Blue Jean Theology Part 6
Tom Shrader examines James 1:19-27, transitioning from previous teaching on trials to practical Christian living. He emphasizes three key principles: being quick to hear and slow to speak and anger, the necessity of both hearing and doing God's Word (not just studying it), and three marks of genuine religion - self-control (especially of the tongue), charitable love in action toward those in need, and maintaining purity from worldly value systems.
“We are not saved as a result of our works, but our salvation does result in a work in our life.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Blue Jean Theology (2011)
Recorded: 1996
Duration: 43 min
Themes: hearing, doing, obedience, speech, anger, charity, purity, worldliness, new believer, struggling with anger, learning self control, wanting to help others, facing worldly pressures, teacher, mentor, seeking spiritual growth
Scripture: James 1:19-27, Ecclesiastes 5:1, Proverbs 10:19, Proverbs 17:27, Philippians 2, 1 Corinthians 1, 1 Corinthians 2, Romans 12:2
Theological Themes: sanctification, practical theology, christian living, spiritual maturity, biblical application, true religion, works of faith, christian ethics
Full Transcript
We are in about the sixth week of our examination of the book of James, and we'll finish up today the first chapter. We've spent almost five weeks solely on the topic of testing or trials or temptations or variations of that, and today we move beginning in verse 19 through the balance of the chapter.
Let me remind you of the context because that's going to be critical as we understand and begin to take a bridge. That really is what this section is today—taking the bridge from that discussion on trials into the application that James has for it.
Blue Jean Theology
We call this series blue jean theology because it is indeed a very practical yet durable approach to theology. It's James' intent, and this is really significant: James' intention as he's sharing these ideas and thoughts with us is not to try to give us some treatise on doctrine. Is it doctrinal? Sure it is, but he's not writing a book so much telling us how to be saved. He's telling us what happens as a result of our salvation.
James is not so much concerned about this doctrinal how to be saved. James is concerned about the idea of so if you are saved, how does that look now? We will use that word "saved." Some of you, it's just like fingers on a chalkboard. Some of you it's a brand new word. You hate it. "Brother, have you been saved?" That's not what we want to communicate. At the same time, I am not willing to give up the word because it's a good word. The idea is have you been saved? Have you been spared?
It is so important to understand that what James is saying, what James or all the scriptural writers are telling us, is that we, if we remain in our natural state, will be condemned to eternity separated from God. I understand the date. I can read a calendar. I know it's 1996, and yes, we do believe in hell. We believe in eternal place where if you die in your sin unrepentant, minus the person of Christ, you spend eternity separated from God in the awful place called hell. So we are saved or spared from that.
Now How Should We Live?
That being the case, James really wants to get in our face and say now if you're one of those that say you're saved, here's what your life should start to look like. That's why it's such a great book for us. It is, in fact, today He even uses the imagery that the scripture becomes a mirror for us. So all of a sudden now we look at our lives and we look at ourselves and we begin to answer that question: so then how should we live? What should our life look like? Should we be just like everyone else, or should there be some distinguishing characteristics in our life that would separate us from the rest of the world?
James has led us to the point where he helps us understand that our trials and our tests and our temptation that we deal with in our life—those things are strengthened as we are saved by the word of truth. It's James' word speaking of the scripture. Then he adds what, at least for me—and it's interesting, this is the third time we've taught it, so every time we teach you kind of see a little something different or start to see how it all blends and fits together—to me, this is like a parenthetical insert that becomes an introduction.
It's like James wanted to say let's talk about tough times. Tough times are difficult and universal. Every person has them. I don't care how big the smile. I don't care how much the money. None of those things make any difference at all. Your life is filled with hard difficult tests and trials. Besides that, you have the things from Satan called temptations. In the midst of that, it's knowing who Christ is that strengthens me.
From Hearing to Doing
Now He starts to bridge it. What I want to do is read through the end of the chapter, then we'll come back and we'll just kind of break this apart, make some practical application.
