James Session 5
Tom Shrader examines James 1:17-25, emphasizing that believers must humbly receive God's implanted Word and act on it rather than merely listen. He stresses that the problem of sin is internal and requires heart transformation, not external religious behavior. Shrader challenges Christians to live authentically as God made them, free from pride and pretense, while being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.
“Since our problem is internal the solution is internal not external - that's why religion doesn't work.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: James (2009)
Recorded: 2009 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 59 min
Themes: humility, pride, authenticity, listening, obedience, transformation, temptation, faith, struggling with pride, new believer, feeling inauthentic, dealing with temptation, mentor, young adult, navigating trials, growing in faith
Scripture: James 1:17-25, Ephesians 2, 1 John 2, 1 John 2:4, Isaiah 6
Theological Themes: sanctification, heart transformation, biblical authority, word of god, flesh nature, new nature, sin nature, spiritual maturity
Full Transcript
Glad that you're here. Pretty cool for me to look back and see a bunch of the summer staff here. We're glad you're here. It was fun to be with you last night. We appreciate you coming in tonight and to have you with us. We're working our way through the book of James, and we finished really this morning kind of up and through verse 17.
James is writing to these 12 tribes dispersed abroad. They are Jewish believers. They are refugees. They are under some sort of stress, probably likely persecution. That's why in verse 2 he goes, "Consider it all joy my brother when you encounter various trials."
The Nature of Trials
These trials are inevitable in life. Although they're inevitable, they come unexpected. You don't know the timing of them. They are multicolored literally - they come in every shape and size. They come at you to test your faith, and the byproduct of that testing of your faith is endurance. When you say "I want to break the tape, I want to go all the way through, I want to finish the Christian life," the key to that is the testing of your faith.
Then he talks about that faith, and it's the faith that you've just sung about. It's to believe God is who He said He was, He'll do what He said He would do. It does not in any way obligate Him. Sometimes we talk about "I have the faith to" and then whatever it is, "I have faith that God will," unless it's something that's an attribute or a direct promise that He's given you. That's not the faith you ought to have.
Now here's what we ought to have faith in: we call on His name, He'll forgive us. We've got that. But if I'm in the midst of a trial or tribulation, maybe it's a sickness, and I'm believing God for my healing, I would say to you I think you've put God in a box. Your faith in Him does not obligate Him to act.
Understanding Temptation
This morning we talked about temptation. We talked about the fact that temptation in and of itself isn't sin. The process of temptation is this: there's something inside of you. There's something in your flesh. Though you have been - those of you that are followers of Christ - though you have been redeemed and though you have indeed this new nature, you are still stuck in this flesh. You're still sinful.
That's the process we saw this morning. Something inside of us is carried away. James uses two words here: carried away or enticed. It's the idea of a lure that's moving through and grabs that fish. It's something that looks like bait, something that looks like a thing that would entice you or would even pull you out of safety.
Something inside of you - and I really want to make this point - you can't control a lot of those things. You simply can't. For guys (gals, I'm sure you have your own thing), but for guys, and there are exceptions to this by and large, but for most guys, they struggle in the area of purity, sexual purity. They struggle in the area of looking at, for example, immodesty. You can't help it. You just see it.
The "Lust Index" and Real-Life Temptation
For guys in summer - when Jimmy Carter was president, which pretty soon we're going to be calling the good old days, when Jimmy Carter was president, he had this thing called the misery index. What it was was a combination of inflation and unemployment, and Jimmy Carter was able to get that up to about 32.
I have what I call in summer kind of the lust index for guys, and it's a combination of the temperature outside and how many clothes girls wear. So this time of year is particularly difficult for guys. We have a mall that we go to. Susan and I were just up - some of you know Tim Kimmel - we were just up and had dinner, met Tim and Darcy for dinner the other night up there. When you go into this mall, this Scottsdale mall, it is just filled with what seems to me lots of gals wearing not a lot of clothes. For some guys - not me, but for some guys - that would be a struggle.
You can't help that that comes in. I have a friend whose grandkids on Christmas day gave him a new toy. It was just something to play with, a toy for him. It required batteries, so there were no batteries. This guy tells me this story like two months later.
On Christmas day, he goes to Circle K to get batteries, and they're very busy at Circle K. So the guy who's checking him out says, "The batteries are around here, just go get them yourself. Just pick them up, bring them back and pay for them." So he goes around to get the batteries, and here are the batteries, and right next to it is the magazine rack that you keep behind the counter. There's Playboy and Penthouse and three or four other things.
Well, this guy's particular weakness is that. So he says, "Here he is, he's not out looking for trouble. It's Christmas day on a mission of mercy to find double-A batteries for his kids' gift that he gave him. And before he knows it, here he is going through these things." He caught himself when he put it down, but what he was saying to me is, "That's been on my hard drive now for weeks." That's temptation. Nothing wrong - he comes around, there's the batteries.
There they are. There's the magazines and they can wonder about it. That's not the sin. The sin is when I begin to indulge in that. When I begin to hang around in that.
