The Reverend Dr. William H. Willimon is the Bishop of The United Methodist Church, a post he has held since 2004. He leads the 157,000 Methodists and 792 pastors in North Alabama. For twenty years he was Dean of the Chapel and Professor of Christian Ministry at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Dr. Willimon is a graduate of Wofford College (B.A., 1968), Yale Divinity School (M.Div., 1971) and Emory University (S.T.D., 1973). Here is an excellent entry from his blog that I wanted to pass along to you.

Advice for New Pastors 1

This past year Allan Hugh Cole, professor at Austin Presbyterian Seminary, has edited a book for new pastors, From Midterms to Ministry (Eerdmans). I was asked to write a chapter in the volume, recounting my own journey from seminary to the parish, drawing out any implications that my experience had for new pastors.

This month, thousands of new pastors will emerge from seminary, a few of them coming to join the ranks of the North Alabama Conference. I therefore offer these thoughts in the next few weeks, hoping that they will be helpful to those of us who are new in the pastoral ministry and those who are not.


BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

In retrospect, my first year as a pastor was perhaps the most painful, frightening year of my entire ministry. Part of the terror that I experienced was my fear of failure, not simply to fail at being an effective pastor (I had little means of knowing what being “effective” would look like), but rather my fear that I had failed to discern God’s will for my life. What I had thought was my tortured, gradually dawning, wrestling with “call to the ministry,” might be revealed as something other than God’s idea. Looking back, I realize now that the early bumps and potholes that I experienced during the course of that first year were so disconcerting because each one of them made me wonder: maybe my friends are right. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to be a pastor. Perhaps the church really is a waste of my life.

As it turned out, I received more confirmation of my vocation in that first year than invalidation. Wonder of wonders, God really did occasionally speak through me to God’s people, God really did sometimes use me to work a wonder, and God’s people – some of them – really did respond to my ministry. I came to realize that much of my consternation was due, not to my own lack of preparation, or to inadequacies in me or in the church but rather to a move I was making from one world to another.

I recently heard Marcus Borg of the errant “Jesus Seminar” chide us pastors for protecting our congregations from the glorious fruits of “contemporary biblical scholarship.” There’s a brave new world of insight through the historical-critical study of Scripture! Don’t hold back from giving the people in the pew the real truth about Jesus as it has been uncovered by contemporary biblical scholarship and faithfully delivered to you in seminary biblical courses. He implied that even the laity, in their intellectual limitations, can take the truth about Jesus as revealed by Professor Borg and his academic friends.

Yet it seemed not to occur to professor Borg that contemporary biblical scholarship, because it is asking the wrong questions of the biblical texts, and even more because it is subservient to a community that is at odds with communities of faith, may simply be irrelevant both to the church and to the intent of the church’s Scripture. Sometimes the dissonance between the church and the academy is due, not to the benighted nature of the church, but rather to the limited thought that reigns in the academy.

It took me a long time to learn this. As I said, I remember experiencing that dissonance in my first days in my first church in rural Georgia. I was the freshly minted product of Yale Divinity School now forlorn and forsaken in a poor little parish in rural Georgia. My first surprise was how difficult it was to communicate. If was as if I were speaking a different language. As I preached, my congregation impassively looked at me across a seemingly unbridgeable gulf.

At first I figured that the problem was a gap in education. (Educated people are continued to think this way when dealing with the uneducated.) I had nineteen years of formal education behind me; many of them had less than twelve. Most of my education involved lots of writing and talking, whereas they seemed taciturn and reserved.

I was impressed that they knew more about some things than I. Mostly, they talked and thought with the Bible. They easily, quite naturally referred to Scripture in their conversation, freely using biblical metaphors, sometime referring to obscure biblical texts that I had never read. If they had not read the masters of my thought – Bultmann, Tillich, and Barth, then I had no way to speak to them. I had been in a world that based communicating upon conversations about the thought of others, rather than worrying overmuch about my own thoughts. I realized that my divinity school had made me adept in construing the world psychologically, sociologically (that is, anthropologically) rather than theologically. The only conceptual equipment my people had was that provided by the church, whereas most of my means of making sense were given to me by the academy. Their interpretation of the world was not simply primitive, or simple, or naïve, as I first thought. Rather they were thinking in ways that were different from my ways of thinking. I came to realize that we were not simply speaking from different perspectives and experiences; it was as if we were speaking across the boundaries of two different worlds.

