When I asked a couple months ago for suggestions of what parables we should preach from, one suggestion was the parable of the Shrewd Manager. The person who suggested I preach from this parable said it was difficult to understand and that is certainly true. If you go online and look for sermons about this parable, you will see preachers struggling to make sense of what seems to be bad teaching.

An employee is suspected of cheating and is fired. But before he leaves he meets with all the people who owe his boss money and reduces the amount they owe so they will help him when he needs a job in the future. This parable could be a lesson for all employers: When you fire someone, do it immediately and do not give them time to work against you.

The amazing thing is that, as Jesus told the story, the boss congratulated the man he was dismissing for having been shrewd by using money to prepare for his future.

So, is Jesus telling us that we can rob a bank and give the money to the church and the poor as a way of preparing to have a better welcome into heaven?

Barbara Tuchman is probably my favorite historian and her first book I read was A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century. One of the things I remember about this book was the repeated experience of some wealthy nobleman who lived a decadent life, gained wealth at the expense of others, had mistresses, used and abused others, and then upon his death he would leave a castle to the Catholic church for a monastery or nunnery so he would be treated well when he came to his judgment before God. This was the teaching of the church and it encouraged these grand gifts of estates.

Does the parable of the Shrewd Manager support this practice?

Let’s take a look at the story.
“There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. 2 And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’

At the end of the story the manager is called dishonest. Maybe it was reported that he had been taking bribes. Maybe he had been mismanaging his master’s resources. Maybe he sold to a friend at a lower price than he could have received elsewhere. Maybe he did not sell wheat when he should have and it spoiled. Whatever the action, whether incompetence or dishonesty, he was not doing what he should have been doing.

And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.

The manager received the news with shock and dismay. What was he going to do? He was not used to physical labor. He was probably too old for this. The change from being manager of the rich man’s estate to begging on the street would be too much to bear. So he devised a plan.

I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ 7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’

He called in the men who owed his master money and settled their debts at a fraction of what they owed. The first debt was 100 measures of oil, about 3,300 liters which was the yield from 150 olive trees. This was not an insignificant debt. It was worth about 1,000 denarii which was the equivalent of three years salary for the daily worker.

The second debt was 100 measures of wheat, about 1,100 bushels or 39,000 liters which was the yield from about 100 acres of grain. This was a larger debt, about 3,000 denarii, eight to ten years of salary for the daily worker.

The manager settled the first debt for half of what was owed and gave a 20% reduction on the second debt. This was unexpected good news for them and the manager hoped that they would view him kindly and perhaps offer him employment when he lost his job.

8 The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.

Why would the master commend the dishonest manager for taking his money? What is the action of the manager that makes him dishonest?

Is his dishonesty related to the charges in verse 1 that caused the master to dismiss him? Or is it his settling of the debts that make him dishonest?

There are three possibilities: The first is that the manager stole from his master by settling the debts at a fraction of what was owed.

The second is that the manager removed interest charges from the bills in accordance with Mosaic law, bringing his master into compliance with the law. (Exodus 22:25)
If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest.

The third possibility is that the manager removed from the debts his own commission, sacrificing his own money, not his master’s.

I find this third possibility the most appealing. In a business, collecting debts is difficult and when people stretch out the payment of what is owed to three months, half a year, a year, it puts a lot of strain on the financial stability of the business. The money that is owed is needed to purchase what has to be bought to sustain the business. So when the manager collected the debts, the master benefitted by having cash brought into his business. The sacrifice was made by the manager who gave up his commission. And perhaps he might have lost this anyway if he was dismissed. So he gave up what he might have lost anyway to gain a future hope of employment.

Another reason I like this third possibility is that the action of the manager makes no sense if he was defrauding his master. The men whose debt was settled at a reduced price would not want to hire a man to manage their accounts if he had demonstrated that he was willing to steal from his master. But if they saw that he had made a personal sacrifice, they would see this as a positive quality and be more interested in him as a manger for their estates.

Then Jesus gave the moral lesson from this parable.
For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

Jesus observed that businessmen use their money to take risks with the hope of making more money and said this is what the shrewd manager did. He took a risk with his money that he hoped would pay off and the master commended him for taking that risk. From this he drew a spiritual analogy. Those who seek God should use their resources in a way that will please God so that when the end comes and all the wealth of the world slips away, they will be received in heaven.

So let’s talk about the proper use of wealth.

If you have been here the past few Sundays, you will remember that I talked about wealth on April 1 when I preached from the parable of the Rich Fool. Why am I talking about wealth again?

The simple answer is that I talk a lot about wealth because Jesus did. Sixteen of the thirty-eight parables, 42%,  are concerned with how to handle money and possessions. In the Gospels, an amazing one out of ten verses deal directly with the subject of money. The Christian New Testament offers 500 verses on prayer, less than 500 verses on faith, but more than 2,000 verses on money and possessions.

Why did Jesus spend so much of his teaching talking about money and possessions?

Godfrey Davis wrote a biography about the Duke of Wellington, the hero of the Battle of Waterloo. In talking about why he had been able to write such an insightful biography, Davis said, “I had an advantage over earlier biographers. I found an old account ledger that showed how the duke spent his money. It was a far better clue to what he thought was really important than the reading of his letters or speeches.”

It is easy to talk about what we believe but more difficult to use our money to support what we believe. We can be faithful in attending church and we can talk about how wonderful it is to be a follower of Jesus, but when it comes time to spend our money, then we find out what we really believe.

Martin Luther observed: “There are three conversions necessary: the conversion of the heart, mind and the purse.”

Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount: (Luke 12:34)
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

If the purse has not been converted, than the heart and mind are not really serious.

Has your purse been converted? Let me mention what Jesus is not teaching in this parable and then talk about how much we should give to the church.

First, Jesus is not teaching that you can buy your way into heaven.

That seems to be what Jesus is teaching, but scripture has to be read as a whole and one teaching of Jesus cannot contradict his other teachings. To understand the parable, it is helpful to read another passage in the Bible that is often misinterpreted: (James 2:14 )
What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?

We are not saved by our actions and we are not saved by how we use our money. But if we have faith, our lives will increasingly be more like Jesus. Our deeds will show that we have faith. The fruit of the Spirit will be evidenced in us. And if we grow in faith, money’s hold on us will lessen and we will become more generous.

So if we are not using our money to please God, it shows that money still has too much power over us and our hearts are not completely given to God.

A second lesson is that God does not want us to tithe, he wants us to be generous with our money.
9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

Jesus taught that we should use money in a way that pleases God. So how much are we required to give to the church? 10%?

The concept of tithing is well developed in the Old Testament and there are actually three tithes mentioned in the Old Testament. 10% was used to go to the Temple and make the annual sacrifices. 10% was given to the priests and Levites and every three years 10% was given to the widows and the poor. This works out to 23.3% per year, not just 10%. To meet one’s obligations to God, tithing was necessary.

So in Malachi 3 we read that God’s blessing was withheld because the tithe was not given.
Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’
“In tithes and offerings.  9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me.  10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.

God’s blessing was withheld because Israel did not pay the tithe it was required to pay. This was the law of God. To be a follower of God, you had to pay the tithe. God gave you all you had and you were required to give back one tenth.

Now we move to the New Testament and I have some good news for you. You are no longer under the law. In Christ, you have been set free from the law. In the New Testament, the concept of tithing 10% is abolished.

What are you required to put in the collection plate to fulfill your obligation to God? Nothing! You no longer have an obligation to God. God has given you a gift you cannot repay and your response needs to come from the heart, not from an obligation. You are not required to give anything.

But remember what James wrote in his letter:
What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?

Someone who says they are a follower of Jesus but holds on tightly to their purse has really not yet been converted. Generosity will be the result of a living relationship with Jesus. If you are open to the work of the Holy Spirit in you, it is impossible that you will not become more generous, taking on the heart of Jesus for those in the world. The New Testament asks us to do more, not less, than the Old Testament. So if you are not giving 10% or more of all you receive, you need to question yourself to see why it is your purse is not more open.

The solution is not to give more money our of a sense of duty or obligation. What you need is a heart more in love with Jesus and when that is the case, your purse will open up naturally.

Let me present three reasons for being a cheerful giver to God’s work.

The first is rather simple. We give to show gratitude. We can never repay what God has done for us but we can show our gratitude.

In Luke 17 is recorded an experience Jesus had that came to my mind.
11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.  12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance  13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.  16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?  18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”  19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Jesus is walking to Jerusalem when ten lepers, keeping their distance from him as proscribed by law, called out to him to be healed. Jesus saw them and told them to go show themselves to the priests and when they obeyed, they were cleansed, healed from their leprosy. Ten lepers were healed but only one of them came back to thank Jesus and praise God.

Ten lepers received a free gift – healing from a disease that made them social outcasts from their families and communities. How much would they be willing to pay for healing from this disease? Everything they had. What could they offer to Jesus except their gratitude?

And yet only one out of the ten came back to thank Jesus and praise God.

Why did that leper return? Was he obligated to do so? No. Was his healing dependent on his coming back to give thanks? No. The other nine did not return to give thanks but were still healed. But the leper who returned came back out of gratitude and received in the process what the other nine never learned, that it was faith in God that brought healing, not the magic of Jesus.

Why should we give to the work of God in the world? Because we are grateful for what God has done for us and because when we give, we grow in our understanding of faith and the ways of God working in the world. We give out of gratitude.

How grateful are you for what God has done for you? Let that be your guide as you give.

A second reason for giving to the work of God in the world is that in doing so we are acting wisely, preparing for the future.

This is the teaching from the parable of the Shrewd Manager. Jesus taught with this parable that we are to use our resources in our present situation to prepare for our future situation.

Picture yourself on the Titanic. The ship has struck an iceberg and is sinking. People are struggling to get into the lifeboats. The ship has begun to tilt as the stern of the ship takes in water so walking along the corridors and the deck of the ship is difficult. It won’t be long before the ship goes under and if you are not in a lifeboat by that time, you will most likely drown in the frigid Atlantic waters.

Being a conscientious person, you race through the hallway to see if there is someone you can save and bring to the lifeboats. As you race down the hall, you see a man ransacking the rooms, filling his pockets with gold and silver and jewelry he has found in the cabins. He is dragging a suitcase loaded with money and watches and other valuables. He is delighted at this treasure he has discovered. “I’m a rich man! Look at all I have!” he shouts at you and then races on to the next cabin to get some more. You try to persuade him that he should abandon all that and try to save himself but to no avail. His heart is so set on this treasure he has found he is incapable of thinking of the future.

This is the flip side of the parable Jesus taught. What good does it do you to accumulate money and wealth in this life when death is approaching that will take all you have accumulated away from you? The wise person uses what he or she has accumulated to prepare for the future, life after death. Jesus said (Luke 16:9)
I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

Where are you accumulating treasure? It doesn’t matter whether you have it or are lusting for it. It doesn’t matter whether you have a lot or a little. Where are you accumulating treasure? If your treasure is in this world, then you are a fool, like the man on the Titanic gathering up treasure while the ship is sinking.

Don’t end up being bankrupt when your life in this world is over. Build up treasure now in heaven by using what God has given you here in ways that are pleasing to him.

Why give to the work of God in the world? Because we ought to be grateful to God for what he has done for us. Because it is a wise person who uses what he or she has in this world to prepare for the future. And thirdly, we give to the work of God in the world because we receive from God blessing when we use our money and possessions in ways that please him.

I read earlier a passage from Malachi 3 in which Israel was cursed because they did not bring a tithe as they were instructed to do. But I left off the last verse of that section. After the Lord says he is being robbed because people are not bringing him their tithe, he says:

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

There is a theme in Scripture that God’s blessing of us is in some measure dependent on how we use the money and possessions he has entrusted us with. We see this in the last verse of the passage from Malachi 3. We see this also in the teaching Jesus gave after his telling of the parable of the shrewd manager.
10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.  11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?  12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

What is Jesus talking about here when he refers to “little” and “much”? That becomes apparent when you read verse 11. So verse ten can be read, Whoever can be trusted with worldly wealth can also be trusted with true riches, spiritual blessing, and whoever is dishonest with worldly wealth will also be dishonest with spiritual truths.

If you are not using the money and possessions God has given you in a way that pleases him, you are depriving yourself of the spiritual blessing God wants to give you.

Do you want to be blessed by God? Do you want to receive in your life God’s blessing? Then use your money and possessions in a way that pleases God.

I have talked before about the power money and possessions have over us. When we share our money and possessions, when we give them away, we shatter the power they have over us and make room for the joy of Christian life. Our giving becomes a joyous act, not a religious obligation.

This is why I focus in my preaching on growing in our understanding of the love of God for us. Money follows our heart and when our heart is given to God, our money will follow.

Be a cheerful giver. I remember a conversation I had with my father and the accountant for our company some years ago. We were having lunch and discussing this subject of giving to the church. Annie and I have given at least 10% ever since we were married and so the accountant began to ask me if a 10% tithe should be taken out before or after taxes. He asked what I would do if I had a tax-deferred investment? Would I tithe from that? He went on and on and finally I said to him, “You’re missing the point. It is not a matter of how much I need to give to fulfill my religious duty. It is a question of how much I can give because of the joy of participating in what God is doing in the world.”

This is what will happen if you are not generous with what God has given you. You will miss out on the blessing of God he has in mind for you, the joy of participating with him in his work in the world. You are the one who will suffer, not God.

John Wesley preached a famous sermon in which he called on Christians to earn all you can. Make as much money as possible. Secondly, save all you can. How little of the money you earned do you need to live on. And thirdly, he challenged Christians to give all you can.

10% is not a limit or a goal. “How much can I give?” is the question, not, “What do I have to give?”

I challenge you to open your heart to God and let go of the treasures of this world to which you cling so tightly.

And God challenges you as well.
Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

Did you know there is a website: I Love Mustard? There are only 59 members so it has not exactly gone viral. The site promotes itself this way: Read true personal stories, chat & get advice, support, and help from a group of 59 people who all say I Love Mustard. And then there are nine testimonies. Here are two of them.

First of all, one of my nicknames is “mustard”, because I love it soo much. I put it on everything, and people started calling me “mustard” to tease me. I think ketchup is just alright, and I absolutely HATE mayonnaise! I’ll basically try anything with mustard, within reason. And people who eat french fries with ketchup (which is the norm), don’t know what they’re missing… mustard is way better!!! I’m a sucker for regular yellow mustard. I also like honey mustard, and spicy mustard. However, I do NOT like Dijon mustard. Just my opinion. Mmmm… mustard :)

And then there is this one:
Many times I find myself in the need of a snack. What better to eat than mustard? I just rip open a little packet of yellow mustard and insert it between my teeth. Then in a slow fashion I’ll squeeze the living daylights out of that mustard packet causing the mustard to flow from the packet to the inside of my mouth. When that mustard hits my tongue it’s like a fireworks show of emotions that my tastebuds go through. My word, from excitement to complete joy, the mustard makes my day.

I get the impression these people all work for one of the companies who manufacture mustard.

It takes 20 hours to manufacture yellow mustard and 32 hours to manufacture Dijon mustard. The extra time needed comes from 12 hours of fermentation that gives Dijon mustard its strong, distinctive flavor. But all mustard comes from mustard seeds and that is the source of this morning’s parable. (Matthew 13:31–32)
He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”

First of all, let me get rid of some misconceptions. The mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds. The seeds of orchids are so small they are like particles of dust. But the mustard seed was the smallest seed sown by Palestinian farmers. The seed sprouts and grows quickly but does not grow into a tree. It is the largest of garden plants, growing up to four or five meters and it becomes like a tree. It is not a tree, but compared to other crops grown by Palestinian farmers, this plant was most like a tree and birds could perch in its branches.

The point Jesus was making with this parable is that a tiny, tiny seed grows into a large plant which becomes a blessing to the creatures who use it and he used this to describe the kingdom of heaven – or as Mark and Luke call it, the kingdom of God.

When Jesus traveled around Palestine telling people about the kingdom of God, what did people hear? They certainly did not hear what we hear when we read about the proclamation of Jesus. (Mark 1:14–15)
Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”

What we hear is that the kingdom of God entered into history and is continually advancing as more and more people are brought into the kingdom. We are waiting for the end of time when Jesus will judge the world and we will all come into his kingdom for eternity.

What did the Jews of Palestine hear when Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is near”? What they heard was that the Roman occupiers of Palestine would be kicked out and the Messiah would rule over Israel as it had been under King David.

They heard that it would come all at once in a supernatural return to Israel’s former glory.

So the surprise in the parable of the Mustard Seed might be that the growth of the kingdom of God would be gradual, over time and not immediate. Jesus taught in John 12:24:
I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

A seed is planted, it dies and then the kingdom comes.

Let me make four observations about the kingdom of God from this parable.

First, the kingdom of God grew quickly.

N.T. Wright, a British New Testament scholar, talks about the striking speed of growth of the early Christian church. I will paraphrase what he wrote: ‘In AD 25 there is no such thing as Christianity: merely a young hermit in the Judean wilderness, and his somewhat younger cousin who dreams dreams and sees visions. By AD 125, just one hundred years later, the Roman emperor has established an official policy in relation to the punishment of Christians. In one hundred years Christians went from a small handful to so many followers of Jesus that the Roman emperor was forced to deal with them.

In AD 125, when the makeup of the world is presented to the emperor Hadrian, he is told there are four races in the world, Barbarians, Greeks, Jews and Christians. Pliny speaks of the poison of Christianity spreading into villages and countryside. Ignatius finds churches wherever he goes throughout Asia Minor. Tacitus, in the tone of voice of one who has come across a dead rat in his water-tank, comments that all the worst features of world culture find their way to Rome sooner or later.’

