James 2:14-26
Stan Moody
This matter of faith vs. works has been debated for centuries. There has been an ongoing conflict between those who claim faith alone as being enough to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and those who depend on human works to earn their way into Heaven. It is either/or kind of thinking, and neither is right.
It is the same kind of thinking that divides Republicans from Democrats, Evangelicals from Mainline Christians – conservatives from liberals. Neither is right, and when neither is right, you can expect that both are wrong. How’s that for either/or thinking?
The Apostle James, thought to be the brother of Jesus, says, “You foolish man, do you want evidence (italics added) that faith without deeds is useless? …A person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.”
Faith in the free enterprise system without a willingness to share the wealth with those who are beneath the wheel is not faith at all. On the other hand, faith in the ideals of human rights and social justice without putting your own wealth at risk is not faith in anything. We are too busy telling other people what they ought to be doing and not busy enough taking inventory of our own lives – what we ought to be doing.
The idea that the answer to somebody else’s problem is to tell them to pull themselves up by the bootstraps is a scourge on the landscape of what some claim is a Christian nation. “Is it not the rich who are exploiting you?” James asks. “Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?”
There is a great irony here to which James is pointing us. And that is that in a nation where winning is everything, we are honoring winners who have gained their impressive lifestyles at the expense of others, whether in business or in politics. The rich and powerful find it nearly impossible to identify with the Lord Jesus Christ who came as a humble servant and avoided all semblances of wealth and fame. It is not the system that is the problem; it is the people gaming the system who are the problem. Both free marketers and social justice advocates base their politics on the inherent goodness of mankind, a fatally-flawed premise.
“Show me your faith.” James tells us. NMMH Church, “Show me your faith!” America, “Show me your faith!” “I have heard your words; show me your faith!”
We have reached a breaking point in evangelical life here in America. Last week, my daughter called me from Tucson all upset. She teaches Chemistry and Physics at a large Christian high school there. The mother of one of her students had just called her and asked, “How can you as a Christian justify voting for Obama?” She then dove into the abortion/pro-life debate.
Show me your faith! If you are pro-life, what are you doing about teenage girls who are living in terror because they are pregnant and have been abandoned? If you are pro-life, why are you not reacting to those pregnant women who were killed by our bombs on the streets of Baghdad when we invaded Iraq? If you are pro-life, what are you doing about loving those whose character turns your stomach – the throw-away people in our culture?
I’ll share with you a couple of touching stories that have been brought home to me by my children.
Jonathan, as do all teenage kids who have been brought up in the church, was pressing for the chance to stay at home on Sunday mornings. This went on for some time. I let Barbara deal with it, but I finally had to become involved. What I told him was, “I really need the support of my family there.” We have not heard another protest since. Show me your faith!
Because Little Barbara seems to have no interest in the things of the Lord these days, it is easy to assume that she has no faith. One evening, I came home and saw her playing with a baby on the living room floor. “What is this?” I asked. It was the baby of a young, unmarried mother who does not believe in abortion and has been abandoned by the father. Now, you can say, “She should have given the baby up for adoption.” Quite frankly, that is not your call or mine. We are called to deal with matters where they are and as they are – not where we should like them to be or as we should like them to be.
Barbara was taking care of this baby because its Mom needed to work to pay the bills. Show me your faith! A week or so ago, Barbara gave up her shift to this Mom because she was not getting enough hours. Show me your faith! I have to tell you that with all my confession of faith in all of my life, I can never remember doing something like that, especially in my 20’s.
I believe that we all have stories like this. I have heard a number of those stories in my years here at the NMMH Church – stories of faith giving rise to good works of the kind for which there is no payback. As this economic crisis deepens, however, the church of Jesus Christ in America may be pushed to get involved where it would rather not become involved – in places where there are people suffering with no foreseeable way out.
We as Evangelicals are used to picking the low-hanging fruit – the easy works of charity, like distributing Thanksgiving baskets. Where the rubber meets the road in the Kingdom, however, is when the works of charity have to be carried out despite the fact that you know you can’t help.
I was working with an inmate for several months. He was in segregation for the last of his term and was released without probation about a month ago. I always joked with him that I didn’t want to see his ugly face again once he left, and I warned him to go straight home to Brockton, MA, where he had family who loved him. His Dad is a pastor, and his grandmother is a pastor. He grew up in an evangelical church. He had a girlfriend in Lewiston, however.
