Seth Godin asks about our priority list … where did I put it?

Seth always asks the right question! First he asks about our priorities and “what should you do next?” and he provides the answer. Most of us do not know! He adds that we are not alone:

Is it better to email an existing customer, send a brochure to a prospect or improve your product a bit? Should you tweet or post a new blog post? Should you have a meeting to coordinate your team or spend ten minutes returning phone calls instead? This is an unheralded skill, something successful people do really well and others struggle with.

Then he lets us off the hook while he wanders into our lack of priorities on being green:

One of the challenges we have in reducing carbon emissions is that (as far as I know) there’s no priority list. Which is worse: leaving your computer on all night or not having the windows weatherstripped? Which is worse: driving a car to Boston or going by plane with 200 other people? Is it worth driving across town to buy a pint of organic strawberries or should I get the ones from the nearby store that came from California? If you have a thousand dollars to invest in making a reduction in greenhouse gasses, should you buy new tires, switch to local foods or perhaps send $900 to help a factory in China switch away from coal and then use the other hundred to have a massage? Without a list, you can see how making intelligent decisions is impossible, so we resort to confusing activity with productivity.

Don’t worry, Seth still knows how to ask the right question.

Back to your office: do you have a list? Have you figured out which metric you’re trying to improve? Can you measure the impact of the choices you make all day? I see this mistake in business development all the time. Assume for a moment that the goal of someone in this department is to maximize profit. Why then would this group spend most of its time tweaking existing deals (looking for a 3% improvement in yield) instead of spending the same time and effort doing new, game-changing deals?

So many times in my life people want me to spend time doing the 3% thing when a bigger task looms. What will you do when the overwhelming inertia of the trivial blinds you to what you are being called to do for the greater good? I am praying for you to know how to do the right and first thing.

Gabe Lyons talks about learning from those unlike you

The skill of listening needs to be regained, says Gabe Lyons, co-author of UnChristian and guest of this week’s ThinkFwd interview hosted by Spencer Burke. Lyons believes this generation is ready—open to learning from each other at a heart-level without expectations of immediate results, and without needing to control the direction of the conversation.

View Gabe Lyons on learning from those unlike you.

You may want to reflect on the questions below and consider purchasing Lyon’s book UnChristian.

Personal Reflections:
1. If you could invite four people who wouldn’t agree on everything to the table—who would you invite and why?
2. How can I add real value to a present project, group or learning experience I’m involved in?

Small Group or Staff Questions:
1. Share a new experience or resource that has opened your mind to new ideas. What did you learn about humility, awareness, or different opinions?
2. What would it take for our community to be known more for what we support, are open to, and encourage rather than what we disagree with or exclude?

Matt Soerens talks about immigration and Christian hospitality

Spencer Burke at TheOOZE has a great series of interviews with folks around the world about how they are living our their Christian faith in the emerging post-modern world. This week he talks about immigration with Matt Soerens.

“Immigrants are more than what they can contribute to our affluence,” says Matt Soerens. Made in the image of God, they are people like you and I who demonstrate the beautiful diversity of God’s creation of humanity. ThinkFwd host, Spencer Burke, talks with Soerens in the Chicago suburb where he lives. His neighbors are a diverse population including immigrants from Mexico, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

View Matt Soerens on Immigration and the Stranger

Soerens has co-authored a book about the church and immigration called “Welcoming the Stranger.” He says his goal with the book was not to convince anyone of a particular immigration policy but rather to look at the issue Biblically and ask—as Christians—what do we do with this complicated topic of immigrants and immigration?

Personal Reflections:
1. Take a moment to role play—what would you be feeling if you were in a foreign country, didn’t know the language, didn’t know the customs, you saw law-enforcement as an enemy and it was criminal to work, yet the conditions in your country were worse?
2. Moving beyond policy to personal, what has been your first-hand interaction with immigrants?

Small Group or Staff Questions:
1. Throughout history we’ve used language to de-humanize people we don’t want to deal with. How have terms like “alien” influenced you?
2. As a Christian, how do you feel about evaluating people solely on their economic impact to our organization, city, or country?

