Unity and the Imago Dei

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Listen to sermon Text: James 3:1-18 Speaker: Gabriel Molinaro

How do we use our tongues to bless God and others when we feel only curses?  It's when we see God's image, even in our attackers.

“I can never know beforehand how God’s image should appear in others. That image always manifests a completely new and unique form that comes solely from God’s free and sovereign creation. To me the sight may seem strange, even ungodly. But God creates every man in the likeness of His Son, the Crucified. After all, even that image certainly looked strange and ungodly to me before I grasped it.”  (Bonhoeffer)

And it is only when we despair of our own wisdom and our own ability to act rightly through reason and willpower that we can see God and his image in others.

False Confidence

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Sunday replay: James 2:18-26

False confidence. It happens in the wilderness of life. Rather than tackling doubts, you suppress them under a thin veneer of confidence. You can sense the insecurity. It comes across in self-righteous legalism or an irreligious bravado that throws out all "doing" in the name of "being."

Paul and James are two apostles who tag-teamed on the Gospel. Paul tackled the legalists. It's one of the reasons his letter focus on justification by faith. James on the other hand honed in on the irreligious. It's why we see his focus on justification by works.

Now don't get confused. They are using "justification" differently. Paul uses it as "acquittal." James uses it in the sense of "proof" or vindication. Both believe that we are justified (acquitted) by a faith which is justified (proved) by works - thus leaving no room in the gospel for legalism or irreligion.  Which brings us to the text today. James confronts the latter by talking about two things:

1. What's bad proof? 2. What's good proof?

Bad proof is having correct doctrinal knowledge about God. Even the demons have it - is James' argument. He pokes at the irreligious by telling them how the demons are better in that they at least "shudder" at the truths about God. The irreligious have no fear and no shame.

Good proof is friendship with God - something the demons did not have. They knew everything there is to know about God, including His compassionate and merciful acts. But they did not find any of it lovely. They did not find God lovely enough to seek friendship with Him.

But Abraham did. And so did Rahab the prostitute. Interesting examples from complete opposite ends of the socio-economic spectrum. And yet both put what was most dear to them on the line, entrusting it to Him without qualification or reservation.

How were they able to do this? They found God more lovely. Not more useful. Friends are not sought for their utility but for their loveliness.

And the gospel tells us this: God put what was most dear to Him on the line, entrusting his Son to us - knowing that He might be slain? No. He did so knowing that he would be slain. And why did he do that? Is it because we were lovely? No. We were yet sinners.  The gospel truth is that His act makes us lovely - more loved than we can dare to hope for despite being more sinful than we can dare to imagine.

Such knowledge ought to give us courage to confront our doubts and fears, rather than suppress them, and have real confidence.

Middle Class Spirituality

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Recap: James 2:1-17 Unlike Paul who in his letters break down the Gospel and tell you what it is, James assumes the Gospel, and tells you what your life will look like if you believe/trust in the Gospel. If you don't realize this, you can become pretty discouraged in your reading of his letter. So... let's review:

What is the Gospel?

To understand the Gospel, you got to understand sin. The essence of sin is self-obsession – the substituting of myself for God, serving as my own Savior and Lord, putting myself where only God deserves to be.

God, in the person of Jesus, reversed the substitution by substituted us with himself by taking our place on the cross, and exchanging his perfect record for us. That substitution is offered to us as a gift. That’s good news for the poor in heart...

"Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?" (James 2:5)

...but bad news for those who are "middle class" in their spirituality who refuse to accept what they cannot earn for themselves, or have someone else pay what they can't pay for themselves.

Out of a 'grateful remembering' of this substitution , Christians repent not only of their sins, but of their self-righteousness as well - realizing that mere moral effort and mere feelings of remorse, may restrain the heart, but it won't truly change the heart. Such efforts may ‘jury rigs’ the heart to produce moral behavior, but it won't endure the trials we experience in the wilderness of life.

