Monthly Archives: September 2011

The critical contrast

Continuing to walk through James, a wonderful book which gloriously reveals the depth of the gospel as it works into our lives. Living for Christ is so much more than a moral checklist or cultural conformity. Our faith in Christ will produce much – but the incredible thing about gospel-based progressive sanctification is that we bear more fruit as we more fully understand our relationship with God – especially that it is based on Christ’s performance for us, not our performance for him.

So even beyond the wondrous truth that “faith works,” James reveals how it works. And even more critically, James reveals the contrast of this fruit-producing faith with the world’s view of religion. There’s a variety of ways that pastors say this… here are a few phrases that draw out the contrast of works grounded in unbelieving religion… or gospel faith:

Our works drive God’s love for us… or God’s love drives our works.
Our good works direct God’s favor… or our good works reflect God’s favor.
Our actions are the root of God’s favor… or our actions are the fruit of God’s favor.
Obey so God will be happy… or obey because God is happy with you.
Our obedience motivates God’s infinite happiness… or God’s infinite happiness motivates our obedience.
I am obligate so that God will love me… or I’m free to live this way because God loves me.
I obey therefore I’m accepted… or I’m accepted therefore I obey.
If I behave, then I belong… or I belong, that’s why I behave.

O the glories of what our Savior has done! May our hearts be more and more grounded in the gospel, that we might more and more see the reality of who we are in Him.

A few words from James 3…

Several have asked me to post the week-long speech check referred to in last week’s sermon. Here it is, adapted loosely from World Harvest Mission, via Tullian Tchividjian.

The exercise is to spend an entire week (start with a day) without protecting yourself with your tongue. So:

Don’t gossip
Don’t complain about anything
Don’t blameshift
Don’t defend yourself
Don’t boast at all
Don’t criticize (yes, there is good criticism… but not for this exercise :>)

Do speak only good
Do encourage
Do speak only of your weaknesses (not strengths)
Do admit quickly when a hint of wrong

The point in this exercise is to see what James is proclaiming… that no human being can tame the tongue, and that the one who does is perfect (not you or me).

That’s so we can come back to the hope that we do have… of Jesus Christ, His work in the Gospel. May our eyes be fixed on Him, may our hope be ensconced in Him, may our speech more and more reflect our awareness of our identity in His family!

Identity thoughts

A beautiful Monday morning, another day to marvel at God’s grace in giving us life and breath. O that we might use it to reveal that our identity has been radically changed — as we’ve been redeemed and adopted into Jesus Christ’s family… by His wondrous work alone!

Along the lines of a new identity, here’s Tim Keller from King’s Cross:

“Are you beginning to see how radical Jesus is? It’s not a matter of saying, ‘I’ve been a failure, I’ve been immoral, so now I’m going to go to church and become a moral, decent person. Then I’ll know I’m a good person because I am spiritual.’ Jesus says, ‘I don’t want you to simply shift from one performance-based identity to another; I want you to find a whole new way. I want you to lose the old self, the old identity, and base yourself and your identity on me and the gospel.'”