Kinston named an All-America City

It’s hard to see things decline around you and not enter the cycle of doom with everyone else. Just as destructive can be our tendency to bury our heads in the sand and pretend everything is going okay. Well folks, the bishop asked me to come to Kinston and stand alongside the saints and sinners of Queen Street United Methodist Church as they transitioned to another century of ministry. Now Kinston is a city that is facing serious issues. Fifty years ago Queen Street, the main street, was known as “the Magic Mile” and for many in eastern North Carolina we were the center of the universe. Times have changed … tobacco is no longer king (hardly even a pawn) and the other cities around us have landed economic engines that mean that folks have no need for a “Magic Mile” somewhere else. As ministry unfolded I turned to the following passage from Jeremiah for continued hope and inspiration:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare (Jeremiah 29:4-7).

We feel like exiles in the city because it no longer looks like it used to look. But the LORD says to us live here, eat here, find husband for daughters and wives for sons, and multiply and do not decrease. We can understand that impulse and hope that it might work, but for many of us our sons and daughters have married and moved elsewhere to live, eat, and multiply. The LORD is not leaving us hanging … the LORD adds “seek the welfare of the city” and pray on its behalf for “in its welfare you will find your welfare” … the LORD says your future is tied together with the broader welfare and prosperity of the whole community. Do not settle for less than everyone’s welfare and your welfare will never be in doubt. That is the lesson God has been teaching me these days.

On Sunday afternoon, the folks of Kinston will gather in Grainger Stadium to celebrate our being named one of ten All-America Cities this past year. The following are the words that I will offer as an invocation to that celebration:

O God, our help in ages past when names like Caswell, Gordon, Bright, McLewean, Shrine, Dobbs, Herritage came to the intersection of King and Queen in 1762 to form a city; Who knew then the plans that you laid out for them as they moved out to the north, south, and east with the Neuse at their backs to the west? You gave our fathers and mothers wisdom to know that a city for a king depended only on you for its greatness and its citizens for its support when they changed our name from Kingston to Kinston. You saw us through years of growth and periods of decline, times of war and times of peace, moments of laughter and seasons of mourning, gathered us in Granger Stadium and Grand Theater, churches and synagogues, and even drew us to the Magic Mile.

O God, our hope for years to come we come at a time of great celebration and come praying and seeking for the welfare and prosperity of the city where we live. Give Kinston not only the pure water of the artesian well, but the purity of drink derived from our human efforts; give Kinston not only the little by little efforts for our children we make, but the greater by greater dreams you have for each one of them; give Kinston not only the rejection of the gang life, but the acceptance of a citizen’s life seeking your broader good.

O God, be thou our guide while life shall last we come anticipating a day when the young shall see visions and the old shall dream dreams. We come seeking the wisdom of the one who created us in your self-image so that we might live as your sons and daughters, as sisters and brothers in your soon-coming kingdom. Teach us your wisdom and guard our paths so that we might come to follow in the Way, the Truth, and the Life that you hold before each of us.

O God, our eternal home; In moments like these we give thanks that you put lifetime-sized dreams before us knowing that those things worth accomplishing might or might not be completed in our time, but in your time all things are possible O LORD of HOPE. In moments like these we give thanks for the true, the beautiful, and the good to which you have called us, O LORD of FAITH. In moments like these we give thanks that we cannot accomplish virtuous tasks alone and we need each other and especially you, O LORD of LOVE. In moments like these we remember that we are not all that, we are not always leaning in the right direction, we are not always pointed to your preferred future for us, we are not always aligned as friends, we far too often see one another as foes and for that we come now seeking forgiveness and trusting in the faith, hope, and love of our mothers and fathers, O LORD of FORGIVENESS.

O God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come;
be thou our guide while life shall last, and our eternal home.

Now hear our prayer lifted in the Name of the One Who Is, the One Who Was, and the One Who Is to Come! Amen.

For the very discerning you will hear in the above invocation the following words that have traveled the globe with me and sustain the core of my prayer life with the Living God of our mothers and fathers.

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime;
therefore we must be saved by HOPE.

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
therefore we must be saved by FAITH.

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
therefore we are saved by LOVE.

