanted within me.
A.
I receive the
imbedded Word through God’s Spirit. It is unleashed in me
through the Spirit and leads me where it wills.
1.
Samuel Longfellow’s
great hymn, says
“Holy
Spirit, truth divine, Dawn upon this soul of mine;
Word of God, and inward light, Wake my
spirit, clear my sight. ...Holy Spirit, love
divine, Glow within this heart of mine;
Kindle every high desire; Perish self in Thy pure fire.”
2.
This is the Wisdom of the Spirit.
Wisdom is the entity which is so closely tied to the activity of
God’s Spirit in the Old Testament,
a.
likewise here in James.
3.
This letter sharply contrasts a
Christian in whom God’s deep Word is dominant and one in whom
personal passions rule.
a.
In this respect James is much like
the 5 th chapter of Galatians.
4.
In God’s person there is peace and
gentleness, peacemaking, as opposed to the soul that creates an
alliance with falsehood, deluded beliefs.
5.
A disturbed soul is quick to react,
speak too much with angry words and injustice, especially toward
the poor. .
a.
Yesterday morning we memorialized a
church member who truly had a gift with language. John Coleman
had a unique vocation to counsel youngsters who were three-time
failures in foster placement, Often these persons were mentally
ill. Mentally ill people often have difficult thought patterns
different from yours or mine. But John Coleman saw each one of
these as a child of God in whom he could draw out something
good.
6.
James tells us to
be “quick
to hear, but slow to anger.”
a.
As he sees it, any Christian anger
which allows itself to come out in word or action is evil,
motivated solely by sin!
b.
I might say, “I didn’t mean to say
it, or I didn’t intend for you to be hurt by it.” But I can
never take back what I said.
c.
I can never “undo” the previous
email I sent in a reactionary moment.
d.
The greatest test of God’s wisdom in
you or me is a bridled tongue, controlled speech.
B.
James takes us
into the harvesting of this wisdom in daily action:
1. Be doers of the word, “being
not a doer that forgets,”
for he/she “...shall
be blessed in (their) doing.”
(page 2)
2. There are 3 or 4, maybe
more, who have read and “know” the Word for every “doer”
of the Word in any church.
a. I have read that what a
pastor does the first 15 minutes after worship is as important as
anything he says from the pulpit –maybe more important. I think
that includes what I do the 15 minutes immediately before the start
of the service.
b. When I did a pulpit exchange
in New Zealand, 5 minutes before we would start the service, the
elders gathered in the pastor’s office and they each prayed for the
pastor. What a lift that was! I have tried to do that in a couple of
my churches here in the USA, but we are all too busy. As I entered
the sanctuary this morning, I could hear how noisy we all were.
3. Teachers and motivational
speakers tell us that our retention rate of what we HEAR is less
than 15%.
a. If we write it down after we
have heard it, our retention rate goes up significantly, depending
on how often we read it again.
b. But if we go out and
practice what we have heard, the amount we remember approaches 80%.
4. This letter utilizes
language that reminds us specifically of the gifts of the Spirit in
the New Testament. Notice how many of those gifts are mediated
through the verbal medium.
a. chapter 3: “But
the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to
reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or
insincerity.”
b. He identifies this as
“the harvest of righteousness
5. George Bernard Shaw
was a genius with his words. He had a great wit.
“My Fair Lady,” is a
re-make of Shaw’s “Pygmallion,” Henry Higgens and
Colonel Pickering intend to
turn Eliza Doolittle into a socialite, or a
Hungarian Princess by
working on her Cockney accent as a result of a
wager. This is at the same
time a struggle between two rich bachelors and
a poor street girl. But there is a
problem: love gets in the way!
a. From Eliza’s perspective it
is… Words!
Words! Words! I'm so sick of words!
I get words all day through;
First from him, now
from you!
Is that all you
blighters can do?
...Tell me no dreams
filled with desire.
If you're on fire,
Show me!
Here we are together
in the middle of the night!
Don't talk of
spring! Just hold me tight!
Anyone who's ever
been in love'll tell you that
This
is no time for a chat!”
[pause]
5. Albert Schweitzer,
renowned organist, a pioneering New Testament
scholar, and a medical
doctor renounced his private life in Germany, left it
all “to slave at the mission hospital
buried in the jungles along the Ogowe
River in the Belgian Congo.” When he
was interviewed, Dr. Schweitzer told
the BBC correspondant,
“I cannot change my world by myself, I lack the
power. But I can alter how I see others
as God sees them and to start
caring for them if I do one thing to
help or affirm them.”
6.
This statement is a concise summary of the wisdom of
James.
And now may all God’s children
say, “Amen!” (page 3)
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