In just one hundred years the followers of Jesus grew from being a problem to the Chief Priest and the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, to being a problem to the leader of the Roman empire, the greatest empire in the known world.

The kingdom of God grew quickly and it has grown consistently.

The church began with a hundred or so followers of Jesus and exploded to 3,000 men on the day of Pentecost. At the time Peter preached his sermon in the Temple, the number had grown to 5,000 men. There were now, including men, women and children, perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 members in this new church.

The church quickly spread around the Mediterranean Sea and in 100 AD there were perhaps 500,000 believers. In 1000 AD that number had doubled to 1,000,000. Five hundred years later in 1500 AD there was a fivefold increase to 5,000,000 followers of Jesus. Four hundred years later in 1900 there was an eightfold increase to 40,000,000. That number doubled in just fifty years, so that in 1950, the year I was born, there were 80,000,000 believers in Jesus. Thirty years later in 1980 that number had more than tripled to 275,000,000. The growth of the church has been exponential.

Today with a world population of 7,000,000,000 there are 840,000,000 Bible believing Christians. At the time of Jesus there was 1 follower of Jesus for every 250,000 people in the world. Today there is 1 follower of Jesus for every 8 people in the world.

Pentecostals, charismatics and evangelicals are together the fastest growing group of all world religions. They are growing at a rate of 3½ times the growth of the world’s population.

Despite discrimination and often violent persecution, the church grows. 14,000,000 Christians were martyred between 33AD and 1900 and yet the church expanded exponentially. In the 20th century, 26,000,000 Christians, almost twice as many as in all the preceding years of the church, were martyred and the church continues to grow at a rate of 3½ times the growth of the world’s population. The gates of Hell cannot overcome the church.

The church grew quickly, it has continued to grow steadily and the kingdom of God advances in every generation, never losing members.

Here on planet earth, church membership rises and falls. There are periods of time in church history when whole cultures have turned to Jesus and other times when the culture turns its back on anything to do with Jesus. Church organizations rise and fall. Churches are started and churches are closed, the buildings used for other purposes.

Where Christianity first started, in the Middle East, it is difficult to find Christians and the Christians who are there face discrimination and persecution. Paul made his missionary journeys, but two thousand years later, where are the Christians in the cities he visited?

Many of the denominations of the West that have been around for two or three centuries seem to be moving toward extinction. This is not new. At various points in church history, the church has seemed to be shrinking rather than growing.

The French philosopher Voltaire, in the 18th century, observed a church so weakened and ineffective that he confidently predicted that in a hundred years, Christianity would be extinct and the only Bibles would be found in museums. A hundred years later the French Bible Society was located in his house.

When Voltaire looked around there was good reason to make his prediction. Attendance in churches was declining. The influence of the church on society was minimal. The great awakening in Europe and the United States was now thirty years old.

Voltaire died in 1779 and eleven years later came the Second Great Awakening that once again breathed new life into the church.

Voltaire’s Scottish contemporary, the philosopher David Hume, said, “I see the twilight of Christianity.” His eyesight was not as good as he thought; what he thought was a sunset was actually a sunrise.

After listening to a visitor ranting against God, the Bible, the church and Christian doctrine for an hour while he worked on the man’s wagon, the blacksmith ceased his hammering, looked up, and quietly observed, “You know, this old anvil has worn out many a hammer.”

The persistent, constant, creative, powerful, life-giving work of God has overcome obstacle after obstacle over the years and the kingdom of God has added to its numbers in generation after generation. When a follower of Jesus dies, the church on earth loses a member, but not the kingdom of God.

The church is moving forward. While the church in the West is weakening, the church in Africa and Asia is expanding. God had not yet finished his work. This is not to say that there are not lots of problems and weaknesses in the church, but there have always been problems and weaknesses in the church. The church is moving forward. It is inevitably and irresistibly moving forward.

God continues to work his great miracle of building and growing the church. It is our responsibility not to give up hope. It is our responsibility to continue to pray, continue to study the Bible, continue to share our faith, continue to listen to the will of God for our lives. It is our privilege to work with Jesus for the growth of the church.

We do not give up. We go not give in to despair. We do not retreat into discouragement. We step out with faith to give a good answer for our faith. We step out to love people in the name of Jesus. We move forward with the inevitable progress of the church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

The fourth observation from this parable of the mustard seed is that our one act of obedience has far greater consequences than we can imagine.

Every Christmas Annie and I watch It’s A Wonderful Life, a 1946 movie starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. It is a movie about a man who is discouraged and wants to end his life. But an angel comes to help him and when the Jimmy Stewart character, George Bailey, says he wishes he had never been born, the angel gives him his wish and Bailey gets to see the world in which he had never lived. The pharmacist is a drunk who served time in jail for poisoning someone because George was not there to spot the mistake. A ship is sunk in WWII because George’s brother was not there to shoot down the plane attacking the ship because George had not been there to save him when he fell through the ice when he was a young boy. It is a great movie and makes the point that our lives have a greater effect on others than we imagine.

Thirteen years ago at a missions conference in our church in Princeton, New Jersey, a couple staying in our house told me about a church in Rabat looking for a pastor and thought I would be a good fit. While my response was not immediate excitement (the thought of moving to Morocco seemed far to exotic too me), I exchanged emails with Mike Russon who was chairman of the board and was invited to come for a visit in September 1999. I came, loved the people and the church, was invited to come, and arrived on Monday, January 10 of 2000.

I have often said that these years have been the best years of my life and that is true. But my decision to come was not only good for me. Many lives have been affected because of my act of obedience. Because I obeyed God’s call, there are churches and individuals who have come to Morocco to love people and help with the needs of Moroccans. Because of my act of obedience, there are people who have decided to become followers of Jesus and others who have been encouraged to renew their life with Jesus. I have the smallest glimpse of how God has worked through my obedience to him and I anticipate that in heaven we will delight in seeing all the ways his creative power worked through us.

This does not mean I am indispensable in God’s plan. If I had chosen not to come to Morocco, God would have found another way to accomplish his purposes, but I did obey and have had the privilege of being a part of his work.

Out of my act of obedience, many have been blessed. This is my story and it is also our story. The consequences of our decisions to resist sin, to obey God’s call have implications far beyond our own lives. We decide not just for ourselves but for all those who will be affected by our decisions.

When I first became a follower of Jesus, I read Psalm 40 and had a very strong image of my life with Jesus.

Psalm 40:1–3
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the Lord.

My image was of floating in a stream and at some points it was relaxing and pleasurable, floating with the current, enjoying the view. At other times I came into the rapids and I plummeted over waterfalls and was dashed against the rocks. In the midst of one of these moments, Jesus picked me up and set my feet on a rock.

I saw life from a different perspective now that I was no longer being swept along by the current and it was wonderful. But sometimes the rock seemed so small and slippery I worried I would slip off and fall back into the current. Over time the rock grew as my faith grew and became more stable and eventually became large enough that I could invite someone to stand up with me. And today the rock is a small island with trees and grass where others can come and be encouraged.

This is how God works in our lives. He loves us so we can love others. He blesses us so we can bless others. Out of the obedience of our lives, he provides space for others to come along and receive his blessing.

On this Easter morning, as you are encouraged and renewed in your faith, I want to remind you that you do not live alone. You have been brought into a community and God wants to use your life to bring others into this community.

As you resist temptation, you do this for yourself but also for all those in the future who will be blessed by your obedience to Jesus.

As you grow in your faith, you will be blessed and many others will be blessed through you.

I am a follower of Jesus. You are a follower of Jesus. But we are the community of faith that God is using to bless the world and expand his kingdom. Even today there are new sons and daughters being brought into the kingdom of God. Jesus was the seed that was planted and we are the fruit of his sacrifice. May God continue to bless us by working through us and may we be privileged to see, at least in part, the blessing that is coming through our obedience to him.

Today is April 1, April Fool’s Day. This is an unofficial day celebrated in much of the world, a day when the goal is to play a prank on someone else. In my family, someone would always sneak down to the kitchen during the night and put sugar in the salt shaker and salt in the sugar bowl. You had to remember that it was April Fool’s day and check the taste before putting salt in your coffee or breakfast cereal and sugar on your eggs.

The BBC played a great April Fool’s Day joke in 1957 when they aired a short piece about the spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland. They reported that in the fall of 1956 there had been a bumper crop and it showed young women harvesting the strands of spaghetti off the trees, laying them out on the ground to dry, and then celebrating the harvest with a bowl of freshly harvested spaghetti. They mentioned that it took years of patient breeding to produce the uniform lengths of spaghetti. It finished the clip with: “For those who love this dish, there’s nothing like home-grown spaghetti.”

I remember watching this clip at a drive-in movie when I was a young boy. It left quite an impression on me and it was year’s later that I read an article about the hoax. It was not difficult to fool me. I once had green peppers stuffed with hamburger at a friend’s house and asked his mother how they grew the green peppers with the hamburger inside. It must be genetic, because my father, when he was a young boy, planted chicken bones and then waited for the chickens to grow.

I did not intentionally pick the parable of the Rich Fool for this day, it just worked out that way. But in this parable, Jesus was not talking about playing a joke on someone.

A man came to hear Jesus teach and decided to ask for help. His brother was not being just in sharing the inheritance with him and he wanted Jesus to tell his brother to do the right thing. (Luke 12:13–21)
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

For a year and a half before I moved to Morocco, my mother refused to speak to me. She was an unhappy woman and she continually blamed others for her unhappiness. Over the years my sisters and I took turns bearing the brunt of her disaffection and this was my turn. She had threatened over the years to cut off one or the other of us off from our inheritance, but during this time when her only sister died and she settled the estate, it was my turn and I was cut out of the inheritance. In addition, as part of the settlement all of her grandchildren were given $10,000 – except for my two daughters who received nothing because they were my daughters.

I expected this from my mother but this also made me feel resentment toward my sisters. If one of them had been cut out of the inheritance, I would have shared what I received with them. But only one of my sisters did that with me and I felt tremendously angry about this injustice and I still can feel remnants of this anger today. I haven’t thought about this for years but the context for this week’s parable brought it up once again.

Inheritance issues create huge tensions in families. It may be money or there may be a table or a chair or a collection of stamps and all the children want it. So there is a fight and the children may end up not talking to each other, having a divorce among siblings.

When families fight over material possessions the issue is most often not simply about the material possession. After the fact, it seems strange to have become so emotional about a table or a lamp. What makes these fights about inheritance so powerful is that we want to be valued and loved and when we do not receive a fair portion of the inheritance, we feel devalued, unloved, and disrespected. This is what I experienced.

So I am sympathetic to the man who came to Jesus to get help because his brother was not being just in sharing the inheritance with him. (Luke 12:13–21)
“Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

This was not a strange request. This is what prophets did. They traveled from town to town and settled disputes. This is what Moses did for Israel when he led them through the wilderness. This is what Samuel was doing when he met Saul and anointed him to be king. Whenever there was a dispute, it was brought to the leader to settle. This man in the crowd decided Jesus was a prophet and so he made his request.

Normally Jesus showed a great deal of compassion to those who suffered and here there is a man who was suffering. The text does not give specifics about his situation, but I am assuming, because of the nature of inheritance, that he was not looking simply for the money. In addition to the money he was looking for justice. He wanted his share of his father’s estate. He wanted to be valued and loved.

But Jesus who showed so much compassion to people, did not show it here.
he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”

This is not a gentle response and Jesus’ use of the term “man” is a rebuke. Jesus is clearly irritated by the question and as his response to the request he first gives a warning and then tells them a story.
he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

What did the man think when he heard Jesus say this? If I had asked Jesus to tell my sisters to share the inheritance and Jesus had said this to me, what would I have thought?

I would have said that I was not coveting. It was not an issue of the money. I would be fine without it. That is true, but it is not entirely true. Because whenever we say it is not about the money, it really, deep down, is at least partly about the money. There is always that part of it.

I might have admitted this, but would have pressed the point that more than the money it was the principle of justice that bothered me. And I would have said it was the sense of rejection from my mother and her sister that was the issue. When my sisters did not share what they received with me, their inaction told me they agreed that I deserved the rejection of my mother and aunt.

But do you see that I have not listened to what Jesus said?
“Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

Jesus is telling me that my life does not consist in the abundance of my possessions but I have not paid attention. I am still looking for him to agree with me about the injustice of my situation. I keep pressing my case, caring deeply about the inheritance.

And so Jesus tells his parable because stories have a way of reaching us that teaching does not. I can dismiss a teaching but stories have a way of sneaking truth into our hearts. Especially in emotionally charged situations, stories bring truth to our hearts.

16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.

So far, Jesus is describing a wise, prudent businessman. His management of the land paid off and with a good growing season, he exceeded his expectation of what he would harvest. Storing his crops would allow him to sell what he had produced at the optimum time when he could get a good price. This would allow him to buy more land and have an even bigger crop in the future. This is what good businessmen do. They make wise decisions like this and they expand their operation.

I have a niece whose husband has a dairy farm. In a highly efficient process, he milks 600 cows three times a day. When I visited him last year, he told me he had room in his milking parlor for 300 more cows and then he would buy another piece of land and begin a second dairy farm. He is a successful dairy farmer.

If there had been business schools at the time of Jesus, they would have asked the rich farmer in Jesus’ story to come and give lectures.

This is not a parable critiquing the process of building a business. This is not a text to use to say that business is evil and being wealthy is ungodly. The Bible does not say that. The problem with this man comes with the next part of the story.
19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’

His bumper crop was not the problem. Expanding his operation was not the problem. Generating wealth is not contrary to living a life pleasing to God.

Here is the problem. Where was the rich fool’s trust?

The Rich Fool’s confidence and trust rested on what could easily be taken away. To use another of the parables of Jesus, his house was built on sand and when a storm came, the sand under his house washed away and his house collapsed.

History is full of people who thought they would have an easy life because of their financial situation and then the stock market crashed or there was a war or a plague, or a heart attack or some other unforseen situation. How many of the 325 people in the first class section of the Titanic were sailing to the US without a worry in the world when it hit an iceberg and sunk?

The Rich Fool did not give thanks to God for what he received. He did not consider how God might want him to use his wealth. Everything centered on him. It was my crops, my barns, my grain and my goods.

The rich fool looked into the future and saw his own ability to take care of himself. He said to himself he would never have to worry because of all he had accumulated.

But God had the last word. God always has the last word.
God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’

If this life were all there was, the Rich Fool had made a brilliant decision. But there is a life after this life. And while he was successful in this life, he failed miserably in preparing for the next life. He died a rich man and went to his next life a pauper.

Jesus ended his parable with this lesson:
21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

When we put all of our energy and attention on how to be successful in this life and do nothing to prepare for an eternal life where none of what we have accumulated will have any value, we may be short-term geniuses but we are long-term fools.

Let me lay out for you three great truths from this parable.

First, the parable of the Rich Fool makes us aware of the foolishness of putting trust in what will not last.

In the Peanuts comic strip, Woodstock, the bird friend of Snoopy, says in one panel, “Never fall in love with a snowflake.” When it is cold outside and snow is falling, you can hold out your hand and the flakes of snow will sit in your hand so you can see them, but inevitably the warmth of your hand will melt the snowflake and it will be gone. Snowflakes have beautiful designs and they say no two snowflakes are exactly alike. They are beautiful but they do not last.

Wealth lasts longer than a snowflake, but not as long as eternity. There is a Chinese proverb that says: “Wealth does not pass three generations.” Even families with huge fortunes see their fortunes dwindle over time. Even huge amounts of wealth do not last.

The Rich Fool had great wealth, but who possessed what he owned when he died? The parable does not tell us who inherited what he owned, but what is certain is that the Rich Fool was no longer the owner of all he had accumulated.

I preached from James in the beginning of the year and we read this passage: James 1:9–11
Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, 10 and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

Wealth is like an ice cube on a hot summer day.

John Ortberg wrote a book titled: At the End of the Game It All Goes Back in the Box. When you play Monopoly and win, you end up with all the properties, all the houses, all the hotels and all the money. You have won! You have everything! But then you put all the cards and houses and hotels and money back in the box and put it away in the closet.

No matter how successful you are in life, no matter how much you accumulate, you will die and you will be put in a box and lowered into the ground. You will not be able to take with you any of what you have accumulated. And then, what will you have as you face your future?

Jim Elliot was a missionary to the Auca Indians in Ecuador and in 1956 was killed by the men he was trying to reach. His wife published excerpts from the diary he kept and this is one of the lines he wrote that has become quite well known.

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

That is truth with a capital T.

A second truth from this parable is that you do not own what you have. What you have belongs to God and you are merely a steward of what you have received.

The Rich Fool said,  ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops? I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.’

My crops, my barns, my grain, my goods. He is completely self-absorbed. There is not a hint that he is thinking of anyone but himself, not God and not others. Who had his gold before he did? Where did the gold come from? Who had his gold after he died? Go to a museum and you can see artifacts that someone thousands of years ago took pride in owning. But this ownership is long gone and we do not even know the name of the owner. How meaningful was this ownership?

Most of what we say we own will disappear someday into a junk pile and be buried in the earth. It came from the earth and it will return to the earth so why do we say we own it?

We have some things in our possession for the short, borrowed time our souls live before returning to the dust but they will be someone’s possession after we die. So the question then becomes what do we do with the possessions while we have them?

Let me suggest two actions to take with the possessions we have. First, we need to be thankful that we have been given those things.

There is no acknowledgment that the Rich Fool ever stopped to give thanks to God for the abundant harvest. He had not sent the rain that watered the crops. He had not created the seeds that were sowed. He had not created the soil for the crops. He had not prevented flooding or storms that would have destroyed his harvest. There are so many ways he was dependent on God for his crops and yet he did not stop to say, “Thank you.”