A week or so ago, he was found dead of an overdose – in Lewiston. I could not help but think about the words of James in the 15th verse: “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go; I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?”
That falls into the category of, “God bless you; I’ll be praying for you.” He was 32 years old.
There is another man of 33 who was raised in a local Baptist church that was flourishing at one time. He is scheduled to be released at age 104 as the result of convictions as a serial rapist. He showed me a campaign button a couple of weeks ago that said, “Jesus for President.” Another said, “Vote the Bible.”
I suspect it is a lot easier to vote for Jesus for President than it is to plumb the depths of what it means to be a Christian – what kind of works you must do to prove your faith.
James renders the distinction between the words of faith and the action of faith even more troubling when he says, “Big deal! Even the demons believe there is one God. They believe so wholeheartedly that they shudder under the burden of that belief!” (v. 19). I suppose the appropriate question to ask, then, would be what distinguishes you and me from the believing demons for whom the things that they know in their heads make such an impression in their hearts that they shudder.
In fact, no matter how much you study the Bible, you cannot know anywhere near as much about God and His plan for redemption as do the demons. They have first hand experience in the divine government of God – His sovereign power over this world and His plan for salvation through Jesus Christ. No matter how much you may know about God, your faith in the existence of God and His plan for salvation pales into insignificance compared with that of the demons.
If you are relying on your faith, then, to get you through the pearly gates, remember that demons, with more faith in God than we, have another kind of date with destiny.
Demons believe that God is a holy God, a sin-hating God, a God of truth and a God of judgment. Demons know firsthand about Heaven and about Hell. When Jesus cast out demons on one occasion, they shouted, “What do you want with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?” (Matt 8:29). What I see in this encounter between Jesus and those demons is a public acknowledgment that Jesus is the Son of God and that there is an appointed time for judgment.
James says, “Show me your faith…Faith without works is dead!”
We know what kind of works demons do, don’t we? They are works that draw applause, wreck lives and fight against God. They are works that are designed to attract us to this world rather than to the Kingdom of God. They are works that build up the human ego for the accumulation of awards rather than works that call on us to lose ourselves in order to find ourselves.
Our standing with God, therefore, is not measured by faith alone. Instead, it is in the nature of our works that our faith is distinguished from that of the demons. Works that demonstrate our faith are measured in our attitudes toward others – especially those who are incapable of doing us any good.
Demons will love their neighbor, provided their neighbor loves them. We, however, are called to love our neighbor, especially when our neighbor is considered to be our enemy. Demons will promote a winning strategy. We, however, must be willing to lose so that God may win. Demons will glorify strength and power. We, however, must be willing to be weak in order that God may display His strength through our weakness. Demons will pack people into the churches so long as what is being preached there glorifies the American Dream of prosperity and success. We, however, are called to be faithful to the Gospel, regardless of how poorly accepted it may be.
There is something about this chapter on works springing out of faith that draws our attention. It is that there are 3 kinds of faith outlined in this short passage of Scripture. James wants us to understand that, while there are many different kinds of faith, there is only one saving faith.
1. Dead Faith: “…faith, by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (v. 17).
People with this kind of faith understand the correct vocabulary for Christian belief. They can quote verses from the Bible. They know the common language of faith and often find comradeship with others who share that language of faith. They are quick to promise to pray for people in need and then move on to the next adventure. Like the demons, they know the doctrine of salvation – they have read the Four Spiritual Laws. They may even have repeated the Sinner’s Prayer. Yet, while the world waits for signs of a faith that spills out of their lives and into the world, they have gone through the motions and have never known the passion that comes from loving Christ enough to sacrifice our lives for Him as He has done for us.
A declaration of faith that has not resulted in a changed life committed to good works is a false declaration – a dead faith. A dead faith is a counterfeit faith that lulls many a church into a false confidence of its standing with God. This is the kind of faith that protests against abortion but is unwilling to put itself on the line for unwed mothers.
2. Demonic Faith: We have talked about the faith of demons. While those with dead faith are touched only in their intellect, demons are touched in their emotions. They shudder or tremble! That is one step above dead faith, is it not? Where is the changed life? Without receiving the life of Christ, our works will be no different from the local service club.
I can imagine a person having this kind of faith who believes the right things and feels the right things. I can imagine such a person intellectually adhering to the right kind of doctrines and the right kind of living and even having an emotional experience while listening to the Gospel.
But an intellectual faith and an emotional reaction to the words of faith can never save. Show me your faith!