We said we have an enemy, Satan, who's out to destroy you. You live in a world whose value system is contrary to ours. It'll destroy you and you have this flesh, this earth suit that's really vulnerable. So along comes these things into our life and they tempt us. We're carried away. We're enticed.
Lust—not just sexual as we said at this point—it could be anything. It can be food. It can be a job. It can be power. You put it in there. You can be here and young and single; it could be getting married, could be that idol, could be whatever it is. This thing all of a sudden you're carried away with it. Then pretty soon it conceives and it gives birth to sin, and sin brings forth death.
Every Good Gift Comes from Above
Now here's where we left off there in verse 17: "But every good thing bestowed, every perfect gift is from above, and it comes down from the Father of lights." God Himself—that's a phrase that the Jews would know, referring to God in that way. The idea of the Father of light: He gives us light physically, intellectually, spiritually, morally.
He said here it is and there's no shifting shadow. He doesn't change. He's the same God delivering the same message. In the exercise of His will, He has brought us forth by the word of truth. We're the first fruits. He saved us. He delivered us. It was an exercise of His will.
We Were Dead in Our Sins
We were dead. That's what Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 2. He writes this to this church at Ephesus. He said you were dead in your sins and trespasses in which you formerly walked. There's that word that we used last night—it means lifestyle. In which you formerly walked, you formerly lived according to the course of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them too, we all formerly walked.
That's all our story. All our testimony is essentially the same—circumstantially a little bit different. But we all walked, we all lived, we lived in the lusts of our flesh. We indulged the desires of our flesh and of our mind, and by nature we were children of wrath, just like everyone else. That's how you come into the world.
The Nature of Children
It's hot now in Phoenix, so it's not happening like it was a few months ago. But our grandson would call about every day, and he's three. His dad—Haley is his mom—his dad was a baseball player, came to ASU to play baseball. Really good baseball, but really live arm, really could throw. He could throw hard, 92, 93, but didn't have a lot of movement on the ball. So it's going in 92, 93, going out about 120. That's a problem.
His dad has been in baseball all his life. His dad was the National High School Association baseball coach of the decade for the '90s—all baseball. So they don't push him, but Brayden's been around balls and he likes it. So even though he's three, rather than T-ball, Tyler will throw to him. He'll just start to swing—now obviously misses them. But then he starts to hit some, and now he hits them really well. What's encouraging to watch him is if the pitch is low, you'll see him go down for it, even if he misses it.
So he'll call—he has a brother, Yale. Yale is a year and a half. Brayden will call and he will say, "Will you come over and watch me hit balls?" I'll say, "Put your mom on." I'll say to her, "What, you don't have a thermometer down there? Do you understand how hot it is? I don't want to watch him hit balls. Put him back on. I'd love to, honey, but right now is not a good time. Papa's busy."
The Manipulation Begins
He'll call every night, every day: "Can you come down and watch me hit balls? Can you come down and watch me hit balls? Can you come down and watch me hit balls?" Finally I said, "Hey, tell the kid not to call me, will you?"
So he calls one night. Here's what he says—this is perfect: "Papa, Yale wants you to come down and watch me hit balls." Well, Yale's a year and a half. He's never had a thought. He doesn't know nothing. Susan goes, "Oh, isn't that cute?" It is not cute at all.
Do you see the manipulation and the evilness in that kid's mind? We're laughing at this like it's funny. It's not funny. Do you see how dark he is? No one taught him that. That's who he is. That's what Paul says: we are by our nature children of wrath. That's who we are—little manipulators that will work and work.
The Importance of Boundaries
That's again why when you're raising these kids, man, you have got to get those boundaries tight and you have to enforce them. You better get them young because you let them get very far away and you aren't going to get them back in.
Let me digress here a bit since we're on this roll. When we did this in parenting when our kids were small, those boundaries were real tight. People used to say to Susan and me, "You guys are too hard on these kids. You guys are too hard on these kids." I couldn't care less. They're not your kids. You're not paying for it. You're not there—they aren't your kids. We're not abusing them. We've got boundaries.
Then as they got older, here's what happened. We would take those boundaries, and by the time they were 12, those boundaries were essentially gone. We had no rules. I mean this—we didn't have a rule in our house with two teenage daughters. We didn't have any rules. What was your curfew? We didn't have a curfew. Why would you have a curfew? All you're going to do is set up these artificial things.
So they would come to me, for example. Sarah's perfect at this. She would come to me and say, "I'm going out with Nick. What time would you like me home?" I said, "Well, I don't know." What time? I'm thinking 11. I would say, "What are you going to do?" She said, "We're not going to do anything." I would say, "Well, I'd say like nine. I mean, if you're not going to do anything—"
When Rules Meet Reality
You're not going to do anything? Then you don't need to be out. Nine o'clock. Nine o'clock. We're not going to do anything after nine o'clock. I mean, we could do that anywhere. Eleven o'clock? Fine, whatever. Stay home then. I don't care. You're not going anywhere.