When a theologically trained seminary graduate like me confronts the sociological reality of the church, when a new pastor, schooled in a vision of the church as it ought to be, has his or her nose rubbed in the church as it is, it’s a collision that is the concern of this book. The leap between academia and ecclesia can be a challenge

I want to avoid a characterization of the challenge as a leap between the goofy ideal (ecclesia as portrayed in the thoughtful academy) and the gritty real (ecclesia as it is in all its grubby mediocrity). Sometimes new pastors say, “Seminary did not prepare me for the true work of ministry,” or “There is too great a gap between what I was told in seminary and what the church really is.”

I do not want to put the matter in a way that privileges academia over ecclesia, as if to imply that to theological schools and seminaries has been given the noble vision of the real, true, faithful church whereas it has been given to the church the grubby, impossible task of actually being the church, putting all that high falutin’ theological theory into institutional praxis.

The challenge is not to stretch oneself between the ideal and the real, or the clash between the theoretical and the practical, the challenge is in finding oneself in the middle of an intersection where two intellectual worlds collide. True, there is often a disconcerting disconnect between the questions being raised in the seminary and the answers that constitute the church. Yet there may also be the problem that the seminary is preoccupied with the wrong questions, or at least questions that arise from intentions other than the Kingdom of God and its fullness.

The Seminary’s World

To be sure, it’s risky to attempt to characterize so complex and diverse a phenomenon as “the seminary.” My characterization arises out of nearly thirty years on a mainline protestant seminary faculty and visits, in the course of time, to over forty different theological schools. Some of my books have become standard texts in the curriculum of a few dozen seminaries, so I know at least a large part of the world of the seminary.

I am helped, in attempting to generalize about theological education, because the world of the seminary is more uniform and standardized than the world of the church. Seminaries, be they large or small, conservative or liberal, have more in common than the churches they serve. They have patterned their internal lives, constructed their curricula, selected their faculties, and have expectations of their students that are based more on the models of other seminaries than on the mission of the church. That’s only one of the problems of theological schools.

Seminaries, at least those in our church, labor under a growing disconnect between the graduates they are producing and the leadership needs of the churches these graduates are serving. This disjunction causes friction in and sometimes defeat of the transition between seminary and church for new pastors. For example, most protestant seminaries have organized themselves on the basis of modern, Western ways of knowing. The epistemology that still holds theological education captive is that which was borrowed from the modern university – detached objectively, the fact/value dichotomy, the separation of emotion and reason with the exaltation of reason as the superior means of knowing, the sovereignty of subjectivity, the loss of any authority other than the isolated, sovereign self pared with subservience to the social, cultural, and political needs of the modern nation state. (The best history of what happened in our seminaries in the Twentieth Century is by Conrad Cherry, Hurrying Toward Zion: Universities, Divinity Schools and American Protestantism, Indiana University Press, 1995.)

That’s saying a mouthful but it is an attempt to depict the intellectual “world” of the theological school that has a tough time honoring the intellectual restrictions of academia and the peculiarly sweeping mandate of the church of Jesus Christ.

The word “seminary” means literally “seed bed.” Seminary was meant to be the nursery where budding theologians are cultivated and seeds are planted that will bear good fruit, God willing, in the future. Trouble is, seminaries thought they could simply overlay those governmentally patronized, culturally confirmed ways of academic thinking over the church’s ways of thought, and proceed right along as if nothing had happened between the seminary as the church created it to be (a place to equip and form new pastoral leaders for the church) and the seminary as it became (another graduate/professional school).

In the world of the contemporary theological school, faculty talk mostly to one another (As Nietzsche noted, long ago, no one reads theologians except for other theologians.), faculty accredit and tenure other faculty using criteria derived mainly from the modern, secular research university. While the seminary desperately needs faculty who are adept at negotiating the tension between ecclesia and academia, faculty tend to be best at bedding down in academia. The AAR (American Academy of Religion) owns theological education.