3. Dynamic Faith: Dead faith touches only the intellect. Demonic faith touches both the intellect and the emotions. Dynamic faith, however, involves the intellect, the emotions and the will. The mind understands the truth; the heart desires and rejoices over the truth; the will, however, acts upon that truth.
Saving faith leads to action of a particular type. It is not intellectualism; it is not emotionalism. Instead, it is that which leads to good works.
We have spent considerable time in this church contrasting works that build up our egos and works that build up the Kingdom of God. One helps people and gives us a good feeling. The other loves people out of love of God for His love of us.
James gives Abraham as an example of Dynamic faith. Over and over again, Abraham demonstrated his faith by his works – self-sacrifice and obedience, even when the way violated every human instinct. James offers Rahab the harlot as another example of Dynamic faith. Rahab was a Gentile who risked her own life in answer to the call of God to hide the spies of Israel in Jericho. She was a prostitute who became the great, great, great grandmother of King David. She demonstrated her faith through her works.
I wonder what kind of faith we have this morning. Is it a faith that is content to just know about the things of God? Is it a faith that revs up our emotions when we hear those old hymns or those old Gospel sermons? Or does it go beyond knowing and feeling so that it motivates our actions?
We might ask how we at the NMMH Church can possibly make a difference in the Kingdom. We don’t have much money. We don’t have many young people. We can go through a long list of what we don’t have.
The Psalmist cries out to God that He reveal to him the motivators of the kind of faith that leads to works:
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
See if there is any offensive way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
Make that the prayer of your heart this morning as you consider what kind of faith you have and what kind of works will show that faith to others.
God’s grace is a limitless fountain of possibility tapped into by a faith that knows no limitations. Everything we do here must be motivated by a faith that harbors no limits.
Paul writes in 1 Cor 13 , “…and now abides faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” Love, or charity, is the greatest of the three because it gives rise to the words that prove our faith.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Finding the Word Through the Words
November 2, 2008
John 5:31-45
In politics, the preferred ground on which to stand is something called, “Moderate.” Some of you may remember the fight in the Presidential election of 1964 over the word “extremism.” Politics is the art of compromise, and extremism is a threat to compromise.
Barry Goldwater came about as close as anyone has in my lifetime to declaring politics a legitimate search for truth. He was beaten in one of the worst routs in American history. This is his famous quote: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
We seek the middle ground out of fear of becoming the target of those who, like Rodney King, want to “just get along.” I remember one controversial political stand I took on behalf of the leadership of two of the towns I represented. After I went public with the legislation, I looked around, and they had scattered – there was nobody there to back me up. Not believing that this was a cause worth falling on my sword over, I pulled the legislation.
The point is that in every ideological frontier in human history, people back away because it is out of the mainstream. We make the decision that we don’t want to die on that battleground, so the battleground that we all seek to make our stand keeps moving away from us as we become skilled at moderation.
Now, moderation is not a bad thing. In fact, the Bible says that we as Christians are to live our lives in moderation with regard to our pleasures and our habits. The pursuit of truth, however, is another matter. In that regard, we are called to a radical discipleship – the kind that Jesus quietly demonstrated through good works and the pursuit of a Kingdom that stood 180 deg out-of-phase with the popular religion of His time.
In fact, the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ remains 180 deg out-of-phase with popular religion of our time – in every generation down through redemptive history.
Radical discipleship is something to which every one of us is called. Moderation, however, is our habit, a habit that is, I believe, stifling the cause of Christ. The only time we are willing to step outside the bounds of moderation is when we are reasonably certain that to do so will attract crowds. We don’t want to take the risk of being radical and standing alone.
Last week, I shared with you the rather radical speech I gave at a conference in Washington, DC. What was interesting about that speech is that in order to resonate with the very few, I had to violate the comfort zones of the many.
There were two reactions to my speech of last week. The first was in the form of an email that I received from a fellow Christian in CA. He was ready to stand up and proclaim the “Second Reformation.” I emailed him back saying something to the effect that the road to reformation was in repentance. The other reaction was that because there might be a remnant of true believers within the churches of the Christian Right, I ought to moderate or scrap my rhetoric. At that, I bristle.
I ask, this morning, what would have happened if Martin Luther had decided that because there was a remnant of believers in the Catholic Church, he ought to hold his tongue? You and I probably would not be worshipping here this morning. In fact, there might not even be an America.