You're going to eat. I've watched the kid eat. He eats in about 15 minutes. He's picking you up at seven, come home at nine. You got nothing to do? Are you kidding? Do I look like I'm kidding? Nine o'clock.
Then next night she'd come in and she'd say, "Listen." She's smart. She'd say, "There's a football game and then the boys have to shower and then we're going to go out and eat and then we're going to go to a movie." I'd say, "Fine. So be home at what do you think, 1:30? Quarter to two?" See that?
Well, I got this rule. I've got friends who let their kids date when they're 16. Why would you make a rule like that? Because what they're doing is they're watching the calendar. Sixteen, I'm ready to date. I know 34-year-olds that shouldn't date. Why would you say I'm going to let you date when you're 16? I'm going to let you date when you're ready. Well, how will we know? I'm your dad. I'll know.
So you just have those rules. You need them. And then I had all these friends who had no rules and now they're trying to take a 15-year-old and put rules around them. Let me tell you, that isn't going to work.
The Heart of the Problem
Why do you need these rules? Because by nature they're children of wrath. By nature, they're going to say, "Yale wants you to come over and watch me hit balls."
But God—I'm in Ephesians, I'm in Ephesians chapter two—but God being rich in His mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive with Christ, raised us up with Him. That's the great gift.
So when James is talking about these great gifts that come from God, the greatest of all is that we were dead and now we are alive. We were alienated from Him while we were yet sinners. You know the drill. While we were God-haters, while we were His enemies, Christ died so we would have eternal life.
And how was that done? In verse 18, it's an exercise of His will. He did it. He did it in our lives so that now we as His kids would live a life that's transformed. Radical. Get it?
So we need a heart that has been transformed and a mind that is informed to live a radical life.
Internal Problems Require Internal Solutions
Let me dig a little bit deeper here because I want to make sure we get this. This is really important. Our fundamental problem—so Brayden's problem when Brayden says, "Yale wants you to come down and watch me hit balls"—Brayden's fundamental problem is internal. He's a little sinner. There's no exceptions to this. That's who he is.
Isn't he cute? It depends. Not in every situation. Not when he's rebelling against his mom, not when he's saying no. There's nothing cute about that. That's not cute. But that's who he is.
Then we grow up like that. Get this. This is really important. Since our problem is internal, the solution is internal, not external. That's why religion doesn't work.
Everybody wants religion. Everybody's okay with religion. Do you remember after 9/11? We saw people flock into churches.
A Story from September 11th
So Susan and I were in Washington DC. This is an absolutely true story. On 9/9 we're standing in front of the Washington Monument and I said to Susan, "Why wouldn't people just fly planes into these buildings? I don't get it. I mean, you just take one because Reagan Airport's right there. I don't understand why somebody doesn't fly a plane into these buildings."
Well, we're driving now to get to this destination and so we're in Appomattox when all of this hits. So we get in the car and we drive and we get to our hotel and we hear—so we've got two tickets out of Dulles Airport on 9/12. That isn't going anywhere.
So we had the last car in Washington DC. Literally. It was a Kia. It was about the size of this pulpit. And we drove that dog all the way back to Phoenix.
It was like—what was it like, Tom? Here's what it was like. Did you ever see the movie "The Right Stuff" when John Glenn was re-entering the atmosphere? That's what it was like for four days. Just literally for four days. "You're doing all right?" "Yeah, yeah, we're all right." "Are you okay?" "Got to go to the bathroom." "Got to go to the bathroom." For five minutes. "I think I just went." I mean, that's all we did for four days. We stopped at every Cracker Barrel between Washington DC and Phoenix, Arizona.
When 9/11 happened, they come running back into our churches. So I get a call in the hotel: "Tom, because we're in an industrial park, all the businesses want us to open the hotel, want us to open the church." I said, "Well, gosh, we've been kind of praying for this. Why don't you open it?" And for two days they just came barging in there.
You know what they wanted? They didn't want Jesus. They wanted religion.
The Pharisees' Problem
But my problem's not external. It's internal. I need an internal change. I need my heart changed. That's what He does. Religion never gets to the heart.
That's the problem with the Pharisees, wasn't it? The problem with the Pharisees is they're all about the outside. All about the outside, man. They're about "do this, don't do this"—rules, regs. They're doing everything, but they're doing the right things with the wrong motive. Their hearts never transformed.
But God comes and through an act of His will, He causes you and me to be born again—not through some ritual, not through some ceremony. He changes our lives.
James's Application
Now James takes that and begins to run with this idea. "You know, my brethren, my beloved brethren." Now he's going to apply this. You've got this. You're the first fruit. You've been saved.
James is not giving you a prescription for how to get into the kingdom of God. He's saying because you're in the kingdom of God, "I want to see this. Therefore, my brethren, do this. Let everyone be quick to hear." And then two slows: slow...
to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God." He said here's what I want you to be: I want you to be really quick to listen and really slow to speak.
There's an old Jewish proverb that goes like this: God's given us one tongue and He's hidden it behind a wall of teeth. He's given us two ears. So if you go to most colleges and you say I want a class in communications, what they give you is a speech class.