James wrote: (James 1:17)
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,

When we acknowledge that, we will give thanks for what we receive. We will pray with gratitude for what we have.

A poor man might pray: “O Lord, I don’t know where I will find food tomorrow. I am eating the last of my food today and I trust that you will provide for me what I need tomorrow. My life is in your hands. I thank you for what you have given me for today.”

This is how Jesus instructed us to pray. (Matthew 6:11)
Give us our daily bread.
Give us the food we need for each day.

Whether we have food just for today or for the next hundred years, we need to be grateful for what we have received.

Secondly, because we have been given the things we possess by God, we need to use what we have received for God’s purposes.

Once again, there is no indication the Rich Fool ever stopped to think about how he could use his wealth for God.

Where do you think Jesus got the idea for this parable? In the creative process, Jesus saw something, heard something and then got the idea for the stories he told. Do you think Jesus got the idea for this parable from his encounter with the rich young ruler? Remember, that the rich young ruler came to Jesus asking what he needed to do to have eternal life. Jesus looked into his heart, saw his attachment to his wealth, and told him to sell all he had and give it to the poor. Then he could come and follow him. This was a very likeable young man with much to admire and it must have pained Jesus to see him walk away, unable to give up his attachment to his possessions.

I wonder if Jesus thought about this young man and told this story to express the folly of holding on to wealth. The young man walked away from eternal life for the sake of wealth he would one day lose anyway. That was a foolish decision.

Jesus does not ask everyone to give everything to the poor, but we do need to ask God what he wants us to do with what we have. How can we share what we have? Who does God want us to help with what we have? These are the questions we need to be asking.

When Jesus walked on this earth, he fed the poor, healed the sick, cast demons out of the possessed, comforted the grieving, touched the untouchable, valued the unrespectable, encouraged the hopeless.

We are to do, in his name, what he did. We are to use our resources: our money, our talents, our time, to love people the way he loved people. God does not bless us so we can sit in the privacy and comfort of our homes and enjoy the blessings. God blesses us so we can bless others.

The parable of the Rich Fool makes us aware of the foolishness of putting trust in what will not last. We do not own what we have. What we have belongs to God and we are merely stewards of what we have.

The third truth from this parable is that when you stand in front of a king, make a request only a king can grant.

If you had a private meeting with the king or president of your country and you could ask him for anything, what would you ask him? How absurd would it be if you had this private meeting, sitting on a comfortable chair in his plush office and when he leaned toward you and asked, “What can I do for you?” you said, “Can I have a pair of shoes?”

When the leader of your country can do so many things for you and all you ask for is a pair of shoes that will wear out and be thrown away, you have trivialized your request.

The man who was listening to Jesus and wanted him to intervene in his inheritance conflict with his brother had no idea who Jesus was. The truth is that no one really knew who Jesus was until after he resurrected from the dead. But if this man had known Jesus as Paul knew Jesus, would he still have asked for something so trivial as help in getting his share of the inheritance?

Paul wrote that Jesus is: (Colossians 1:15–17)
the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

When you stand before the pre-existing creator of the universe and you ask for help in getting some money that will soon slip through your fingers and be worthless, you are completely missing the mark.

No wonder Jesus was exasperated. I can hear him saying, “Do you want a better job? Here, take it but it will be taken from you and then what will you have? Do you want more money? Here, have more money but you will die and then what will you do with your poverty? Do you want more people to like you? Here, be famous. But where you are going your fame will not go and then who will recognize you when you knock on the door and want to come into paradise?

I am not saying we should not pray about all the things that make us worried and anxious, even little things. But if the little things are the most important things in your life, then you are in trouble and asking Jesus the wrong questions.

Today we remember Jesus as he rode a donkey into Jerusalem. He was greeted with praise because people thought he was going to finally lead a revolt that would drive out the Roman occupiers and restore Israel to the glory it experienced when David was king.

But they did not know who he was. Now, because of the testimony of the writers of the New Testament documents, we know who Jesus was and who Jesus is.

Jesus stands before you and tells you, “You know who I am so ask me for something only I can give you. Ask me for something that will last for eternity.”

What request do you have for Jesus? In what way do you want his help? On what are you most focused?

How can I work alongside you as you build your kingdom? How do you want me to use my time, talent and money to encourage others to follow you? Please help me to have more faith, to trust you more. Please help me to hold on to you, despite not understanding what is happening in my life.

These are worthy requests.

I missed a great opportunity to be a witness for Jesus when I angrily argued with my sisters that they do the just and fair thing and share the inheritance they received. Because of my focus on what so quickly fades away I fought for money when I could have demonstrated my faith and allowed Jesus to be seen in me. Jesus could have used me to encourage my sisters who do not know Jesus to become his followers but I failed.

Don’t make that mistake. Don’t be distracted.

What are you doing with what God gave you? Are you fighting with someone over things that will not last? Are you thankful for what God has given you? How can you use what God has given you to help build his kingdom? How can you use what God has given you to bless your brothers and sisters in Christ?

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Did you ever play a pickup sport when you were young? Not a formal sport with adult coaches, but a simple game where two kids are picked to be the leaders and then they stand and face the rest of the kids wanting to play and begin to pick their team. They take turns and pick the best players first. They continue to pick from who is left and as the picking continues, the ones still waiting to be picked stand there, shuffling their feet in the dirt, trying not to appear bothered by the selection process. But inside there is a war going on. There is hurt and shame at not being wanted. One by one these less desirable ones are picked and finally there are just two kids left and the leaders doing the picking say, “Ok, I’ll take Pete if you take Jim.”

After the top tier of people are selected, those selected stand with their respective captains and look at the dwindling number of kids yet to be selected. The number becomes less and less and pretty soon, it seems as if everyone is looking at the ones not selected. It seems to those waiting to be picked that the fact that they do not have enough talent to be selected earlier is being broadcast to the whole world. This is a moment of intense public humiliation.

For kids growing up who were not talented athletically, this is a painful memory. And it continues to be a painful experience when we are in a situation where we are not wanted.

What happens when you are an adult and your lose your job? Your employer is telling you that there are others in the company more important to the future of the company than you. Others are picked and you are rejected.

What happens when you like someone but they choose another man or another woman to be their romantic partner?

What happens when someone is hiring and they do not hire you, not because you are unqualified but because of the color of your skin or your sex?

We never get too old to be unaffected by rejection.

The parable this morning is about people who were rejected, but even more than that, it is a parable about people who were chosen.

I want to share three lessons from this parable that will help you see how wonderfully good news it is that we are chosen, but first let’s take a look at the parable.

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard.  2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

For we who live in Morocco, this scene is very familiar. When I walk up into Takaddoum to the market, I pass a line of trucks waiting by the side of the road for someone to come along and request their service. Across the street there are a large number of sub-Saharan African migrants, waiting for someone to come and take them to do manual labor. As I continue on, I see a line of men sitting on the side of the road with their tools – plumbers, masons, whatever. They are there early in the morning and they wait and wait and wait until someone comes by and says they need their help. They are there in the morning and if they are not hired, they are there all day into the late afternoon. You can see a picture of some of these men on the cover of the bulletin.

This is the scene Jesus paints in this parable. The owner of the vineyard goes to the marketplace and negotiates with the workers he needs for that day. He agrees to pay these men, hired early in the morning about 6AM, one denarius for their day’s work. This was a fair wage for working one day. The owner of the vineyard has hired the men he needs for that day. He is done.

But then for some reason, he goes out at 9AM to the market. Perhaps he is on his way to meet someone. Perhaps he has to pick up some supplies. The parable does not say.

3 “About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.  4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’  5 So they went.

Why does the owner hire these men three hours later in the day?

He went to the market and saw them standing there doing nothing. The owner had hired workers in the morning, but so had other owners looking for workers. He and the other landowners left with the workers they needed and these men had been left behind. Now upon his return, he sees these men who were not hired. He sees them and it is his compassion that makes him hires them. It is not apparent that he needs more workers, but he cares about those who do not have work.

“He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing.

The owner goes out again at 12 noon and at 3PM and sees men standing there doing nothing and hires them as well.

6 About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 ”‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

The eleventh hour, 5PM. These are the last of the lot, the ones nobody wants. The last two kids being picked for teams to play football. The ones who are hurting inside. They have waited all day, discouraged because no one wants them, wondering how they would bring home food to feed their families, feeling unwanted and rejected. Can you sense the inner pain these workers felt? They sat all day long, waiting for someone to tell them their help was needed, and nobody came.

Now we come to the end of the day.

8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

When the workers were hired early in the morning, they were promised one denarius for the day’s labor. The workers hired at 9AM were told that they would be paid what was right. They expected to get some portion of a denarius. The workers hired at noon, 3PM and 5PM were just happy to get anything, whatever part of a denarius they received would be better than nothing.

But now comes the twist, the surprise, that is found in each of Jesus’ parables.

9 “The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius.  10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.  11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner.  12 ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

When the workers hired at 5PM received, to their great surprise, a denarius for just one hour’s work, they were ecstatic. They expected very little and received a day’s pay for just that one hour of work.

Now the 6AM workers were thinking. If they received one denarius for one hour’s work, I worked twelve hours and that would be twelve denari of pay. Maybe that is too much to expect but I will surely go home with more than the one denarius I expected.

But then the ones hired at 3PM who worked three hours were given one denarius. The ones hired at noon worked for six hours but still got one denarius.

The ones hired early in the morning are getting upset. This is not fair. The ones hired at noon got paid the same as those who worked for just an hour and barely had time to draw a sweat?

Then the ones hired at 9AM also got one denarius and now the 6AM hires were angry. When they too received just one denarius, their anger boiled over.

13 “But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?  14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you.  15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

What is the point of this parable? Look at the context. Remember, whenever you read a parable, if you want to understand the point of the parable, you have to look at the context. Once you understand the context, you have a much better understanding of what Jesus meant to say with his parable.

In this case, we have to move back to chapter 19 where, just before this parable, Jesus had been talking with the rich young ruler who was unable to give up his riches and come follow him. When Jesus took a hard line with the rich young ruler, the disciples were amazed because in the culture of Palestine at the time of Jesus, wealth was a sign of blessing from God. If anyone would be saved, it would be those whom God had blessed with wealth. Why had Jesus drawn such a hard line with this wonderful, young man?

But then Jesus said to his disciples (Matthew 19:23–30)
“I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”

If the rich cannot be saved, is there any hope for the rest of us? This is what the disciples were thinking.

26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

This is the context of the parable of the workers in the vineyard. The question that is being asked is: Who can be saved? And Jesus turns the cultural understanding upside down and says at the end of this teaching:
But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

The fact that this is the context for the parable of the workers in the vineyard is confirmed when Jesus ends the parable with the same phrase he ended his teaching about the rich young ruler:
16 So the last will be first, and the first last.

The point of today’s parable is that the world’s understanding of who will be saved has been turned upside down. The teaching of Jesus often turned the popular understanding upside down and the parable from last week, the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, is an example. The Pharisee who was understood to be closer to God than anyone else was rejected by God while the tax collector who was understood to be the least deserving of God’s help was accepted by God.

The workers who worked and sweated all day long received their pay but so did those who came in at the end of the day and did not work long enough to get tired.

The last will be first and the first will be last.

So let me share the first of the three lessons about how wonderfully good news it is that we are chosen. Who you are is determined by God’s choice of you, not by the world’s approval or disapproval.

The world has a set of standards by which we are rated. How much money do we have in the bank? What kind of house or apartment do we live in? How tall are we? What color is our skin? How important are our parents? What university did we go to? What job do we have? How beautiful or handsome are we? How strong and how fast are we? How much power do we have?

The world has a set of standards and most of us have suffered at some point in time because we did not measure up. Sometimes we are not in a place where we can use our gifts and talents and we suffer because of that. But sometimes, it is not anything we do, but just because of who we are, that we are rejected.

When someone rejects you because of who you are, the color of your skin, your nationality, your height, your weight, your looks, your perceived talent level, this hurts. We are not unaffected by rejection. Being rejected, unwanted, not valued hurts and this has an affect on who we perceive ourselves to be.

So here is the message from this parable for you.

What this parable reveals about God’s character is that God loves you and searches after you. When nobody else wants you, when nobody else values you, God wants you. God values you. The vineyard owner came into the marketplace and hired people when he already had enough to do the work for that day. The owner did that because he had compassion on those who were waiting. He wanted to restore honor to those who had been shamed.

Many of the parables of Jesus talk about the character of God and how God pursues us. Next Sunday Ken will preach from the parable of the Prodigal Son in which the father sat, day after day, looking for his son to return and when he saw his son far off, he humbled himself by lifting his robe and running to great him. God pursues the ones who are outcasts, unwanted by the world.

Note in today’s parable that there is a foreman who oversees the workers. The owner could easily have sat back in the city gates discussing affairs with other important city leaders. But he walks from the country where his vineyard is to the village center where the workers congregate. And he makes the trip four times himself, including a trip at noon in the heat of the day.

This parable reveals the character of God who has compassion on those who are vulnerable and publically humiliated. It is not enough for the owner to send his foreman, he must go himself. His compassion dictates that he go himself to those who are unwanted and rejected.

It was not enough for God to send his prophets and angels, God came himself in his son Jesus to bring the message that he is a God who takes on himself the pain and frustration of those left behind in society. He is a God who restores honor.

God demonstrated his love for sinners through Jesus, and if you study God’s work in history, you see that over and over again, God comes to the side of those who are unwanted. In India, it is the lowest caste that is responding to the Gospel. These unwanted citizens of India are discovering that God thinks they are wonderful and worthy enough to die for them. They are discovering what it means to be loved, independent of their place in society. God comes to those rejected and devalued by society and brings good news of great joy.

God is at your side this morning. When you walk along the street and someone insults you, spits on you, know that God has picked you to be on his team, in his family. You may not be wanted where you are, but you are wanted by God.

God does not look to see who is fastest or strongest or most beautiful. God looks in the heart and makes choices the world does not make.

For anyone here this morning who is in a situation where you do not feel welcome, where you do not feel wanted, God is on your side. God has chosen you to be in his family. Let that feeling of being wanted allow you to keep your head high.

Who are you? Listen to who Peter said you are: (I Peter 2:9)
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

You are wanted!
You are somebody!
You are a valued and special child of God!

The second lesson about being chosen is that we do not earn and cannot repay the gift of being chosen.

This was the source of the problem for the 6AM workers. They thought they deserved the pay they received at the end of the day. When they saw those who had worked just an hour receive a full day’s wage, they readjusted the pay scale and assumed they would be given more.

The 5PM workers knew they had been given a gift. They expected next to nothing and were amazed at the generosity of the owner who paid them for a full day.

Who are the 6AM workers? They are the Pharisees, the moral, religious, church goers who read their Bibles and pray and give to the church and begin to think the kingdom of God is blessed to have them as members.

Who are the 5PM workers? They are the sinners, the tax collectors and prostitutes who have no hope they will be permitted entry into the kingdom of God.

We talked about this last week in talking about the Pharisee who was convinced of his own righteousness so I do not need to emphasize this point.

But once again, Jesus makes the point that salvation is a gift we do not deserve and we can never repay. His choosing us is a gift for which we can only say, “Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus.”

The third lesson is that it is never too late to be chosen.

Christianity is not, as some accusers say, an exclusive religion. God has opened the doors wide. All are welcome. All are wanted. God comes to us at the beginning of our lives and asks us if we want to come to work in his vineyard. God comes back to the market in our adolescence and asks us if we will come to work in his vineyard,

God returns in our young adult years and our middle age years and asks us if we will come to work in his vineyard.

Even at the end of the day, in our last years, God comes to us and asks us to come work in his vineyard.

There is a reward for coming early in our lives. The extra years we have with Jesus on earth allow us to grow more in faith, to have his peace in the midst of life events, to have the privilege of working with him to bring others into the kingdom. But we all share the same glorious reward of living with Jesus for eternity.

Whether we follow Christ for as long as we have had memory or whether we turn to Christ at the end of our life as did the thief on the cross next to Jesus, God’s grace welcomes us in to his family.

It doesn’t matter when you come to the vineyard, it matters only that you come.

Pete Maravich was one of the top basketball players of all time. Thirty years after he finished his university career, his record for total points scored still stands. He played ten years as a professional until his knees forced him into retirement and has been called the best ball-handler of all time.

His life off the basketball court was not as productive. His fame and financial success did not bring him happiness and for many years he tried to find satisfaction in wild living and heavy drinking. It was not until after his retirement from basketball that Pete Maravich found true happiness. He gave his heart to Jesus Christ, and for the next five years, he was on fire for the Lord. He put all the energy and passion of his basketball career into his new life with Jesus.

In 1988 he was asked by James Dobson, host of a popular Christian radio broadcast, to appear on his show. After the interview, they played a game of pick-up basketball with several others. When the game ended, Dobson turned to Maravich and said, “Pete, you can’t give up basketball. This game means too much to you.”

Maravich explained he had experienced pain in his right shoulder for more than a year, but now it had disappeared. “I feel just great,” he said.

Those were his last words.

Maravich collapsed on the basketball court, and minutes later, died in Dobson’s arms.

I listened to the radio broadcast when Dobson talked about coming home that day and sitting down with his 17 year old son. He told him that what happened that day on the basketball court was not an isolated event. This is what will happen to us all. Dobson told his son that this would happen to him some day.

Dobson told his son, “Pete Maravich didn’t have an opportunity to speak with his family one last time. But I want to tell you, be there. On resurrection morning, be there. I will be looking for you then. Nothing else matters. Be there.”

