“JAMES”
TEXT: LUKE 9:51-56
Sunday, March 21, 2004
That [choir anthem] is hard to follow. That is a great song. If you have seen The Passion of the Christ, it deepens that song and every song about the Crucifixion all the more, doesn’t it? It’s incredible what God did. It does leave you in a sense of quiet contemplation and deep awe of God. We are talking about disciples who had an awe of God as well, the twelve, people who walked with Jesus. Who were they? What kind of people did God pick to serve him? What type of people does God pick to serve him now? Last week we talked about Andrew who was the first disciple (though he gets listed fourth), and we talked about that in the Bible study. What a rip-off that was, Andrew brought Peter, and again Peter excels past him; forever Andrew is known as the brother of Peter, not by ‘Andrew’, but ‘Andrew, the brother of Peter.’ How do you think he might have felt about that?
Well, as you read all the gospels, you discover that Andrew didn’t really care, he didn’t care at all. It didn’t affect him and he had no hint of jealousy. He was probably pretty excited, and relished the fact that his brother Peter really grew in his faith and became a leader of the disciples. It’s this quality - the selflessness of Andrew- that is so admirable about him and he was so proud. It reminds me of the movie Jingle All The Way. If you have seen it, there is one scene where the son just beams, proud of the father. The father has been kind of a lousy father most of his life, but his father finally comes through for him, and the son just beams and he shouts, that’s my father. It is the same type of pride in Peter that Andrew had - it was a selfless pride.
Where does this attitude come from? Well, I think it really came from John the Baptist and his selflessness as well. Andrew learned a long time ago that God and his service were about God and his service and not about himself. It is not about him and he realizes it’s not about him.
Today we are going to learn about someone who didn’t get that; that it is not about him. You know we don’t get it either sometimes. Oftentimes Christian people will say, you know, I came to church but I didn’t get a whole lot out of worship today. I am going to shock you about something -- that’s the point. The point of worship is it’s not about us. It’s about Him. It’s not about us. It’s about Him. Worship is a time where we give God thanks and honor for all that he has done for us. Worship is where we empty ourselves totally and say “God, thank you.”
It’s then, though, that we discover the truthfulness that in giving, you receive, and we empty ourselves in worship. God then fills us and we turn around in our hearts and our mind; all of a sudden in the giving, we discover God has touched us and God is right there - all of a sudden out of the blue.
The same thing is true about marriage, really. So many people say, you know what, I married my spouse and I thought that would make me happy. Now I will shock you again. Marriage will not make you happy. Do I get an “amen” out there? Marriage will not make you happy. It is not intended to make you happy. You’re intended to make the other person happy, not for you to be happy. Marriage isn’t something you get something from, it’s something you give to and then you discover the wonder that in giving you receive - because in giving then you receive. So often we look at marriage as what we are going to get out of it, and when we do that, we become selfish and it works against us. We don’t get much out of it as a result.
Well, we are going to look at James who just doesn’t get this point in his life. He’s a lot about himself and he’s usually the second disciple on the list. I put him third because that is where he ends up in the book of Acts, probably because his ministry was really cut short. He was the first disciple to die. He was martyred by Herod, a group of the first in 43 A.D., you can read this in Acts 12:2. The passage, I think, that typifies this guy [It is not a glowing story, in fact, it really is an embarrassing story, but one thing I like about the Bible is it’s so real, it’s so genuine, it tells us about real people, showing us their flaws as well as their triumphs- we have flaws and triumphs.], is in Luke 9, if you will turn there.
In Chapter 9 there is a shift in Jesus’ ministry from the focus on Galilee to, and as he goes towards it, Jerusalem. It is a slow trek. He really is ministering from Galilee to Judea and Luke spends the rest of the time in Jesus’ ministry in Judea. Most of the gospel highlights the ministry in Galilee only. Luke focuses on both and John focuses entirely upon Judea. It says that Jesus had to go through Samaria. Actually, he didn’t have to, most Jews didn’t go through Samaria; they went around the east side of the coast because it was dangerous to go through Samaria. There was bad blood between the Samaritans and the Jews. The Samaritans, if they knew you were heading toward Jerusalem, did not give you accommodations. There were times when they secretly killed Jews for passing through their territory. It was really bad blood between them and Jesus decides to go through there anyway and the disciples follow and sure enough they have a bad experience. Note James’ reaction to this. What does it say about who he is? Here is what it says:
As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’ But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village.