This is an interesting factoid: in my entire academic career, in all nine years of college and high school and grade school, I only got one F and it was in speech. This guy I had dated his daughter and I always felt there was a quid pro quo in that thing. But this guy was hung up on speech - his idea of communication was to speak. That's only half of it, and what James is saying is that's the second half. The first half of communication is to listen.
The Importance of Listening
I don't wear a watch. I don't like things - I don't wear rings and watches. I don't like that stuff hanging around. But one time, because everybody's on me nowadays, you got no problem - you just have your phone with you. But there's always somebody around who's got a watch. You can always go, "Hey, man, what time is it?" So you don't need it. But some guys are on me: "You need to be - if you're gonna be a businessman, you need a watch." All right, so I got a watch.
So I'm in this booth, right? Absolutely true. Look up here. This is like junior high - you got to look up here to watch this. So I'm with this guy and I got my watch, and he says to me, "My whole life has fallen apart. I've lost everything."
So I said to him, "Wow, your life is falling apart. You've lost everything."
He said, "Yeah."
I said, "Man, that's tough."
He said, "I got a problem with my daughter."
I said, "You got a problem with your daughter. What's your problem with your daughter?"
"Well, she's on drugs and I think she might be pregnant."
I said, "Oh my word. You got a daughter. I know how that feels because I got two daughters. That's got to be really tough. So you got a daughter and you think she's pregnant and on drugs."
"Yeah."
I said, "Wow. Can't get any worse than that."
He said, "I came home the other day unexpected and caught my wife in bed with my best friend."
"Wow. You caught your wife in bed with your best friend, your business is falling apart, and your daughter - you think she's pregnant and on drugs, and you caught your wife in bed with your best friend."
You know what he said to me? He said, "You got to take a pill or something."
He said, "What are you talking about?"
He said, "The watch, man, the watch!"
Demonstrating That You're Listening
I heard every word he said. Every word he said. But here's the thing about listening: you got to communicate that you're listening. You got to be a laser listener. You got to look and listen.
We had a staff guy and they said to me, "We don't think he's doing very well. We just don't think he gets it. Will you go with him into a meeting?" I went into a meeting and he was handling this thing, and here's what I discovered: he got it. He just didn't listen. Every time someone asked him a question, he had already anticipated what the question might have been and the nuances of it, and he's answering a question that nobody's asking. You got to listen.
That's our nature. Our nature, again, in a conversation even as you're speaking, is to already be thinking about, "Well, here's what I - boy, I hope he takes a breath soon because I really have a pearl of wisdom I want to drop in here." You're already thinking about how to keep that going. He said no, no, no - be slow, slow, slow. Slow to speak, slow to anger, be quick to listen.
The Problem with Anger
But then speak, but do it slowly, thoughtfully. Slow to anger. There's a certain kind of guy - here's what I don't like. There's certain personalities I don't like. I don't like quiet passive aggressive people. I don't like it. I don't like quiet people - if you're just quiet, that's fine if you're thoughtful. But most of these guys that I'm around are quiet passive aggressive. They always ultimately have a problem.
Guys with the biggest temper are these quiet guys. And then when they finally see it explode, they'll say, "I don't - I just don't get mad very often. Takes a lot to get me mad. And even when I do, I just get mad and then it's over real quick." And I'll say, "Yeah, just like Hiroshima." Do you understand the destruction of that?
We've got class after class after class and book after book after book on communication in marriage. There's not really a communication problem. She gets it - you're a jerk. You've communicated clearly you don't care about her, the kids, or anything else. You have communicated clearly. He gets it - you don't care about him. The problem that we come back to again and again and again in relationships and everything else is our heart.
We said it this morning: it's not that golf is a character builder, it's a character revealer. Relationships are character revealers. Our interaction begins to reveal that. And here's what he's saying: listen, be slow to speak, slow to anger. The anger of a man does not achieve the righteousness of God. God will take care of that. You want to get even? You don't need to - God will do that. He's the great avenger. "Vengeance is Mine," says the Lord.
Receiving God's Word
Now He gives us some more advice: "Therefore put aside all filthiness and all the remains of wickedness and in humility receive the word implanted which is able to save your souls."
Filthiness means any sort of moral defilement or impurity. Wickedness is moral evil, especially it deals with intention. He says get rid of this stuff. These are barriers, if you will - they're in the way. They're barriers to listening and communicating.
The main verb in verse 21 is to receive. Get rid of all of this filthiness, get rid of all this corruption, and receive. What am I to receive? I am to receive the word that's implanted. It's the idea of receiving the word of God, the word of God implanted in you.
The key there is to do it with humility. C.S. Lewis in his classic work—and there's one copy left in the bookstore, I looked when I was over there this afternoon—in his classic work Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis makes this observation: that it was through pride that Lucifer became the devil. He says pride is the utmost evil. I really believe it's the core of most of our behavior and our sin. It explains so many things, subtle, really subtle.
