8/30/20 James 1:17-27 “Bobblehead Jesus or Loving Your Enemy?”

28 Aug 8/30/20 James 1:17-27 “Bobblehead Jesus or Loving Your Enemy?”

8/30/20    James 1:17-27   “Bobblehead Jesus or Loving Your Enemy?”

I think that there is a nasty trend in this country to try to package Jesus in a way that is pleasing to everyone.  I went on the internet the other day and this is what I found.  You can buy an Astronaut Jesus, Coach Jesus, Combat Jesus, Action Figure Jesus, and Bobble Head Jesus to name just a few of the items online.  Now you can use your imagination as to what these are all about or you can go on line and look up Jesus toys.  My point is this.  What is going on here?  Have we totally lost it?  Why do we have to make up some fairy tale Jesus just so that we can more readily accept Him?  It seems to me that we are constantly trying to make Jesus into this sugar-coated Mr. Nice Guy type of God and we refuse to look at the justice side of Jesus.  Jesus is full of love but He also is full of truth.  When we look at the book of John, we see truth and grace at its best.  But we don’t want to hear the truth.  We can’t handle the truth!  We only want the grace and then more grace.  Many people just can’t handle the truth because of the way they live.  Today we are looking at the book of James and he will give us some more truth but there is also a lot of grace.  Let’s see if you can handle the truth.

I would like you to remember these opening comments about the toys as I tell you the true story of a Baptist Pastor named Peter Miller who lived during the Revolutionary War.  There was another man, named Michael Wittmann who was very evil and did everything in his power to oppose and humiliate Pastor Miller.  One day Wittmann was arrested for treason and sentenced to die.  At first Pastor Miller thought, “Thank goodness the Lord took care of that guy.  I didn’t know how much more of this I could take.”  But then he remembered what the Bible said about our enemies and went back to prayer and told the Lord that he guessed that he had blown that one.  Then he decided to travel the 70 miles to Philadelphia and plead for this man’s life.  70 miles was a long distance in those days.  He either had to walk or go on horseback.  He approached General Washington and made his request.

And Washington said, “No, Peter. I cannot grant you the life of your friend.”

The old preacher said, “My friend?  This guy is not my friend.  He is the bitterest enemy that I have.”

Washington replied, “What?  You walked 70 miles to save the life of an enemy?  That puts things in a different light and I will grant your pardon.”  And he did.  The two men who were enemies became friends.  So, the question that begs to be asked here is, “which is more Christ like; a bobble head Jesus or loving your enemy?”

Today I am going to focus on us hearing the Word and doing the Word which should happen at the same time.  Hearing anything is hard work.  One of the things that they tell us in order to present a good sermon is that we have to repeat some of the things we say up to three times.  This is because we often times hear things but they are not registering in our minds. (Repeat 3x)  I think that some children are great at this as it seems as though they are ignoring you when you talk to them.  Husbands and wives may engage in some selective hearing.  I’m sure you can think of many other cases like this.  But what James is trying to tell us here is that if you are going to be a doer of God’s word, then you have to be actively hearing.

So, if we are going to put into practice what God is teaching us, then we must first be willing to hear what He has to say.  Often times we are like the child who is seemingly ignoring us.  There is the story told by Rodney Buchanan of a woman who was scammed out of her life savings by some unscrupulous swindler.  We have seen quite a bit of this in recent years as there seems to be getting more and more crooks in the world as we continue to fall farther and farther away from Jesus Christ.  Anyway, the woman went to the Better Business Bureau and made a complaint about this fellow.  The man at the Bureau said, “Why didn’t you come to us first before you invested your money?  Didn’t you know that this is what we do?”  “Yes, of course I know what you do,” the woman replied.  “I was afraid to come to you because I was scared you would tell me not to do it?”  I think that this could have been me.

This may be news to some of you but we are like this woman in many ways.  We all know people who avoid coming to church because they are afraid of being told not to do something even though not doing it will be greatly beneficial to their lives.  People don’t read the Bible for the same reason.  They don’t want to hear that the things that they are doing are not ok with God.  They would rather spend eternity in hell than to admit that they are on the wrong path.  This is what postmodernism is all about; taking God out of society!

I am not the one who comes here and tells you what is right and what is wrong. My job is to study the Bible and report to you what is says every Sunday.  I have nothing to do with how your conscience was developed or how your conscience works.  This is something that God has already set up in you.  So, if you feel guilty about what you are doing, then it is God who is convicting you of sin, not the church or the pastor.  This is God working in you.

We have whole denominations today that are doing the same types of things.  As I said last week, they are saying that we can pick and choose the parts of the Bible that we want to follow.  They tell us that we have to ignore certain parts because they are not relevant today or that they might hurt someone’s feelings.  Goodness!  Political correctness is so terribly wrong!  They fail to realize that if feelings are being hurt by what is in the Bible, then someone is doing something wrong.  Someone is sinning.  This isn’t rocket science!

We have positioned ourselves so that we are not listening to what we hear.  We are not in state of readiness.  We have gotten so spoiled in our luxurious lifestyles that when we don’t like something, then we turn it off.  That works for many things but it doesn’t work with God.  You can’t turn Him off like a TV set.  His book, the Bible, applies just as much today as it did centuries ago when it was first written or first lived.  Who do we think you are that you can change God’s written word because it offends you?  This is God’s love for you and for many it has become offensive.