One last disconnect I’ll mention: The seminary, by its nature, is a selective, elitist institution, selecting and evaluating its students with criteria that are derived from educational institutions rather than the ecclesia. In one sense, a theological school should be selective, astutely selecting these students who can most benefit Christ’s future work with the church. Trouble is, when criteria are applied that arise from sources other than the Body of Christ, we have the phenomenon of the church’s leadership schools cranking out people who have little interest in equipment for service to the church as it is called to be. If college departments of Religious Studies were not in decline, there would be something to do with the best of these seminary graduates. If the U S Post Office were not holding its employees more accountable for their performance, the rest of them would have promising careers.

For instance, when my District Superintendents and I interviewed a group of soon to be graduates in one of our seminaries, we were distinctly unimpressed with their responses. Here we were before them saying, in effect, “We are a declining organization. We are looking for people who will come into the United Methodist ministry, take some risks, attempt to grow some new churches and new ministries, and help lead us out of our current malaise.” Yet the seminarians we were conversing with struck us as mostly those interested in being care givers to established congregations, caretakers of ministries that someone else long before them had initiated, and in general, to be people who were attracted to our church’s ministry precisely because they would never, ever have to take a risk with Jesus.

When I was critical of the students we were meeting, one of the pastors with me said, “Look, you have people who have spent a lifetime in school learning nothing more than how to be in school. They have been taught by tenured faculty who have given their lives to doing well in academia and thereby getting tenure and never having again to take a risk in their lives. Faculty who are not held accountable for their performance or results are not likely to educate clergy who are focused on accountability or results.”

When seminaries appoint faculty who have little skill or inclination to traffic between academia and church, is there any wonder why the products of their teaching find that transition to be so difficult? Alas, what many graduates do is quickly to jettison “all that theology stuff” that seminary attempted to teach and relent to the “real world” of the congregation, the rest of their ministry simply flying by the seat of their pants. The seminary may self-flatteringly think of itself as the vanguard of the thought of the church when in reality it is an agent for the preservation of the church’s boring status quo.

The Church’s World

Seminarians who have been schooled in modern, Western notions that they are primarily individuals, detached persons whose main source of authority is their own subjectivity, have thereby been inculcated into the unchristian notion that they should think for themselves. What a shock to enter their first parish and find that church is an essentially group phenomenon, an inherently traditioned enterprise. Our most original thinking occurs when we think, not by ourselves, but with the saints. The best thing that seminary has done for its graduates, if it has done its work, is to introduce them to the burden and the blessing of the church’s tradition, to form them into advocates for the collective witness of the church, and to make believe that the church is God’s answer to what’s wrong with the world. Yet the way that the seminary engages the witness of the saints makes it difficult for new pastors to think with the saints.

For example, Scripture, the tradition of the church, has a privileged place in the communication of the church. Pastors are ordained, ordered to bear that tradition compellingly, faithfully, quite unoriginally before their congregations, not primarily so that their congregations can think through the tradition, but rather so that they can, in their discipleship incarnate Christian truth. We pastors are not free to rummage about in the recesses of our own egos, not free to consult other extraecclesial texts until we have first done business with Scripture and the great tradition. Alas, too much of today’s theological training (arising out of the German university of the Nineteenth Century) places the modern reader above the texts of the church, assuming a privileged, detached and superior position to the church’s historic faith. The academic guild stands in judgment upon the texts, raising questions ab out the texts. Thus it comes as a jolt for the seminarian to graduate and to find him or herself cast in the role of the ordained, the official who leads the church not in detached criticism of these texts but rather in faithful embodiment of the sacred texts.

In my book, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry (Abingdon, 2002), I observed that many seminarians tend to be introverted, reflective, personal seekers after God whereas the church is heavily politicized and communal. Pastors are supremely “community persons,” officials of an institution, leaders who the church expects to worry about community and group cohesion with a Savior whose salvation is always a group phenomenon. The seminarian who is trained occasionally to write a speech for a group of individuals, sometimes to do one-on-one counseling, to form intense personal relationships within a conglomerate of individuals, finds herself flung into a politically charged, complex organization, a family system that requires astute knowledge of group dynamics and wise leadership of a divisive group of people who have been caught in the dragnet of God’s expansive grace in Christ. When Chrysostom argued his own inadequacy to be a pastor or bishop, it was precisely this public quality of Christian leadership that he cited as the reason why he did not have what it takes to be a pastor.