When I came home that night, after listening to the radio broadcast, I sat down with my two daughters and told them the same thing. “Nothing else matters. I will die and then one day you will die and when you die, I want you to be with me. I will be waiting for you. Be there.”

And this morning I tell you the same thing. I want you to be with me in eternity. You may struggle over the years. You may have doubts. You may be hurt by the church. You may be deceived by your church pastor. You may suffer great personal tragedy and wonder if anything makes any sense.

It does not matter what will happen to you. Persevere. Hold on to Jesus. Do not give up. At the end, when we are gathered together into heaven, I want you to be there.

This parable offers us such amazingly good news. We are chosen by God to be with him for eternity.

The world may think you are nothing more than an old newspaper to be thrown into the garbage but take heart this morning. You are loved. You are wanted. You are a special, valued child of God.

The world may not treat you well,
but you are somebody.

The world may not value you,
but you have worth to God.

The world may not care about you,
but God loves you.

The world may say you are only one of several billion humans on earth,
but God chose you to be his child.

The world may say we don’t want you,
but God sent Jesus to die for you.

The world may say it doesn’t need you,
but God has a purpose for your life.

The world may be indifferent to you,
but God will throw a party to welcome you when you come into his heaven.

In June 2006 I was asked to visit a village outside of Ouarzazate to check out a proposed project to start schools in rural areas. They had requested funding from a group in the US and that group wanted me to visit the project and report back to them. So I flew with a friend into Ouarzazate and was picked up in a 4X4. We drove for two to three hours over rough roads and dry river beds to get to this Berber village. (We went to a second, nearby, Berber village and were told we were the first foreigners to ever enter this village. I am not sure that is true but this was quite remote.)

When we entered the village, we were taken to a building with a rectangular room that had two small tables, carpets on the floor and just a few cushions. As a guest I was, of course, given several of the cushions to sit on. In the room there were about a dozen boys who would benefit from the school, eight of the men from the village and the local imam. Although the school insisted there be equal numbers of boys and girls in the school, only the boys were present.

I wanted to hear their stories and tried getting information but was not getting anywhere so I decided to tell the story of the ungrateful tiger. I had just told this story as part of the sermon the previous Sunday so it was fresh in my mind. I talked in French and the man who drove us to the village translated into Berber.

Let me give a quick summary of the story. A village in India was being bothered by tigers so they dug some deep holes, covered them with palm branches, and waited to catch the tigers. A young boy came to the village to visit his uncle and heard a tiger growling and came to see what was going on. The tiger told him he had fallen in the hole and if he did not get out his wife and children would suffer. The boy felt sorry for the tiger and put a branch down into the hole so the tiger could climb out.

Then the tiger announced he was going to eat the boy. The boy protested that he had been kind to the tiger so why should he eat him and the tiger responded that this is what tigers do, they eat people. The boy suggested they ask someone what would be the fair thing to do and they went to talk to an ox. The ox said that men worked him hard and then cut him up and ate him so he thought the tiger should eat the boy.

The boy quickly suggested they ask someone else and asked a tree. The tree said men chopped him down and burned him so he thought it was fair for the tiger to eat the boy.

Just then the boy saw a rabbit and suggested they ask him. The rabbit said he needed to see the situation as it had been so he could make a wise decision. They went back to the hole. The rabbit asked where the tiger had been and the tiger climbed into the pit. The rabbit asked where the branch had been and the boy pulled up the branch.

Now with the tiger in the pit and the boy free from the tiger, the rabbit said the tiger should have been grateful and the boy went to the village to see his uncle.

Telling that story was the most amazing experience. As the story was told and then translated into Berber, I looked around and everyone was leaning forward, listening and eager to hear what happened next. When I said the tiger and the boy asked Mr. Cow for his advice, everyone burst into laughter. I have never heard a story listened to so intently.

Rural Morocco is an oral culture where stories are king and telling that story in this cultural setting helped me see how the stories of Jesus were received.

We are beginning a series of eleven sermons on the parables of Jesus and here at the beginning, I want to help us understand how to hear these parables.

The Adult Sunday School class has been listening to Gordon Fee lecture about how to read the Bible and just recently he talked about how to read the parables. Fee said that a good parable is like a good joke. A joke has a story that is told with points of reference and then at the end there is a punch line, something that is completely unexpected and if you have understood the points of reference, the punch line makes you laugh. But if you miss the points of reference, the punch line is not funny at all. And when I explain the points of reference, you may say, “Oh, I see,” but you will not laugh.

Let me illustrate with this joke:
Pablo Picasso surprised a burglar at work in his studio. The burglar got away, but Picasso told the police he could do a rough sketch of what he looked like. On the basis of his drawing, the police arrested a mother superior, a washing machine, and the Eiffel tower.

Did you laugh? If not, why not? It really is a good joke.

What are the points of reference in this joke? Pablo Picasso is the main point of reference and if you do not know who he is, the joke will not mean anything to you. You have to know that Pablo Picasso is a famous artist but even that is not enough. You have to know that a portrait of someone by Picasso is likely to have eyes and other body parts where they do not belong and there may be extra body parts in the picture. So a rough sketch of the burglar would not show any resemblance at all to the burglar. This leads to the punch line that on the basis of his drawing, they arrested a nun, a washing machine and the Eiffel tower. Each of these looked as much like his drawing as the burglar. The joke pokes fun at the art style of Picasso.

If you know the points of reference of a joke, you will laugh when the punch line is delivered. But if you do not know the points of reference, who Pablo Picasso is or what kind of art he made, then that has to be explained and at the end you will say, “Oh, I see,” but you will not laugh. The joke will not be funny.

The same is true with the parables. Because we do not live in the culture of Palestine at the time of Jesus, we miss the points of reference and they need to be explained to us. And when they are, we understand the punch line at the end and say, “Oh, I see,” but we miss the power of the parable. We do not experience the parable the way Jesus’ hearers did or like the men and boys in the village outside of Ouarzazate experienced the story of the ungrateful tiger.

Let me illustrate this with the parable of the Good Samaritan. In this parable the reference points are the man who is beaten and robbed, the priest and the Levite who pass by and the Samaritan who stops to help. The punch line is that the Samaritan is the one of the three who stopped to help him. In order to get the punch line, you have to know that the priest and the Levite were considered holy and righteous men. These were men you would be proud to have as sons and fathers. But the Samaritan was despised. When religious Jews crossed through Samaria to come to Jerusalem, when they stepped over the border from Samaria into Israel, they wiped the dust off their feet as rejection of this nation that had defiled itself.

When Jesus told this parable, you could hear the sounds of disapproval when the priest and the Levite passed by. They did not do what they should have done. But when Jesus said the Samaritan stopped to help, there was a loud gasp of astonishment and disapproval. I don’t think people were pleased when they heard Jesus tell this parable. This was a highly provocative story.

How do we interpret the parables? A parable is not an allegory in which each part of the story means something else. Augustine in the third century interpreted the parable of the Good Samaritan as an allegory in which every detail was given a spiritual meaning. The man was Adam, who lost his immortality when he was beaten up by the robbers, who represent the devil and his angels. The Samaritan represents Christ, who took the man to the inn, which represents the church. Even the two coins represent this life and the life to come, and the innkeeper is Paul.

But the point of the parable was to address the question the expert in the law asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Augustine turned the parable into a presentation of the Gospel, including Paul who was not a part of the church when Jesus told the parable.

When Jesus told his parables, he told them in order to make a point. The story itself had a beginning and an end and a plot, but the details of the story were not making any particular point. The punch line, the unexpected twist at the end of the parable was the point. The details of the story were simply points of reference to set up the story for the unexpected ending and it is the ending that is the point of the parable.

As we preach through the parables we will try to make clear the points of reference that set up the punch line at the end. And then we will try to help us understand what the point of the parable is. Why did Jesus tell this parable to these people at this particular point in time. That context tells us what the point of the parable is.

We may not hear the parables the way those who heard Jesus tell the parable did, but we will try to come as close to that experience as we can.

With this as an introduction, listen to the parable for this morning.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:  10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:” Luke sets the context for this parable so we know that the point of this parable is going to be about who is righteous.

What are the points of reference in this parable? Who are the players in this story?

In order of appearance, the Pharisee comes first. The Pharisees were a small, powerful religious sect whose primary concern was keeping the law in all its detail. When we hear the word “Pharisee” we hear “the bad guys – the ones who were against Jesus”. But these were not bad guys. To the people listening to Jesus, Pharisees were especially devout, godly people.

If your son was a Pharisee, you never had to hang your head when discussing your child with other parents. You were honored because your son was highly educated, and in a highly honored position. To the hearers of this parable of Jesus, the Pharisee was the good guy.

Next in this parable comes the tax collector. No hearer of this parable viewed this person as the good guy. To Jesus’ hearers, the tax collector was as well liked as a robber or murderer. Tax collectors were thought to be traitors because they collaborated with the Roman authorities in order to become wealthy. Only the tax collector knew the tax rate required by Rome so he could charge as much as he was able to collect and keep the excess.

When you hear Pharisee, think respectable, honorable, decent, honest, educated, admirable.

When you hear tax collector, think of the French collaborators who cooperated with the Nazis during WWII. After the war, the heads of the women who had cooperated with the Nazis were shaved to make public their shame in having betrayed their country.

In my Norwegian heritage, there is a relative, Gulbrand Lunde, who was Propaganda Minister and second in command of Quisling’s WWII Government in Norway.  He was despised by his fellow Norwegians because of his cooperation with the Nazis and in November 1942 when they heard of his death they rejoiced in the news. His car was on a ferry when it slipped into the fiord they were crossing. The suspicion was that the chauffeur released the parking brake to allow the car to slide into the fjord. The skipper of the ferry dove down twice to the car and the jest was that the ferryboat skipper had made those dives to be sure the car doors were locked.

When you think of tax collector, think of the WWII French collaborators, think of Gulbrand Lunde. The tax collectors were collaborators with the Romans and took advantage of their fellow Jews to become rich. They were despised by their fellow Jews.

Now we come to the scene that Jesus paints in his parable.

Two times each day, the priests at the temple offered a lamb as a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. At these services, people would gather to join in the liturgy and to pray.

Jesus says in the parable that the tax collector stood at a distance. From this, we can infer that the Pharisee stood as close as possible to the Most Holy Place in the temple because he assumed the right to draw near to the presence of God.

This Pharisee was a man who knew that he was a good person. He was confident of his own righteousness.

In the Talmud, a collection of interpretation and commentary of the Mosaic and rabbinic law, one rabbi was reported to have been so confident of his own righteousness that were only a hundred saved from judgement, he and his son would be among that number; if only two, then he felt that it would be he and his son who would be saved.

This Pharisee has that confidence. As a good person and as a Pharisee, he feels it his responsibility to instruct others through his prayer. Because of his moral superiority, he believes that others will benefit from his prayer and example.

‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

We find this a strange prayer. Even if some of us might think like that, we would never say so in public and yet this was not an untypical prayer for a holy man in the time of Jesus. As I said, he views it as his responsibility to teach others through his prayer and to hold himself up as an example. He does what he considers to be the right thing to do.

The Pharisee prays – instructs, “I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”

Jews were required to fast once a year, on the Day of Atonement. Pharisees fasted every Monday and Thursday. All Jews were required to give a tithe of their produce but Pharisees tithed even things that were not required. From all appearances, this Pharisee is a commendable person. The performance of his religious duties, at least from the outside, is exemplary.

To the hearers of this parable of Jesus, this Pharisee was a wonderful man. How fortunate the temple was to have him present to add to the holiness of the daily sacrifice.

Now we come to the tax collector. He stood at a distance, too ashamed to be among them. In fact, he was probably aware that he was not welcome in this gathering. He did not lift his eyes to the heavens, but beat his breast. This was an uncommon action for a Middle Eastern man and indicated great anguish was being experienced. He pleads with God that this atoning sacrifice of a lamb at the temple might apply to him. He realizes he has no hope for himself. He has no pretense. He knows who he is, what he does, and against all hope, pleads for mercy.

“God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

As I said, every parable of Jesus has a punch line, a twist, something unexpected. Here is the twist in this one. The Pharisee is the bad guy and the tax collector is the good guy. Jesus’ hearers listened in disbelief as Jesus said,
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

People were gathered in the temple because they knew they were separated from God by their sin. The priest sacrificed a lamb to pay the price of death for their sins. The prayer of the people was to participate in the death of the lamb so their sins would be absolved and they would be made right with God. They would be righteous in the eyes of God.

The message of the parable is clear. It is not external religious acts that make a person righteous. The Pharisee, who was a model of excellent religious behavior, failed in his prayer to be made right with God. It was the tax collector, miserable sinner that he was, who was made right with God, because of his humble plea for mercy. It is when we realize that we have no hope apart from God’s grace and throw ourselves on his mercy, that we are made right with God.

Now here is the problem for us. When we come to Christ, we have an awareness of our sinfulness. We come to Christ and stand on the side of the tax collector. We may have led lives of obvious sin: drunkenness, drug abuse, improper sexual relations, theft and deceit. Or we may have led lives that on a relative scale, were pure. In either case, when we become
Christians, we have a sense that we are not what we should be, we are less than perfect, we are less than righteous, we stand on the side of the tax collector.

But then, as time passes, we read our Bible and pray, help the poor, teach Sunday School and sing in the choir. We no longer get drunk and have extra-marital affairs. We become distanced from our sinful past, from a time when we were aware of our sin. We move, over time, to the side of the Pharisee. We become respectable people. When we come to a new church, people are delighted to see us come. We are the kind of people that society needs more of. We are the decent, God-fearing, honest people the world needs.

We hear of a person who has an adulterous relationship and we shudder. “What a terrible person to do that.” We see a drunk by the side of the road and think, “What a mess! What’s wrong with that person?”

We differentiate between people: good Christian people and sinners. We move, over time, to the viewpoint of the people in the church in Ohio where I was a pastor who did not think our church was the right place for my huntin’, fishin’, woman chasing, beer drinking, good old boy neighbors.

And so we begin to pray the prayer of the Pharisee.

‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

Matthew, the write of the gospel according to Matthew, was a tax collector and when Jesus called him to come follow him, he invited Jesus and his disciples to a meal at his home. (Matthew 9:10–13)
And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. 11 And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

When you stand with the Pharisee and look down on the sinners around you, there is no place for you in the kingdom of heaven. You really do not need Jesus. He may be an inspirational figure, but you don’t need his help. You think you will be able to make it into heaven on your own. You think heaven will welcome you and be glad to have such a wonderful person enter in.

It is sinners who realize that they need help and have no hope apart from Jesus.

Awareness of sin moves me from identifying with the Pharisee to identifying with the tax collector.

How much sin do you need to be a sinner in need of God’s mercy and grace?

Ted Bundy was a serial rapist and murderer in the United States. He was finally caught, put on trial and sentenced to death. While in jail, awaiting his death, he became a Christian and was interviewed by James Dobson, a well-known American psychologist who had a very popular Christian radio program. So here’s the question, who needed Jesus’ forgiveness more, Ted Bundy or you? Did Jesus need to die a lot on the cross for Ted Bundy and only a little for you?

Perhaps you have always been sexually responsible, waiting for marriage to have a sexual relationship, and when married you have been faithful to your spouse. You have been a loving and caring husband or wife. On the other hand the world is full of those who are sexually promiscuous before and after marriage. Who needs Jesus more, you or the sexually irresponsible?

Perhaps you have never taken anything that was not yours. When you find a wallet, you search for its owner. On the other hand there are robbers who search for opportunities to take something from your car or home. Who needs Jesus more, you or the robbers?

Perhaps you have been a responsible citizen and worked hard at school, worked hard to pay your taxes. On the other hand there are those who did not study at school, dropped out, became addicted to drugs and alcohol and now live in your neighborhood depending on handouts to survive. Who needs Jesus more, you or the town drunk?

I tell you this morning, although you may be unaware of this truth, that you are in as much need as any person in the world of the cross of Jesus. As decent and respectable and honest as you are, you have no hope of eternal life apart from the death of Jesus.

The only reason you think of yourself as being such a decent, respectable person is that you have so little competition. Relative to those in this world, you are a decent, respectable person. But when you come into the presence of God, all your efforts to be respectable will be insignificant. Others will not be the benchmark against which you will be measured. You will be measured against the perfection of Jesus and nothing short of his perfection will be adequate. You, the Pharisee, and the Tax Collector desperately need Jesus.

What can you do if you have a problem seeing yourself as a sinner? Should you get a list of sins and study them so you can be more familiar with them? The Pharisee was an expert on sin. He knew all about sin. But his problem is he did not know God.

So if you do not see yourself as a sinner, desperately in need of being saved by Jesus, this is what you need to do. Grow in your relationship with God; read your Bible; study the Bible with a small group; come to church prepared to worship and open yourself to the work of God in your life.

If you do not see yourself as a sinner, the problem is that you have a far too small view of who Jesus is.

Take a look sometime at how the Apostle Paul evolved in his understanding of who he was. In the first of his letters, Galatians, he identifies himself as (Galatians 1:1)
an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—

He began with a measure of confidence and even a bit of arrogance but move toward the end of his life and in 1 Timothy 1:15–16 he writes:
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

Paul no longer presented himself as an apostle who was taught directly by the risen Jesus; he presented himself as a sinner desperately in need of being saved by Jesus. What made the difference? Paul had grown in his experience of God and as he saw more clearly who Jesus was, he saw himself more clearly as well.

When we judge others, we are comparing ourselves to them, but we have the wrong benchmark. To find out who we truly are, we need to compare ourselves to Jesus, not to each other.