Some manuscripts add a sentence: You do not know what kind of spirit you are of for the Son of man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.
[Let’s pray.]
What do you notice about James? Does he come across as a disciple of Jesus who loves people in the world? Does he seem very loving, very kind, very compassionate, a soft, touchy, loving type of guy? Well no, no, he surprisingly does not. I don’t think you want James to be leading your nation. They burn the flag, poof, they’re gone. I’m sorry, and you don’t want James on your evangelism committee. What, you don’t want to accept the Lord? Well, you’re going to hell. You know you just don’t want him there. He comes across as kind of harsh doesn’t he? Kind of heartless, not very loving, not very gracious, not what you would expect. And he thinks personally that he is doing it for God and for good. He really believes it is in response to this insult that Jesus receives and he really feels it’s embedded in part of his faith and really it is not. What is really happening in his heart becomes an excuse that he uses for his faith, to prop it up, but really, when you come right down to it, the issues in James’ life and why he reacted so badly, at least one of the reasons, is because there is bad blood between the Samaritans and the Jews. He just didn’t like them, and this was a great opportunity for him to like them less; the Jews just didn’t like the Samaritans - they worshipped in the wrong place, they twisted the scriptures, and they are kind of liberal in their interpretation. Jesus even confronts them on this. They tended to idolatry, to intermarry, all these things which in scripture were wrong. It built a real resentment, animosity, a sense that these aren’t really Jewish people (Christian people). This attitude is in James. He thinks it is religious zeal; actually it is personal pride or national pride that has gotten the best of him. You know that because this is not how Jesus teaches his people to respond if it really is religious zeal and the things of God.
Now he could excuse it because he can find passages in the Bible to justify it. In fact, you can look at 2 Kings 1:10-18 where Elijah calls down fire from heaven and consumes the troops who were the pagan troops who were coming to get him but that was just a one time thing. That’s not something God prescribes for his people to do. It describes what happens, and God understands why he did it, but it doesn’t prescribe it, and it is an important point. What is prescribed in scripture, in general, is God’s general response to Gentiles -that through the Jews all nations will be blessed, Genesis 12:2, God wanted and desired to reach them with the good news. Jesus himself said in John 10:10, the thief, not me, the thief comes to kill and destroy, James. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.
You know Christians made the same mistake in the crusades. They thought it was religious zeal when in reality it was national pride; they confused them both. How do you know they confused them both? Because the Jesus they followed says this about Muslims and anyone who doesn’t know the Lord: that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. God came not into the world to condemn it, but to save it.”
There are times where I am concerned with Christian people and how we come across to the world and to the unchurched. Typically, I tend to be concerned when it comes to the social issues; we as a church must address them. There is no doubt about it, we must address them with confidence that God’s Word is true, but it’s how we do it, so often, that we come across very ungracious and unkind.
Someone had said that someone had visited the church and came out with the impression that White Clay hates gay people. Gosh, I hope that’s not true of us because God loves gay people, God came to save gay people! It is on these social issues we tend to. . . I mean the harshness I see out there! I am going to address this homosexual issue in a second and I know it is uncomfortable for some. You know, you see these signs: you’re an abomination to God, you are going to hell, it is Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. You get these cliché signs and gosh, it sounds awful! You want to know the reason why the church should oppose or not condone homosexual behavior or sex (I’ll say the word)? You might say, well it’s because the Bible says so. Well, why does the Bible say so? I’ll tell you in a second here.