Sadly, too often the seminary has taught its students to step back from the Christian tradition and its Scriptures, to reflect, learn to critique, and actively to question. True, such stepping back and critique are developmentally appropriate for the formation of the church’s leaders. Yet when the seminarian becomes a pastor, she takes her place as leader of an organization that has goals like embodiment, engagement, involvement, participation, and full-hearted commitment, embrace of the enemy, hospitality to the stranger, group cohesion, koinonia. The whole point of discipleship is not cool consideration of Jesus but rather following Jesus. The person who fails to make the move from being the lone individual, confronting the faith, tending his or her own spiritual garden, to the role of a public leader of a group, is the person who will have a tough time in the first parish.

Today many describe the ordained ministry as “servant leadership.” The peculiar service that the church needs from those who ordained is that they step up, lay aside their own spiritual quandaries, and speak for the church to the church. They must, as the bishop tells them in the ordinal, “take authority,” cultivating in themselves the habit of thinking more about the community and its needs than their own. Students who have been enculturated into the world of the academy -- in which students must defer and submit to the authority of the professor, who has submitted to the authority of the academic guild – sometimes have difficulty standing up in a congregation and, in service to the community, taking charge, casting a vision, and taking the time and doing the work to build a group of allies who will join the pastor in moving toward responsibility for Christ’s mission into the world.

I, therefore, say to seminarians, upon their graduation, you are not just taking on a new job, you are moving to a new world.

Will Willimon

Parkside Church (near Cleveland, Ohio) hosted their 10th conference for pastors on preaching from May 11-13 with featured speakers John Lennox, John Piper, and Alistair Begg. I wasn't able to attend but I noticed that they are making all of the resources available from the conference for free on the web. Click HERE to access the resources.



John Lennox is Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, Fellow in Mathematics and the Philosophy of Science, and Pastoral Advisor at Green Templeton College, Oxford. He is also an adjunct Lecturer at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University and a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum. He lectures on Science and Religion in the University of Oxford and teaches at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.

John Piper is the Pastor for Preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. John is the author of more than 30 books and more than 25 years of his preaching and teaching is available free at desiringGod.org. John and his wife, Noel, have four sons, one daughter, and an increasing number of grandchildren.

Alistair Begg is a graduate of The London School of Theology and has served eight years in Scotland at both Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh and Hamilton Baptist Church. For the last 22 years he has been the senior pastor at Parkside Church. He has written several books and is heard daily and weekly on the radio program, Truth For Life.

[Sermon from Vineyard Columbus, Ohio] [Click HERE for the audio of the sermon]

I love stories! Don’t you just love stories? I love movies that take you on a marvelous adventure beyond your wildest dreams. I love books that you just can not put down because you just have to find out what happens to your favorite character. I love songs that tell wonderful stories. Believe it or not, my wife Angela got me into country music. I fought it with all my heart for years, but some of the stories in the songs were just so funny and outrageous, I just could not help but fall in love with it. I mean with song titles like these how can you not love country music?

• I Gave Her the Ring, and She Gave Me the Finger
• I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well
• I Want a Beer as Cold as My Ex-Wife’s Heart
• I Would Have Wrote You A Letter, But I Couldn’t Spell Yuck!

Whether it’s a memorable movie, a great book, a touching song, or just simply sitting down together with family and friends to talk about the week, I love stories.

The author Karen Blixen says this:

To be a person is to have a story to tell.

And the author Barry Lopez says this:

If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.

You hear the words, “Once upon a time…” or “In a galaxy far, far away…” or “A man walks into a bar…” you hear these words, and you know that something good is coming.

And there is this strange thing that happens when you hear a great story. Whether you are watching a show on TV or reading a great book, the really powerful stories invite you to become a part of the story. Somehow you are able to connect at this deep level with the characters and what they are experiencing, and you find yourself in the story. You are just sucked in. Powerful stories do that. And I think this is one of the reasons that Jesus often used parables in his teachings.

And in a very real sense, you and I are all living out a story. We are all living out a story. As one anonymous author writes:

Life is a handful of short stories, pretending to be a novel.