Awareness of sin is a gift from God because it makes us aware of how desperately we need him. We cling to Jesus with gratitude at being saved. We are filled with joy because in his mercy and grace he forgives our sin and offers us new life in him. As John Calvin said, Know God and you will know yourself.

Do you think James ever heard his half-brother, Jesus, teach? Did James ever see Jesus do a miracle? After Joseph died, Jesus took over the carpentry business but then at some point he passed this on to his younger brothers and began traveling around. When he came back to Nazareth, the stories of his ministry had come back before him and there was a lot of interest in what he would have to say.

In Mark’s gospel he says Mary and the brothers and sisters of Jesus were present when he spoke. This is obvious isn’t it? Can you imagine that you would not go to the synagogue if your son and brother was going to speak? Especially in a small town you would go. Even if you hardly ever went, you would go to see your brother.

Mark 6:1–6
He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 2 And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4 And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” 5 And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6 And he marveled because of their unbelief.

His return did not go as his family had hoped. The people were offended by what Jesus said. Who did he think he was? They insulted him by calling him the son of Mary. They did not say he was the son of Joseph which would have been the cultural thing to do, they called him the son of Mary. The illegitimacy of the birth of Jesus still hung on the family and they carried shame because of that. Jesus had always excelled in Hebrew school and the family hoped he would restore some of their honor when he spoke, but instead they were once again shamed.

Jesus rebuked the town and Mark says he could do no mighty work there except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.

This line has always made me smile. If I could only lay hands on someone who was sick and heal them, I would consider it an exceptional day. But for Jesus, it was hardly anything.

But my point in all this is to try to put myself in James’ shoes. To James and his family, Jesus was not a great prophet, he was an embarrassment to his family in their home town. This helps me to understand why Mary and James and some of his other brothers came to get Jesus and bring him home. Jesus was mad and they needed to bring him under control. They wanted him to return to the carpentry shop, keep a low profile and help repair the family name.

Over the next couple years James was not at all sympathetic to what his brother was doing. He taunted him and dared him to go to Jerusalem where the Jewish leaders were trying to kill him. When Jesus was arrested and crucified, I can imagine James had a mixture of feelings. He grieved for his brother but there might also have been some sentiment that Jesus got what he was asking for. The family had tried to rescue him and bring him home but he had insisted on this course and now he was paying the price for his actions.

But all of this changed when Jesus appeared to James after he resurrected. What Jesus said is a family secret and all we know is that James turned from taunting Jesus to being one of the most devout followers of the risen Lord Jesus. He was dedicated and devout in his praying and when he wrote his letter, he quoted the teachings of Jesus more than any other writer in the New Testament, other than the gospels, of course. It seems to me that James tried to make up for lost time. He had once mocked Jesus and thought him to be foolish and crazy, but now he was fiercely devoted to Jesus and his teachings.

Last week I preached from James 2:1-7 where James talks about not showing favoritism. He said we should not show favoritism toward those who are rich at the expense of the poor because God had chosen the poor to be in his kingdom. We should not choose against those whom God has chosen.

This morning we come to verses 8-13 where James shares what is for him the most important reason we should not show favoritism.
8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

What scripture is James quoting? Is he quoting from Leviticus 19? I am sure he knew that is where you find  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” but my guess is that he quoted this verse because of what Jesus said.
Mark 12:28–31
28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Jesus said there was no greater commandment than these two and James took what Jesus said seriously. But someone might say, “OK, I realize it is not good to show favoritism, but there are a lot worse things a person could do. Is showing favoritism really such a big deal?”

To this James wrote:
9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

Showing favoritism is a big deal, James wrote. You sin when you kill someone or when you have sex with someone other than your spouse and you sin when you do not love your neighbor as yourself. If you live a perfect life and commit only one little, tiny sin, you are as guilty as if you had committed every sin in the book. And once again, James is standing on the teaching of Jesus: (Matthew 5:19)
Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

But even if this was not true, for James the deciding factor was that if it wasn’t a big deal, then why did Jesus say it was the greatest of the commandments?

Why is loving your neighbor as yourself such a big deal? Isn’t it enough that we don’t steal from them and don’t lie to them? Let them do what they want and I’ll do what I want and let it go at that? Why isn’t that enough?

Why isn’t it enough that I come to church, worship God, give my tithe to the church and then go home? Why is it important that I care about the people with me in church? Why is it necessary to forgive someone before I take communion? Isn’t my relationship with God a personal relationship? Why does everyone else have to be dragged into it?

Bear with me as I take us back to the beginning.

It begins with the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Everything begins with the Trinity because in the beginning, before there was a beginning, pre-existing the creation of the universe, God was. Father, Son and Holy Spirit existed in relationship with each other. Father, Son and Holy Spirit have needs and those needs are perfectly met as each person of the Trinity honors and lifts up the others. Each person of the Trinity affirms and encourages the others. Each person of the Trinity submits to the others.

In the perfection of the relationship between the persons of the Trinity there is such a perfect unity that there is one God. This is the best way I can grasp the mystery of the Trinity.

The Triune God wanted others to share in their relationship and so the universe was created and man was created. God created Adam from the dust of the earth and then said (Genesis 2:18)
“It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Adam existed but he existed alone and Adam was not complete by himself. So God created Eve. Male and female [God] created them, the writer of Genesis said.

Immediately, God created man and woman. He created Adam and Eve in relationship with each other. He did not create an individual; he created a community.

God calls us to himself and each of needs to choose to follow Jesus, but when we follow we are called by Jesus into community. We are meant to follow Jesus in relationship with others who are following him. Our faith is a faith of relationships. We are not meant to live solo Christian lives. We are meant to follow Jesus in community.

When you read through the Bible, you need to keep this in mind that God has worked consistently through the millennia to bring unity to his creation. God wants his creation to be in relationship as Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in relationship. The early church in Acts is not the model for us as a church. If that was the case we would be modeling ourselves after those who imperfectly loved each other. The model for us as a church is the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As they love each other, so are we supposed to love each other. This is God’s desire for us.

Let me give you some examples:

When Jesus taught about marriage, he quoted from Genesis and then said: (Matthew 19:5)
they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

Why did Jesus teach that we should not get divorced, except in certain circumstances? There are a number of reasons but underlaying them all is that divorce is wrong because God works to create unity and divorce divides and cuts off relationships.

Why do Paul and the other New Testament writers have lists of negative behavior?  For example, this is Paul’s list in 2 Corinthians 12:20:
For I fear that perhaps when I come I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish—that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder.

Parents tell their children not to fight because they need peace and quiet in the house. Fighting is just too stressful. Is this why God places such an emphasis on not doing these things? Does God want a little peace and quiet? Not really. The reason God does not want us to quarrel, be jealous, be angry or hostile and so on is because each of these actions creates distance between us. These behaviors break off relationships and God wants to unite us, not see us become divided.

The prophets came after the three great kings in Israel’s history: Saul, David and Solomon. After the death of Solomon, Israel broke up into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Ten tribes formed Israel with their capital in Samaria and the tribes of Judah and Benjamin formed Judah with their capital in Jerusalem.

With this split began three hundred years of civil war between the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The various kings of Israel and Judah made alliances with Assyria, Egypt, Syria and others as they fought against each other.

In the Adult Sunday School class, Gordon Fee mentioned that the prophets wrote oracles condemning these nations but the strongest and longest condemnations the prophets delivered were reserved for Israel and Judah. Why? Because God met with Abraham to create a nation, a people belonging to him. God worked with Isaac and Jacob. God prepared Moses to lead Israel out of bondage in Egypt and then used Joshua to bring Israel into the promised land of Canaan. God wanted Israel to be his holy people and this civil war pulled his people apart, broke off relationships, created separation when God wanted unity.

Why did Jesus come to be born as a baby, to live and then die on the cross? Because of our sin we are separated from God and God created us to be in relationship with himself. There is no end to what God will do to bring us into unity with himself and with each other.

The history of church splits must grieve God. Peter wrote in his letter (1 Peter 2:9–10)
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Jesus died to bring us into relationship with the Triune God. He gave us a common identity. We are the people of God. This is such a beautiful description of who we are as God’s people and yet what have we done?

Right from the beginning, in the book of Acts,  the Greek-speaking followers of Jesus were upset with the bias of the Hebrew-speaking followers of Jesus. The gospel spread, the church grew and as it became institutionalized, it began to split off with one group against another. The Orthodox church split off from the Roman Catholic church. Luther split off from the Catholic church and the Protestants have been splitting ever since.

I am not opposed to someone being Catholic or Orthodox. I am not opposed to denominations. Different branches of the church have different ways of worshiping God and people prefer one way or another. That is fine. But when a branch of the church claims that only they are the true church and other parts of the church are mere twigs, this works against God. When one branch of the church says only their members can take communion or only their communion is correctly taken, then that part of the church is working against the Triune God.

None of us should be so arrogant that we think we have wrapped up the church into a neat little box. The institutional churches, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant, are like someone who builds a sandbox at the beach and sits there playing with the sand. They think all of God’s sand is inside the wood structure they have built but they are blind to all the sand on the beach around them.

This is one of the reasons I love RIC. RIC brings together denominations, nationalities and races. RIC helps us to understand that some of the things we were brought up to believe in our churches are more central to our faith than others. We find unity in the love of God that sent Jesus to die for us, in the Holy Spirit who was given to help us grow in our faith and in our longing for the return of Jesus.

We love our neighbor as ourselves because we have been loved by God and as the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, love each other, so are we supposed to love each other. In the prayer of Jesus in John 17 he said that our witness to the world that God sent Jesus and that God loves us is based on how we love each other.

This brings us to the last two verses of this section of James.
12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

James tells us to speak and act as those who are to be judged. Our actions do matter. Our faith without evidence of faith is not really faith at all. (When we come back to James in January of 2013, this is where we will begin.)

James is thinking here of the parable of the unmerciful servant Jesus told. This is the parable where a servant owed the king a huge amount of money and could not repay the debt. The king forgave him and then the servant went out and beat up on a fellow servant who owed him just a little bit of money and could not repay it. The king heard about this and threw the unmerciful servant in jail.

Because the servant who had been forgiven such a huge debt did not forgive his fellow servant, he was shown no mercy. This is what James tells us. If we who have been shown great mercy do not show mercy, God’s mercy will be taken away from us.

Stuart Briscoe is an Englishman who pastored a church in the US from 1970 to 2000. When I was a new Christian, he came to our church in Boston to speak and gave an illustration to explain what is mercy and what is grace. I have never forgotten it and whenever I read the Bible and see the words mercy or grace, I remember the illustration to help me understand what I am reading.

A mother bought a brand new carpet for the living room. For some reason, even though she had young children, she bought a white carpet. She wanted to make the room look clean and bright and the white carpet made the room look beautiful.

She called her son into the kitchen and explained that with the new carpet, he had to be very careful not to eat in that room so nothing would be spilled on the white carpet. Then she gave him a chocolate ice cream cone and he ran off, enjoying this treat. He immediately forgot what his mother had told him, ran through the living room, tripped on a table leg and spilled his chocolate ice cream cone on the brand new white carpet.

So what should the mother do? Mercy is not giving him a spanking for disobeying her. Mercy is not giving him what he deserved. Grace is giving him another chocolate ice cream cone.  Grace is giving him what he does not deserve.

James concludes this section by saying mercy triumphs over judgment. This is a great four word summary of the gospel of Jesus. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

If mercy is not getting what we deserve, what do we deserve? We deserve to be rejected by God. Our sin makes us unable to come into the presence of God. But God showed us mercy. God did not give us what we deserve. God spared us his rejection and then God showed us grace. God gave us what we do not deserve. Jesus died in our place and gave us the right to come into the presence of God and live with him for eternity.

God did not judge us as we deserve to be judged. God’s mercy triumphed and we have the hope of eternal life with him as a result.

Does God show favoritism? There is no one here God does not love. There is no one here that God does not want to spend eternity with him. Although we are deserving of his rejection, he accepts us because of his love for us. God has chosen you to be part of his family and he does not play favorites within his family.

When someone in church offends you or irritates you, it is important to remember what Jesus has done to bring us together into unity. Remember how far God has gone to bring you into his kingdom. Remember how patient God is with you when you sin and turn back again to follow him. Remember that in your case, mercy triumphed over judgment, This is why you forgive. This is why you try to resolve differences. That is why you also let mercy triumph over judgment in your relationships in church.

When James met Jesus after his resurrection, James became a changed man. There had been tension between James and Jesus but no longer. James was brought into relationship with Jesus. Jesus had slept in the same bed as James and now Jesus let James know he wanted them to be together for eternity. James learned firsthand that mercy triumphs over judgment.

When there was conflict in the church in Jerusalem between Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus, and Paul came with Barnabas to testify to God’s work among Gentiles, I think this experience of being forgiven and brought into an intimate relationship with Jesus is what made James stand up and seek a way to bring the Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus together. James worked for the unity of the church.

Here at RIC we many not be able to bring the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches together in unity, but we can work to make sure we are unified. I loved out coffee half-hour last Sunday. I loved seeing people talking with people they normally do not talk to. I pray that out of these conversations, some good friendships will develop.

You don’t have to be good friends with everyone in church but if there is tension between you and someone else in church, then you have to deal with that. God wants us to move forward as a community of followers of Jesus. This is our most powerful witness, how we love each other. We need to be slow to take offense and quick to forgive. We need to show mercy as we have been shown mercy. Like James, we need to work for the unity of the church.

In our series of sermons from James, we come to a passage that talks about showing favoritism. (James 2:1–7)
My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, 3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” 4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

The Jewish followers of Jesus were having a problem with favoritism. In their meeting places there were not enough chairs for everyone to sit on, so when someone wealthy came in they made sure that person had a chair or couch with cushions to sit on. But if someone came in who was poor, they were told to sit on the floor.

Why did they do this? Why did they show such honor to the wealthy person and such disrespect for the poor person?

It takes money to operate a church and everyone does not contribute an equal amount. If the annual budget for the church was 100 shekels and there were 100 people in the church, the expectation was not that each person would contribute 1 shekel. Some could give only a small part of a shekel but there were those who were rich enough to contribute 100 shekels or even more. So when someone stepped into the church who could contribute most of the budget needed for the church, the instinct was to show honor and respect to that person so they would feel inclined to be generous. If the poor person did not give because he had not been honored, it was no big deal. The church would do fine without his giving.

People honored the rich not only because of what they could give to the church, but also because of how they could help with jobs and loans and other financial needs. The rich were large landowners so if people were nice to the rich, perhaps they would get more favorable treatment. So the wealthy were shown great respect at the expense of the poor.

The fall before I came to Morocco I went to a Christian conference sponsored by Chuck Colson, a leading Christian spokesman in the US. The conference was in Colorado Springs at an expensive hotel but since I was exploring what I would do after selling my business, I thought this might be a good place to meet people and see if God directed me to any of the ministries represented there. Annie and I had supported Chuck Colson’s organization for over twenty years with monthly contributions, I admired Colson’s sharp thinking and analysis, and I was excited about the stimulation of the speakers and discussion at the conference. Plus I wondered if I would find the next step for me in my life. So I went with a lot of anticipation.

But the conference was a terribly disillusioning experience for me.  The conference was promoted as a place to have a discussion about how Christians would engage with the 21st century but it turned out the hidden agenda was to raise funds and for the most part, the speakers had nothing new to say. This is not how it was promoted, but this is what it was. I wrote a letter critiquing the conference and this is part of what I wrote:
As long as I’m talking about what bothered me, what world view is being carried into the new millennium when those with a lot of money to give and those who have achieved a measure of fame are reserved seats at the front of the auditorium? Are they more deserving of those seats than the other attendees of the conference? As Larry Norman pointed out in one of his songs, “All men are equal. All men are brothers. But why are some more equal than others?” This may have been important for fund raising, but it sends a poor message to other participants.

This was my own experience of walking into the room and since I did not have a gold ring bank account, I was pushed to the side. The result was that I felt alienated, disrespected, and dishonored

Do you think we show favoritism here at RIC? Do we pay more attention to some people than others? Is everyone welcome here or are some people more welcome than others? Do we pay more attention to white Americans and Europeans than we do to black Africans? Do we pay more attention to those who can afford to give more to the church than we do to those who have limited financial resources?

It is interesting to me that when I have asked students at the Cité about RIC they tell me RIC is a white church. Why do students say this? I am white, most of the RIC board is white. When I am not here, the people who preach in my absence are mostly white.

But when I ask people at the Western embassies, they say RIC is a black church. Over half of the congregation on any given Sunday is black. On most Sundays, worship is led by blacks.

Why is it that no one wants to say RIC is their church? Maybe the whites and blacks cancel each other out and RIC is the church of Asians and Latin Americans and the islands of the Atlantic and Pacific.

Let me give you two examples of behavior at RIC that is not favoritism, then talk about what favoritism is, and finally we will look at why James was so opposed to favoritism.

Seeking out people who are like you is not favoritism. If you are sitting in your chair on Sunday when new people are welcomed and you hear someone say they are from your country, it is natural that you would want to meet them and find out specifically which city they came from. When you come to RIC, it is natural that you make friends and hang out with people who come from your country or who share much of your culture.

When someone comes from the US I am curious to know what part of the US they come from and if we, perhaps, know some people in common. When someone comes to the church who is approximately my age, I am interested in talking with them. It is natural to want to meet people who share my nationality, my culture and my age.

I know that when young men and women in their twenties come to RIC, they prefer going to the café after church with people their own age than coming with me to the Adult Sunday School which is composed of those who are, for the most part, people twice their age. They are not showing favoritism; they are simply moving to their comfort zone. We are comfortable seeking out those who are like us, who understand us. This is normal. This is natural. This is not favoritism.

