Feast and Follow with Knollwood

This week, we welcome guest preacher Jackson Hice to show us the Good Shepherd out of John 10! 

We are catching up on uploads this week, so here is last week's sermon on James 4:1-10! 

How do you know that you are wise? Is when you can answer most questions asked of you? Is it when you have an understanding of how life works and how to navigate it? What does it mean to be wise? And do we really want to be?

James, as we have seen over and over again is intensely practical, really to the point of discomfort. James is all about showing your work. A Christianity that is just another thing to occupy your mind isn't worth much. Sure the nerds have fun, but Christianity isn't a life of the mind thing. It needs to actually do something to be worthwhile. It needs to change me. That is what James is interested in. He wants something that motivates the care of widows and orphans. He wants something that looks out for the poor, changes how I speak, and rules how I live. He wants something that makes a real difference in the believer's life and those around them.

And because it makes a real difference in our lives, that means a lot of things have to change, including what we think about wisdom. Usually we try to define wisdom as knowledge used well. It's knowing that a tomato is a fruit but doesn't belong in a fruit salad. It's knowing how money works but also what it is truly for.

In our passage today, we see that wisdom isn't just what goes on in your head, but it is the outpouring of a shaped soul that looks a lot like holiness. James' wisdom doesn't come out just in sage words, but sanctified actions. He isn't the only one to think this, either. Jesus says the same thing in Matthew 11:19 "The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”" and more poetically in Luke 7:35 "Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.” They were falsely accusing him, yet if they would look at his actions, they would see his wisdom.

Over the next chapter and a half,James will present the difference between wise and unwise living, shows in greater detail where unwise living takes us, and ultimately provides that solution on how to be wise. We will look at just the first one today.

Talk isn't enough to prove you're going to heaven, but it is enough to send you to hell. Both thoughts are true for the same reason: talking is so easy to do, in fact, it has never been easier. Nearly everything in our lives has made it faster and simpler to talk. We came up with the landline to share voices immediately. Then we made the cell phone so we could have this ability anywhere. Then we made the internet so we could permanently place our voices out there to talk for us even when we are not talking. Now with AI I can build things just by talking. Indeed, what hath man wrought?

The way that this promise was presented to us was that all of this communication would be like sending torches into the darkness. Truth as it really was could be revealed for all to see in the flickering digital light. Injustices could be corrected, power could be held accountable, yes, even the gospel could be communicated faster and wider than ever. All of it was and is true. However, as James tells us, the darkness we bear those torches within is a bone-dry forest, branches and leaves everywhere ready to lap up the least spark. It is no wonder that James spends so much time on speech and the tongue, as this is quite a power to steward.

The solution isn't to extinguish the torch. How can the Savior known as the Word have silent followers? Woe to us if we preach not the gospel, but woe to us if we do not tame our tongues.

The solution that James gives to us is implicit rather than explicit, but the way he details the problem is a useful teaching tool in itself. When I began the process of learning how to drive my mother's day one lesson was this: I was driving a 3 thousand pound death machine to myself and others if I use it improperly. It was a sober start, but it was necessary. I had to come to grips with what I was doing. Today, James gives some us talking lessons with the sobering introduction to begin.

For those who are a little less familiar with the Bible, this passage may sound odd. Even for those who are very familiar with the Bible might wonder how this passage fits with the rest of the Bible. After all, isn't the main message of Christianity is that you cannot work your way to heaven? Isn't salvation by grace through faith?

These are the sorts of questions that we bring to this text, but this isn't really James' point. As we will see, James isn't trying to tell us how one gains faith, but what true faith actually looks like. We can know this even before we come to this text. One thing that we remember is that the Bible doesn't have a bunch of different authors but there is One Author, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn't forget what He intends to say, so He isn't going to say that salvation is by grace on the one end and that salvation is at least partially by works on the other.

What is the first piece of information you want to know about a person? What is the first thing that you notice when you meet them? For those in sales, the most relevant thing about you is how much money you have, and they often tell by looking at your dress, particularly your shoes. For others, it's what kind of job you do, or whether or not you have kids, what color you are, or your denominational affiliation.

Collecting this information isn't necessarily a bad thing, but how you treat them based on what you think you now know about them might be. Do you assume once you've noticed their brand-new, brand-name shoes that these people are more valuable to know? Do you think that because you know where they are from you know what they are really like?

For this week, we are taking a break from James to look at Ecclesiastes 3 and see how everything has a season, each a gift. If you are interested in this topic, I would recommend the book, Everything is Never Enough by Bobby Jamieson. It is one of the better books I've read so far this year.  

Is the Christian life something that happens to you or is it something that you are actively involved in? This isn't a trick question, but is meant to make you think. The answer of course is yes. Jesus comes and sovereignly resurrects your soul. He takes out your heart of stone and gives you a heart of flesh. You are then given the Holy Spirit to empower you for good works. As Voddie Bauchum once put it, "The gospel does not require obedience, it produces it.” After Paul tells us that we are saved by grace through faith (Eph.2:8-9), the very next verse tells us that we are saved for good works (v. 10). We are not floating through the Christian life but are actively involved in making decisions that reflect our new standing.

Our passage in James here is even more direct. Verse 22 tells us very plainly, "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." Good works here are not a suggestion. Without good works, our faith is self-deception. What sort of works is he talking about?

James offers to us a couple of areas to look at in our lives. They aren't exhaustive, but they are foundational. After covering our endurance under trial, James moves to the more everyday sort of concerns in the Christian life. The Christian life isn't just lived when the diagnosis of cancer comes in. It is lived in the moment right after someone says something stupid to you. And you'd like to finally give them what's been coming for years.

Let's get practical.

Today, we look at the Chalcedonian Definition, where the Church Fathers wrestled through the two natures and one person of Christ.  

If God is the one who strengthens us through our trials, then does God bring us temptations to sin as well? Does God tempt? Today we look at James to see that God is not the bringer of temptation but life.