It may not be a conscious decision, but oftentimes, what drives us, what compels us, what moves us forward in life is a story – an image of what we think our life should look like. And very often, these images come from stories that we read, movies that we watch, songs that we hear, and conversations that we have. The story that we are living out impacts the kinds of jobs that we look for, what clothes we wear and cars we drive. It impacts the kind of people we hang around and the types of conversations that we have. We are all living out a story. So let me ask you today, what story are you living out?

Are you living out the story of the great American Dream? Is the driving force of your life’s story the American Dream, to have a spouse, a well-paying job, one sedan, one minivan, a dog, a house with a white picket fence, and 2.3 kids?

Or are you living out the story of “The Office”? Maybe you are working that 9-5 job that you really don’t like very much, with quirky co-workers and a boss who is completely out of touch with anything that resembles reality? You know that you are capable of doing so much more than what you are doing right now, but why change when change is so hard?

Or maybe you are living out the story of the “American Idol”? The driving force in your life is to become rich and famous, to be on that grand stage of life before millions of people, to be adored, to be praised, to have people everywhere recognize who you are, tell you just how gifted you are. This is what drives you.

We have been doing a series entitled, “A Vision for Life: Seeing the Big Picture.” For the past two weeks, Rich has been teaching from the book of Colossians and the goal of the series is to help us see the bigger picture of what life is meant to really look like, to step back from the daily grind and routines of our life and ask ourselves the all important question, “What story are you living out?”

In any given moment, there are two stories being lived out: One, the story of our lives and two, the Story of God. And the story of our lives will only make sense, it will only find its true and ultimate meaning, it will only find its deepest pleasure, when we see how the story of our lives intersects with the Story of God.

Rich will be back next week and he will pick up where he left off. But today, we are going to take an interlude from the study in Colossians to highlight one important theme that Rich touched on last week, and that is the Glory of Christ. It is a marvelous and hearty topic for sure. And we will see today, that this Glory of Christ is indeed the ultimate climax in the Story of God. I’ve entitled my sermon, “The Glory of Christ and the Story of Our Lives.” Let’s pray.

Five Elements of a Great Story
We’ve all learned in elementary school that a story is comprised of many different ingredients or elements. But the truly great stories, the really memorable stories, the exceptionally powerful stories all share five crucial elements. And The Story of God, to be sure, has these five elements.

1. The Setting
The first element for a great story is the setting. The setting of any story is the backdrop in which the story takes place. For instance, in “The Wizard of Oz,” the setting would be the Land of Oz. Or in the show, “Prison Break,” the setting would obviously be the prison. Simply put, the setting is the backdrop in which the characters of the story can move and interact with each other.

So what is the setting of the Story of God? Well, we get the answer in Genesis 1:1:

Genesis 1:1
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The setting of the Story of God is the heavens and the earth. It is the creation of our God, the work of his mighty hands, the heavens and the earth. And this setting, to put it mildly, is absolutely stunning.

Our galaxy is comprised of over a hundred billion stars. And our galaxy is just one of billions of other galaxies. You know, let’s say that you were bored one day and you decide to drive to the sun, and you were somehow able to do this in your dilapidated 92 Ford Escort. And let’s say that you were speeding like crazy going 150 mph, which is no small feat for the 92 Ford Escort. In this car, traveling at 150 mph, if you drive nonstop, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, get this, it will take you 70 years to reach the sun. And you thought driving to Ikea was bad! And let’s say that once you reach the sun after 70 years, and you get ambitious and want to travel some more, and you decide as your destination Alpha Centauri, the next closest star system. You’ll need 15 million years to make that trip!

And for those of us who just don’t have that kind of time, but maybe have some money, and you were able to fly in a private jet that flies at 600 mph, it will still take you 16.5 days to reach the moon, it will take you 17 years to pass the sun, and it will take you 690 years to reach Pluto. And this is all still just in our solar system!

And not only are the heavens and the earth that God created beyond our comprehension in its vastness, but also its minute details are magnificent!

