Faith Today

James 2:1-17New International Version (NIV)

Favoritism Forbidden

2 My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?

8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. 9 But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11 For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.”[c] If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

12 Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Faith and Deeds

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Yesterday Cheyanne and I took the kids to the downtown farmers market in Des Moines.  Quite the experience, lots of people and an overall pretty cool event.  There are dogs, strollers, wheat grass smoothies, and overpriced meat products for several city blocks but it is neat.  I would suggest that any of you go if you get a chance.  However, there was one stand that caught my attention.  It was the Iowa Atheist booth.  I didn’t  see any heated exchanges.  They weren’t publicly bashing any form of religion.  There were no protesters.  However, I wanted to go over to them and hear what they had to say but I know myself well enough to know I could have spent the rest of my morning trying to convince them otherwise.  One of their signs said, “Don’t have faith? You are not alone.” The main goal of the group appeared to be that they wanted religion to not play any role in politics.  A few of them had shirts that said #AtheistVoters and another sign said they wanted rid politics of faith.  And maybe this is just timing.  Had it been another week where we weren’t hearing about the county clerk in Kentucky, Kim Davis, and many of the other groups for the separation of church and state it may not have caught my attention the way it did.  Anyway, I am sure these atheist folks are good people and I am not here to judge them.  But in their attempt to be completely non-religious I cannot help but to think they are creating a religion.  Our faith is centered on God and their religion is centered on the absence of Him.  By strictly living a life absent of God and doing everything in your power to not see God’s grace, beauty and mercy; my question becomes how you not worshiping God’s supposed absence?  The saddest part of all of this is not that they believed what they did because there will probably always be people who will do their best to try to prove God does not exist but it was the 10 or so people that I saw go up and take the material they were handing out.  “Don’t have faith?  You are not alone.” is a slogan that could be hung on the entryway of a church just as easily as it was flying in front of that stand.  All across this country churches are losing active members and groups like the one I have been talking about are growing.  

So this begs the question, where have we gone wrong?  God hasn’t changed.  What Jesus did on the cross hasn’t changed.  And yet so many people are finding it easier and more welcoming to go somewhere other than church.  So now the Church will have to struggle to stay relevant.  The message is the same but yet we struggle for it to be heard and struggle even more for people to implement that message into their lives.  Active church membership is down and yet violent crime rates continue to decline.  2015 is projected to be higher than 2013 and 2014 but is still lower than most years since 1985.  How do we justify that correlation.  Less people are attending church but crimes against one another are also declining.  I know what you're thinking because I thought the same thing.  I have been thinking about this for quite awhile so I have been doing research about the link between church membership and violent crimes in the hope I could say, “See, less people are going to church and we have become a more violent society.”  But simply, that is not the case.  As bad as I want that to be true, it’s not.  So, this then leaves us reeling.  As people quit attending church, the way people of this society treat one another has actually gotten better. A very tough pill to swallow.  Does this mean that society doesn’t even need churches anymore?

I didn’t write this sermon to be an apologetic for church nor did I write it to say that society doesn’t need God.  I am writing it to help us better understand what James meant.  He wanted us to act out what we believe.  In other words, live out your faith in your everyday dealings with one another.  Are less people actually putting their butts in  the seats, the research says yes but so many people get their “church’ much differently than they used to.  For example, and this is just a microcosm of the whole, but the site where I post my sermons gets 305 views per month.  And those readers are probably not the same people who hear it Sunday morning.  I also have a couple of friends that I know read these sermons but do not attend church at all.  The point is that church attendance may be down but God is stilling reaching those who are thirsting to hear more about faith.  The first part of this sermon was a little doom and gloom about church piety and attendance but do not be discouraged.  James tells us to “Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom....”  For far too long the Church practiced the opposite.  It used fear and guilt to get people to church and that simply does not work anymore.  There was an article written in 2013 by Steve McSwain titled “Why Nobody Wants to Go to Church Anymore” and it is a pretty intensive look at the declining numbers.  He attributes the decline to the aging baby boomers, the shift in demographic and rise of technology into the lives of Millennials.  He estimates that between 4,000 and 7,000 churches close their doors each year while others say that number could be even higher, as many as 8,000-10,000.  I am telling you all of this because whether we like it or not, whether we like the changing demographic, or the increased presence of technology in our lives, the world is constantly changing.  I told you last week that everything around us changes but the one constant is God and the actions of His Son who conquered the cross.  You don’t like how things are changing?  Then change the culture.  Change what you have the power to change.  

How do we do that?  Simple, “If you really keep the royal law found in scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ then you are doing it right.”  People may not actually be putting their rear-ends in the seats but Christ’s message has transcended all of that.  The reason crime is down is because churches have been teaching a message that is constant.  Churches have adapted to teach the message that “Mercy triumphants over judgment.”  Churches of some form will most likely always exist.  Whether it be a form of faith as we know it or as the one I described in the opening of this sermon, churches will exist.  But if we want to keep the message of God, grace, love and sacrifice alive and strong then we must be willing to put those words into actions.  If people do not want to come to church anymore then we take church to them through living out our faith outside these walls.  What we have here is so amazing, if we can just get people through those doors they will see how you all treat one another as family with so much love, compassion and respect that they want to keep coming back.  Remember, I said the one constant is God.  The buildings in which we worship Him are not eternal.  Even the bodies that we use to  worship Him are not eternal.  But He is.  Therefore, our view of “church” will have to adapt through the years but we can never lose sight of the truth of God’s love and grace.  The avenues in which we worship will adapt and change with society but we cannot ever waiver from God’s love and grace.  The reason I shared my experience at the farmers market with you is because if I were to say to the atheist group “‘...Go in peace; keep warm and well fed...’” but then do nothing to help them do that then what good did I do.  If I say to that group, “Find Jesus, come to the table, and seek forgiveness” but do not show them what that looks like then what good have I done?  If I told Griffin to tie his shoes but never taught him how and yet expected him to do it would you consider that the best way to teach him to tie his shoes?  Probably not.  Our job as Christians is to take our faith out into the world, take whatever shots this world may have for us, and keep persevering.  But here is the kicker, we do not keep going for the sake of our faith.  We keep pushing and persevering so others may see the glory, grace and love of God.  “Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”  THAT is how you take the Church into the future.  THAT is how you become a light upon a hill.  THAT is how you create a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.  Amen.