Pride in Our Educational Choices
I am to this day bewildered why people send their kids to college and spend 200 grand to do it. I don't understand it unless the kid's going to be like a rocket scientist or a surgeon. Why in the world would you do it? Now, some of you have, and I'm not—I know that sounds judgmental. I guess it is. I just don't get it. I don't understand it.
I watch my friends put second mortgages on their homes to send a kid to school, to college. I don't understand it. I don't understand taking a student loan for a hundred grand to get a twenty-five thousand dollar a year teaching job. I'm not putting down the job. I'm just saying, does that make any amount of sense to you? Why would you do it?
I'll tell you why—not all of you, but I'll tell you why, because I've got friends that do it. They send their kids to these Christian colleges at 40, 50 grand a year. I'll tell you why they do it. I'm convinced it's pride. Community college? "My kid goes to Brown." Well, you're stupid. Why are you going into hoc for this? "Well, he goes to"—and then you fill in the blank. That's my favorite. "Well, I'm in pre-med." I have not met a kid that's in pre-med who's ever become a doctor. What it means is he's taking a biology class.
You see how that is? There's pride in that. There's pride saying we're going there. When Susan and I decided, here's what I said to the kids when it comes to college: I'll pay for whatever it costs to go to a state school. You want to do more than that? You better get a job. You better figure it out. Sell drugs or something, because you're going to have to figure out how you're going to pay the balance of that.
So my kids went all through a community college system. I could watch people's face because our girls were smart girls, bright girls. One was in nuke med, ended up in nuke med, the other in nursing. They were smart girls. And they'd say, "Where are they going to school?" And I'd say, "They're going to Gateway Community College." They go just like this: "Oh." Well, and I would go, "What do you mean, 'oh'? What's the point? You got a point? You think Harvard's better?" I'm not going to waste money on that. Pride.
Pride in Our Children's Activities
It doesn't have to be that. It's the way you drive your kid. So you've got this kid, and you got this kid—he's a 10-year-old with your gene pool. He's not going to play in the NBA. And you got Him going to basketball lessons and on a traveling squad. You better really think about that, man.
So you got this kid who can't get to church on Sunday or Wednesday because that traveling squad and soccer or baseball or dance or whatever it is is so important. You tell me what message you just sent to your kid. You just sent to your kid: baseball's more important than Christ. And he gets it, man, because when he gets to college he's going to go, "Now's not a good time for me to be in church."
That's why when we get these stats all the time: 90% of kids who are in church that go to college, when they're all done, only 10% of them are still going to church. Well, the majority—that's because they weren't believers to begin with—but you've already instilled in them your value system. Traveling teams are more important than church. That's big stuff, man. But it's cool to say, "Oh, my kid's on a traveling team. My kid does whatever."
That's all got to be sorted out, and pride—you're the parent, man. Run the house.
Taking Control of Your Home
Again, I really digress here, but I want to make the point because there are a lot of you that still have young kids. We got a lot of kids here this week. "I don't understand. We're so busy." Tell me why you're busy. "Well, we've got soccer on Monday and we got this and then—" Wait a minute. Who's running the house? You're running the house. They don't need to play soccer and an instrument and baseball and student council. They don't need to do all that stuff. You're the mom, you're the dad—run the house.
We had one rule—here's what our rule was: you get one activity. Pick it. "Well, can I be a cheerleader and be on student council?" And I would say, "Gee, I must have missed something in the whole explanation here. You get one activity. Is that hard to figure out? We don't need to draw a document or anything for this. Is student council an activity?" "Yes, sir." "Is cheerleading an activity?" "Yes, sir." "Do you think you can do both of them?" "No, sir." That was easy. Pick whichever one you want. I don't care.
But it's pride that runs a lot of that. I'm telling you, in your heart of hearts, it's pride that drives that. "I want to nurture a talent." I need to be really careful there. Well, pride.
The Key of Humility
The opposite of that is humility. Key here, absolutely the key, because you'll never have the word of God implanted in you unless you humble yourself. It's where a relationship with Christ begins. If the ultimate vice is pride, then we look at the other side and say, "Well, here's some virtues we better get at: humility, love, service." They're all really wrapped together. It's an understanding of God and who He is.
Now it's pretty easy to get to this whole humility thing if you give it some perspective. So I'll use this illustration all the time: Am I tall? Well, don't be shaking your head yet. Am I tall? Well, standing next to my grandson? Yes. Standing next to the average high school girl? No. I'm all right with it. I got it. I can handle it. Well, what's the difference? Perspective. Well, if you think you're a person that's...
Just kind of screwed up in life and you've had some sins, but really no big sins. And if your view of God is He's like a god but not this big massive God, you're never going to achieve humility.
Humility comes in that Isaiah moment when Isaiah, who likely was already a prophet and one of the good guys, gets a view of God. Remember it. You know it. "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord," right? When he sees that, the first thing he says is he doesn't say, "Oh, I worship you the King." The first thing he sees when he sees that, the first thing he says is, "Woe to me for I'm undone because I didn't see you that way, God."