The cosmological constant, which represents the energy density of space, is as precise as throwing a dart from space and hitting a bulls-eye just a trillionth of an inch in diameter on earth. The sun makes life possible on earth only because it is exactly the right mass, exactly the right light, exactly the right age, exactly the right distance, exactly the right orbit, exactly the right location. If any of these constants are thrown off by even just a minutia, life on planet earth would not be possible. The gravity that we feel on our planet is fine tuned to one part in a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion. That is 1 with 53 zeros!

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And it is marvelous indeed! And so we have the first element of a great story, the setting.

2. The Tension
Now, let’s look at the second element of a great story, which is the tension. Tension can also be called conflict, and it is often personified by the antagonist. It is usually some struggle between good and evil, right versus wrong, life versus death. Often times, it is precisely this tension that that makes the actions of the characters really meaningful.

So, for instance, there is the movie, “Lord of the Rings.” At the heart of the story of the Lord of the Rings, is this epic battle between good and evil. And the tension, who will win? This tension is the theme that drives the entire story.

And of course, the Story of God also has a tension, and we can identity these as sin, suffering, and Satan. We recognize that there is sin, suffering, and Satan. Actually, you would have to work pretty hard not to recognize sin, suffering, and Satan in our world. Just turn on the news. On every channel you turn to, you are struck in the face with sin, suffering, and Satan. This is the tension in the story of God.

Not too many verses after the glorious story of creation we read in Genesis 1:1, we read the not-so-glorious story of Adam and Eve and their falling into sin by listening to the lies of the serpent, Satan. And ever since then, an element of suffering has been introduced into the story.

25,000 children die each and every day due to poverty. 660 million people live without basic sanitation. 1 billion people in the world live on less than $1 a day. 400 million children have no access to safe drinking water. 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific. 143 million children in the developing world are orphans. 1.2 million children are sold into sexual slavery every year. There is tremendous suffering in our world.

Well, let’s make it a little bit more personal. We may be sitting here in the church today with nice clothes on our back and a perfect smile on our face, but how many of us here today are battling addictions, brokenness, temptations, failures, broken relationships, life-threatening diseases. And whether we want to admit it or not, we are sinners through and through. While we desire to do what is good, we fall short again and again and again. We are sinners through and through. And the Apostle Paul understands this sin nature:

Romans 7:15-19
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

Verse 19:

Romans 7:19
For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

How true is that? Every one is affected by sin. There is no one who does good, not even one! All of mankind is tainted by sin. Paul says in Romans 3:23 that:

Romans 3:23
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

All have sinned, every single one of us has sinned, and we fall short again and again and again. Sin taints how we think, how we act, how we feel. There is nothing in us that is not impacted by sin. And there is nothing that you and I can do about it. Our mental, physical, emotional capacity simply is not powerful enough to battle sin.

And of course, there is Satan. We read in 1 Peter 5:8:

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

The tension in the story is not merely our sinful nature and the suffering in this world. There is a very real enemy, Satan, who is prowling about, seeking someone to devour. In the face of sin, suffering, and Satan, what we need now is a hero, a savior, which is the third element for a great story.

3. The Hero
The hero of the story is the protagonist. The hero is usually the main character who gives the audience a point of view or a perspective through which we are to understand the story. So for instance, in the movie “Braveheart,” the hero is the great William Wallace played by Mel Gibson. Or maybe for some of you ladies, maybe your idea of a hero looks more Elle Woods, the hero from “Legally Blonde.” And maybe for others of us, the hero that we’re looking for doesn’t really have the look or the feel of a typical hero, like the one-of-a-kind “Napoleon Dynamite.”

The hero in the Story of God is Jesus Christ, and he came to seek and save that which was lost.

In the face of sin in our lives, suffering in our world, with Satan seeking someone to devour, the great savior, the great hero, Jesus Christ emerges in the Story of God. And let me tell you just a little bit about him.

He is the incomparable Christ. He is the Christ who fed the 5,000 with two fish and five loaves. He is the Christ who made the blind see and the deaf hear. He is the Christ who casts out demons. He is the Christ who redeems and reconciles. He is the Christ who makes all things new. He is the Christ who was crucified on the cross. He is the Christ who was raised from the dead. He is the Christ who is called Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is the Christ who is called the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He is the Christ and there is no other. He is not just any hero, but he is the hero of heroes, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. He is the incomparable Christ!