Let me tell you as we look at this: almost all the things James mentions in these verses, almost everything he talks about here, are items we're going to talk about in depth a little later. So I want to make just some real general observations, understanding we'll deal with them in depth later, and then end with three points that he makes at the very end.
Here's what he says: "This you know, my beloved brethren. But let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger, for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves."
The Mirror Illustration
"For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer"—and that becomes now the contrast through these next few verses: doer versus hearer. The distinguishing characteristic he makes is here's one who studies this and knows it, but there's no doing in their life.
Here's what he says: "If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. If anyone thinks himself to be religious and yet..."
From Hearing to Doing: Practical Advice for Christian Living
Not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart—this man's religion is worthless. This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God: to visit the orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. That's what we'll look at in the next half hour.
So here's where he starts. He says, "Listen, let me give you some very practical advice. If we're going to tell you to do something quickly and to do something slowly, what we want to tell you to do quickly is be quick to listen."
The Art of Listening
We have lots of classes now on communication, and rapidly we're starting to get more and more classes on the second half of communication. Classes on communication used to be focused almost exclusively on how to speak—how to talk in a way that people would understand it. Now we have classes on communication where a portion is on how to speak, but the other portion is on how to listen.
I'm getting better and better. I used to be awful at this. I used to sit and as you were speaking, all I was doing was waiting for you to stop and take a breath because I'm not particularly concerned about what you want to say. I want to just drop the next pearl of wisdom in there—boom! Let's get it in.
I was in a meeting the other day. We've had this guy, and we've had a hard time—he's just had a hard time with people. Everybody he talks to, he walks away and everybody goes, "What did he say?" So this is the first time I've been in a meeting with him, and I'm observing closely. His communication skills are good in terms of the verbal, but all of a sudden we had some questions during his presentation. Three times in a row he was asked a question, and three times his answer was to a different question. I found myself three times saying, "That's not what he's saying. Here's what he's asking."
This guy's communication problem, I think—at least in my diagnosis—was this: he can talk real well, but he doesn't listen and understand. He's got no idea what you're saying to him. So James says here's some practical stuff: be quick to listen.
The Danger of Speaking Too Quickly
At the same time, be real slow to speak. He doesn't mean in cadence of speech—he means time. There's an old Jewish saying that says this: we have two ears and one tongue, and our tongue was put behind a wall of teeth to control it. We are to understand the deadly nature of our words.
Now we get to James chapter 3—if you right now are looking for a week to skip, that's a great week. That's a good one to miss. That one is all on the tongue. There's an old saying right here: you can take and just slice and dice and cut, and you'd never think of hitting someone or stabbing them or shooting them, but you would do a character assassination in a heartbeat. If that's you, you don't want to be here the day that we deal with that.
The Scripture is clear all the way through on the value of watching what you say, understanding that there is a potential problem here. Ecclesiastes 5:1 says, "As you enter the temple, keep your ears open and your mouth shut." Proverbs 10:19: "Don't talk so much. You keep putting your foot in your mouth." Proverbs 17:27—and I like this because it adds this one that is absolutely true: "The man of few words and a settled mind is wise." He doesn't talk much, and his mind is well thought through. It's at rest with things. He's wise. "Therefore even a fool is thought to be wise if he's silent."
All you got to do is stand there and not say much, and it's amazing people will give you credit for all sorts of profound thoughts. You just aren't even smart enough to formulate a question, but you come off real bright. See, because this is good solid advice: I want to be slow to speak.
The Problem with Anger
And I want to be slow to anger. Some of us have this idea—guys especially—that I don't really get mad very often, and when I do I just explode and get it over with. I'm one that can just move to the next deal very easily, kind of like Hiroshima: just drop the bomb and just move on to the next deal.
See, we need to understand that this thing of anger will not achieve the righteousness of God. We are to be slow in this process of anger.
Putting Aside Filthiness
Now here's what he says. "Therefore"—because all this is true, and again, look at the connecting words all the way through here. He begins with this, then comes with a "therefore," then a "but," then a "for." Every one of these points is all connected together.
