Last week in preparation for Strategic Ministry Plan we spoke about needing to be open to God and His direction; to prepare to meet with God with the idea of seeking Him and letting Him show us His plan. One of the key ideas to Strategic Ministry Planning is to come to God… with empty hands. To come to Him with hands prepared to receive what He wants to give us.
This week we step further into our preparation process. We’re looking this week at the bible verse out of James for that next step. If you look back at the New Testament reading for today from the book of James we’re told there, in the last verse that Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
Boy that’s a shift isn’t it? We’ve gone from seeking God one week, to sinning this week. Well we might as well give up, huh? I mean sin is so strong that we can’t win, right? Yeah actually we, in ourselves can’t win against sin. But we know that and we know that God has overcome sin for us in the cross and resurrection of Christ. We know, that by His grace He has put His own righteousness into our hearts by faith in Jesus alone.
Our sin is no longer our own in that respect. God has taken it away from us and put it on Christ. And in doing that He nailed it to the cross and killed it there. We’re each made new in Christ and nothing can change that. Satan may accuse us, but today you have heard God's word of absolution over the sin you’ve confessed and you stand free, no longer condemned. And sin is not going to stop us from following what God's plans are… unless we invite it to.
Not sinning in regards to following God's plans requires doing according to James. James tells us in that last verse that when you know what good God wants you to do and you don’t do it, that is sin. So to not invite sin in, we need to do, we need to act, we need to step up and participate. Being passive, just sitting around is sin for those who know the good that God wants done and choose not to do it. Put it in the positive, by doing what we know God wants us to be doing we reduce sin’s power in our lives.
We don’t want to be like Reynald. Reynald was a portly, 14th century Belgian duke who was overthrown by his brother, Edward. Rather than having Reynald killed, Edward took Reynald to a castle and had a room built around his extremely fat brother. Edward promised to return freedom, title and property to Reynald on the day he walked out of that room. The room was equipped with a number of windows and an unlocked, near-normal sized door. But Reynald remained in that room for ten years. Why?
Well, knowing his brother’s penchant for overeating, Edward daily sent a variety of delicious delicacies to his brother. Instead of dieting his way out of prison, Reynald grew fatter as the years passed by. Reynald needed to be saved from himself. His only way out of prison was by participating in his own diet. It was by cutting out the things he shouldn’t be doing and doing the good things he should be doing that he was able to be free.
Now for us again, Christ is the one who has freed us from our prison. We’re not, however to go back to the old ways, to the ways of sin. James today says that for us to be inactive in doing the good God directs us to is like retuning to the way of sin. We need to reduce sin in our lives.
Going on a ‘sin diet’ involves activity. To reduce the weight of sin in life, like any good diet involves exercising what you know you should be exercising. Those are things scripture tells us, like self control, humbleness, faith, and obedience to God’s word and direction. As James says today, doing what you know the will of God to be. Doing those things improves your spiritual health. Feeding on the right things, on God’s word and acting on that word of God is important to healthy spiritual improvement.
I read of person who grew up in northeastern Oklahoma, very near the Cherokee Nation Tribal Headquarters. One of their closest friends, named Billie, attended a Cherokee Baptist Church. He says, ‘I remember being very impressed by a simple parable told by the Sunday school teacher, an elderly Cherokee man. The parable was about a young Cherokee who is brought before the tribal elders, who are concerned about his aggressive tendencies.
One of the elders takes the young man aside and tells him that his anger is understandable, since all humans have within them two wolves. One wolf is good and peaceable, and the other is evil and angry. The two wolves are in constant battle with one another, since neither is powerful enough to destroy the other. The young man asks the elder "But if they are of equal power, which wolf will win?" And the elder replies, "The one you feed the most."
We’re talking today about reducing our involvement in sin. We’re not asked to make sin go away, we can’t. And what sin does to our relationship with God, has been taken care of in the cross of Christ. But reducing the practice of sin in our lives is what we are told we need to work on.
What we are asked to do is to minimize our use of sin. Get our intake of participation in sin down from its current level. We need to reduce the use of sin. This sounds simple-minded perhaps, but in truth, it is simple. I didn’t say it was easy, I said it was simple. James tells us that when we know what God wants us to do and we refuse to do it, then that for us is participation in sin.
We overcome that by participating in God’s activities. Think of it like this, when you’re cooking, you can’t be doing the laundry. When you’re building a bridge and you’re up on the high steel, you can’t be digging a ditch. The same principle applies to sin. When you’re involved in being obedient to God’s will you are thwarting the efforts of the evil one to trap you and us in sin.
Today James asks us to put into our minds the thought that we are to do what God leads and shows us to do. That’s a simple thing, an obvious thing, even. But that also tells us that God is active in our lives; that He reveals to us the good we are to do. When James speaks of sin being something that happens when we refuse to follow God's leading he makes two points. One is that God will lead us and second that what God leads us to do is good. So as we prepare for Strategic Ministry Planning we do so confident of God's participation in it. And we trust that He will show us the good we are to do, to participate in and to act on. We trust that God will guide us into living our faith in Christ together here as we seek Him with one heart.
A Montana cowboy gave a sensible idea of what living out the Christian faith is all about. "Lots of folks think they're doin' everything right in servin' the Lord by their shoutin' and praisin' His name. Maybe they go to church meetin's and prayer gatherin's and give more in the offering plate than I do. But I'll tell you the way I look at it.
I'm working here for Jim (the rancher). Now if I sit aroun' the house here tellin' about what a good fella Jim is, and singin' songs to Jim, and gettin' up in the night to serenade him, I'd be doin' just like what lots of Christians are pretending to do. But it wouldn't suit Jim, and I'd get fired mighty quick like. But when I buckle on my straps and hustle 'round the hills and see that Jim's herd is all right and not sufferin' for water and feed or bein' off the range and bein' branded by cattle thieves, well then I'm servin' Jim the way he wants to be served."
Serving God the way He wants to be served, that’s what puts sin on a diet in our lives and in the life of our congregation. Serving God, serving Him together with one heart for the next 20 years, is what we’re preparing for. We’re going to meet and we are going to have a guiding document when we’re done and we are right now preparing to act on the good that God will show us He wants to do.
This week I’d like you to focus on two things one for yourself and the other for the Strategic Ministry Plan process. For yourself – watch your soul’s daily diet – be mindful of what you put into your heart, soul and mind. Give yourself the opportunity to feed on God's word. Let me suggest this; for at least one meal this week, either when you sit down to the meal or before you leave the table after you eat, Have your bible nearby and read something out of it. Read maybe a psalm or two, or something from the book of James or John or Nehemiah. But just take one meal and begin or end with bible reading. Maybe next week, increase that to two meals. Feed your soul, as you feed your body.
And second, for at least one meal either before you eat or after you eat, pray for our congregation. Take out the prayer insert from last week and let that guide you. Again this can be before or after your meal and it can be the same meal as your bible reading if you like.
But pray that we would, with one heart together, put on our spurs and serve God and pursue the good that God will show us to do. Starve sin, feed on God's word, and trust in what He has done for you in the cross and resurrection of Christ Jesus our Lord and savior. In His name, amen.