Now onto our chapter. James writes,

"My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" (James 2:1-4)

The gospel reminds us that Christ exchanged his perfect righteousness for our "shabby" righteousness. And to the degree you and I understand and appreciate the cosmic lopsidedness of this substitution, to the degree we understand how Jesus became the poor man, how he became the foul, revolting one, who was cast out, so you and I can smell like a rose, to the degree we understand how he lost his reputation so that you and I can have the "honorable name" (James 2:7), to the degree we understand how he was judged so that you and I can have God’s mercy, to the degree we have beheld the beauty of Jesus losing his beauty for us....we are going to do justice and mercy not because you and I have to, but because we want to. And that's how we will become a people who can build a community of justice and mercy in this city.

Freedom: the Right Restrictions

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Recap: James 1:18-27 Probably there are no questions more relevant in the "wilderness" of life than whether God is truly good, and whether we matter to Him. James gives the early Christian community a series of tests to confirm that we are loved - one of those test has to do with how we accept God's word. Those of the Beloved see the "perfect law" not as restrictions to our freedom, but the right restrictions necessary for our freedom to realize our true self and real nature e.g., like water is to a fish.

Thus, God's children willingly submit to God's word, with purity, with humility, and a willingness to be shaped by it. They see it as the owner’s manual of their heart, the owner’s manual of their soul, and the only way that they will ever truly be free.

James - new teaching series

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Pain and suffering is part of the landscape we find in the "wilderness" motif of life. What are we to do? How are we to respond? "Pure joy" is how James puts it. He says, "Consider it pure joy." The Christian expects troubles and has a deep joy even in the face of them, but it's not the masochistic "no-pain-no-gain" enjoyment of suffering, nor the hedonistic "this- too-shall-pass' avoidance or even "count-your-blessings / it's-all-in-your-mind" denial of suffering.

Christians rejoice IN suffering, not FOR the suffering, or rejoice in the anticipation of getting OUT of the suffering. But how do we do that? Deep suffering often leads us to question God's character, as opposed to being comforted by it. Truth is, we don't have the intellectual capacity to reconcile real, intense, suffering with the goodness of God. James knows this. We begin to wrestle with the thought that maybe God is not good. Perhaps what I thought were "tests" are actually temptations from a God who is actually evil - or at least evil sometimes?

It makes sense that James encourages us to begin by praying for wisdom - wisdom to persevere and endure in suffering, not wisdom to fix or escape from it. Wisdom to apprehend what we cannot comprehend. Wisdom to trust, versus wisdom to understand. Wisdom to trust that the tests/trials come from a Father, who does not change like shifting shadows, who consistently works all things TOGETHER for our good, unearthing what we really trust in, so we can replant ourselves in the 'lap' of the One we long for - who is good and generous with his love.

Wilderness - Psalm 81

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“If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways...with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.” (from Psalm 81) Psalm 81 recounts the wilderness experience of God's people before they entered the Promised Land. The wilderness is a very important theme in the bible. God decrees the Hebrew people to make an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem to remember their wanderings in the desert in an event called the Feast of Tabernacles. Why? Because he wants his people to have the storyline of ‘wandering in the wilderness’ in their hearts and mind as the paradigm from which to understand their lives, from which to understand their existence and the things that happen. Keep in mind that when Near Eastern culture talks about a wilderness it is referring to the desert - a desolate place that cannot sustain human life. The only reason why the Israelites did not die was because of the miraculous intervention of God.

We too have been rescued out of slavery, like the Hebrews, and are wandering in the wilderness, still wandering in the desert, on the way to the promised land. And just as the physical desert cannot support human life, this world (in the condition that we see it) could never support, sustain or fulfill our deepest longing, our deepest needs, our deepest desires. The world will never satisfy. Never give us what we need. As Marie Antoinette (Queen of France) would say, “Nothing tastes.”