Let me describe to you the symptoms of a condition and you tell me what you would do in response. People with this condition have a significantly decreased likelihood of establishing or preserving a successful marriage, a five to ten year decrease in life expectancy, a chronic potentially fatal liver disease, hepatitis, an inevitably fatal esophageal cancer, pneumonia, internal bleeding, serious mental disabilities, many of which are irreversible, a much higher than usual incidence of suicide, a very low likelihood that its adverse effects can be eliminated unless the condition itself is eliminated, and only 30% likelihood of being eliminated through lengthy, even costly, and very time consuming treatment in an otherwise unselected population of sufferers, although a very high successful rate among highly motivated, carefully selected sufferers. What is this condition? Alcoholism, that is exactly right.
Now let me list conditions associated with another problem: a significantly decreased likelihood of establishing or preserving a successful marriage, a 25 to 30 year decrease in life expectancy, a chronic potentially fatal liver disease, infectious hepatitis, which increases the risk of liver cancer, an inevitably fatal immune disease, including associated cancers, frequently fatal rectal cancer, multiple bowel and other infectious diseases, a much higher than usual incidence of suicide, a very low likelihood that its adverse effects can be eliminated unless the condition itself is eliminated, and at least a 50% likelihood of being eliminated through lengthy, costly and very time consuming treatments in an otherwise unselected group of sufferers, although a very high success rate in some instances nearly 100% for groups of highly motivated, carefully selected individuals. What is this condition? This is homosexuality. Now, we would seek treatment and help for the alcoholic, why not for the people in this group?
Why does God oppose it? Because it destroys people. Why should Christians oppose it? Because it destroys people’s lives; it is incredibly destructive, that is the only reason. Because when God says something is wrong, he does it because he loves us and he desires the best for us; that is how we should communicate on this and many other issues. You know, sometimes we can come across as pretty harsh to divorced people, and we talk about divorce a lot in church. If we give divorced people the impression that we don’t love them, then what we are saying, we are saying the wrong thing, because if you are divorced, God loves you and God will give you a fresh start. He understands that you didn’t ever imagine that you would be in this condition in your life; it is not something you really wanted or chose, but it happened.
What is God’s message to you? That God will give you a fresh start and mend and heal your lives. We’ll talk against divorce, and divorced people talk against divorce, but the group who are most against divorce are the divorced because they know what it is like and it is an awful experience. It is important for us, as Christians, when we are in dialogue with each other, when we disagree, that we communicate in gracious ways and that we remain on the issue.
I have heard some awful things that Christian people will say to each other as though we believe that the Christ we follow comes to “kill and destroy,” because we kill and destroy people with our mouths and that is not what a disciple does. A person who follows Christ doesn’t come to kill and destroy his fellow Christian; he comes to give life and that much more abundantly. May God use us in that same purpose. Though we want to communicate our faith with passion, we must do it in a loving way.
What else do I see in James? Well I see that his greatest weakness is also his greatest strength. His passion for God becomes a weakness. It became pushed to an extreme so he became very harsh and critical and self-righteous, but this is actually his strength. His passion for God is a strength; it’s good. In fact, it’s so good Jesus laughs about it and nicknames him Boanerges, son of thunder. God loves that. He is a son of thunder. He has passion for God, but it’s got the best of him. He got pushed to an extreme and became a critical spirit. The same thing is true in our lives. Your greatest weaknesses, think of yours, are also your greatness strengths.
Now I will give you some illustrations. Worry, clearly, is a weakness. God doesn’t want you to worry; but worry in its healthy example is concern, and there is nothing wrong with concern; but concern pushed to an unhealthy extreme becomes worry. Compassion is a good thing isn’t it? But compassion pushed to an extreme, causes you to become messianic in other people’s lives. Workaholism is not a good thing, but it is routed in a positive quality of responsibility. Kindness, would you agree is a strength? But pushed to an extreme, you become gullible and naïve and Jesus said be “wise as serpents but harmless as doves.” Passion pushed to an extreme becomes legalism and judgmentalism, to the other extreme it becomes moral looseness and the feel-good faith. There is nothing wrong with passion though, passion is a strength, and that is why, that is another reason why James reacts very badly. He knows who Jesus is, just a few verses before he saw the transfiguration so he knows, he is one of the three disciples who absolutely knows Jesus is the Messiah -and not only the Messiah, he is God incarnate in flesh. When he encounters these Samaritans in their ill-treatment of Jesus, he is appalled, he can’t possibly believe. Don’t they realize who this guy is? I mean if, Herod came to town, he wouldn’t treat Herod like this. If the high priest came to town, you would be bowing down, but here is one greater than the high priest, how can you possibly insult him? Don’t you know what you are doing? He is upset with them, and he reacts very badly, but it is because he is so tied to Jesus. He loves him with such a passion that when Jesus is insulted he becomes insulted, and do you have a passion for God like that? When God is insulted, when Jesus’ name is taken in vain, when his crucifixion is ridiculed in the media, does it hurt you, does it insult you as well? Is your passion that tied to him?