What if Jesus had decided that He could have compromised with the Devil in the desert, or caved into the attempts of the Pharisees to compromise Him, or listened to Peter when he wanted to raise up an army to defend Him, or listened to Judas and used His power to take the throne in Jerusalem, or listened to the thief and come down from the cross? No Christianity/no hope!
The course of history has never been corrected through moderation. Galileo and the great scientists who succeeded him stood alone and were condemned by the church. The Old Testament is replete with stories of God condemning the entire nation of Israel at the expense of the faithful remnant in order that He might display His glory through that remnant.
The fact that there may be a few righteous people among the Christian Right is no justification for backing off judging the church. We are told in Revelation 3 that God would spew the entire Church of Laodicea out of His mouth for what reason? For the reason that they were neither hot nor cold – they were moderates, you might say. They were smug in their wealth and success. Jesus called them “…wretched, pitiful, blind, poor and naked.” “Those whom I love, I rebuke,” He said (v.19).
To those of the righteous who remain in the Church of Laodicea, I would suggest that they get out while the getting is good. The same is true of us here at the NMMH Church. If we are icons of moderation – going along in order to get along, we are in danger of being spit out of God’s mouth. The formula that Jesus offers to us and the Laodiceans is this: “Be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (v. 19, 20).
We are not called to fill these pews with worshippers. We are called simply to open the door for Jesus as He knocks and to hear His voice when He speaks and to fellowship with Him and provide for Him when He is hungry, thirsty and naked.
The 5th Chapter of John has a lot to say about the difference between moderate and radical Christianity. It is embodied in a distinction between the Word and the Scriptures. That is the very conflict that plagues the Church of Jesus Christ today – the inability or unwillingness to distinguish between the Word and the Scriptures.
Jesus begins this lesson by saying that even His testimony about Himself is not valid – that there is someone else who testifies in His favor, verifying that His word is truth. The testimony of John the Baptist was insufficient to validate Jesus’ divine nature. The light that the Baptist gave out was only for a season – an entertainment for a short time. Jesus says that He has a testimony that is “…weightier than that of John.” Somehow, the work that He was sent by the Father to finish is what testifies of His role in the salvation of mankind.
We have never heard the Father’s voice, v. 37. We have never seen the Father in person. We diligently search the Scriptures, v. 39. Yet, in all this many professing Christians refuse to come to Jesus for life. Why is that?
It is because they have God in their heads but not in their hearts, v. 42. It is because they are ready to listen to and accept somebody else but not Him, v. 43. It is because they honor the praise of men over the praise that comes from God, v. 44. They live by the law. Therefore, Moses and the law will be their judge, v. 45.
They put their trust in what Moses wrote rather than in what Jesus says, v. 46. Moses and the law become their hope. Because the law of Moses points to Christ, at the end of the day they don’t believe in Jesus, either.
Let’s get into this in a bit more detail.
What Jesus is doing here is distinguishing between the Scriptures and the Word of God:
• You diligently study the Scriptures, but God’s Word does not dwell in you…
• You diligently study the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life if you study and believe the Bible…
• You diligently study the Scriptures, but you do not believe in the One to whom the Scriptures point…
• You diligently study the Scriptures, but you refuse to come to Me to have life…
What I get from this, then, is that a person can study the Scriptures – even memorize them – and yet not have the Word of God dwelling in him. A person can study the Scriptures and yet not know Jesus Christ, no matter how many times he repeats the Sinner’s Prayer. A person can study the Scriptures and not have eternal life. A person can be a regular church attendee and not know Jesus.
There is, then, the potential for a false assurance that we are saved through hearing Gospel sermons and agreeing with biblical doctrines about Christ. It is clear, however, that the way to salvation is not through what someone else is saying about Christ, nor through obedience to the moral and ethical precepts of the law. In fact, if this passage is correct, adherence to a doctrine or a biblical way of life may be evidence of denial of Christ.
It somehow is easier to obey a select law or laws than it is to believe in Jesus, the “Word made flesh.” Belief in the Scriptures gets in the way of belief in the Word. Show me a person who rants and raves about the sexual deviancy of the non-Christian world or about those evil abortionists out there, and I will show you a person who does not know Jesus and who may very well not be a Christian.
Very simply, the Scriptures are not the way to life. The Scriptures point us to the way of life by bearing witness to the truth of who Jesus is.
Take a look at Jesus’ teaching of His disciples. Do you see Him pushing for them to memorize the Scriptures to find formulas to make the world a better place to live? No! Do you see Him pushing books on prayer? No! It is not that these things are bad in themselves. It is that Spiritual truth is not a science to be learned through books. Spiritual truth is experienced through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit speaking through the Scriptures, pointing us to the “way, the truth and the light.”