But there is a rock in the wilderness, meaning what? It's often in the wilderness we bump into God. it's in the wilderness where our abstract beliefs of God often become an existential face-to-face reality. And in that rock is not just water to sustain us, but honey to sweeten our lives, meaning what? It is possible for the wilderness to turn us into sweet people - but only if we pass the test of listening and submitting. What hope is there for us to pass such a test? What will keep us from becoming sour? from discouragement? from burnout? from the fear of being swallowed up in the wilderness?

That brings us to our final point: Jesus is the rock. In shocking surprise, when God told Moses to get the rod, instead of coming down on Israel's rebellion (as he did with Egypt), God provides for their need - despite their rebellion. What happened? Did God compromise on his character? Was justice compromised? No. It was diverted to a future time where he would 'pay' it Himself in Christ Jesus. Is God made him sin, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. In other words the rod came down on him - the rod that I deserved, the rod that you deserved.

Moreover, Jesus not only took the rod of justice, but passed in 40 days what Israel failed to do in 40 years. And he passed the 'test of obedience' not as our example (though he is an example to follow), but as our substitute. What that means is that when I believe in Jesus, that he died for me (took the rod), when I say, ‘Father accept me because of what Jesus has done' (passing the test), God treats Jesus as if he’d failed in the wilderness, and he treats me as if I passed.

And what that means now is that I no longer have to be afraid of the wilderness. He doesn’t punish me in my failures. He gives me water. He gives me honey. He’s leading me to the land of promise. He’s taking me to the place where there will be no sorrows. He’s going to get me there - faster or slower depending on how much I obey him, but regardless.

Confession - Psalm 32

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Confession. There is a striking difference between our culture's view of confession, and a Biblical worldview. We either confess to get God off our back, or we confess so that God can "cover our back." Why do we need confession? shame and a desire to hide are conditions we all share - either we will cover our shame ourselves, or we will allow God to cover us. Ps. 32 describes our attempts as being insufficient - only God can truly cover us.

How do we confess? We break the silence and "acknowledge" our sin to God. We cease to cover our own shame, trusting that God can do a much better job.

Who are we confessing to? God is described as a rescuer from "mighty waters", as a hiding place, protector, or one who surrounds us with shouts of deliverance.

Just as God covered Adam and Eve when they disobeyed by slaying an animal, so he covers our shame by slaying His own Son.

[Preached this Sunday by Gabe Molinaro]

Contentment Without

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Ps 131:1 My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. 2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. 3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore. Our sense of contentment is usually circumstantial. When our circumstances meet our expectations we often feel content. Knowing this we often lower our expectations and desires, or even resign from them all together to escape disappointment and anxiety.

Contentment for David however was relational. He found contentment despite his circumstance because he anchored it in his relationship with God. David writes: “O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.”

He invokes the image of a baby with its mother. Like an infant frantically rooting for her mother’s nipple, we often frantically root for that one ultimate thing to give us soul-rest. “But I have calmed and quieted my soul,” David says, “like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”

Like a weaned child, no longer wanting his mother’s milk, David was content without that which used to seem indispensable. He testifies to his freedom in three areas of his life which modern folks today often find indispensable for our meaning and validation.

Freedom and autonomy: David writes, “My heart is not proud,” Social status: David writes, “O LORD, my eyes are not haughty;” Vocation: David writes, “I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.”

As good as his independence, status and calling was, he no longer rooted for them desperately like an infant – as if they were ultimate. His desires grew up. It reminds me of what C.S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory:

“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Beach Sunday Aug 29

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Just a reminder that this Sunday we will be meeting at Golden Gardens for a picnic AND to celebrate baptisms and baby dedications.

Please feel free to invite friends and family for this last picnic of the summer.

Again here are the details

Where: Golden Gardens park Time: 11:00 a.m. What to bring: Meat to grill, side, salad, dessert or drink to share, blankets and/or chairs for sitting, frisbees, balls, etc.