4. The Epiphany
We have the setting, the tension, and the hero. And now the fourth element of the great story is the epiphany. Another way to describe epiphany is the moment of awareness, or the “Aha!” moment. It is that moment when the light goes on. It is the moment when a lie is exposed the truth is revealed. It is the moment in the story where there is a dramatic shift because something extraordinary happens.

For instance, one of my favorite movies is “The Matrix.” And the epiphany in “The Matrix” is when Neo is offered by Morpheus these two pills, a blue pill and the red pill. And Neo chooses the red pill and he discovers just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

You can say that epiphany is that moment in the story where the eyes of the character is opened and thus he is able to see something that he wasn’t able to see before.

So what is the epiphany in the Story of God? Well, it is the “Aha!” moment that happens in our lives when we realize that we were created for the glory of the hero in this story; we realize that the Glory of Christ is why we were created.

In other words, the reason that we exist, the reason that you and I were created, the reason that we are in this story is to glorify God. Let me explain what I mean by that.

Since its beginning, the Christian church has sought to instruct its followers both in the ways of faith and practice. What is it that we should believe as Christians and how should we live this faith out? Very important matters, for sure! And one of the ways that this has been done was through the use of creeds, such as the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed, and also through the use of catechisms which are basically manuals on the doctrine of Christian faith. And one of the most influential catechisms is the Westminster Catechism which was written in 1648. And here is the very first question that the Westminster Catechism asks in seeking to instruct Christians in the ways of faith and practice: What is the chief end of man? In other words, “Why are we in the story?” And the answer, well, it’s written on this gigantic banner in our auditorium, so let’s read that together, shall we: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

In this short sentence comprised of just 13 words, a foundation is laid that has ramifications towards every aspect of faith and life. Man’s highest goal is to enjoy the ultimate good. And that ultimate good, the greatest good is God, in whom we find our ultimate fulfillment. Pastor and author John Piper says this:

The created universe is all about glory. The deepest longing of the human heart and the deepest meaning of heaven and earth are summed up in this: the glory of God.

Everything exists to glorify God, to give glory to Christ! “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

So what exactly is the Glory of Christ? The Glory of Christ is the image of the greatness of Jesus the hero, his splendor, his beauty, and his magnificence. Both sacred and dangerous, the Glory of Christ combines both awe and terror, and it simultaneously invites approach and distance. To encounter the Glory of Christ is always awe-inspiring. To see the Glory of Christ is to experience the awesomeness of God. It causes awe and wonder! And when we see the Glory of Christ, there is really only one proper response: We fall face down.

The prophet Ezekiel encounters the Glory of the Living God, and here is how he describes his experience in Ezekiel 1:28:

Ezekiel 1:28
When I saw it, I fell facedown…

Ezekiel sees the Glory of God and he simply falls facedown. Likewise, Daniel sees a vision of God whose face shines like lightening and whose eyes blaze like flaming torches. He is completely undone by this divine encounter, and this is how he describes his experience:

Daniel 10:15
I bowed with my face toward the ground and was speechless.

In the book of Revelation, in the very first chapter, John encounters the risen Christ, whose face is shining like the sun. In response he finds himself on the floor in reverence, fear, and awe. A few chapters later, we see that the elders are falling face down before the Glory of Christ. And in Revelation 7:11, we read these words:

Revelation 7:11
All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God…

To encounter the Glory of Christ is to experience the otherness of God, the otherness of God. We come to the humble and profound realization that he is God and I am not, that he is God and there is no other!

Have you ever fallen flat on your face before God? One of the biggest mistakes that we make in church, I believe, is that in our desire to make God approachable and intimate, we’ve eliminated this otherness of God. We’ve come to see God face to face as a friend, but we’ve lost sight of the fact that this friend is also the King of Glory. The great pastor and preacher A.W. Tozer said this:

Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms.

But here is the thing: Our God is not manageable! He is not just some better version of us. He is not like us. God says in Isaiah 46:5:

Isaiah 46:5
With whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?

In other words, “I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me!”

And that’s why if we want to begin to understand this God of Glory in his complete otherness, we look to Jesus. We look to Jesus! We read in Hebrews 1:3 these words:

Hebrews 1:3
The Son [Jesus] is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

And here is what we read in John 1:14:

John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only [Son], who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

And it is the desire of God that everyone will see the Glory of Christ. Listen to the prayer of Jesus in John 17:24:

John 17:24
Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

“The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” This is the epiphany!