We have been talking in the past few weeks about bearing fruit in our Christian lives. Bearing fruit will never happen through those who are spouting Scripture to build their own pride of life or tell others how to live. Fruit bearing comes from living in the power of the Word – not the words. It comes from picking up our crosses daily and following Jesus. It comes from learning to live by the Scriptures because that has been made possible through the Word.
Some believe that you can have Jesus as your Savior if your belief goes no further than Jesus as a fireman who rescues you from burning in Hell. In light of this passage of Scripture, I would reject that thinking. Jesus as a fireman is Scriptural, but Jesus as a fireman is not the Joy and Delight of our hearts. We can know about Him – perhaps even have accepted what the Scriptures say about Him, but if we have no life in our walk, we do not know Him. Jesus the fireman is not Jesus our Savior.
In the 7th chapter of John, vs. 37-39, Jesus stood and said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
That’s the difference, isn’t it? Streams of living water will flow from those who make the transition from the Scriptures to the Word.
As Christians, we have a duty to search the Scriptures. In fact, it was the Scriptures that pointed our way to Christ. The Pharisees and the Sadducees were so bound up in the Scriptures that they could not get beyond such things as trying to figure out whose wife a woman would be in the next life if she had had several husbands. It’s irrelevant. The very foundation of the Scriptures is not a list of rules to make ourselves build favor with God. The Scriptures are a fountain of God’s revelation of Himself to fallen man, first through the holy law and then through new birth in Jesus Christ.
That is the sum and substance of the Scriptures. If you can’t get beyond the words, you will never get to the Word. If you can’t get to the Word, you will never “…have life and have it more abundantly,” the very purpose for which Christ came – “I am come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”
The Christian who is proud, angry and vengeful lives contrary to the purity, holiness and long-suffering of God. The Christian who believes that being amiable, courteous, good natured, easy going and “moderate” are the fruits of the abundant life needs a radical transformation of the spirit. Getting along with your neighbor is great, but it isn’t love. Love of neighbor is not satisfied until you can cry over your enemy – weep over “Jerusalem,” the locus of your heart, as Jesus did.
We search the Scriptures, not because we want to know how to behave better, but because the Scriptures are the grand charter of our salvation and a light to guide us into the way of peace. When study of the Scriptures creates new and more enticing prophets, such as we have in the Word of Faith movement in America today, it is creating infidels who look for new signs from Heaven. America is lurching from one new prophet to another. Overlooked is the Scriptural warning that one false prophecy invalidates the prophet.
We search the Scriptures because we want to find that treasure hidden in the field through prophesies, types, sacrifices and shadows. We want to find this Jesus who comes to us as Prophet, Priest and King. We search the Scriptures as our star in the east, guiding us to the promised Messiah. We search the Scriptures with a humble, childlike attitude because we know that the mysteries of the Kingdom are hidden from the wise, learned and proud of this world.
And we do indeed search the Scriptures to put into practice what we read so that we may live in the will of God. Those are the Scriptures that the woman at the well in Samaria heard from Jesus, recognizing Him as the promised Messiah. She recognized Him because she listened to the Scriptures with a desire to find Him there, to know Him and to worship Him. His words, “I that speak to you am he” changed her life that day so that she was empowered to go forward and “sin no more.”
Notice that Jesus said nothing about getting rid of the guy with whom she was presently living. He did not preach about adultery or homosexuality or abortion. He met her where she was with no conditions. Those things would take care of themselves as she began to walk by faith and, indeed, to desire to sin no more.
Transforming grace moves us from the Scriptures to the Word. The Psalmist said in Psalm 139, “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” See the distinction? The words will not insulate us from our sin, not matter how many Scripture verses we memorize. It is the Word – Jesus – who insulates us from our sin and makes us want to “sin no more.”
God, being a spirit, can only communicate with our hearts by spirit. If we are strangers to His Holy Spirit, we will continue to be strangers to the Word, even though we may be walking encyclopedias of Scripture.
The evangelical church in America believes in the American Dream – that prosperity and good health can be named and claimed by Christians. Jesus’ warning, however, was that unless we are willing to follow Him into death and Resurrection, we will never even see the Kingdom of God. That is why, I suspect, that for most American Evangelicals, the Kingdom of God is not a present reality but is a future promise.