The Problem of Generic Worship
When I talk about like 9/11, right after 9/11 they had this worship service in Yankee Stadium. I'm not making this up. You will remember it. They had a worship service in Yankee Stadium that was presided over by the priestess herself, Oprah. They did that. Did any of you see that? Do you remember that at all? They did everything but sacrifice a goat that day. They worshiped everything. They had guys from every everything that you can imagine on that platform, and they were all jacked because they said we're all worshiping the same god.
Well, I don't want to ruin the party, but we aren't. My God has a Son named Jesus Christ who died for the sin of those that would worship Him and He rose from the dead. Does yours? No. Then how are we worshiping the same God? You're worshiping a caricature of what you think God should be. Well, that's not God.
He said, "I am." This is who I am right here. I am the great one. I am the Alpha, the Omega—all the things that Christ sang about last night. I'm the beginning and the end, the Creator. That's who I am. And let me tell you, once you get that who I am, you know who you are: not much. I'm everything; you're nothing. I control the universe. You can't control a little bitty stinking thing that we can only barely see with a microscope and it takes you down and wipes you out. You're nothing.
The Bad Example Perspective
Well, once I look at it from that perspective, it's again—you can always be again. People every once in a while say you must make this stuff up. I'm not making it up. I'm in a bar one day in my old days, my old drinking days, and I'm feeling particularly low and I said to a guy, "I have no purpose in life. I serve no function in life." He said, "Tom, that's not true." I said, "Really?" He said, "Yes." And he looked me right in the eye. This is what he said: "You can always be used as a bad example." I said, "Really?" He said, "I say to my wife all the time, 'Hey, get off my case. You could be married to him.'" Good to know.
Well, that's what we do. That's exactly what we do and we play the game. We don't, but as Christians we do that. Well, I'm not as bad as him. I'm not as bad as her, not as bad as this, not as bad as her, not as bad as this.
The Thank You Note Confession
A friend of mine—this is great—they're sitting around in a circle, one of these small groups where they're going to share and they're going to talk about sin. So this guy gets the idea. Note to self: don't ever do this. "We're going to go around the room and talk about sin, things we struggle with." Anybody want to start? Well, anybody that would want to start that, you don't want to start with them.
So this lady said, "I'll start. I'll go first." She said, "I really struggle. I want to confess. I just really struggle. I don't write enough thank you notes." Really? Who wants to follow that? You don't write enough thank you notes? Are you kidding me? You honestly? The biggest problem you have in your whole heart is you don't write enough thank you notes? Do you see how small her view of sin is? And most of you have the equivalent of that generally about your attitude.
The Church as Hospital
You look down your nose at people. People will struggle. They're struggling with real things, real hard issues. And we keep talking about the church as a hospital for the hurting. No hurting person is going to come in there and have you just beat the snot out of them and be judgmental of them. But I'm not saying don't judge sin. My word, I'm not saying that.
But James really gets into this. For now he said, "I want you to be humble. I want you to receive the word that's implanted in you. It's placed in you, it grows in you, it's able to save your soul, to redeem yourself."
Doers, Not Just Hearers
Verse 22. We said it was the key verse of the book of James. He said prove yourself—it's a continuing thought, it's continually to be proving, to be striving. Prove yourself to not just be a hearer of the word but to be a doer of the word. He says it's not just truth known; it's truth applied.
A hearer is one who sits passively and listens. Here's what he's saying: "You guys are like students who are auditing a class. You show up, you listen half-heartedly, but you never take any of the tests and there's never any level of accountability for what you've had to learn. You've listened to all this Bible teaching, but you haven't done anything with it."
"By this we will know that we are His kids, that we've come to know Him"—First John 2—"if we keep His commandments." First John 2:4: "Those, the one who says 'I've come to know Him' and does not keep His commandments is a liar." "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." In the long run, the proof of our salvation or our lostness is our commitment to Him.
The Gospel in Daily Details
One author writes this: "Our problem comes not from our reluctance to be heroes or heroines, but from our reluctance to carry out the implications of the gospel in the tiny details of our personal conduct and lives, and to do it fanatically." That's it, isn't it? That's what he's saying.
Now I don't want to get here and the whole idea of legalism—that's not my thing. I can't give you the test. I don't know what to look for. How much sin can I still have in my life and still be in the kingdom of God? I don't know. I don't care. It's your issue and it's ultimately your heart issue. And I'm not even that concerned about those external sins because you tend to take care of them pretty quickly. It's the issue of the heart. Isn't that what Jesus said to—
The Problem with External Religion
The Pharisees had a serious problem that Jesus confronted directly. He said, "Here's the problem with you boys. You're like whitewashed tombs. You look really good on the outside." They looked like they had it all together. We have people that come into our church and they will say it's a very uncomfortable place for me to be because these people look like they have it all together. But they don't. A lot of them have lives that have been transformed, and their lives have been cleaned up.
