Saint James the Elder by Rembrandt

Our Church provides a worship services for the residents of the McLoughlin Place, a Senior Assisted Living community in Oregon City. I had the opportunity this month to provide the devotional. We are going through the book of James.

“Being Doers of the Word”

“Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. ” (James 1:21–25, NKJV)

The book of James was written very soon after the Lord Jesus was crucified, resurrected and ascended to the right hand of the Father. It was a time of confusion, persecution and suffering for the early church. Soon after Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was murdered, the church began to be scattered throughout the Roman world. As they went, the Christians spread the gospel.

But their lives were very difficult. They were falsely accused in courts, they were cut off from their families and synagogues, they were unable often to provide for their needs, and they were likely not sure how to live in such conditions. James wrote this letter to help suffering Christians to learn how to live as mature people of God. The first thing he said is that their trials and sufferings, however unjust, would produce in them maturity. The Father sees all of their troubles and will reward His children with the crown of life – which He has promised to all who love Him. James goes on to say:

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. ” (James 1:17–20, NKJV)

How we respond to our trials and sufferings is very important. It is easy to get frustrated and even angry at people when things don’t go the way we want them to. James said that if we want to see the righteousness of God manifested in us and through us to other people – we will avoid wrath and anger. He made us new creations in Christ by the word of truth. And so we must receive the word of God to us and lay aside all sinfulness in our lives.

God calls each of us to be doers of the word – not just hearers of the word. We deceive ourselves if we think that God doesn’t care about how we live our lives. When the word of God comes to us, we should remember what it shows us about ourselves and how He wants us to live. If we are just hearers of the word, and not doers, we are like someone that looks in a mirror and immediately forgets what kind of person we are. Rather, God wants each of us, when we face various trials and troubles, to remember to do His will. If someone mistreats you, or disappoints you, or isn’t as loving as you would like them to be – don’t get angry and speak badly to them. Rather, be a person that is so transformed by the word of God, the perfect law of liberty, that you love them and minister grace to them. Ones religion is useless if we are unable to control our tongues – for we deceive ourselves if we think we can both love the Lord our God and also speak wickedly to others. For pure and undefiled religion is loving those around us (as the text says, “visiting orphans and widows in their trouble”) and keeping unspotted from the world. For those of you who live here, you may be a widow yourself. You may be troubled physically, emotionally or spiritually. God is calling on you, and all of us, to not focus on our own troubles and forget to be doers of the word and minister to the needs of others. May God so fill us with His Word that we are able to produce the righteous of God in connection with all those around us.

I received information from Dennis Tuuri about “Q”, a group founded by a fella named Gabe Lyons to “reintroduce Christians to what had seemed missing in recent decades from an American expression of Christian faithfulness; valuing both personal and cultural renewal, not one over the other.”

The Mission of Q:

“Q” educates church and cultural leaders on their role and opportunity to embody the Gospel in public life.

We believe that exposure to old and new ideas is the best way to stimulate imagination for ways the Gospel can be expressed within our cultural context.

Q has annual conferences in major cities throughout the United States to promote Christian Cultural Awareness and to encourage Christians to effectively serve in their cities. Q 2011 will be in Portland, Oregon. A promotional video, Getting the Portland Vibe, can be viewed on their website. According to these guys, “Portland is Jesus’ favorite city!”

By making this post I am not endorsing this organization or event. Rather, I’m hoping to stimulate conversation about what it means for us to minister to cities. These guys are interested in creatively engaging with the culture of our cities in non-threatening ways. This may, indeed, be something we need to learn. However, it may also be, as one person I know said of it, “It’s just good old fashioned social gospel liberalism in a new dress. Gasp!”

We need to be wise to understand our times and preach the gospel into the culture God has placed us AND we need to be sure that we are actually confronting and renewing the culture for Christ. A good question to always be asking in enterprises like this is: Who is converting who?

I plan to spend some time reading some of their blog posts, essays, watching some of the videos to not only learn what they are about, but also to see if they have any creative ideas that we should be considering. Not only so, I’m interested in some of their styles, methods and approaches to things.

Maybe you would care to comment on some of the content of the site?

Our Church provides a worship services for the residents of the McLoughlin Place, a Senior Assisted Living community in Oregon City. I had the opportunity this month to provide the devotional. We are going through the book of James.

