More Willingness (10 of 12)
Series: Less is More
Joey Rodgers
James 4:13-17
Have you heard the phrase - ''Is it a hill worth dying on?'' Truth is most people put their lives on the line for things that don't matter in the grand scheme of life. We make mountains out of molehills and then die on the molehill. How many relationships have died over trivial issues? How many churches have split due for personal preferences? The only hill worth dying on is the one Jesus died on.
A few years ago, I read a book entitled, Western Jesus that challenged my thinking about God, church and the ministry. The book was about how we've Americanized God and faith and have settled for something far less than what the Bible describes as genuine faith. It was about how instead of being disciples abandoned to the cause of Christ, how we've become churchgoers who look like church tourists on a spiritual vacation instead of abandoned Christ followers. The book takes a hard look at culture, traditions and biases thru the lens of Scripture to bring the Christian life into focus.
This brings us to James. This letter was written to draw a line of demarcation b/w authentic faith and artificial faith - to PROVE faith and to REPROVE faithlessness. James speaks in ch. 1-3 to the faithful, but in ch. 4, he confronts the faithlessness exposing their need to create conflict, judge unjustly, defy God's will and w/hold their wealth from God.
Now listen, you who say, ''Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.'' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ''If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'' As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them. Jm. 4:13-17
This passage ...
Series: Less is More
Joey Rodgers
James 4:13-17
Have you heard the phrase - ''Is it a hill worth dying on?'' Truth is most people put their lives on the line for things that don't matter in the grand scheme of life. We make mountains out of molehills and then die on the molehill. How many relationships have died over trivial issues? How many churches have split due for personal preferences? The only hill worth dying on is the one Jesus died on.
A few years ago, I read a book entitled, Western Jesus that challenged my thinking about God, church and the ministry. The book was about how we've Americanized God and faith and have settled for something far less than what the Bible describes as genuine faith. It was about how instead of being disciples abandoned to the cause of Christ, how we've become churchgoers who look like church tourists on a spiritual vacation instead of abandoned Christ followers. The book takes a hard look at culture, traditions and biases thru the lens of Scripture to bring the Christian life into focus.
This brings us to James. This letter was written to draw a line of demarcation b/w authentic faith and artificial faith - to PROVE faith and to REPROVE faithlessness. James speaks in ch. 1-3 to the faithful, but in ch. 4, he confronts the faithlessness exposing their need to create conflict, judge unjustly, defy God's will and w/hold their wealth from God.
Now listen, you who say, ''Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.'' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ''If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'' As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them. Jm. 4:13-17
This passage ...
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