They can’t see it because the words of the Scriptures have not been transformed in their hearts to become the Word: “You diligently search the Scripture because you think that by them you have eternal life” (v. 39).
That great evangelist of the First Great Awakening, George Whitefield, said it this way:
This is a radical way of life, is it not? While the world wants to put human behavior and belief into a formula or a political agenda, the church is apostate when it tries to accommodate or promote that formula or political agenda. The notion that we must accomplish politically what God cannot accomplish spiritually in His people indicates that many of our spiritual leaders do not know the Word.
There is no room here for moderation. Each of us who has come face-to-face with the Word through the Scriptures must prepare for the wedding feast, the Bride of Christ.
Extremism in the defense of Christian liberty is truly no vice.
John 5:31-45
In politics, the preferred ground on which to stand is something called, “Moderate.” Some of you may remember the fight in the Presidential election of 1964 over the word “extremism.” Politics is the art of compromise, and extremism is a threat to compromise.
Barry Goldwater came about as close as anyone has in my lifetime to declaring politics a legitimate search for truth. He was beaten in one of the worst routs in American history. This is his famous quote: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
We seek the middle ground out of fear of becoming the target of those who, like Rodney King, want to “just get along.” I remember one controversial political stand I took on behalf of the leadership of two of the towns I represented. After I went public with the legislation, I looked around, and they had scattered – there was nobody there to back me up. Not believing that this was a cause worth falling on my sword over, I pulled the legislation.
The point is that in every ideological frontier in human history, people back away because it is out of the mainstream. We make the decision that we don’t want to die on that battleground, so the battleground that we all seek to make our stand keeps moving away from us as we become skilled at moderation.
Now, moderation is not a bad thing. In fact, the Bible says that we as Christians are to live our lives in moderation with regard to our pleasures and our habits. The pursuit of truth, however, is another matter. In that regard, we are called to a radical discipleship – the kind that Jesus quietly demonstrated through good works and the pursuit of a Kingdom that stood 180 deg out-of-phase with the popular religion of His time.
In fact, the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ remains 180 deg out-of-phase with popular religion of our time – in every generation down through redemptive history.
Radical discipleship is something to which every one of us is called. Moderation, however, is our habit, a habit that is, I believe, stifling the cause of Christ. The only time we are willing to step outside the bounds of moderation is when we are reasonably certain that to do so will attract crowds. We don’t want to take the risk of being radical and standing alone.
Last week, I shared with you the rather radical speech I gave at a conference in Washington, DC. What was interesting about that speech is that in order to resonate with the very few, I had to violate the comfort zones of the many.
There were two reactions to my speech of last week. The first was in the form of an email that I received from a fellow Christian in CA. He was ready to stand up and proclaim the “Second Reformation.” I emailed him back saying something to the effect that the road to reformation was in repentance. The other reaction was that because there might be a remnant of true believers within the churches of the Christian Right, I ought to moderate or scrap my rhetoric. At that, I bristle.
I ask, this morning, what would have happened if Martin Luther had decided that because there was a remnant of believers in the Catholic Church, he ought to hold his tongue? You and I probably would not be worshipping here this morning. In fact, there might not even be an America.
What if Jesus had decided that He could have compromised with the Devil in the desert, or caved into the attempts of the Pharisees to compromise Him, or listened to Peter when he wanted to raise up an army to defend Him, or listened to Judas and used His power to take the throne in Jerusalem, or listened to the thief and come down from the cross? No Christianity/no hope!
The course of history has never been corrected through moderation. Galileo and the great scientists who succeeded him stood alone and were condemned by the church. The Old Testament is replete with stories of God condemning the entire nation of Israel at the expense of the faithful remnant in order that He might display His glory through that remnant.
The fact that there may be a few righteous people among the Christian Right is no justification for backing off judging the church. We are told in Revelation 3 that God would spew the entire Church of Laodicea out of His mouth for what reason? For the reason that they were neither hot nor cold – they were moderates, you might say. They were smug in their wealth and success. Jesus called them “…wretched, pitiful, blind, poor and naked.” “Those whom I love, I rebuke,” He said (v.19).
To those of the righteous who remain in the Church of Laodicea, I would suggest that they get out while the getting is good. The same is true of us here at the NMMH Church. If we are icons of moderation – going along in order to get along, we are in danger of being spit out of God’s mouth. The formula that Jesus offers to us and the Laodiceans is this: “Be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (v. 19, 20).