One of my favorite things we did with our staff is we had every week one of our staff members share their personal testimony. We had these people we were working with all the time, and they would sit. It was always, I think, more the girls than anything. These girls would start these stories and jaws would drop. These are the people running the kids ministry and the student ministry. These are like the church girls, like the perfect gals, and they would talk about their struggles with drugs and sex and all these wild things. Your jaw would literally just drop.
What happened wasn't that they swore those things off. What happened is their life was transformed. Their heart was transformed. Their mind was transformed. Consequently, what they have is a radical life, and it's the same life that you can live. It begins in your heart.
Heart Transformation vs. External Change
When God saved me, He also saved another guy by the name of Tom, Tommy Woods. Tommy and I got saved essentially the same time and we became friends. There was a restaurant that we used to love called Chub's. They had the best cheeseburgers in Phoenix. So for our one-year anniversary of being saved, Tommy and I decided to meet at Chub's and have a cheeseburger. We're sitting in a booth, and I'm looking at Tommy.
When I got saved, it was kind of a big deal in our office and the people knew me because it was such a radical transformation. It was one of those where you just went, "Oh wow. Okay, just went wow." But Tommy is like this incredible guy. He's like one of eleven kids, and he's got this perfect wife and these perfect kids and this perfect stuff. I said, "You know what? It's really interesting. When God saved me, He really changed my life. But He didn't really change you that much, did He, Tom?" And Tommy said, "He changed my heart radically. I still do all of the things I used to do, but I used to do them for the wrong reason. I used to go to church so you'd see me at church, and I thought that's what I had to do and I thought you'd think better of me. Now I go to church because I want to be with believers." Do you see that? That's what He's saying.
The Mirror of God's Word
To close this section out, He said for anyone who's a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. Once he's looked at it, he walks away. He's gone away and he's immediately forgotten what he saw. He's a guy who looks in the mirror. The mirrors in those days would not be anything like now. It'd be brass maybe and be really polished, but it'd still be kind of a distorted figure. But even then, kind of look at it and kind of look at this and walk away, and he'd forget what he really looked like. He'd begin to think maybe he was something that he wasn't.
But the one who looks intently not in a mirror, but he looks intently into the perfect law—see, that's my point. It's the perfect law of God. It's this book. I'm fine as long as I'm comparing myself to other people. I have a friend who was in prison for four or five years, and he said even out there, there was a pecking order. "You go, 'Well, at least I wasn't that. At least I wasn't that. At least I wasn't that.' And the guys that were in there for killing people go, 'Well, at least I wasn't a child molester.'"
But when I look into the perfect law, I'm condemned immediately. Immediately I see my sin. Immediately I understand the jeopardy that I'm in, the trouble that I'm in.
The Perfect Law of Liberty
When I look into this perfect law, the law of liberty, and abide in it—it's the law of liberty. It's what sets me free. As a follower of Christ, I'm free from the bondage of sin. I don't have to sin anymore. I will, but I'm free from the bondage of sin. I'm free from the eternal consequences of sin.
And let me give you a big one. I love this: you're free to be who God made you to be, just the way He made you to be. You don't have to be somebody else. You don't have to play a game anymore. God made you a certain way. We were talking about it at dinner tonight. One of the hardest things with staff—we're talking about my staff—one of the hardest things with staff, one of the hardest things people, is to see themselves accurately.
The Danger of Self-Deception
For like two or three years, I never saw the show American Idol. Well, one night it's on and I'm in, and they're doing this show I've come to watch. I watch it until they go to Hollywood or whatever, then I lose interest. I like the first part, so I'm watching. And there's this guy. They said this guy's walking in, and he's got his mom with him and I think his sister. And he's walking in, and they're going, "Yeah, you know Brad." I said "Brad," and the mom said, "Brad's incredible. He sings at all of the weddings at the Holiday Inn. He is incredible. Brad sings amazing."
"Well Brad, what do you think?" He said, "Well, I got to tell you, I sound a little bit like Elvis." Okay. Well, they go in. I'm not kidding because I've never seen this show, and I thought, "Well wow, this guy must be really good." This guy goes in, and I'm telling you, he couldn't sing at all. I cannot sing at all, and standing next to this guy, he couldn't sing at all.
So Paula is going, "Well, that wasn't very good." And then Randy's going, "Hey dog, you got nothing. That ain't going to work." And then the other guy, Simon, is just there going, "Turn it off. Turn it off. Turn it off." Well, this guy goes storming out, and Ryan Seacrest is there to interview him. He said, "How'd it go?" He goes, "They don't..."
The Danger of Self-Deception
They don't know anything. They don't know anything about music. They don't know anything about talent. "I've got talent." Now here's the deal. I don't think it was an act. I think he really believes that. Maybe hanging around at the Holiday Inn he was Frank Sinatra or Michael Bublé or something. I don't know. But he stunk.
It's to see myself for who I really am and then to embrace it. We've got a whole bunch of things. Our life is filled with that. We've got a whole bunch of people.
Embracing Our Average Calling
I don't understand this. I don't understand why we're trying to tell everybody to be extraordinary. Listen, the majority of us are average and accept that, and I mean that. I don't mean that to be funny. I'm just saying you're average. You're just average. It's just who you are. You're average. By definition you have to be average or there's no average.