McLaughlin Place Devotional -May 23, 2010: James 1:9-11

“Exaltation and Humiliation”

Over the last couple of month Matt Lyons has been speaking to you from the book of James, and we will continue today to see some of the surprising things the Lord has to say to us. Let us pray that God would speak to us from His word today.

Our Father, we often feel as if we do not have the wisdom we need to live as those who are made complete by your grace and Spirit – We ask that you, the Father of lights, would give us your grace to live patiently in our trials, knowing that you are providing all that we need to enable us to say that we lack nothing. You are the generously giving God – Give us now wisdom live for you, in faith, without doubting that you are willing to give your good gifts to us liberally and without reproach. For we pray in the name of our only Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

God works in our lives and in the world generally, in ways that are often a mystery to us. We know that he wants us to be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing – and that He has the power to just say the word and we will be perfect and complete, lack in nothing. But he doesn’t do things that way. He has saved us by His grace, through the faith that He has given us. But, in the perfect wisdom of our heavenly Father – He chooses to test our faith and to make things more difficult sometimes than we would like. But if we remain steadfast in our faith that He is a good Father to us, not doubting that He loves us – He will enlarge our faith in Him and give us patience and wisdom in this world. All the various trials we have in life are often confusing and difficult – but if we have in us His perspective on these trials – we can actually rejoice in the fact that on the other side of them we will know Him and His wisdom better.

In the next section of James he gives us an example of how we can have joy in the midst of testing. James 1:9-11

Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich [brother] in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.

This is certainly an odd passage, and somewhat confusing. What James is saying is that the brother in lowly or humble circumstances is encouraged to see himself from God’s perspective and glory or take pride in his exalted position before the Lord and in the Christian community. God has lifted him up: James 4:6 and 10 says: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble…Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

Just as we should see trials as a cause for joy (when seen from the perspective of God’s purposes in our lives), so too, the lowly brother should see himself as God sees him: one who is equally a son of God with the rich.

The world views this person as poor (the term ‘humble’ has behind it a Hebrew concept of the humble or oppressed poor) – and somehow less important in the big scheme of things. The poor, those who live in humble circumstances are often despised and neglected, sometimes even by the church and their families. But God has, however, lifted them up – exalted them. God’s view is the truer one and so the person can rejoice in its reality even when their outward circumstances have not yet changed.

If I am not too far wrong – some of you here may feel poor and humbled and less important or significant in the world. God is telling you to glory in the fact that you are loved and cared for by Him – and that he counts you as equal to all the rest of His children.

In contrast, the rich brother should glory in his humiliation. This sounds strange to us, but what we are to learn from this is that those Christians who are rich in this world could be tempted to see themselves are more important than those who are poor. In fact, this sinful attitude is something that James draws attention to later in 2:2-9: But God has shown them that they are not any more exalted before God than any other Christian.

This passage in 1:9-11 teaches that a rich man could properly glory and rejoice in having been humbled by God and brought to associate as an equal with poor Christians. Both poor and rich are exalted by His grace. He opposes the proud – but gives grace to the humble, whether rich or poor.

James is saying that if the rich person looks at the same future as the ‘humble’ brother, he will see that both will fade and die – just as the flower of the field. The glories that accompany riches will fade away – and in the end – only those who are humble before the Lord will be lifted up and exalted in His sight. This is a subject that will get much more attention in the book of James.

This ‘reversal of fortunes’ theme is often found in the scriptures (e.g. 1 Sa. 2:1–10; Lk. 1:46–55). When God acts, the low are raised up and the high are brought down. What God wants us to see is that our exaltation in this world is not about riches – it is a result of God lifting us up by grace and making us exalted as His dear children.

Brothers and sisters – don’t look at your circumstances as the sum of your true standing in Christ Jesus. If you are poor and ill treated in this world – rejoice and be glad that before God you are exalted and dearly loved. If you are rich and well treated – glory and rejoice in the fact that your value to God isn’t reliant on your riches because they will all be gone in the end.

As many in the Church today plant churches that are appealing to “seekers” we find that there are certain techniques that are important to success.  The following video provides a good church planting blueprint for the liturgical life of the church.

http://vimeo.com/11501569

NOT!!!

For years I have been amazed, dazed and dismayed by the fact that people find it so hard to remember to turn off their distracting electronics in church.

I can see using computers and other silent aids to worship (e.g. electronic versions of the Bible) – But texting, receiving calls and generally playing in church?  What’s up with that?

Here is a solution provided by a Presbyterian Church in California

What do you think? Should we use this method at Reformation Covenant Church?