You know, my blood boiled over some of the things that people said, especially when I saw the movie The Passion - how anyone could say that I won’t go to the film because I would laugh through the whole thing. That insults me. That insults me because it is what my Lord did for me. You know if there is any great response the church could have out of the conflict over this movie, is even if you don’t want to see it, go purchase 10 tickets just to make it the most hottest selling movie ever, to send a message to the elite that we are insulted over this. That is wrong.
This passion in James and seen in Mark 10:35-39, the disciples thought it was arrogance, pride, selfish ambition when they wanted to be on Jesus’ right and left. You know it could also have been that they had a passion for Jesus and they wanted to get as close as possible to him. Do you have that kind of passion that you desire to be absolutely close to him for eternity? You see this passion -what James was willing to give up for Christ. You know we have this image of James as this poor, humble fisherman, but if you read all the passages on James, you discover he is not a poor fisherman.
He is a very wealthy entrepreneur, part of an entrepreneur family. He has a family owned business, at least two generations. You discover in another passage that there are hired men (in the plural) who work in the business. He has a partnership with Peter and Andrew. Andrew and Peter are rich enough to own two homes, one in Bethsaida and one in Capernaum. They owned dragnets. Who owned dragnets then? Only the very wealthy fisherman who for generations had built up the business. The poor fishermen used those throw nets. Dragnets were owned by very wealthy fishermen. In the supermarkets you can see Bumblebee Tuna. Well, there is Zebedee Tuna. The sign outside their business was Zebedee Fishing Incorporated established 143 B.C.
He was part of a very wealthy, successful family business which was passed down as a heritage and he gave it up. He gave up owning his own life. To be self-employed, to own your own life, to go to work when you want to, to go home when you want to, to have a 9 to 5, isn’t that something we all desire? Wouldn’t that be great? Total financial security for his lifetime - he gave it all up. Then he ultimately gave up his life. What did he give it up for? He gave it up for this intense passionate relationship with Jesus. Do you have such an intense experience with God that it would cause you to give up your financial security, your family business, your 9 to 5 job, your self-run life, your worldly pleasure, would you be willing to give up life itself?
How do we have such an intense experience, such a real experience that would enable us to give up even that? Well, do what James did, and that is give it up. In three words – give it up. Give up your heart, give up your will, give up your emotions, give up your reason, give up your goals, your dreams, your finances, your schedule, your routine, maybe even your job, give up the rat race and follow him, follow him. Where did he get such faith? Well, I think he gets it from – let’s look. Where does James get this passion, this faith?
It’s interesting when you read through the New Testament how many family members of the Zebedee family or those in association with the Zebedee family are in the Bible or in scripture? There’s James and John, there’s James and John’s mother, whose name is Salome who is one of these women following Jesus who’s also at the cross and resurrection. Her sister, Salome’s sister, is Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary’s cousin is Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. These two women marry excellent men, Joseph and Zachariah who now are in the Bible. The friends of James and John are Peter and Andrew who become apostles. Do functions run in families? Well, so does faith, so does goodness, so does spiritual heritage; and parents, if you want your children to follow in your faith; if, fathers, you want your daughters to marry good men, Godly men, who will respect your daughters enough to not lay their hand on them before marriage, if you want your sons and daughters to choose a positive peer group, a great set of friends; if you want to protect your kids from the destructive temptations you see around you; if you want to break the family dysfunctions and patterns of behavior that have been setting your family up for failure in many ways; if you would like to provide a legacy of faith, love and family, then do what the Zebedee family did and raise your children in a Christian home.