No virtuous act is as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint.
Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love which is FORGIVENESS.
–Reinhold Niebuhr

A Brother’s Wisdom 4 – Doing the Good that You Know to Do

No sooner had James challenged us last week with his wisdom about our tongues then we saw Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the Video Music awards with a demand that the real winner should be someone else after Serena Williams had verbally abused a line judge at the US Open the previous day. And members of congress are engaged at name-calling and hypocrisy at all kinds of levels. I asked you all to practice “keeping your tongue” this past week (even if it meant literally holding your tongue). So how did that go for you?

This week we move from the spark to the fire, from the rudder to the ship, from the bit to the horse; that is, we move from conversation about our words to a challenge to how we live! Now we must longer just talk the talk, we have to learn how to walk the walk … come on and let’s pay attention to a brother’s wisdom from James 4:

Friendship with the World
Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? 2 You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, “God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says,

“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you (James 4:1-10).

James continues today from last week’s argument that we are to seek wisdom from above as we encounter the conflicts and divisions within our community and out in the world. Part of what James speaks to in verse 2 is our tendency to provoke violence because we want and covet what is not ours and when we are resisted we sometimes respond with violent words that can lead to violent actions. We remember that Jesus told us that if we are angry with a brother or sister we have already committed murder even if the act if not done – and Jesus tells us we will be held to account for that thought and more especially the words uttered in anger (see Matthew 5:21-26). And then James gets up close with his hearers – the root of these conflicts is that you desire what you do not own. This in and of itself is not the problem. James says the problem lies with asking wrongly for what we want and then using it only for our pleasure (see verse 3). So we are to repent and no longer seek to be a friend to the world … we are called to be friends of God.

Next we encounter a several thorny verses to understand. First, we need to know that in verse 6 James is quoting Proverbs 3:34 which states: “Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he shows favor.” The second trickier question is what to make of verse 5. Is it (1) God yearns jealously for the spirit that he made to dwell in us or (2) that the spirit God caused to dwell in us is intensely jealous? One way to read the text suggests that God is jealous of his people and another way of reading the same text suggests that human beings have a tendency to be envious. Part of me wants to answer “duh” and say God can have it both ways. Why? Because I am pretty sure about God’s jealous love of us and fully confident of my desire (and yours, if the truth be told) to be envious!

Either way, verse 6 calls us earnestly seek the grace God has to offer. To do that we need to be humble. James is ever-ready to offer us some help about what that humility looks like. The following are James ten challenges to his fellow Christians (4:7-11a). As you hear this list again, I just ask in a confessional way, “how are you doing?”

1. Submit yourselves therefore to God.
2. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
3. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
4. Cleanse your hands, you sinners,
5. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.
6. Lament and mourn and weep.
7. Let your (foolish) laughter be turned into mourning.
8. Let your (empty) joy be turned into dejection.
9. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
10. Do not speak evil against your brother or sister.

Let’s continue to hear James challenging word to his congregation:

Warning against Judging Another
11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, speaks evil against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor (James 4:11-12)?

James moves immediately from listing his challenges to stopping his hearers in their tracks. As I read over that list I tend to think about how others have acted towards me even though I asked you and me to answer in confession “how are you doing” with these challenges. You probably did the same thing and James “stop it!” You are not to judge another because there is one (and only one) lawgiver and judge who is able to save or destroy us! James knew his disperses congregation and he knows us. “Who are you to judge you neighbor?” he inquires. Our answer reveals us to busybodies trying to heap judgment on others while scrambling to avoid God at all costs. It is a game that we cannot win!

Boasting about Tomorrow
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” 14 Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin (James 4:12-17).

James closes the chapter with a pointed comment to the merchants of his day. Even within the church we can begin to think too confidently about how much we are in charge of our lives. First I am going to do this, then I am going to do that, and finally I will have the following in place. Somewhere along the way we join those merchants in forgetting to add “if the Lord wishes” to our pronouncements! When we fail to do that our arrogance will eventually catch up with us. James casually offers one last challenge “if you know what to do and do not do it, you commit sin.” That comment slips in like a thief in the night and drops us to our knees. We want sin to be about what we do wrong, not about not doing right things. James will not let us go! (And that’s why we jump at the chance to make James a “works” letter that we can ignore. This “gotcha” is more than we can handle.)