We are not called to fill these pews with worshippers. We are called simply to open the door for Jesus as He knocks and to hear His voice when He speaks and to fellowship with Him and provide for Him when He is hungry, thirsty and naked.
The 5th Chapter of John has a lot to say about the difference between moderate and radical Christianity. It is embodied in a distinction between the Word and the Scriptures. That is the very conflict that plagues the Church of Jesus Christ today – the inability or unwillingness to distinguish between the Word and the Scriptures.
Jesus begins this lesson by saying that even His testimony about Himself is not valid – that there is someone else who testifies in His favor, verifying that His word is truth. The testimony of John the Baptist was insufficient to validate Jesus’ divine nature. The light that the Baptist gave out was only for a season – an entertainment for a short time. Jesus says that He has a testimony that is “…weightier than that of John.” Somehow, the work that He was sent by the Father to finish is what testifies of His role in the salvation of mankind.
We have never heard the Father’s voice, v. 37. We have never seen the Father in person. We diligently search the Scriptures, v. 39. Yet, in all this many professing Christians refuse to come to Jesus for life. Why is that?
It is because they have God in their heads but not in their hearts, v. 42. It is because they are ready to listen to and accept somebody else but not Him, v. 43. It is because they honor the praise of men over the praise that comes from God, v. 44. They live by the law. Therefore, Moses and the law will be their judge, v. 45.
They put their trust in what Moses wrote rather than in what Jesus says, v. 46. Moses and the law become their hope. Because the law of Moses points to Christ, at the end of the day they don’t believe in Jesus, either.
Let’s get into this in a bit more detail.
What Jesus is doing here is distinguishing between the Scriptures and the Word of God:
• You diligently study the Scriptures, but God’s Word does not dwell in you…
• You diligently study the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life if you study and believe the Bible…
• You diligently study the Scriptures, but you do not believe in the One to whom the Scriptures point…
• You diligently study the Scriptures, but you refuse to come to Me to have life…
What I get from this, then, is that a person can study the Scriptures – even memorize them – and yet not have the Word of God dwelling in him. A person can study the Scriptures and yet not know Jesus Christ, no matter how many times he repeats the Sinner’s Prayer. A person can study the Scriptures and not have eternal life. A person can be a regular church attendee and not know Jesus.
There is, then, the potential for a false assurance that we are saved through hearing Gospel sermons and agreeing with biblical doctrines about Christ. It is clear, however, that the way to salvation is not through what someone else is saying about Christ, nor through obedience to the moral and ethical precepts of the law. In fact, if this passage is correct, adherence to a doctrine or a biblical way of life may be evidence of denial of Christ.
It somehow is easier to obey a select law or laws than it is to believe in Jesus, the “Word made flesh.” Belief in the Scriptures gets in the way of belief in the Word. Show me a person who rants and raves about the sexual deviancy of the non-Christian world or about those evil abortionists out there, and I will show you a person who does not know Jesus and who may very well not be a Christian.
Very simply, the Scriptures are not the way to life. The Scriptures point us to the way of life by bearing witness to the truth of who Jesus is.
Take a look at Jesus’ teaching of His disciples. Do you see Him pushing for them to memorize the Scriptures to find formulas to make the world a better place to live? No! Do you see Him pushing books on prayer? No! It is not that these things are bad in themselves. It is that Spiritual truth is not a science to be learned through books. Spiritual truth is experienced through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit speaking through the Scriptures, pointing us to the “way, the truth and the light.”
We have been talking in the past few weeks about bearing fruit in our Christian lives. Bearing fruit will never happen through those who are spouting Scripture to build their own pride of life or tell others how to live. Fruit bearing comes from living in the power of the Word – not the words. It comes from picking up our crosses daily and following Jesus. It comes from learning to live by the Scriptures because that has been made possible through the Word.
Some believe that you can have Jesus as your Savior if your belief goes no further than Jesus as a fireman who rescues you from burning in Hell. In light of this passage of Scripture, I would reject that thinking. Jesus as a fireman is Scriptural, but Jesus as a fireman is not the Joy and Delight of our hearts. We can know about Him – perhaps even have accepted what the Scriptures say about Him, but if we have no life in our walk, we do not know Him. Jesus the fireman is not Jesus our Savior.
In the 7th chapter of John, vs. 37-39, Jesus stood and said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
That’s the difference, isn’t it? Streams of living water will flow from those who make the transition from the Scriptures to the Word.