Now since that part is true, I want you to put aside all filthiness. Since you understand the devastation that comes in this idea of anger, I want you to put aside all sorts of filthiness. That idea of "put aside" literally means get rid of it. It's the picture of the snake who's crawling along and all of a sudden sheds his skin. I want you to shed. I want you to get rid of something. I want you to get rid of filthiness, and I want you to get rid of any residue that you may have of that wickedness.
Receiving the Implanted Word
And in humility, receive the word implanted. Here's what he's saying: I want you to take this word, and when we talk about it being implanted in your heart or implanted in your mind, or as the psalmist says, "Meditate on His word day and night, night and day"—get that word, get it in there.
The word "implanted" has more to it than just the idea of getting it in the soil. It's also a nurturing thing. I have to laugh at Susan—she's out in the back now putting these sheets over these things. We have three or four of these pots that are just dirt with these little things—I don't even know what they are—and she's putting sheets over them because the frost is going to kill them. And then she has another thing around the corner that I had never even seen. I don't go back to that part.
My wife Susan has been protecting plants around our house. I said, "What is that?" And she said, "That's a tomato plant and I'm protecting it." I said, "Suze, things are tight, but we can buy tomatoes. I mean, this is goofy. I don't need tomatoes." And then she planted a peach tree. So now she's covering up this peach tree. I think this is in lieu of mothering or something. I don't know what's going on with her, but now she's covering up this peach tree.
Well, that's the idea of implanted. Implanted carries with it this idea of getting the seed in the best possible soil and then creating an environment where it has the best opportunity to grow. Where it's watered and it's nurtured and there's sunlight - not too much but enough - and the frost and the cold is kept away. So I need to take God's Word and I need to implant it in my life.
The Key: Humility
Now the key here - one word. The key to providing an environment where the Word will grow or where you'll even be concerned about this at all. There's one word that drives all of this. It's up there. You see it right in the middle of verse 21: in humility.
We're going to spend a second on this. There is a big difference between being humble and being humbled, between having humility and being humiliated. In the mid to late 80s, I had lots of friends in the real estate business who I believe were humiliated, but that did not make them humble. They lost lots of stuff and the cars had to go. All of a sudden some of the houses had to go. All of a sudden the Suns tickets had to be sold out at the corner on the arena. All of a sudden they had to make the sacrifice and get rid of the Cardinal tickets. All of these things had to go in their life. All of a sudden all of these things were gone. They were humiliated, but they weren't humble.
This is a huge deal. James is going to say in a little bit, "God resists the proud." If you want to ensure that you will never grow spiritually and you will never see God work in your life - never, never, never - here's what you do: you be proud. You get real jacked about who you are.
Pride in the Christian Community
We do this even in the Christian community in lots of subtle ways. We'll even say - and I've heard men do this a lot - "God did this. God gave me this." But the undercurrent of that is, "Why wouldn't He? He's gonna bless that schmuck over there? Why would He bless that guy? Look at me! Why wouldn't He bless me? Look how sharp I am. Look how good I look. Look at how wise I am. Why wouldn't He bless me?" God resists that.
C.S. Lewis in the classic work Mere Christianity says that pride is a complete anti-God state of mind. What pride is, is saying, "I'm anti-God. I'm pro-me. I'm anti-God." How dangerous is it? Lewis goes on to say it was through pride that Lucifer became the devil.
So much of even the Christian faith is structured in such a way that we allow God to be on the God shelf, but we design Him in our own image and likeness and He never gets very big.
Cultural and Religious Pride
Steve Forbes is running some interesting campaign stuff right now. I find it interesting anyway. He said it's time to get America moving again, it's time to get America growing again, and it's time for spiritual renewal. Now I don't know what he has in mind, but I'm guessing it isn't this.
I was at Bookstar yesterday - day before, it doesn't matter. I went one, two, three, four, five rows - long rows of spiritual books. There probably aren't a half a dozen in there that are any good, but five aisles of spiritual books. See, that's what the whole New Age thing is. New Age allows you to be spiritual and talk about God, but you talk about the power within you. So you have a religion or a form of religion that has and grants this idea of God, but it keeps all the power, all the authority, all of the stuff within you.