Sanctuary will provide, plates, napkins, plasticware

Susan susu2005@gmail.com

Anger That Pays It Forward

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Psalm 137: 8 O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! 9 Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!

Modern people have a difficult time handling the anger in the Psalms. Eugene Peterson writes, "People who are looking for a spiritual soporific don’t pray the Psalms, or at least don’t pray them for very long....."

There is a realism in how the Psalmist processes his anger. He takes his feeling and he opens them up in all their reality and looks at God in all of his reality. His emotions actually drive him to God in a new way, and His presence changes his emotions. Religion tends to say, stifle your feelings, especially those negative feelings. Get on top of them with goodness. You are a good person. Secularism tends to look at venting, and expressing your feelings, as an end in itself. The Psalms doesn't say, stuff your feelings or ventilate. It doesn't say stifle your feelings or bow to them. It doesn’t say be under-aware of them or over-aware /awed by them. You PRAY them. You let your emotional reality drive you to the reality of God and if the reality of God is true it ought to change your reality.

One more thing:

Jesus weeps the city as he heads into Jerusalem for the last time. Psalm 137 is on his mind.  Little do the people know that this Psalm prophecies destruction of their city [which was fulfilled in 70AD].  But there's more on the mind of Jesus.  He himself is to be 'dashed on the the rocks' FOR us.

What does this teach us?  Anger demands justice from a just God.  The cross, however, shows us more than a just God who exacts payment.  It shows us a just God who pays for it. He took the judgment upon himself by becoming sin.   The Father had dashed his little One against the cross for the sins of all humanity.

Anger on this side of the cross goes beyond demanding justice.  It pays for the injustice owed  - paying 'grace' forward.  It wills the good of our enemies.  Jesus did from the cross for us.  "Forgive them," he prayed.

Restricted for Freedom

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“Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.- Ps 119:8

The assumption is that if you are not serving God, you are serving something else. If you are not a slave to the spiritual authority of God, you are under the spiritual authority of something else already. The opposite of Christianity isn't atheism. It's Idolatry.

Euripides, the greek tragedy writer:

"No one is truly free, they are a slave to wealth, fortune, the law, or other people restraining them from acting according to their will."

What is astounding here is this Psalmist is NOT saying, I gave up my freedom to serve you, he says, I now walk at liberty because I sought your precepts. I'm free BECAUSE I'm your servant. I used to be a slave to fear. Because there were certain things I thought I had to have. I used to be a slave to resentment, because I thought there were certain things I had to have. I used to be a slave to guilt. I could never measure up. But now that you are my master, nothing else masters me. Now that I serve you, nothing else orders me around. I can come and I can go. I have choices - finally!

Here's the point: Freedom is not a lack of restrictions. Freedom is finding the right restrictions. Restrictions that fit your being.

Q and then A

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Ps 42:5 - Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation 6 and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. The Psalmist was far away from his home (south) on the other side of the country (north) on some remote mountain top called Mt. Mizar.

It's interesting how in his 'thirst' for God he addressed his soul first before addressing God. And notice how he address his soul.

1. He listens to his soul. Asked his soul WHY. He pours out his soul. And only then does he... 2. Tell his soul to HOPE

Pour out your soul. Give your soul a chance to speak. Listen to it. You say, "I don't feel like there is anything there to pour out?" Then fine - talk about that. If nothing else, talk to God about how you are getting nothing out of it. If nothing else, talk to God about how much you miss him, or how much you don't miss him. If nothing else, talk to the absent God about his absence. Give your soul a chance to speak to you before you speak to it.

This is self-examination at a profound level, which allows the psalmist to see the things that he puts his hopes in, which are not going to be able to sustain his soul unless he hopes in God.