As Christians, we have a duty to search the Scriptures. In fact, it was the Scriptures that pointed our way to Christ. The Pharisees and the Sadducees were so bound up in the Scriptures that they could not get beyond such things as trying to figure out whose wife a woman would be in the next life if she had had several husbands. It’s irrelevant. The very foundation of the Scriptures is not a list of rules to make ourselves build favor with God. The Scriptures are a fountain of God’s revelation of Himself to fallen man, first through the holy law and then through new birth in Jesus Christ.
That is the sum and substance of the Scriptures. If you can’t get beyond the words, you will never get to the Word. If you can’t get to the Word, you will never “…have life and have it more abundantly,” the very purpose for which Christ came – “I am come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”
The Christian who is proud, angry and vengeful lives contrary to the purity, holiness and long-suffering of God. The Christian who believes that being amiable, courteous, good natured, easy going and “moderate” are the fruits of the abundant life needs a radical transformation of the spirit. Getting along with your neighbor is great, but it isn’t love. Love of neighbor is not satisfied until you can cry over your enemy – weep over “Jerusalem,” the locus of your heart, as Jesus did.
We search the Scriptures, not because we want to know how to behave better, but because the Scriptures are the grand charter of our salvation and a light to guide us into the way of peace. When study of the Scriptures creates new and more enticing prophets, such as we have in the Word of Faith movement in America today, it is creating infidels who look for new signs from Heaven. America is lurching from one new prophet to another. Overlooked is the Scriptural warning that one false prophecy invalidates the prophet.
We search the Scriptures because we want to find that treasure hidden in the field through prophesies, types, sacrifices and shadows. We want to find this Jesus who comes to us as Prophet, Priest and King. We search the Scriptures as our star in the east, guiding us to the promised Messiah. We search the Scriptures with a humble, childlike attitude because we know that the mysteries of the Kingdom are hidden from the wise, learned and proud of this world.
And we do indeed search the Scriptures to put into practice what we read so that we may live in the will of God. Those are the Scriptures that the woman at the well in Samaria heard from Jesus, recognizing Him as the promised Messiah. She recognized Him because she listened to the Scriptures with a desire to find Him there, to know Him and to worship Him. His words, “I that speak to you am he” changed her life that day so that she was empowered to go forward and “sin no more.”
Notice that Jesus said nothing about getting rid of the guy with whom she was presently living. He did not preach about adultery or homosexuality or abortion. He met her where she was with no conditions. Those things would take care of themselves as she began to walk by faith and, indeed, to desire to sin no more.
Transforming grace moves us from the Scriptures to the Word. The Psalmist said in Psalm 139, “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” See the distinction? The words will not insulate us from our sin, not matter how many Scripture verses we memorize. It is the Word – Jesus – who insulates us from our sin and makes us want to “sin no more.”
God, being a spirit, can only communicate with our hearts by spirit. If we are strangers to His Holy Spirit, we will continue to be strangers to the Word, even though we may be walking encyclopedias of Scripture.
The evangelical church in America believes in the American Dream – that prosperity and good health can be named and claimed by Christians. Jesus’ warning, however, was that unless we are willing to follow Him into death and Resurrection, we will never even see the Kingdom of God. That is why, I suspect, that for most American Evangelicals, the Kingdom of God is not a present reality but is a future promise.
They can’t see it because the words of the Scriptures have not been transformed in their hearts to become the Word: “You diligently search the Scripture because you think that by them you have eternal life” (v. 39).
That great evangelist of the First Great Awakening, George Whitefield, said it this way:
Search the Scriptures, my dear brethren; taste and see how good the Word of God is, and then you will never leave that heavenly manna – that angel’s food – to feed on dry husks, those trifling, sinful compositions, in which men of false taste delight themselves…The Word of God will then be sweeter to you than honey and the honey-comb and dearer than gold and silver…Your souls by reading it will be filled with marrow and fatness, and your hearts molded into the spirit of its blessed Author. In short, you will be guided by God’s wisdom here, and conducted by the light of his divine word into glory hereafter.
This is a radical way of life, is it not? While the world wants to put human behavior and belief into a formula or a political agenda, the church is apostate when it tries to accommodate or promote that formula or political agenda. The notion that we must accomplish politically what God cannot accomplish spiritually in His people indicates that many of our spiritual leaders do not know the Word.
There is no room here for moderation. Each of us who has come face-to-face with the Word through the Scriptures must prepare for the wedding feast, the Bride of Christ.
Extremism in the defense of Christian liberty is truly no vice.
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