So, we have to make sure that we are listening.  We also have to internalize what we are hearing.  If we are going to be doing the things that Christ is telling us to do, then we must have Christ inside of us or else we run the risk of being a banging gong.  These problems are centuries old and they are also with us today.  I think that we have all seen church members and others that are so busy doing church that they forget what church is all about.  Please don’t misunderstand me here.  There are many people who are very busy with church for all the right reasons.  Their hearts are in the right place.  But we also have many so-called Christians who are very busy working for Christ so that they can go to heaven.  They are trying to earn their way to heaven.  This doesn’t work and it never will.

These are the ones who have not internalized Jesus and yet work very hard trying to please Him.  The only thing that we have to do in order to be ready to hear the Word is accept Jesus as God and ask Him to live in us.  You need only to surrender and let Jesus come into your life.  When you do this, then your whole life changes.  Suddenly, you can hear what Jesus is saying to you.  You can hear what He is trying to tell you.  You can feel His love.

Now I don’t know about you folks, but I have found that life is pretty tough.  And I never realized how hard it was until after I had invited Jesus into my life.  It was only then that I wondered how I ever survived without Jesus.  I am seriously worried about people in our midst today as to how they will ever survive without Jesus.  I am worried about the many people who attend churches that have flushed Jesus down the drain.  I am worried about a world that keeps getting darker and darker because they don’t need Jesus.  Everybody needs Jesus whether they know it or not.  Everyone needs to know Him so that His message can be internalized in our souls.  Maybe instead of the word internalize, I should say eternalize because every person on this planet will spend eternity somewhere.  We have to help these people to know that Jesus loves them in spite of what they do.

It is this love that should be our focus.  We cannot focus on the things that we shouldn’t do.  You won’t find Jesus in Black Lives Matter or Antifa!  Focusing on the things that are wrong will only help you to live more miserable lives.  You won’t find a smile in these groups because Jesus isn’t there.  And Jesus only wants what is the very best for us.  Our focus is to be on the continuous outpouring of love from Jesus.  This comes from following His ways and the best way to do this is to eternalize the goodness that comes from Him.

And finally, we come to the part where James is telling us not only to hear the message but we must also do what it says.  The ancients also had people who came to church and then left and went right back to doing what they were doing before.  They were not doing what God was instructing them to do.

It is also interesting in how James describes this.  By listening to the Word and not doing it is like looking in the mirror and then forgetting what you look like when you walk away.

I think that men and women look in mirrors in different ways and this is a good thing.  Men will generally do a quick look to see if they have missed anything shaving or if there has been any damage from whatever.  Women will usually look for the damages done in sleep but they will have in mind on how to fix the damage with makeup or something else.  I, myself, have started to notice that I am beginning to look a little bit like an old man.  This has probably been happening for the last 10 years or so but it takes me a bit to catch on to things.  I can be a bit slow.  Just the other evening someone was overheard saying there is getting to be fewer and fewer older people around.  The first person looked at her and said, “We are the older people.”   We are getting older.  I am getting older.

Anyway, this mirror illustration helps us to do a little introspection.  We look into the mirror and we see that we are changing, albeit ever so slowly.  When we read our Bibles, hear these sermons, we should be doing the same thing.  We should be looking into our lives to see if we are actually doing the Word or just listening to the Word.  I personally know of another church in the area where people will do Bible studies or sing in the choir or clean the church just so they don’t have to go out and love their enemies.  They would much rather display GI Joe Jesus or Coach Jesus than love their enemies.  There are people like this who will do anything just so they don’t have to do what God wants all of us to do.  It is sad.

Tim Bond tells the story from several years back where the American Heart Association met in Atlanta for their annual convention.  There were about 300,000 doctors and researchers there.  They discussed among other things how the importance of a low-fat diet is in keeping our hearts healthy.  Some researcher decided to do a little check on these people and he found that they ate just as many fat-filled juicy fast food burgers with greasy fries as any other people who go to conventions.  When one cardiologist was asked whether or not he thought that he might be setting a bad example, he replied, “No I am not because I took off my name tag.”

We are not to just talk about the widows and orphans, we are supposed to actually go out and take care of them.  We are called to get our hands a little dirty by going to our shelters and helping out the homeless.  There are children in your area who need your help.  Maybe you should try to get a clothing drive for one of these settlements.  I think of that one little girl who only had a summer dress to wear when it was so cold and rainy.  She could use some warmer clothes.  Think about these poor children who can do nothing about their poverty except to suffer.  Let’s try to help them in some way at least.

When you do all of these things then you will be blessed.  James tells us this in verse 25.  The Bible tells us this in many other places.  When you do the work of Jesus in this world then you will be richly blessed.  If you are doing what God says, then He will fill your granaries to more than overflowing.  Jesus will give you all and even more after that.  This is the love that He has for you.  It is a love where He will share all that He has with you if you are only obedient.

We do have to be careful here that we aren’t just hearing and obeying so that we will get the blessings.  It doesn’t work that way.  We are to follow our hearts and do what Jesus asks of us and forget about any blessings.  They shouldn’t even come to mind.  Our attention is to be totally on serving those in front of us.  When we think in terms of getting blessings if we do good, then we will not get blessings because we are doing things for the wrong reasons.  I hope that this makes sense.  Jesus wants to bless you and He will if you have a pure heart.

The bottom line here is that Jesus loves you.  He does all of these things for you because of this love.  You in turn are to pass this love on to others by what you do.  And what you do can be summed up by this:  A man hurried to the church door on Sunday around noon and asked, “Is the service over?”  The usher replied, “Well, the worship is over but the service is only beginning.”  Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.