So let’s consider three possible homework assignments this week:
1. In verse 3 James tells us that “you ask and do not receive, because you ask [God] wrongly.” What is one desire of your heart that you might ask God for? How have you been pursuing this desire on your own? Invite God to lead you in pursuing this desire of the heart in manner worthy of God.
2. The closing “gotcha” verse today says “Anyone who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.” Pray in these moments for the knowledge and wisdom to do the right thing that God is placing on your heart.
3. Memorize verse 10 which states: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” Where do you need to learn to be humble in your life? Why is it difficult to let God take over this area of your life? Pray for the courage to “let go and let God” lead you into a new path of humility.

“Really!?! with Seth and Amy” on Keeping Your Tongue

We have been paying attention to “A Brother’s Wisdom” as we have been reading through the book of James at Queen Street Church these past few weeks. Meanwhile around the nation we see folks violating James simple rule to be “quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19). Why? Because “your anger does not produce God’s righteousness” (James 1:20). So I caught Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers of Saturday Night Live, and now Weekend Update Thursday, in a segment called Really!?! The pair devoted the segment to the recent outbursts of Congressman Joe Wilson, Serena Williams and Kanye West concluding: “No one is impressed when you take your stands against 19-year-old girls, tiny Asian ladies or the first black president. Really? Who are you gonna go after next koalas? Really!?!” Watch it for yourselves.

Really?!? with Seth and Amy on September 17, 2009

George Bullard on a Congregation’s Future

Sometimes my mentor and friend George Bullard comes up with cumbersome names for important topics. For instance, I learned more about how congregations live, thrive, survive, and often die from George’s book Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation than I have from several other training events on congregational development. His book fleshes out the Spiritual Strategic Journey model that marks his long work as a coach, consultant, and judicatory official. The book is tremendous, the process is spirit-filled and leads to proactive movement – we just have to help rename the process.

My prelude is offered to lead you to another one of George’s lists. This list results from a series of posts at his blog Bullard Journal. Depending on your needs, George is making these posts available in a personal edition or presentation edition along with an opportunity to participate in a coaching conversation with him and your peers. Pray through your situation.

Your congregation is likely to exist 10 years from now if:
01: It has High Expectations of its Members
02: It has an Empowering Vision
03: It has a Shared Vision
04: It has Clear Core Values
05: It Is Intentional
06: It Is Kingdom Focused
07: It Is Contextually Relevant
08: Its Attendance Is Growing
09: Four Involvement Factors Are Present
10: It Is Experiencing Conversion, Biological, and Transfer Growth
11: Its Relationships Are About True Friendships
12: Its Worship Is a True Encounter with God
13: Its Worship Attendance Is Over 135
14: Its in the childhood to just retiring stage in the Life Cycle
15: The average age of the active congregation is less than 50
16: The average tenure of the active congregation is less than 15 years
17: At least 20 percent of your active adults members are tithers
18: More than 30 percent of your budget is focused on programs and missions
19: It has sufficient conflict capacity (i.e. it knows how to disagree in healthy ways)
20: It has empowering and shared leadership
21: It has empowering management
22: It has no significant debt
23: It has no dependence on endowments
24: Its facilities are in good shape
25: It is obviously Christ-centered

What else would you add to George’s list, and better yet, what new title would you give it?

A Brother’s Wisdom 3 – The Tongue Can Spark a Forest Fire

Sometimes you just cannot make it up! Here we are reading through the book of James, something I planned months ago, and being challenged by the simple words to be “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger” because our “anger does not produce God’s righteousness” (James 1:19-20). No sooner has James challenged us with this wisdom and this week we had Congressman Joe Wilson yelling “You Lie” while President Obama was speaking to a Joint Session of Congress and Serena Williams verbally abusing a line judge at the US Open. They should have been worshiping with us on the Magic Mile!

This week we turn to the third chapter of James and let’s see if he might have another word for us this week.

Taming the Tongue
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2 For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4 Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.

How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7 For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, 8 but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters,d this ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters,e yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh (James 3:1-12).