If you are a grandparent, be active in your grandchildren’s lives and be salt and light to them. Now what do I mean by that, because there are a lot of things we can pass off as religion or Christianity or a Christian home that is not any of those. I do not mean take your kids to Sunday school and to church. What I do mean is go with your kids to Sunday school and church. What I am not talking about and what I don’t mean is going to church and Sunday school to simply sit there and listen, but come to Sunday school and church in order to learn something. I am not talking about talking to your kids about God, I am talking about being a model of God, being an example of what it means to be a Christian because talk is cheap. What I don’t mean is to give your children a religious education, expose them to religious things or Christianity or Christian morality, hoping it acts like some type of vaccine, that it will ward the world off from them. What I am talking about is having a deep abiding and growing personal relationship with God that spills out and becomes infectious to your children.
Simply inoculating our children with religion will not do it anymore. It hasn’t worked in the past, and it is not going to work today because the world and the things in it are so powerful that unless you bring faith into your very home, your children are in danger and your grandchildren are in danger. The world will gobble them up. If you want to know if that is true, just talk to our college kids. The world will gobble you up. Faith must be more than veneer, it must be the real thing, it must be solid oak or it will not withstand the pressures of the world today.
Was James a perfect man? He is of the inner three. No, he was not perfect but he came perfected in the journey. It is in the journey; it is in following Christ that we get our act together. He had some big flaws, but also his biggest flaw was his most admirable quality, he had a passion for God, and God did something for James that he desires to do for us. He takes this passion and turns it from legalism and sourness and hatred and harshness, and turns it to grace and compassion and love.
You know, as a culture and as a people we have passion but maybe we have passion for the wrong things at times. We have a passion for sports - I love sports! We gather in huge arenas and if we can’t get into the arena, we watch it on television and we pay season passes that rival tithing at churches. We go nuts for these teams, and it is a great experience, and these services last three and four hours long and when there is overtime, no one cares because they are having such a good time, because they love sports! Wouldn’t it be great if we would have such a passion for God like that? You know what I imagine someday - to see tailgating before a church service. Then people would think, what’s happening there, tailgating before church. We have a passion for certain T.V. shows. Is there a show that you never miss? For some people it is Survivor, or Days, or Everyone Loves Raymond. For me as a kid it was Gilligan’s Island. I never missed, never missed! I watched all the reruns four times. Wouldn’t it be great if we had such a passion for God that we would have that type of regular time with him that we would absolutely say we would never miss it because we desire to be with him. You know as Christians we have passion -- now this is where it gets close -- we get passion for church buildings and historic edifices: we get in an uproar when people desire to change them, not knowing the whole building has been changed four times in its history, and everything in here has changed a couple of times over. There is nothing wrong with wonderful churches but wouldn’t it be great if we had a passion for why the church was built in the first place, and churches were built to become a place where people can discover God and we could reach into the community and save the lives, that we would get into an uproar that one person in our community is lost?
That is where our passion should lie. You know at White Clay we have a passion for the times and styles of our worship services, we have a passion about our worship; I wish to God we would have as much passion in our worship. We have passion for prayer in schools, but you know as a pastor, I wish Christian people would pray in their homes and with their children and in their churches. We have a passion for in the annual meeting when the time and the money is talked about, would to God that we would have a passion for the ministry that that money purchases. We have a passion for the ambiance and décor of buildings and sanctuaries, would to God that we would have equal passion for the content and the quality of this worship. We have a passion for maintaining the size of the congregation in order to maintain the intimacy that we experience that makes White Clay what it is, would to God that we have the equal passion for those outside the church that have never experienced the love of God that we have experienced, and isn’t there a way for us to broaden the ministry without diluting the intensity of the love. I think there has to be. God wants us to have passion but the passion in the rights things. Would to God that we can discern that.
[Let’s pray.]