Even some of our Christianity has gotten that way, talking about you like you really got something to bring to the party, talking about you like you're really gonna be a player in this deal. So that all of a sudden sermons become a little poem, three points and a PowerPoint for action, and out the door you go.
Growing in Humility
You need to watch this because here's what happens as you grow. Here's the key to humility: as God gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, you get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. That's why you have to allow God to be God. He is everything. He's all-powerful. He's all-knowing. He's omnipresent. You aren't.
So I have to take that Word and that Word in humility. My pride is such an evil, subtle thing. I will tell you that in my life, most of my sin and almost all of my problems come from pride.
How Pride Manifests
How does it work? It manifests itself in a thousand ways. On a practical basis, many of you selected the shirt that you wear today because of pride - because it has the right logo - or the car that you drive, or the place that you live. It gets a lot more subtle than that.
It's Christmas time now. It's that Christmas time of year. It's the only time where everyone in the office gets together with their spouse. You're waiting patiently for your spouse to come - speaking to you as guys - and out she comes. You say, "You're not gonna wear that, are you? Did you cut your hair? Why would you cut your hair? What are you doing?"
Ladies, let me help you understand what's happening here. He doesn't give a rip about your dress or your hair. All he knows is that for whatever reason, when you walk into that party that one time a year, every person in the office is going to evaluate his capacity at romance and love based on you and how you look. That's all that is. It's just pride.
That's why when you're out at that Little League thing, it's hideous to watch it happen. That's when you'll see that guy and he's got that son Robert. Robert's his son, and Robert's just not very good. He'll be saying, "Look at Billy. Look at Billy here. Look at Billy run, man. Look at Billy go." Sometimes he'll just leave it at that, but sometimes you'll close the loop. Robert knows what he's saying anyway, but sometimes he'll go ahead and close
the roof and say how come you can't run like Billy and how come you can't throw like Billy? Let me help you out with this guys because he's got your genes. He doesn't have Billy's dad's genes, and you didn't run like Billy's dad. You didn't throw like Billy's dad, and here's the bigger question: who gives a rip anyway how a 12-year-old kid throws a baseball? It's goofy. He's in all likelihood never going to make a living at it, and the damage that you're going to do to him is almost unchangeable.
You know why you're doing it? Pride. You don't even give a rip about the kid playing well. You just want everybody to look at Robert and say, "Oh, his dad must really be something." See, it's all pride. That's how this works. That's why it's a complete anti-God state of mind.
Now if I cannot take this word in humility and embrace it, if I can't do that, I'm in real trouble.
The Problem James Is Addressing
Now he gets down—he's not defining what it means to be a Christian here. He's saying here are some of the things you ought to see as a result of your Christianity. You should be not just a hearer of the word, but a doer. Now James is addressing a specific problem. He is not saying here hearing's not important. Here's what he's saying: there are two things that are important—hearing and doing—and the problem he's addressing are a bunch of people that are studying and reading and they know all the answers. You want them to captain your team in Bible trivia when you get together and they got all this stuff figured out. Boy, they just know everything and they got it all, and they understand all that Levitical law. Boom. They can throw that up at you.
Here's the problem: they're study study study study, but there's no doing.
Clarifying Works and Salvation
Now let me be very clear when we talk about a Christian. We're talking about a person who has the assurance of heaven not based on anything that they've done, but based on the grace that God has given them. So that all of my works will never result in my going to heaven. But because I am God's, there are works that result because I'm His. See the distinction? So I'm not saved by my works. My works don't result in my salvation. But works do result from my salvation.
So here's what he's saying: if you're going around and you're pounding this Bible and you're shoving these Bible verses in everybody's face, but your life is a mess, there's no action, there's no doing on your part, you're probably dead and dry and dreary and not a lot of people want to be around you frankly. You got a problem.