But let me say that if you come to RIC with its more than 30 nationalities and more than 40 denominations and do not make an effort to establish friendships with people from other countries and backgrounds, you are missing out on one of the great blessings of this church.

I have grown so much by exposure to the wide variety of people who have come to RIC. I have learned that there is more than an American view of world events. I had great, energetic discussions with a man from India who defended Mugabe in Zimbabwe. It was so clear to me that Mugabe was a villain that I was shocked to hear a different perspective. I didn’t change my point of view, but my understanding was deepened and broadened by our discussions.

I have learned to be much more sensitive to cultural differences. We had a man from the southern tip of India who came to our home for a meal. We sat down at a table with silverware and plates and after I said grace, he excused himself, got up and went to the bathroom to wash his hands. When he came back he began to eat with his fingers. He had never before used silverware and told me that from where he came, they would put a banana leaf on the ground, put the food on that and then share the meal. The next time he came to our house we did not put out our silverware and we all ate with our fingers. That was a great learning experience for me and I loved talking with him and learning about life where he came from.

I have learned a lot about the culture of different African countries: how dating and engagement and marriage is handled, how families and clans deal with death, how the church and church pastors are viewed. As I talk about these cultural views, I am forced to think more clearly about the values that surround cultural practices in my own country. I am a far richer person because of these friendships.

So once again, although it is normal and natural to make friends with people at RIC from your own or a similar culture, you will miss out on a great blessing if you do not extend yourself to make friends with people from other cultures.

When we have a potluck or when we have a coffee-hour, as we will today after church, make an effort to talk with people who are from a different part of the world. Take advantage of opportunities to broaden your horizon of friendships.

A second example of what is not favoritism at RIC is our policy toward illegal migrants in Morocco.

It is our church policy not to allow illegal migrants to sing in the choir or usher or in any other way serve in the church. Let me explain why this is our policy.

It is our judgment that the illegal movement across borders, in particular, from sub-Saharan Africa to Spain, is a spiritually destructive journey. I have twelve years of experience with illegal migrants and have learned a lot from my interactions. I have seen good men and women set out on their journey, having gathered the money to travel with good intentions to find a job that will allow them to send money back home to their family. They make the treacherous trek across the Sahara Desert and into Oujda in Morocco. They arrive in Rabat without their passport and without money. The 1,000 Euros they thought would get them to Spain has been taken by smugglers and robbers and now another 1,200 Euros has to be raised to be smuggled into Spain.

How do you get this money? You call back home and try to get people you know to send more money. You call people you know who are already in Europe and ask them for some money. It is a desperate struggle and so there is, for most migrants, a drift into illegal activities.

Women who start out with the intention of working as maids, are forced to prostitute themselves to get across the desert and then, often, their way to Europe is paid for by gangs who will put the woman into prostitution and profit from her.

I knew a man who made it to Rabat and then was here for a long time, trying to gather the money he needed to make it to Spain. He was a regular attender at our prayer meetings and at church. He became sick and I helped him get into a hospital. When I went to collect his clothes and passport, I discovered he was earning money by finding men who wanted a prostitute and bringing them to a pimp who had several women staying in his apartment. He had become, what they call in Tanzania, a fly-catcher.

If you had asked him when he left Nigeria if he would ever do this, he would have said absolutely not, but as he made his way, he took small step after small step that led him to doing what he never thought he would do. The journey pulls people further and further away from obedience to God.

Part of the destructiveness of this journey is encouraged by a popular teaching in some churches in Africa that says it is ok to deceive people to get to where God is calling you to go. The Biblical basis for this is in Exodus when Moses and Israel left Egypt, telling the Pharaoh they were going for just a few days and took the gold and silver of Egypt with them.

This is terrible exegesis but as a consequence I have experienced deceit after deceit after deceit over the years. When I have helped someone, the weeks following brought a string of people to me with a story similar to the story of the person I helped.

At the end of January, a young Nigerian who was part of our church, an orphan without brothers or sisters, flew to the US to begin a new life in a refugee program. We had prayed for him and were delighted that he was able to get this opportunity. Two Sundays after he left  a man came up to me and said I should help him because he was an orphan. Was he telling me the truth? Perhaps, but I doubt it.

Over the years we have experienced illegal migrants who used their position of serving the church as a means of raising funds to go illegally to Europe. We do not believe this is right and we do not intend to support this illegal move.

For this reason we do not allow illegal migrants to serve in the church. They are welcome to worship with us but are not permitted to serve.

This is not an example of favoritism. This is a matter of making a judgment about the wisdom of choices that are being made and deciding not to support those choices.

Let me say, after all of this, that I have known several illegal migrants for whom I have had great respect. I know they are in a very difficult position and I can’t say what I would have done if I were in their situation. So while we have a church policy about illegal migrants serving in the church, we do not make a judgment that illegal migrants are all bad people. There are many good people stuck in this situation. We are not trying to condemn illegal migrants, but to encourage them to make the wise choice of going back home and seeking legal ways to advance themselves.

I have shared two examples of what is not favoritism, what is favoritism?

Favoritism is showing preference to someone because of what you think they can do for you. Favoritism uses someone to benefit yourself.

A church can show favoritism by paying special attention to someone who is wealthy so they will be generous in giving to the church. A businessman who comes to church so he can make contacts for his business shows favoritism.  A poor person who comes into church and makes it a goal to get to know someone wealthy so he can get help with rent and food shows favoritism.

It is pretty clear why favoritism is not good. When you show favoritism you are not primarily interested in the person. The person you are favoring is not important to you. What is important is what they have to offer you.

This is a big problem for those who are wealthy or famous. When you have wealth and/or fame, one of the struggles is to know if people really like you or are just attracted to your wealth and fame. Wealthy and famous people want to be liked for who they are, not for what they have.

Showing favoritism dehumanizes those who are shown favor and dehumanizes those who are rejected.

Why does James tell us we should not show favoritism?
if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” 4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?

Here we come to the heart of this passage.
Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?

The poor who were being shown disrespect in the church were people God had chosen. The pre-existing creator God sent Jesus to die for these people who were being dishonored by the church. God thought they were worthy enough to sacrifice to bring them into his kingdom. So what right do we have to choose against those whom God has chosen? Are we so arrogant that we can reject God’s choices? Are we so foolish that we would want to reject God’s choices? Do we not realize that we will be side-by-side with these people in heaven when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord?

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:15–16 (The Message)
He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.
Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look.

When someone steps into RIC, what do you see? You pay attention to the color of their skin, to the clothes they wear. You listen to them when they say what country they come from and you assign them a category. Student, teacher, diplomat, businessman, Asian, Westerner, African. You think you know who they are. But you do not have a clue about who they really are. You know very little that is ultimately important about them. You are paying attention to the things that will pass away. You are viewing them with the world’s eyes and what James is telling us to do is to view each other with God’s eyes. Who does God think they are? That is what we need to know.

C. S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory:
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ‘ordinary’ people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.

When you make a judgment about someone based on how attractive they are or how well they dress, you are missing what is most important. You are looking only at the wrapping of the package, not at the present that is inside. If you look only at the exterior, you may miss a great treasure.

This is true for all of us in church, but if I can digress for a moment, this is also true for those of you who are single and at least curious about who you might one day marry.  Sometimes a beautiful exterior contains a beautiful soul, but that is not always the case and if you marry for the external but do not pay attention to the internal, you can have a miserable marriage. Pay attention to the beauty that is inside; that is far more important if you are interested in having a life-long partner.

I hope you see that not showing favoritism is about much more than simply being even-handed with the rich and the poor. What James is talking about is viewing people as sons and daughters of God.

Becky Pippert wrote a wonderful book titled, Out of the Saltshaker & into the World and in this book she tells the story of a student she met when she was doing campus ministry in Portland, Oregon.
Bill was brilliant, and looked like he was always pondering the esoteric. He hair was always mussy, and in the entire time I knew him, I never once saw him wear a pair of shoes. Rain, sleet, or snow, Bill was always barefoot. While he was attending college, he had become a Christian. At this time, a well-dressed, middle-class church across the street from the campus wanted to develop more of a ministry to the students. They were not sure how to go about it, but they tried to make them feel welcome. One day Bill decided to worship there. He walked into this church wearing his blue jeans, T-shirt and of course no shoes. People looked a bit uncomfortable, but no one said anything. So Bill began walking down the aisle looking for a seat. The church was quite crowded that Sunday, so as he got down to the front pew and realized there were no seats, he just squatted on the carpet—perfectly acceptable behavior at a college fellowship, but perhaps unnerving for a church congregation. The tension in the air became so thick one could slice it.

Suddenly an elderly man began walking down the aisle toward the boy. Was he going to scold Bill? My friends who saw him approaching said they thought, “You can’t blame him. He’d never guess Bill is a Christian. And his world is too distant from Bill’s to understand. You can’t blame him for what he’s going to do.”

As the man kept walking slowly down the aisle, the church became utterly silent, all eyes were focused on him, you could not hear anyone breathe. When the man reached Bill, with some difficulty he lowered himself and sat down next to him on the carpet. He and Bill worshipped together on the floor that Sunday. I was told there was not a dry eye in the congregation.

This is what James is talking about. The old man did not see a young hippy, not appropriately dressed for church, he saw a brother in Christ whom God had chosen.

This is what C. S. Lewis wrote about. The old man did not see an ordinary person, a mere mortal. He saw an eternal son of God and he honored him by sitting beside him.

How would I like you to apply this passage of James to your life?

I am not asking you to abandon those who are from your culture and background. I have discovered over the years that the best way to minister to the diverse parts of our congregation is to focus on the different parts. We gather together to worship on Sunday, but the small groups and teaching times during the week work best when they are designed for a specific part of the church.

We need to be supported in our Christian life and that is best done by people who are like us. So make strong friendships with people who can encourage you. Take advantage of the different opportunities for teaching and small groups that exist. If there is not a small group you can meet with, form your own.

But in addition, pray that God will lead you to someone outside of your world and make a friend of that person. Meet to talk at a café. Share a meal together. Talk about life in your different countries. Learn to eat different foods. Learn about how a different culture deals with life. Get beyond the superficial exterior and learn how this person is being formed by God for an eternal existence.

The two of you have a lot in common. Both of you have been chosen by God to spend eternity in his kingdom.

Have you ever regretted something you said in the heat of an argument? I have gotten better over the years, but there are many moments I would like to have back, and many words I would like to revise.

In today’s text James writes:
let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;

In looking for an illustration of how not to obey this exhortation from James, I decided to read a section from Annie’s book. She submitted the manuscript on Friday and it will be published in September. So this is more than hot off the press – it is pre-press hot. The book is an allegory and talks about Peter and Celeste and their journey to the King’s City. In this section of the allegory, Peter and Celeste argue, which is visualized by a volcanic eruption.

Along the way, they passed another traveling family with six little travelers following in a neat line, not a speck of dirt to be seen on them.
“Celeste, did you see that family?” said Peter. “They’re proof it is possible to keep little travelers clean, if you would only take the time to wash them up.”
“I do my best,” said Celeste.
“Well obviously you could do better.”
“Why do you always criticize me, and in front of the little travelers too?” she said, raising her voice.
“Why can’t you take a little correction?”
When they reached the next camp site late that night, Celeste discovered she had left their best cooking pot at the cave.
“How could you have forgotten the pot? There weren’t any bushes for it to hide behind. It was a simple case of looking around to make sure you had everything. Are you that blind? Peter said, launching into a splendid tirade. “You have to care more about our supplies—I’m not sure we are going to be able to find another one like it.”
Celeste lashed back at Peter.  “There you go again,” she shouted. “Why do you always blame me and say it’s my fault?”
“Because it is,” Peter said, seethingly calm. “I’m not the one dancing up and down like a mad bee. I can control myself.”
“OOOOh” said Celeste, with sparks coming out of her eyes. “You march on ahead, you refuse to spend any time with me, you won’t discuss anything, and then at the end, you say it is my problem?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.   I am beginning to think that my mother was right all along. She warned me I was making a mistake because you would always be hot-tempered and emotional,” Peter said.
“Well, then why don’t you go back to your mother?”
“I would like to, but I can’t. I made a vow,” Peter said with his teeth clenched.
“A vow? You mean a vow to be insensitive to your wife? Or  a vow to appear righteous on the outside but inside be full of hate?”
They were so caught up in their argument that they didn’t hear the earth grinding under their feet, or the big groan as it slowly pulled apart. In the distance, a few trees in the forest crashed to the ground.
“If you would just work a little harder to keep the travelers clean,” Peter yelled at Celeste, “everything would be fine.”
“It’s fine for you to stand there like you are some saint, but you aren’t.  You say you love the King, but you are the most self-absorbed person I have ever met. Even my father cares more for people when he’s drunk than you do when you’re stone cold sober.” Celeste shrieked.
“You really must control yourself,” Peter said, as angry steam began to rise from the ground.
“CONTROL MYSELF???”  Celeste shouted at the top of her lungs.
“Yes, like I do.”
“I would never, ever want to be like you. You’re inhuman. You can’t feel ANYTHING!”
At that moment, a volcano erupted into the night sky ahead of them and a bright orange plume of molten lava shot up in front of them, spewing out fiery sparks. “This is great, just like fireworks,” one of the little travelers said, jumping up and down. But Celeste and Peter went on fighting.
“Just admit that you’re wrong. Why don’t you just say it, ‘I’m sorry I forgot the pot.’?” I’d love to hear you say that. Could you? Could you say that, Celeste?”
Somewhere in the forest, a clump of lava fell on a patch of dried pine needles and instantly there was a raging fire devouring everything in its path. Meanwhile, the flaming lava continued to spout out of the earth. Billows of smoke filled the air and the little travelers began to break out into violent coughing fits, but neither Peter or Celeste noticed that.
“Not until you apologize for the way you ignored us all day yesterday and half of today.”
“You deliberately went slow so you would have something to complain about.”
“How dare you say that.”
A wave of red hot lava that had bubbled over the side of the volcano surged across the forest towards the family. Celeste suddenly realized they were in danger. She quickly put on her pack, grabbed the three little travelers by the hand, and started to run away. “I will never, NEVER, I mean NEVER speak to that man again. He is a beast, he is a monster, he doesn’t care about me, and he never has,” she fumed.
“What man?” asked one of the little travelers , who looked behind in fear, to see if a monster was following them.
“Never mind,” said Celeste.

If you ask how much of what Annie has written about marriage is autobiographical, the answer is that while Peter and Celeste are not identical to us, there are some striking similarities. In our marriage, I have not always been quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. In fact, I am not a good listener.

Listeners are quite rare, although there is a desperate thirst for good listeners. You can try this, sit down with someone and determine that you are not going to offer any of your own opinions. Don’t give advice. Don’t tell your own similar story. Say nothing except to ask clarifying questions and give responses that let the person know you are listening. Do you know what will happen? Even the quietest person will talk and talk and talk. We want to be heard.

The problem we have in relationships is that we don’t listen and we are frustrated that we are not heard. It is like the person who complained: “Some people are terrible communicators, they won’t listen to any of my opinions.”

In the Marriage Course Annie and I sponsor, we learn some communication techniques that help us to talk about emotionally charged issues without erupting into anger, and those techniques are not much more complex than what James suggests: be quick to listen and slow to speak. I have been amazed that when Annie and I have used the Marriage Course techniques, issues have been resolved that I was certain would lead nowhere. And the most important part of it all is making sure the other person knows you have listened. When we know we have been heard, we know we matter and then it is no longer so important that the decision go our way.

Married couples have difficulty communicating and need to learn, even after years of marriage, how to communicate more effectively. But poor communication is not limited to married couples. I saw a video on Youtube with over 6,800,000 hits that shows an argument between a pastor in the US and members of his congregation. The church leaders were so frustrated with their pastor that while he was away, they changed the locks on the church doors. When the pastor returned he was met by some of the church leaders on the church steps and an argument broke out. A woman slapped him on the face and the pastor responded by punching her in the face. (Now you know why this has had almost 7,000,000 hits. What a great witness for the church.)

We don’t know what kind of arguments the Jewish followers of Jesus were having that made James have wisdom and speech as a major theme in his letter, but we know there must have been arguments and fights. And the arguments and fights were substantial ones, enough to make James focus on how to restrain the tongue and resolve differences without becoming angry.

James tells us:
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

The problem is that anger gets in the way of listening and anger works against our becoming more like Jesus. Anger insists on me having my way, me being declared to be right, me, me, me, me.

But to deal with anger you have to get at the roots. In the dialogue with Peter and Celeste, Peter and Celeste were already feeling hurt and frustrated before the argument that started with Peter pointing out how clean the six children of the other family were. The tensions between them were hot enough that it did not take much to set them off. A counselor meeting with Peter and Celeste would have them share the hurts and disappointments that led to the tension, using the argument itself only as an illustration that there was a problem to be dealt with.

So James tells us:
21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

There are two parts to getting rid of the anger that destroys good relationships. First we put away and then we receive. Put away carries the image of taking off clothing and James wants us to replace the rags of our sin with new clothing that comes from receiving the word that has been planted in us.

When Celeste became a follower of Jesus, she exchanged her ragged clothing for a new white cloak that was given to her. She was given the righteousness of Jesus to cover her sinful life. This is what also happened to us when we surrendered to Jesus, but salvation is a continual process and we need to continually take off the rags of our sin and become more pure. This means we have to resist temptation and we have turn around and repent when we have failed to resist.