James begins this lesson with a specific word to teachers, but moves quickly to the rest of his listeners. We must guard out tongues because they can do great damage in a few moments. Learning to bridle our tongues may be the finest thing we can ever learn – I am also convinced that this may be the hardest task any of us ever undertakes. James lays it on the line for us, the words we speak are a reflection of our heart. James is echoing here a brother’s wisdom. He may have remembered Jesus saying:

“Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:33-37).

Or,

“Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander” (Matthew 15:16-19).

Jesus was no doubt connected to God as he grew in wisdom and stature (see Luke 2:52) and he probably paid attention to the Rabbis as they offered instruction like the following from the Wisdom Tradition (Proverbs):

The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence (Proverbs 10:11).

With their mouths the godless would destroy their neighbors, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered (Proverbs 11:9).

Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing (Proverbs 12:18).

A fool’s lips bring strife, and a fool’s mouth invites a flogging. The mouths of fools are their ruin, and their lips a snare to themselves (Proverbs 18:6-7).

Then James twist the rhetorical knife in our hearts as he reminds us that we were all created in the image of God.

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:26-27).

Because of this, to curse another human being is to curse one created in God’s image (James 3:9).

Let’s return to the rest of the third chapter of James:

Two Kinds of Wisdom
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. 15 Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace forf those who make peace (James 3:13-18).

James closes his words with a challenge to resist the accolades of those who might applaud our “earthly wisdom” and to choose to wait for the “wisdom from above.” Paul reminded his listeners in Corinth that the gospel we preach, Christ crucified and risen, is a stumbling block to Jews who demand signs and foolishness to the Greeks who demand wisdom. Hear again Paul’s words:

Christ the Power and Wisdom of God
18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

26 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29 so that no onei might boast in the presence of God. 30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Proclaiming Christ Crucified
2 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4 My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

The True Wisdom of God
6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7 But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory (1 Corinthians 1:18-2:7).

James invites us consider the wisdom we receive from above, a heavenly wisdom that begins and ends with God:

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction (Proverbs 1:7).

Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path (Proverbs 2:9);

Therefore walk in the way of the good, and keep to the paths of the just (Proverbs 2:20).

So I invite you in the coming week to pursue the wisdom from above. Consider this week how you might “hold your tongue” (literally if you have to) in conversations with others. I know in my journey that the practice I developed in my eighteen month sojourn in Kenya of writing all my letters in a journal before transcribing them into an aerogram produced more thoughtful words, especially when I had a difficult word to say to a friend. My writing teacher in seminary said that I needed to write twenty words in a draft for every one word in the final copy – maybe we need to think through twenty words we might say before we open our mouths to say the first word.

Secondly, I invite you ponder these words from James: “The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (James 3:17). Where in your life is God asking you to consider how to be pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruit, living and demonstrating no partiality or hypocrisy? Ask God for assistance in this task as you move through this week. May a harvest of righteousness be sown in peace in your life this week.

How to Speak Australian

Michael Bird, Tutor in New Testament at the Highland Theological College in Dingwall, Scotland, offers a lesson on how to speak Australian.

You might enjoy his careful statement about the influence of N. T. Wright and D. A. Carlson on his thinking.

Of course, this Australian parodying his statement above is a hoot!

You can check out his blog Euangelion (Evangel) here.

A Brother’s Wisdom 2 – Stop Acting Like a Christian and Be One!

We continue with our study of the book of James at Queen Street Church as we move into some of James’ most memorable lines of teaching. While I was praying and preparing this past week for this second lesson I checked out my colleagues at LifeChurch.tv who launched a sermon series “Stop Just Acting Like a Christian and Be One.” What a challenge!

I also remembered the joke from my childhood. A father asked his daughter, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The young girl responded simply, “A vitamin.” “A vitamin,” the father responded, “whatever gave you that idea?” “The cereal box” came the response. “Its says right there on the side of the box: vitamin … B1!”

So before we even begin today, let me give away my conclusion. Stop acting like a Christian and be one!