You're not going to write the great American novel. You're not going to do anything that the world calls spectacular. It's not going to happen. You're going to live a while and die and essentially, other than a small circle impact, no one. But whatever's in that circle, you are significant in that circle and you are Christ in the midst of that circle.
Learning to Accept Our Limitations
Every time I go into a bookstore, I'll take a Chuck Swindoll book. I'll go to the front and in about two-point type, it's all the books that Chuck Swindoll's written—all the books, all the pamphlets, everything he's ever done. I just look at it and I always do it to go, "I'm never going to be Chuck Swindoll." You know what? Here's the deal. I don't want to be. I can't be. I can't write.
I took a run at it not long ago. I tried to write something. I gave it to Susan. I said, "Susan, read this." I went back. I said, "How was it?" She said, "How old were you when you wrote this?" "Fifty-nine." "Not very good."
I can't write. I just can't do it and I keep taking these runs at it. I can't do it. You know what? Rather than publish something that's no good, why don't you just accept you can't do it? But there's something you can do. Nobody can be better than you at you.
Finding Our Authentic Voice
That happened when I started teaching. One week I was Swindoll. The next week I was Sproul. The next week I was MacArthur. Then one day I'm driving home and I got it. I can't do MacArthur better than MacArthur or Sproul better than Sproul or Swindoll better than Swindoll, but I'm the only one that can do Schrader. So that's what I'm going to do.
I know it's a little like coffee. It's an acquired taste. Some like it. Some don't. Whatever. This is all I got. This is the only game I can bring to the party. But that's okay.
I wish I could sit down like Colleen did over there and play like that. I'd never pray—I know I would practice hard enough and I know I don't have the talent. I can't. You know what? I accepted it, but it's freeing.
The Freedom of the Law of Liberty
Isn't that incredible? The law of liberty—you're free from even the bondage of sin, free from the consequence of sin, free to be the person God called you to be. You don't have to play games. It's not a license to be a jerk or to be rude. It's just to accurately look at yourself and go, "You know what? That's who I am." Don't say, "That's all I'm going to be."
Like that guy the other day. "What do you do?" "I'm just a garbage man." Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Get rid of the "just" in there. You're a garbage man, man. I don't care if you're a special assistant to the president or a garbage man—it's irrelevant to me. You be the best at whatever that is and you don't have to climb the corporate ladder.
Going Deep Instead of Up
You know what? You may be just a salesperson. Why do you want to go to the next level just because it's there? That's all the skill you have. You've exhausted your ability. Your drive now is not to go up but to go deep in the lives of the people around you. Isn't that freeing? You don't have to play a game. You don't have to be number one.
That's that lie: "You can be anything you want to be." That's not true. Are you telling me Michael Jordan and I started with the same opportunity to play basketball in the National Basketball Association? I don't believe that for one second. But you can be the best you can be.
True Religion and God's Design
The law of liberty—that's what Jesus says. "Hey man, girl, be who you are. But be a hearer and a doer of the word." He says, "If anybody thinks He's something"—here's what we'll pick up tomorrow—"if anyone thinks he's religious and yet he doesn't bridle his tongue, he deceives his own heart. That man's religion is worthless. But this is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father: to visit the orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
Then He moves right into showing partiality. How about you? Where are you in that? I'm not talking about are you in the kingdom or not in the kingdom. Let's say you're a follower of Christ. I'm asking this: are you living in that freedom? Are you still shackled with some arbitrary list of rules and behaviors and do's and don'ts, trying to be somebody you're never going to be?
Reclaiming God-Given Dreams
I love that, man. I encourage people to be average. I also encourage people to be great. I encourage some to say, "You know what? You're subpar." It doesn't matter. You are whoever God made you.
He put those desires in your heart. That's what I had a chance to talk to the staff last night, man. God put those desires in your heart. He put eternity in your heart. He put this quest for something bigger than you. Somewhere along the way you all had those dreams. I want you to get those dreams back to be the man, the woman, the student that God's called you to be.
We're going to talk about religion tomorrow. Then when we start we're going to talk about showing favoritism, showing preference one to another. We'll start there tomorrow.
Father, thank You for this amazing and wonderful truth. With the night that we have left, we pray that we would use it to bring honor and glory to You. Thank You.
God, we can be in this place, Cannon Beach, that You can give us a day like today. Unbelievable beautiful weather that we can be here. God, I pray that as we work our way back to the rooms, pick up kids, whatever it is You have planned for us for the rest of our night, that whatever we do, we'll do it to Your honor and to Your glory.
God, again, thank You that we can be here. I thank You especially for the staff that's in the back. To look back and see them is so cool for me, God. Most of them I know are at a point in life where they have decisions to make, life to live. God, let them speak, feel a special touch from You. Give them wisdom and understanding. God, thank You that they're here, something even on their day off. Let them know we love them and we pray for them.
God, we raise all these things to You in Jesus' name. Amen. Have a great night. Get those kids.