James tells us to put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and then to receive the implanted word. The implanted word which is able to save our souls is the word Jeremiah prophesied about. (Jeremiah 31:33)
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Peter had received the righteousness of Jesus but he had two problems, he was not pure and he neglected the word that was in him. Last week I talked about resisting the temptation of pornography and that was one of Peter’s problems. He was not able to resist looking at the pictures he carried with him and he was not able to resist the urge to insist on his own rights. He was not able to care for Celeste because he was too busy taking care of himself. Peter was spending more time looking at his pornographic pictures than he was reading the Bible.

Celeste too had her problems. She carried with her postcards of her romantic fantasies that Peter would never be able to live up to. Her dissatisfaction with Peter and her inability to see things from his perspective made her resentful and angry.

All of this festered in their souls so they were unable to love each other as God intended when they first made their wedding vows. They no longer were thinking of how to make each other happy. They were protecting themselves from being abused and taken for granted by each other.

When we live unexamined lives and our pride and envy and lust is unrestrained, we are unable or not interested in putting off our sin and not serious about receiving the word that was planted in us. We spend more time absorbed in the things that tempt us than in the Bible – and then wonder why we are so frustrated and unsatisfied.

21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

How can we receive with meekness the implanted word? James continues with probably the best known verse in his letter.
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

Imagine that you are a student at the university and are playing on one of the intramural football teams. This is easy for some of you to imagine since you do play for one of those teams. Now imagine that the coach of your national football team comes to coach your team here in Rabat. He works with you and gives you tips. He helps you with strategy and then when the game comes, you completely ignore what he taught and play the way you always have played. That would be foolish.

I am beginning my work to get a Moroccan driver’s license. I will go to the school and sit at the computer, going through the practice tests until they think I am ready to take the real test. And then I will sit in their car and have my driving test. What good would it do to read the book and practice the test but when I get in the car, not do the things the book says I should do? I will fail the test and not get my license.

James tells us it doesn’t do any good to simply read the Bible. If we do not put into practice what we read, then we have wasted our time.

Think about the effort God has made to give us a Bible to read. First of all, he had to work with imperfect people to get them to write something he could use, not simply for that generation but for all the generations to come. Then he had to work with the early church as councils met to determine what books would be included in the Bible. And then he had to make people aware of the need to translate the Bible into new languages.

Think about the effort God made to get you to want to read the Bible. He pursued you when you were not really interested or when you may have been antagonistic. He pursued you and made you thirsty so you wanted the living water he promises.

And more than all of this, think about the sacrifice God made, becoming human and then dying on the cross – for you.

So finally you have a Bible in your hand and you want to read it, what then? Do you read a few verses without really paying attention to what you read and then put it down so you can get on with your day?

You can hear some of the frustration of Jesus when he said to those who came to hear him at the Sermon on the Mount. (Luke 6:46–49)
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?

Can you hear God asking you that this morning?

I recently read a book by Phillip Jenkins: The Changing Face of Christianity. In this book Jenkins talks about how the center of Christianity (equal numbers of Christians north and south, east and west) is now moving south and east with the center of the church near Timbuktu in Mali. As Jenkins discusses Christianity in Africa and Asia, he talks about how the Bible is viewed in these parts of the world.

There is a Zulu song that says, “Satan has no power / we will clobber him with a verse.” The Bible is viewed with so much power that it can become superstitious or almost magical.

In Kenya some prophets and prophetesses will not only pray for a patient but will place the Bible on the patient for healing. In India a visiting teacher was told to pray for a sick woman and to place the Bible on her head while he prayed. In West Papua in Indonesia, a woman explained that from her first to her fifth child she puts a Bible next to their heads when they sleep so God will protect them. In Nigeria a study was made and discovered that “the Bible is used to ward off evil spirits, witchcraft and sorcery, it is placed under the pillow at night to ensure God’s protection against the devil, it is put in handbags and cars when traveling to ensure a safe journey, it is used in swearing to bring God’s wrath upon culprits. “

In the West there are popular apocryphal stories of a man going to war and carrying a Bible his mother gave him in his breast pocket. He was hit by a bullet but not killed because the bullet did not penetrate the Bible.

Woody Allen, an American comedian parodied this story.
“Years ago, my mother gave me a bullet…a bullet, and I put it in my breast pocket. Two years after that, I was walking down the street, when a berserk evangelist heaved a Gideon Bible out of a hotel room window, hitting me in the chest. The Bible would have gone through my heart if it wasn’t for the bullet!”

The Bible is not a talisman. The Bible does not have magical power all by itself. The Bible is just a book. It is paper and ink and nothing more. A Bible in your hand will do nothing for you until you open it. The power of the Bible comes when we read it and obey what it says.

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

James uses the image of two different mirrors to show the difference between hearing the word and being a doer of the word.

British researchers reported in 2010 that the average woman in Britain spends five years of her life looking in a mirror. That is 120 hours a year, almost 20 minutes a day. I don’t want to be sexist here, but I think most men do not spend as much time as women in front of a mirror. It is not that we are less vain, but society does not judge us by our beauty as much as it does women.

What do you do when you look in a mirror? We are much more critical of ourselves when we see our image than when others see us. When we look in a mirror we see the part of our face we do not like. Even those who are judged by the world to be the most beautiful look in a mirror at a nose they wish was smaller or a dimple they wish wasn’t there.

But no matter how intently we stare at every detail in our face, when we turn away, the image disappears.

James uses this mirror to talk about the futility of reading the Bible but not meditating on what we read or letting what we read change our behavior. We read the passage for the morning, close the Bible and forget all about what we read.

And then he contrasts a superficial view of ourselves in a mirror to the more profound look at ourselves that comes when we read the Bible and allow what we read to reveal who we are at a deeper level.

The writer of Hebrews wrote: (Hebrews 4:12–13)
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

When we read the Bible, study what it has to say, and seek how it applies to our lives, we are putting ourselves on the operating table. And the more intently you study the Bible and the more purposively you apply what you read to your life, the more intensive the operations become. As you go on in life you may eventually find yourself doing open-heart surgery.

Is that scary? It would be if it happened at the beginning of our walk with Jesus. But when God knows we feel loved enough by him, then he allows us the privilege of seeing a more true picture of ourselves so we can remove more of the ragged filthiness of our lives and receive more of his implanted word. These deep insights into ourselves are a gift from God that help us to more thoroughly clean out the messy spots in our lives.

I’m running out of time but let me say quickly that James ends this section by talking about worthless religion and true religion. If we fail to be doers of the word and do not restrain our tongue, our religion is worthless. But,
27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

When we put into practice what we read, we will find ourselves caring for those who are not able to care for themselves. We will be compassionate toward others, not seeking that our own needs get met above all else. We will repent when we have sinned and resist the temptations that come to us.

I want to finish this morning by introducing you to the insert in your bulletin. You can take this and put it in your Bible to help remind you about how to read your Bible and become a doer of the word.

Remember when you read the Bible you have two goals:
A. to have a good understanding of what the text is saying,
B. to have the Holy Spirit show you how to align your life with what it says.

And here is how to do that.

1. Observation: What does it say?
It might help to write out the text on paper. Or possibly type it out. But do not cut and paste. The point is to help you focus on each word.

2. Interpretation: What does it mean?
What was the situation the text is coming from? Was it Mark wanting to preserve the teaching of Jesus Peter shared? Was it Paul responding to a letter from the church in Corinth? Was it the writer of Hebrews writing to Jews who had discovered Jesus was the Messiah but now because of persecution wanted to know if they could go back to being Jews?

How does what is written relate to the theme of the book?

It is helpful to look at the notes in a Study Bible or look at a commentary. Many times a Study Bible has an introduction to the book of the Bible.

These first two steps are what we are covering in the Adult Sunday School class where Gordon Fee is talking from his book, How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth. But now we get to the third step which is where you become a doer of the word.

3. Application: How does it apply?
Here is where the rubber hits the road. This is where you become a doer of the word. When you know what the text says and what it means, the question is how this is going to affect your life. What will you do differently because of what you have read?

Then on the sheet there are a number of questions to ask for each of these three steps.

There are is also in the bulletin five questions Tim Keller says we should ask when we read the Bible.

These are tools to help you become a doer of the word.

Last week I talked about the temptation of pornography. If you are struggling with that temptation and did not do anything about it this week, you are not a doer of the word and it is difficult to see how you could expect the blessing of God in your life when you refuse to take seriously his desire that you clean up the mess in your life.

If you were convicted by God in any other way and did nothing this week to change your behavior, why are you surprised you don’t have more peace?

I like the NESV translation of James 1:25
But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.

Be a doer who acts and be blessed in your doing.

The year before we moved to Rabat, we visited our youngest daughter who was living in Tanzania. We spent one of our three weeks on a safari which was an absolutely wonderful experience and which included a hot air balloon ride. I have ridden in a hot air balloon only once in my life and I can not think of a better place to have done this than in the Serengeti. On the balloon ride I talked with an American who was studying owl behavior in the Serengetii for his PhD at the University of Madison. He told me that when he came, one of his desires was to see lions on the hunt. So one night he saw the lights of a car coming down the road and thought it might be a woman he knew coming to visit him. He went outside and stood in the dark, waiting to see if it was her. But the car passed by and when he turned on his flashlight, his torch, to head back in, he saw a female lion on the hunt about six meters in front of him, looking straight at him.

He knew what not to do which was to run because that triggers the lion’s instinct to attack. What you are supposed to do is keep eye contact and slowly back away. But he was too scared to do this and turned around, keeping the light shining behind him and slowly walked the 15 meters into his house. When he was safely inside, he turned on the outside lights and saw four female lions around his outhouse. He told me from then on he has used a bottle rather than go outside at night to the outhouse. He told me he came a lot closer to lions on the hunt than he had hoped for.

On our first night at the lodge where we stayed, we noticed a young woman who looked very upset. We were in such a beautiful place we could not imagine why she should be so sad. Then we found out she had come with her boyfriend and sister. The week before we arrived she and her boyfriend said goodnight to her sister and they never saw her again. Apparently she had gone outside in the night and been attacked and carried away. The guides were looking for vultures to see where her body might be.

We drove past a small village where the night watchman had been killed and eaten by a lion that past year.

Also in that past year, some German tourists were driving in their car and got out to get closer to video some lions. The video camera that was left behind showed the lions coming and the couple was killed.

I love walking out in nature, but when you live near lions, you have to be a bit more careful.

Here in Rabat, we do not step out at night and worry that a lion or tiger will spring out of the shadow to attack us, but there is a predator that waits for us in the dark. He prowls, he is constantly alert, watching, seeking a moment of weakness in our lives when we are vulnerable and unprotected, so he can spring out and grab us. This predator wants to destroy us. This predator wants to kill us. We are being stalked by a killer.

1 Peter 5:8
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

We have different world views in this church. Those of you from Africa have no hesitation in believing the devil is prowling around because you come from a fear/power world view. You know the power of the devil and have learned to take his attacks seriously. You probably have stories you can tell about the power of witchcraft and spells.

Those of you from the West have more difficulty believing the devil is prowling around because you come from a guilt/innocence world view. You tend to view the devil as a comic figure with a red tail, horns and a pitchfork. The devil is a mythical figure, not real and not to be taken seriously.

But regardless of the world view you have grown up with and regardless of what you think, the devil prowls around seeking his chance to grab you. The devil is not a philosophical or theological metaphor. The devil is real, not abstract, and not imaginary. The devil is dangerous, not a cute costume for children to dress up in.

The devil is fighting against God and in his fighting, you are insignificant. The devil does not care at all about you. The only reason the devil pays any attention to you is because you are loved by God. And because the devil is at war with God he seeks to destroy those God loves. So the devil will come to you and flatter you, lure you, seduce you so he can get his claws into you and rip you apart, pull you away from God and destroy your life.

The devil is known by many names in the Bible. Among other names, he is called the accuser, the adversary, Beelzebub, the deceiver, the evil one, the father of lies, Lucifer, the ruler of this world and Satan. But the one that relates to the text this morning in James is that he is called the tempter.

When Jesus was fasting in the wilderness, the devil came to him. (Matthew 4:3)
And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

The devil came to Jesus in his hunger and tempted him with food. He came to Jesus who was realizing the difficult path he had to take and tempted him with a shortcut. The devil looked to see where Jesus was weak and tempted him in his area of vulnerability.

James writes:
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

James grew up by the Sea of Galilee and if he was not a fisherman, he was familiar with fishing. And so he uses a fishing image to describe the process the devil uses. A metal hook is thrown into the water but only by accident will anyone catch a fish with a bare hook. So an attractive lure is put on the hook. It can be a piece of fish or a worm or an artificial lure. The hook with the bait or lure now sits in the water, moving back and forth with the movement of the sea and rod, calling out to the fish to come and take a nibble. When the fish nibbles the fisherman senses the pull on the string and yanks up the rod and now the fish is caught. It struggles but slowly the fisherman reels in the fish, against its will. The fish was tempted, it nibbled, and now it is no longer master but being pulled against its will to its destruction.

Temptation is not a game. It is a life and death struggle.

James writes:
each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

When James is talking about desire, he is talking about fleshly, illicit desire. Most often in the New Testament this refers to sexual sin but the word has a broader meaning, including any longing we have for what God has prohibited, for any forbidden fruit. For now let me focus on sexual sin.

If we fit the statistics, I would guess that 50-75% of us in this church are having a problem with pornography on the internet. We may not talk about it and for many of us, no one else knows what we are doing on the internet. But this is a huge problem and a major area of temptation.

It used to be that the local community acted as a guard against sexual sin. Anything you did, the community knew about it. The closeness of the community acted as a restraint. But then as technology developed, people traveled farther away from home and were able to do what they wanted and the people in their community knew nothing about it. But even then there were those who sold you the magazines or watched you walk into the movie theater. You could not be anonymous.

But today you can click on the internet in the privacy of your bedroom and be totally anonymous (except for the search engines who pay attention to where you go and use that information to market to you). You don’t have to go into a store and buy a magazine with everyone knowing you are buying that magazine. You simply click and away you go.

I want to say at the outset that sexual desire is not evil. God created you as a sexual being and gave you your sexual desire. Because God gives us only good gifts, this makes our sexual desire a good thing. The evil comes not from having the desire but in how it is used. Sexual desire in marriage leads to intimacy. In the Marriage Course Annie and I sponsor, they teach that, in marriage, sex is not the icing on the cake, it is the cake itself. Sex in marriage is necessary to build intimacy between a husband and wife. Sexual desire in marriage is a good thing because it binds the husband and wife together in an intimate relationship.

But when that desire attempts to be satisfied outside of a marriage relationship, what happens? Certainly not intimacy.

It is very difficult not to get pulled into the world of porn. I search for images for the bulletin cover and for birthday cards I make. I once looked for an image for a injured football player and among the images were some sexy pictures of women. What an injured football player had to do with those pictures I have no idea, but sex pops up on the internet all the time. When I download a TV program, a woman pops up to proposition me, wanting me to talk with her. These pictures are far too graphic for me and I try to get out of that screen as soon as I can.

The problem for us is these images are only a click away. It takes no effort to click. We don’t have to work out to get in shape. Instead of moving the mouse to the top to get out of the screen, all we have to do is move the mouse down to the picture and with just a little movement of the finger, there we are. We look at one picture which leads to another and get drawn deeper and deeper into the porn world. And what results? Are we rewarded with a feeling of intimacy? What kind of intimacy can be achieved when you are by yourself in a dark room touching yourself?

The world of porn is a fantasy world where everyone thinks you are fantastic and no one ever argues with you. How can you find intimacy in a world of fantasy?

When you engage in sex outside of a committed, married relationship, what happens? That relationship too is a fantasy relationship. You get together, each of you wearing your nice clothes. You have fun and then each go back to your own place. You don’t have to deal with dirty underwear or the daily discussion of who is going to cook and clean and fold laundry and pay bills. Even in a longer term relationship where intimacy may develop, where is the security that this person will stay with you no matter what happens? When reality does intrude into this fantasy relationship and there is no marriage commitment to keep you together, the relationship dissolves.

The desire God gave is so often misused and leads to dark alleys of death, not a path of life.

But when desire leads to where God intended it to lead, then it provides sweet intimacy, a safe haven in the world, a relationship where we are loved, valued and respected.

Obviously, not all marriages end this way. Being married is not a guarantee that this kind of relationship will result. Marriage takes a lot of hard work and sacrifice. But the path of sexual desire in a marriage relationship has the potential to lead to the intimacy we crave.

The world of porn does not satisfy. None of the things we lust for: money, sex or power can satisfy. Frederick Buechner defines lust as the craving for salt of a man who is dying of thirst. The more we have, the more we crave. The more porn we watch, the more we need to watch. After awhile pictures are not enough and we need to watch video. Then the videos need to become more and more graphic. Then we have to be involved some way or another in the action ourselves.

The reason we get pulled deeper and deeper into porn is that it does not and cannot satisfy us. All it can do is increase our longing for intimacy.

James tells us:
But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

We see the picture dangling on the hook. We get curious and take a closer look. We nibble and the hook is jerked up and we are hooked. Then it is just a matter of time as we are dragged to where we do not want to go. We are no longer masters of ourselves. We are slaves to our sin.

I have talked a lot about pornography because it is such a problem and has such a negative effect on our lives, but the same process is true of our lust for money and power.

Money is good and so is power, when they have their proper place and are used well. But as soon as we lust for money and lust for power, the lust takes over and we become slaves to our desires.