Let me give you the flip side because James does not deal with the flip side. If you're one of those who's doing and you're involved here in the committee, over here in this ministry, over here and you do do do do do do do, and you think because of all you're doing God's going to say at the end of your life, "Hey, you really did a lot. Come on into heaven," God isn't going to say that to anybody. God's not going to say to one person that's ever lived, "You really did a good job. You really lived a good life. Come on in." God's going to say you're going to be in or out of heaven based on the finished work of Christ.
But understand he's dealing with a problem of people who said, "Here's what we are," and he said, "Fine, let's see it."
The Need for Both Hearing and Doing
You need to prove yourself to be a hearer and a doer. It's not an either-or situation. What James is saying is you got a whole bunch of people that are reading a menu. Got a whole bunch of people running around with car keys, a whole bunch of people running around and they've got a prescription in their hand. And James is saying it's way different between reading a menu and eating a meal. Way different between having that prescription in my hand and taking the medicine. Way different than swinging around car keys and starting and driving a car.
What James is saying? It's way different between reading the Bible and growing in Christ. Those are two radically different things.
The Mirror Illustration
So now he starts to lay out the contrast. If you're one of those who are here and you're not a doer, you're like a guy that looks in the mirror at his natural face. It literally at the face of his birth. You look in the mirror, you see this, and you glance away, and once you've gone away, you kind of forget what kind of person you are. You kind of look and you kind of lose track. And in the course of a day, some very attractive young girl says something very polite nice to you, and you actually think she's attracted to you. And you've forgotten that you're a fat, dumpy old guy, and she's just maybe being polite and nothing more than that.
But you fancy yourself now as this is perhaps Tom Selleck or something. You've forgotten. You need to stop. You need to stop, get out of mirror, go, "No, I'm a fat old man, and she's just working me." Boom, you got to go on to that. That's like a guy that's a hearer and not a doer. Which by the way, ladies, that ought to give you a very practical tip: these guys are all ego, and you can get whatever you want out of them if you're nice to them. That's what I tell my girls all the time, and they're way ahead of the rest of the field at this point.
Looking Intently at the Law of Liberty
But now here's the contrast. But one who looks intently—now the first look that we had a couple verses ago, that's a glance. That's a boom boom. Look intently? That's a whole different word that means to gaze for a long period of time, sucking in detail. It's the same word that's used when John and Peter arrive at the tomb on Easter morning. They stoop and they look intently. They're studying every detail, they understand it's a key moment and a specific time, and they are trying not to miss one thing. They're looking everywhere. They're analyzing everything in every detail.
When you look intently at the law of liberty—what's the law of liberty? Love God with all your heart, all your mind, soul, love your neighbor as yourself. It's a lot of freedom that we have in Christ. It's not the Ten Commandments. It's far deeper than that. Ten Commandments frankly aren't that tough to keep.
The Perfect Law of Liberty
Christ comes along and says you may never touch a woman. You may never be in bed with a woman or a man and yet you've committed adultery in your heart. This is a far deeper, tougher law to keep. I look intently at this. I begin to understand that there is a code of behavior that the Savior demands and expects from me.
I look at that all of a sudden. I'm no longer forgetful here. I'm an effectual doer. And now in verse 26 and 27, I believe James gives you—and we close with this—the three points of what real religion looks like. It's an internal transformation that manifests itself in an external way.
D.L. Moody said that God says to the Christian, "Love God and do whatever you want." Moody adds quickly, "Since I've become His, God has changed my wanter." That's what happens.
Three Marks of Real Religion
Three things take place. Here's the first thing: if any man thinks he's religious and he can't bridle his tongue, he's kidding himself. You're blowing smoke. You're deceiving yourself. That faith is worthless.
Now here's what he's not doing. He's not saying here's the whole barometer: your tongue. Here's what he's saying: a person whose life has been transformed will exhibit self-control. The life of a Christian is under control.