Let’s read what James has to say in chapter 2:

Warning against Partiality

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? 2 For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3 and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7 Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

8 You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 9 But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 11 For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

This extended lesson about hospitality and the sin of favoritism is telling in our time (and every time). First, let’s make some general observations about the text that reveal the Jewish milieu that James speaks out of and into:

1. James question about favoritism in the first verse echoes Elihu’s argument with Job over God’s sense of justice. There he says God “shows no partiality to nobles, nor regards the rich more than the poor, for they are all the work of his hands” (Job 34:19).
2. The royal law of scripture to love one’s neighbor is found in Leviticus 19:18, which God simply states: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”
3. Again, James’ concern with partiality remembers the admonition to Israel’s tribal leaders that they “must not be partial in judging: hear out the small and the great alike” (Deuteronomy 1:17).
4. The clear word of judgment against murderers and adulterers in verse 11 originates in the Ten Commandments (see Exodus 20:13-14 and Deuteronomy 5:17-18).

Now the obvious lesson within the Christian community is that Paul teaches us that in Christ their is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female (see Galatians 3:28). We can add neither rich nor poor, neither black nor white, and dare I say it this week Republican nor Democrat for we are made one in Christ. We cannot walk in these doors and start making distinctions about who is honored or not honored, who is great and who is small, who is welcomed and who is rejected. It may be in the world’s DNA and its brokenness that causes us to make those distinctions, but in Christ it is not acceptable! Let me say it plain, whatever ways that we want to utilize to separate people make no sense in God’s eyes. Why? Because mercy triumphs over judgment (verse 13). Mercy does not simply mitigate judgment – mercy trumps judgment! (Paul promises this as well: “For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Let’s return to James’ words to the dispersed Jews:

Faith without Works Is Dead

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. 20 Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? 21 Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. 23 Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.

Now another debate ensues. Do we agree with Paul or James about the importance of faith and works? Let’s compare Romans 3:28 and James 2:24:

“For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law” (Romans 3:28).
“You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24).

As we begin this discussion we need to remember a few things. First, Paul wrote his letters after James did, but if we “read the bible straight through” James’ arguments come after Paul’s and seem to be a corrective. Not so, James is speaking to a different audience at an earlier time than the time period of Paul’s audience. Martin Luther, the German reformer of five centuries ago, would say that people may be saved by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. That is, true faith is not an opinion (even demons believe in God), it must have an outward expression.

Second, James and Paul use the word justified in differing ways. To James the word justified points to that moment in eternity when we stand before our creator and judge to account for our lives. For Paul to be justified points to that moment when our sin is made right before God through Christ’s atoning act. Centuries later, John Calvin would state “as Paul contends that men are justified without the aid of works, so James will not allow any to be regarded as justified who are destitute of good works” (see his Institutes, 3.17.12). John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement summarized the position this way:

1. They do not speak of the same faith: St. Paul speaking of living faith; St. James here, of dead faith.
2. They do not speak of the same works: St. Paul speaking of works antecedent to faith; St. James, of works subsequent to it (John Wesley, Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, James 2:24).

Perhaps we can say with a contemporary word “its not whether you can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk.”

In just a few moments we are going to come to table to feast together. At this meal we are reminded of the atoning work that Jesus did for us. We break the bread and share the cup in remembrance of what God did through the death and resurrection of Jesus and we break the bread and share the cup in anticipation of that great day when we shall all be gathered at the gospel feast. And then we depart …, but this week. We cannot simply leave this place with James’ word echoing through our brains, so I have some homework for you to do this week.

This week:

1. God has placed someone in your life who is “poor” and someone who is “rich.” They may be a different color of skin, live in a different part of town, vote for a different party, be richer or poorer than you, etc. Whatever that distinction you treat them differently, maybe even with partiality or neglect. What difference would it make in your life if you saw them as God sees them? Now here the key, I am not asking you to ponder WWJD – what would Jesus do? No this week its WWJHMD – what would Jesus have me do? And when you have pondered, live into the Nike slogan and JUST DO IT! No excuse about time, money, resources … JUST DO IT!

2. This next week we are going to put ourselves into service. During the time that has been our early worship service we will gather here in the fellowship hall, break into teams to go out and pick up our friends from Carver Court, return to share in a light meal together, move into Sunday School, then worship together, and take our young friends home. Now I know how we are … we move away from Sunday and slowly forget what we have promised to God, so today each exit from our sanctuary will have someone with a clipboard available to take your name and number as you leave so that we can remind you of what you have promised.

3. Finally, as we write God’s word on our hearts, memorize with me: “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:17).