James writes:
13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

What is the deception James is talking about? Don’t be deceived by what? This verse goes back to verse 13 and to verse 2.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,

When trials come, our temptation is to say, “God, why are you doing this to me?” We ask why God allowed someone to be so sick or why he allowed someone to die. We ask why we have to suffer so much from financial problems or why God allows someone rich and powerful to take advantage of us.

Death, disease and injustice inflict themselves on us and James wants to be perfectly clear that these things do not come from God. God does not put death, disease and injustice into our lives so we can grow in faith. These things come from living in a fallen world where the devil is active and prowling around to see who he can devour. God uses these things to bring good into our lives, growing our faith, but he does not create them.

When James writes about being lured and enticed by our own desires, he is not unaware of the devil’s part in all of this. Later in James 4:7–8 he writes:
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Remember that James was nicknamed “camel knees” because of all the time he spent praying. And when someone prays with that devotion, they know very intimately the presence of the devil. People who pray like this are called “prayer warriors” because they battle with the devil as they pray for the will of God to be lived out on earth as it is in heaven.

James knew from personal experience that when he was tempted and submitted to God, the devil was resisted and fled away.

John wrote: (1 John 4:4)
he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

This was the experience of James, the experience of John, the experience of Martin Luther, and the experience of every son and daughter of God who has struggled against the temptations and attacks of the devil. Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

You cannot submit half-heartedly. To use the words of James in the preceding verses, you cannot be double-minded, wanting the pleasures of the flesh and victory over the devil at the same time. With your whole heart and mind, submit to God and you will have victory over the temptations of the devil.

James continues:
16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

When John is describing the new Jerusalem, our heavenly destination, he uses this same image of light: (Revelation 21:23)
And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.

Light without shadow is a description of a world without sin. This is why it is not possible for God to be the one who sends us temptations. There is no shadow in God, he is all light.

We talk about shady characters who are out to take advantage of others. They manipulate and deceive and are not to be trusted. But God cannot manipulate us or deceive us because there are no shady parts to his character. God cannot tempt us because he can only work to build us up, not tear us down.

When you surrender to Jesus and accept his gift of salvation, his light comes into your life. But we still have dark areas in our lives and the Holy Spirit comes to begin to work with us, to bring the light of Christ into the dark areas of our life so we can see the mess and begin to work with the Holy Spirit to clean it up.

This is an ongoing process and as we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, we become more clean. But when we give in to temptation, we create more dark areas of our lives with more messes to be cleaned up. We can become quite discouraged.

Imagine you buy a new house that was on sale because the previous owners had not taken good care of it. As you step in the front door there is a little place to walk but then there are piles and piles of junk and garbage to be thrown out. As you make your way through the house it is such a mess, every room needing to be cleaned up. Every room needs to be painted.

You can feel helpless. How will you, by yourself, be able to get the house cleaned up? But here is the great news: just outside the front door is a team of workers with huge garbage dumpsters and paint brushes, ready to come help you. You are not alone. You have help with what seems to be an overwhelming task.

You may feel this way about areas of your life. Some rooms in your life are so messy, it seems hopeless. It seems you will never be able to get that part of your life clean.

But there is hope. The Holy Spirit came to work with you, to help you clean up the messes in your life. You are not working alone. God wants you to succeed. God wants you to be so filled with his light that there is no longer any darkness in you.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

God will not let you drown. He will reach out to you when you cry for help, just as he did with Peter on the Sea of Galilee, and pull you to your feet. But you have to cry out for help. You have to submit to God with all your heart and mind. Then the devil will flee and you will find the strength to resist the temptation that is pressing on your life.

There is one other major resource for you in resisting temptation. God created us to live in community. We are meant to be in close fellowship with other followers of Jesus. We are not meant to resist the devil on our own. We are meant to be in community and rely on those close to us to help us resist the devil’s attacks on our lives.

This is why I tell people we have to be in accountability groups. We need to create the community that is no longer there. We need people who will ask us personal questions and help us resist sexual and other temptations. If you are not meeting regularly with other brothers or sisters to help you live your Christian life, you are asking for trouble. You need others to help you walk in the light.

Seriously, today after church, talk to someone and begin meeting together. If you have questions about how to do this, talk to Elliot or Connie or me and we can give you some advice. We need each other if we are to walk in the light and cooperate with the Holy Spirit as we clean up the dark areas of our lives.

There is one last verse in this section of James:
18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

When you are being tempted and have given in, at least partially, to the temptation, you can think terrible things about yourself. The devil, sometimes called the accuser, whispers in our ear, telling us how terrible we are, telling us that God is tired of our failure and is giving up on us, telling us we might as well give up as well.

But James wants us to know that God who gives good and perfect gifts, in whom there is no shadow, who is only light, God brought us by the word of truth into his kingdom. The perfection of Jesus was given to cover over our sins. God chose to do this of his own will. He did not have to do this. He chose to do this. And because God brought us into his kingdom, our new “born again” life with him is one of his good and perfect gifts.

We become frustrated and discouraged because we have such trouble resisting sexual sin or resisting the fame and adulation of the world or resisting the lust for money and power. We struggle. All of us, in one way or another struggle, but we need to know that in the midst of our struggles, God loves us. God chose us. God thinks we are wonderful.

God grieves when we hurt ourselves by giving in to temptation. But he never stops loving us.

This morning when you come forward for communion, come in submission to God. Resist the devil. Come knowing you are loved. Come knowing the Holy Spirit is at work in you. Come with a determination to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and clean up the messy rooms in your life.

Are you rich or poor?

In most communities in the world, there are wealthy congregations and poorer congregations. It is not normal to have a wide range of incomes in the same church. But we are an exceptional church in many ways and one of these is that in our diversity, there is a wide range of incomes. Some of us own cars and drive to church while others save the 4.5 dirhams it costs to ride the bus and walk to church.

The followers of Jesus James wrote to in this letter were meeting in synagogues that had this kind of economic diversity. This created difficulties that make the relationship of rich and poor a major theme in James’ letter. These verses in chapter 1 are the first mention of this theme.
9 Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, 10 and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

What book of the Bible do you think of when you read these verses? Ecclesiastes? Psalms? Proverbs? These books of the Bible are part of what is called Wisdom literature and James comes closest to this genre than any other book of the New Testament.

So we can appreciate this text by itself and learn from it, as we do from Isaiah 40:6–8
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.

Or Psalm 49:16–17
16 Be not afraid when a man becomes rich,
when the glory of his house increases.
17 For when he dies he will carry nothing away;
his glory will not go down after him.

There is wisdom in these verses of the Bible. The world and all its wealth is fading away and to lust for it or to hold on to it is to make a big mistake. But why did James put these verses in a section of his letter that is talking about persevering with joy when trials come?

Remember, always remember, when you read James, who the letter is addressed to: (James 1:1)
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:
Greetings.

The Jewish followers of Jesus living in Jerusalem and the surrounding area were forced, because of persecution, to leave and settle in Syria and northern Palestine where they were strangers in a new community. They had to start over to find ways to make a living and so faced tough financial situations. They left behind the social network they were used to and had to establish a new network of friends. They went to the local synagogue and had to explain that they had discovered Jesus was the long awaited Messiah, which may well have created tension with the synagogue leaders. Their disruption of the status quo, the way things had always been, may have caused them to be unwanted and rejected.

This rejection and financial difficulty are some of the trials James had in mind as he wrote this letter, so if we want to understand these verses that carry the same theme as Isaiah 40 and Psalm 49, we need to look at the whole of verses 2-12 in the first chapter of James’ letter.

So let’s summarize the teaching of James thus far. He begins by telling these dispersed Jewish followers of Jesus to consider it joy when trials come. Why? Because they produce perseverance which leads to the development of a deeper faith. This faith that results from perseverance is so precious that the pain of the trial is considered worth enduring.

But then in order to persevere well, wisdom is needed. If wisdom is not present, then the perseverance can be characterized by whining and complaining, by fighting and depression.

Wisdom is a recognition of who God is and knowing our place before him. Wisdom believes that suffering will lead to something better, that there is meaning in the suffering. Wisdom understands that our goal is not an earthly paradise but a heavenly one. Wisdom knows that we are passing through this world as we prepare for our real home.

Perseverance without wisdom is a path that leads to death. Perseverance with wisdom is a path that leads to life.

James then adds one more qualifier to perseverance. He writes that as we persevere with wisdom, we need to make sure we are not double-minded. If we are going to grow in faith, we will have to be clear about our goal and be single-minded in our pursuit of Jesus.

James relies more on the teaching of Jesus, in particular the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel according to Matthew, than any other New Testament writer. And at this point he is clearly referencing Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6:24
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

In our perseverance, this is where most of us get stuck. This is where I get stuck. We are torn between our longing for God and our desire to hold on to the rewards of the world.

I ended the sermon last week with two questions Dallas Willard suggested to John Ortberg as a diagnostic test for our spiritual life. Are we single-minded in our pursuit of God or are we double-minded, trying to serve God and money?

Here are the two questions:
Am I growing more easily discouraged these days?
Am I growing more easily irritated these days?

And when I answer these two questions, I realize that I really am double-minded. I have a very strong longing to serve God, to have a more intimate relationship with God. I want to have an experience of his love and his peace. But I find it so difficult to let go of my attachment to the things of this world. I want my comfort. I want my vacations. I want my retirement home in the woods.

I don’t think I am unique in this. This has been the struggle of followers of Jesus over the centuries. Paul wrote in Romans 7:15
For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
I think he was struggling with the same issue that we do. As much as Paul was pursuing God with all his heart, soul and mind, his flesh still wanted to be satisfied with the things the world offers.

The world offers money, possessions, approval, power, fame and we want it. We find it so difficult to let go of these things – which makes us double-minded.

This is why I think James follows in his teaching with these comments about the temporary nature of the wealth of the world. Because wealth, either having it or wanting to have it, is such a problem, it has to be dealt with if we are to persevere and grow in faith when trials come our way.

In this light, let’s take a look at what James is saying to us.
James 1:2–12
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.
9 The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. 10 But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower. 11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business.
12 Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

James encourages the brother in humble circumstances to take pride in his high position. Who is the brother in humble circumstances? The brother in humble circumstances is one who has little significance in the world’s opinion. The world looks to the rich and powerful but God has an eye out for those the world ignores, takes for granted, uses and abuses. The Bible frequently mentions widows, orphans and aliens as these forgotten people. To this list we could add the handicapped, street children, house cleaners, parking guardians and servants.

When Mary went to see her cousin Elizabeth after becoming pregnant, she sang in her song of praise about the people of humble circumstances. (Luke 1:52)
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;

The brother or sister in humble circumstances is one who does not have the wealth of the world. The brother or sister in humble circumstances looks around and sees all the things others have that they do not have. They may not live in a nice apartment, may not have a lot of clothes, may have to struggle to find money to pay the rent each month. The brother or sister in humble circumstances may get taken advantage of by those with wealth who pay them very little to work very hard.

The brother or sister in humble circumstances receives the message day after day that they are not important, not of value. The brother or sister in humble circumstances is overlooked by the world and yet James writes that they should boast in their high position. The word James uses here for high position refers to the heavenly realm from which the Spirit descended and to which Jesus ascended. The brother or sister in humble circumstances boasts in their real home in heaven. They boast in being daughters and sons of God. Their situation on earth is only temporary and will soon pass away.

James’ point is that believers have to look past the world’s evaluation of themselves to see who they are. Believers need to look to God and see themselves through his eyes. Who we are is not evaluated by our bank accounts, the number of friends we have on Facebook or how large a truck is needed to help us move. Who we are is how God views us.

A few years ago, my friend Uchenna experienced the racism many Africans face from Moroccans. He got on the bus and sat down next to a Moroccan man. The man looked at him with disgust, got up and sat down in another seat.

How do you handle such an insulting situation. This Moroccan did not like his skin color, his smell, his facial features. This is a highly personal, offensive, degrading insult and yet as Uchenna told me about his experience, this is what he said. “I smiled because I realized that if this man knew what I had to offer him, he would have gotten on his knees and begged me to share words of life with him.”

James says:
Let the brother in humble circumstances boast in his high position,

Uchenna’s identity was not wrapped up in what this man or in what any other man thought of him. Uchenna’s identity was in his relationship with Jesus. He knew he was a child of God, on his way to the kingdom. This is what allowed him to handle the insult with grace.

Let your relationship with God define who you are, not what the world thinks of you or how the world assesses you. The world may say you are inferior and dispensable, but God thinks you are worth enough to die for. God thinks you are worth sacrificing for so you can come into his kingdom. God loves you and thinks you are wonderful and calls you his daughter or son. You have great worth in his eyes.

James continues:
But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower. 11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business.

How do the rich take pride? How do they boast? The rich don’t need to boast, their possessions do it for them. The cars they drive, the clothes they wear, the vacations they take, the jewelry they wear, the home they live in: these all tell the world and themselves how rich they are.

We want to be rich. We want the things the rich have. We want the power being rich brings. But do you realize that it is much more difficult for the rich to be followers of Jesus than the poor?

Does this sound odd to you? Why is it Jesus spent so much time warning about the dangers of money and possessions? He talked more about money and possessions than he did about heaven, prayer, faith or hell.

When the rich young ruler came to Jesus and wanted to follow him, Jesus told him to sell all he had, give it to the poor and then come follow him. When the ruler went away sad because he was not able to do this, Jesus told his disciples: (Matthew 19:23–25)
“Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

We want to be wealthy but few people realize the danger that comes with wealth.

Let me explain why it is a spiritual advantage to be poor.

A few years ago there was a man in our church named Anthony who was from India. He worked here repairing automobiles for the Sheik of Abu Dhabi and went home once a year to see his wife and son. One day Anthony received word that his wife and son were being threatened by other members of his family and might lose the house they lived in. Anthony wanted to fly home and deal with the situation but his boss would not give him his passport and he had to stay in Rabat. There was nothing to do but pray and so a few of us met with Anthony and asked God to do what we could not do ourselves.

We prayed for the protection of his family and their home and in a week or so Anthony received word that the family had given up their attempts to take over the house.

Anthony had a sweet, deep faith that was the result of having to trust God for many things in his life. If I had been in his situation, I would have gone straight to the airport, paid for a ticket and flown home to deal with the emergency. I would have hired a lawyer or whatever was needed to be done to protect my interests. At the end I would have resolved the problem, just as Anthony’s problem was resolved. The difference is that Anthony’s faith grew and my faith would not have grown.

The difficulty of having money is that you begin to trust in what you can do with your resources rather than trust in God.

When Annie and I were first married, we were in a church that had a very wealthy family. One  Friday the teenage son in the family had an accident and totaled the car he was driving. The next day his parents went to the car dealer and bought a new car with cash. We were stunned. It was amazing to us that someone could have that much money.

This is the problem the wealthy have: when does God have a chance to provide for them? When the poor have a need, they pray and pray and then when God provides, there is a celebration. When do the rich do this?

James says:
But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower. 11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business.

The challenge for those with wealth is to realize that what they have and the bank account in which they place their trust will disappear and then what will they do? The rich need to turn from trusting in their wealth and realize they are on an even playing field with the poor. Both are headed for an end to this world and need to place their confidence in Jesus who will take them safely where no bank account can go. Holding on to their wealth will only slow them down.

We will come later in James to how the rich and poor are to relate to each other. Here James is telling us how the rich and poor are to relate to God.

The problem is that wealth has a hold on both rich and poor. The rich want to hold on to it and the poor want to get their hands on it.

If you are materially poor, you are rich in Christ and that is where you need to place your identity. If you are materially wealthy, you need to realize your wealth will slip though your hands like sand at the beach and you are in desperate need of Jesus. Both rich and poor need to put their identity in who they are in relationship to Jesus and turn from the world.

Jesus told a parable about being invited to a wedding feast. (Luke 14:7–11 )
“When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The poor know where to sit when they come into the room. They find a spot in the back, perhaps in the corner. The world has taught them they do not deserve any better. But the rich think they deserve to be at the head table with the bride and bridegroom. They are offended if they are not given a place of honor.

Jesus tells the rich to sit in the back. Identify with the poor. Reject what the world says you are and identify with your brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. Humble yourself and realize you are poor in spirit and desperately in need of being saved by Jesus, just like everyone else in the world.

And then there is wonderful news. Jesus will come and take you to a seat of honor. The poor will be led to the head table where they will be honored. The rich who have humbled themselves will be taken to the head table where they will be honored.

As for the rich who sat at the head table, thinking they deserved the honor, they will be taken away and sent out of the room.

Are you rich or poor? I hope you answer this question with more understanding than you did at the beginning of the sermon.

James finishes this section of his letter with the reward that awaits the rich man who sees his spiritual poverty and puts his trust in Jesus and the reward that awaits the poor man who looks past his material poverty and sees who he is in Christ.

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

The crown of life is not a king or queen’s crown, it is the crown placed on the head of the triumphant victor in an athletic competition. The crown recognizes all the years of disciplined living and hard training. It recognizes the sacrifices that were made to be successful.

An Olympic athlete puts everything else aside and focuses on training for four years and the image in the front of their mind is that moment of triumph, standing on the medal stand and having a gold medal draped around their neck. And in that moment, all the hard work that it took to get there is worth it.

This is why we consider it joy when trials come. This is why we persevere. This is why we seek wisdom and focus single-mindedly on Jesus. This is why we reject what the world tells us about who we are and focus on how God sees us.

If you are currently going through a trial of some kind or when you face a trial in the future, I cannot promise that it is or will be easy. Trials are painful. They hurt. They can shake your faith to its core. But if you can hold on to the teaching of James and see that moment when you will come face-to-face with Jesus and hear him say to you, “Welcome good and faithful servant,” you can hold on and persevere with wisdom and single-mindedness.

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Jeremiah 9:23–24
Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”