Make the distinction—certainly not circumstances, because you can't control those. You can have gigantic fluctuations in the marketplace. You can have all sorts of things. Susan and I are minding our own business and doing the right stuff last October, and three kids run the red light and hit Sarah and get out and run away. That's beyond our control. Those things are out of our control. I can't control those circumstances. What I can control is my response to those circumstances.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Someone who has a religion—and by religion we are speaking here of Christianity in the positive light—someone who has a personal relationship with Christ is someone whose life is marked by steadiness. It's not fluctuating all over the place. It's not constantly going around saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," because I'm alienating people all day long because I just react to everything. There's a sense of self-control.
Pure and Undefiled Religion
There's two more things James says: "This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God: to visit the orphans and the widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
Here's the second thing: to do charitable things. Loving things. That's what charity is—charity is love in action. So when Paul's writing in Philippians 2 and he speaks about Christ, he speaks about Christ becoming—was God, continues to be God, but takes on the form of a man. He said, "I want you to be like Him. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit."
So when he talks about widows and orphans, he is saying, "Yeah, we visit the widows, help the orphans." But the context here is far broader than that. He's saying in the Christian life there is a sense in which we are looking for people who are hurting and burdened and in anguish, and we are bringing to them love and care and support. They may be married. They may be widowed. They may have parents. They may be orphans. They may be rich. They may be poor. They may be in prison. They may be out of prison.
What he's saying is you are the deliverer of the love of Christ to the people around you. If I know, for example, that Damien is hurting, what the law of liberty demands is that I am there to support and to encourage him. What this aspect says is I cannot live a disassociated Christian life. My Christian faith demands involvement. I cannot give love and concern and support to somebody if I'm not involved in them, if I don't know what's going on.
That's the tragedy. That's the tragedy in something where you've got people who are hurting all over the place, but either through apathy or lack of knowledge or ignorance, people stay removed.
Unstained by the World
There's the last thing: keep yourself unstained by the world.
I did a men's retreat this weekend. I've had three or four pretty interesting gigs here in the last few weekends all over the place. I spoke at a theological conference on grace, and the speakers were doctor, doctor, doctor, and Tom. That was interesting. My opening line was, "I'm a little bit intimidated when if we could take any of the other three men and convert their IQ to Fahrenheit, we could boil water." That scares me a little bit, so that had its own little twist to it.
Then the next weekend I did the Southern California Senior Citizens Association, and that had a whole different spin to it. And then last weekend I did about 230 guys from a church in Newport Beach. It was the best men's group I've ever been with. It was unbelievable.
Well, I'm there. We're having a little cider or something. We're talking and I'm talking to this guy, so I said, "Are you married?" He said, "No." We talked. I don't think that much about it. We sit down to have a little snack—we do lots of eating and snacking at these things. I said, "Hey, how you doing? Good. Where do you work? You married?" "No."
So I did an interesting thing that night. I had talked to two or three guys, and I was struck that there were a bunch of single guys there—very rare for a men's retreat. So we're sitting in this great teaching setting. It's kind of an amphitheater. I said, "How many of you guys are single?" And I'm not kidding you, I'll bet a third of the hands went up. Really weird. Really weird for this. So I said, "Well, that means something. I don't know what it means, but it means something. I'll figure it out."
So I'm kind of playing with this, and then finally Saturday night—Saturday, this is the kind of church it was—they said, "We have a tradition here, and our tradition on Saturday night is that Tom, who's one of the elders, Tom sends us off to our time of..."
Living Distinctively in the World
Fellowship with a song? And it's one of his favorite songs, so I'll get together all of a sudden time goes by, and he does "Great Balls of Fire." It was a great place.
We're getting ready, we're breaking, and these two guys come up. I'm just telling you they are just two stud guys. The hair is quaffed, the clothes are right. These are stud guys. They're kind of wandering over toward me, and I said to myself, "These are single guys."
So these two absolute huge stud guys come over. I mean, it was, golly, they were good-looking. I mean they were just boom! And they said, "Have you figured out why all the singles are here?" And I said, "No." They said, "We can tell you why." And I said, "Okay."