From Law to Love

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Sunday recap:  There are two kinds of prayer.  There’s calling prayer, and there’s answering prayer.   There’s the prayer where you start the conversation.  “God I need you. God I’m in trouble. God I hope your there.”  Those are all perfectly good. There is nothing wrong with calling prayer. But Psalm 1 is where it is because it’s indicating to us that the kind of prayer that grows us fastest and deepest is answering prayer.  That means prayer in response to something God has said in his Word - a prayer on the basis of listening to God say something.  Prayer that answers.  Prayer that lets him start the conversation, that let’s him choose the subject, that let’s him set the tone.  That kind of prayer takes you in towards him and your heart much faster than the other kind. That kind of prayer requires meditation.  Meditation is not bible study or praying your prayer list.  It’s a confluence of the two, it’s a bridge between the two, an overlap of the two.  You are listening, and reflecting, and communing with your own heart - thinking about the implications of God’s word until it begins to speak to you, affect you - so you can answer God with it.  That’s pretty important, and it’s not something that the average person has learned to do, nor does it come natural to us since it requires us to treat his word with authority in its entirety.

What do I mean?   If you have any kind of real relationship - you wrestle.  You come at each other.  You say, “I don’t think you are right.”  But if you don’t accept the bible in all its entirety, if you take out the parts that offend you, what you got is essentially a cartoon god - a god that can’t possibly wrestle with you - a god who is impotent - a god who can’t knock you down in any significant way. Buber puts it this way: unless the bible is law to you, it cannot be love.  Unless it can be authoritative it can’t prove to you what you don’t want to believe.

Praying the Psalms

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We continue in our study on the disciplines of grace - beginning with prayer.  Praying the Psalms teach us how to pray in three ways:  (1) Through imitation and response.  Like a child who acquires his/her language from his/her parents, we too, acquire the language by listening to and responding to our Heavenly Father in his Word.  (2) With depth. We tend to want to deny the rawness and reality of our feelings, especially the darkness of them. We stuff. Or we vent in the name of "self-expression." The Psalms does neither. They pray them into the presence of God. (3) With accuracy. Left to our selves, we will pray to a god - "cartoon god" - who speaks what we like hearing, or to the part of God that we manage to understand. There is a difference between praying to an unknown God whom we hope to discover in our praying, and praying to a known God revealed in Jesus Christ and his Word. Big difference.

Disciplined discipline

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Recap from Sunday: Intimacy between two people doesn't happen automatically. You begin as a rookie getting your basics down - like learning how to communicate. And once those basics get established, you begin to enjoy the power and beauty of a relationship. It's like a musician to his music. He wants to be intimate with the music he is playing, but until he gets his technique down he won't be able to fully enjoy the power and beauty of the piece he wants to play. Same thing with our relationship with God. In Psalm 71 we look at an older fellow says that from his youth he has relentlessly worked at three things. Notice where he uses the word, "continually."

1. He has continually taken refuge [rested] in God during times of distress (v.3) This has to do with how he has processed his suffering and disappointments. 2. He has continually praised God as an act of personal discipline (v.7) This practice has to do with daily prayer. 3. He has continually put his hope in God for his future. This is the most foundational of all. He does rigorous self-examination regarding the fundamental trusts of his heart. He is careful to know what he actually rests in and lives for, and he continually re-focuses his soul's deepest hopes on God.

He recounts that he has never let anything turn him aside from these disciplines. Why? Because of duty sake? No. For beauty.

The courage to stand still

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Recap from Sunday:  To be known is to stand still and let the Other approach you. Both the elder brother and younger brother have difficulty standing still. They rather be noticed, not known. The elder brother types tend to move towards the Other by being "good". If they aren't they believe the Other won't find them worthwhile to move towards them. They are the people-pleasing types. They can't handle a moment of stillness in a relationship in fear that the Other may get bored and walk away. The younger brother types tend to move away from the Other by being "bad." It's the only way for them to feel a sense of self lest they be swallowed up and suffocated by the Other. Conformity is a death knell.

We can stand still with God and with others because of the merit of we have in Christ Jesus.