And they said, "Because in Newport Beach, you could pretty much get sex anytime you want it and drugs anytime you want it. And everybody's kidding everybody else, and everybody's dressed a certain way, and everybody's driving this car. And we've made a commitment to not do that. And we have to be in an environment where we are encouraging one another in that, because if we get back out into that, we're afraid we'll fall like that."
The Call to Purity
It's the third thing that's here: to keep yourself pure and undefiled by the world system. We cannot say this to you enough—your life is to be pure and holy. The marketplace is not good over there, and understanding that is crucial.
When I went to these guys in the course of the conversation and said, "You know, I have lots of people who say, 'You know why I'm not successful in my business? Because I'm a Christian.' And the implication there is if I could cheat and screw everybody just like everybody else, I'd really be successful." Well no, you're not—you're a loser, is the problem. That's a loser mentality.
The greatest asset you have in the marketplace is your Christian faith. People are looking for honest, sincere business people who are service-oriented and want to meet their customers. That's a Christian. If you're a boss, they want people—the employees—they want a boss who's going to treat them straight and fair, who's not going to be up and down Jekyll and Hyde. That's a Christian.
Here's the problem: when you start thinking that way, you've bought into the world system that says you've got to cheat to get ahead. That's what He's saying—keep yourself unstained by the world's value system.
Transformed by God's Truth
Romans chapter 12 verse 2: don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. One translation says, "Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold."
That's the constant thing. Listen, you as a believer are never ever ever going to be comfortable in this world. Your value systems are anti-world value systems. This world says listen, money's important and power's important and prestige is important. And Paul says in First Corinthians 1, First Corinthians 2, God didn't use a bunch of people who were wealthy and powerful who had prestige, and everybody stopped and said, "You know, that is..."
The World's False Values
You got—the Academy Awards are coming up. This is one of those things that always kind of strikes me as odd. Here are all these people who camp out to watch Jack Nicholson or somebody else, Brad Pitt, drive up and kind of nod at him, maybe flip him off, and walk in to the Academy Awards. What are we doing? But Jack Nicholson, because he's on the screen, has power.
That's buying into the world system. I mean, those really are people, and I can understand, let's do it and have fun. But let me tell you, those are people that need a life. You know, when you can sit and lip-sync Gilligan, you got a problem. You know the next word: "Whoa, this is a good one, wait till you see what the skipper does in this one." You got a problem. You need a life.
In the midst of this, all of a sudden we're buying in—we're buying into the world's value system.
Three Marks of Distinctive Christian Living
And here's what He says: if you're a Christian, your life will be distinctive. It'll be distinctive in several ways. Number one, you'll have control of your life. Number two, there'll be charitable things in your life—loving things, not things that you're doing to please God, but things that you're doing to thank Him. And number three, your value system and your view of life will be different than the rest of the world.
And it will be driven by this: that James chapter 1, verses 19 to 27, I really think is an introduction to what follows. He talks about the tongue. He talks about prayer. He talks about worldliness. He talks about faith and works.
Looking Ahead
Next week, He says, "You want to see some application of this?" It's interesting—I almost was going to skip this part next week because it could never happen nowadays. They had a problem in their church where people with money and prestige were getting preferential treatment. Now I know that sounds silly to us today. I mean, that sounds almost goofy to us. But why don't we just go ahead—we will, we'll just go ahead and take a look at it anyway, and just see what happens there. We'll look at it next week.
Father, thank You for Your word. Thank You that it's real and true and not only can be believed, but it must be believed if we're ever to experience heaven. Please Lord, let these words today not be misunderstood. Our salvation is not a result of anything that we could do, but it results in a transformed life. We are not saved as a result of our works, but our salvation does result in a work in our life.
God, help us understand that You have called us to exhibit lives that are under control, that manifest love and charity to one another, and lives that are free from the pollution of the thoughts and value systems of this world. God, we cannot live this way in and of ourselves, so we ask You for courage and for wisdom as to how You would have us live. Father, we ask You this in Jesus' name. Amen.
See you next week.