5. The Transformation
And now we come to the final element of a great story, and that is the transformation. And transformation is the direct result of the epiphany that we just covered. In stories, the transformation can look like a man and woman who always saw each other simply as friends falling madly in love with each other, like Ross and Rachel in the TV series “Friends.” Or another great example would be what Neo experiences towards the end of the movie, “The Matrix.” This is the point in the story where Neo begins to realize who he is what he is truly capable of doing. Why bother dodging bullets when you can just stop them? This is the transformation.

And in the Story of God, the epiphany that we experience in realizing that we were created to glorify God results in three transformations in our lives. The Glory of Christ leads to three transformations in our lives. The first transformation is that we become a People of Worship.

We Become a People of Worship
To see the glory of Christ in all his splendor, we can not help but worship. And in worshipping Christ, we are giving him his due worth. Worship is literally “worth-ship.” We are giving him what is due him. Worship is the forgetting of ourselves in remembering God. Worship is the confession of John the Baptist who said:

John 3:30
He [Jesus] must become greater; I must become less.

Worship is the movement from apathy to awe. And as we worship, we become more and more like what we behold. It is not about us. Worship is not about us. Worship is God-centeredness. Worship, from start to finish, is all about God, all for God, and all to God. Worship begins and ends with God. To see the Glory of Christ is to be transformed into a People of Worship. That’s the first transformation. And the second transformation is that we become a People of Missions.

We Become a People of Missions
We become a people of missions. As John Piper so beautifully puts it:

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

“Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”

Missions is the means by which we make the known the Glory of Christ from our backyard to the ends of the earth, so that man might glorify God and enjoy him forever! Missions is the instrument by which we make Jesus famous so that people will worship him from every tribe, tongue, and nation, and declare in unison:

Psalm 117:1
Praise the Lord, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!

Worship is the goal. Missions is the vehicle. To see the Glory of Christ is to be transformed into a People of Missions. And the third transformation is that we become a People of Perseverance.

We Become a People of Perseverance
We become a People of Perseverance. In other words, as you and I glorify Jesus Christ through worship and missions, we will find strength for today and hope for tomorrow.

As we glorify Christ, as we take our eyes off of ourselves and see Christ lifted high above the earth to be worshipped, to be given the worth that is due his name, to see every tribe, tongue, and nation bow before him and declare that he is Lord, we find strength to endure whatever cross that God has given us to bear, and we find hope in the knowledge that he holds our future in his hands. To see the Glory of Christ is to know that God is able to raise the dead. To see the Glory of Christ is to know that God will make all things new. To see the Glory of Christ is to know in our heart of hearts that there is nothing, absolutely nothing that can separate us from his love. To see the Glory of Christ is to know that though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil for he is with us. To see the Glory of Christ is to know, that one day, we will see him face to face, and hear him say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Enter into your rest!” To see the Glory of Christ is to know that a day is coming, a glorious day is coming, when Jesus will return, and every knee will bow before him, and every tongue will confess that he is Lord! He is God and there is no other!

This is the Story of God! This is the Story of God! There is no greater story, for all other stories are merely sub-plots in this greatest story of all stories. And this is the story through which we are to understand who we are, why we are here, and what is expected of us. This is the story through which we are to interpret life, meaning, purpose.

As I’ve shared in the beginning of the sermon:

To be a person is to have a story to tell.

And it makes all the difference in the world what that story is. Won’t you today, please, let the story of your life merge with the Story of God. Won't you today, please, let Jesus be the hero in the story of your life? Because when Jesus enters the story, everything changes! Let’s pray.

[Sermon from Joshua House at Vineyard Columbus, Ohio] [Click HERE for the audio of the sermon]

Who can tell me what two presidential candidates were running for office in 1960? And who can tell me why this presidential election was different than any prior election?

The 1960 Presidential Debates between Vice President Nixon and Senator Kennedy were the first nationally televised debates in presidential campaign history. And because of television, for the first time 70 million voters were given the opportunity to not only hear the candidates, but to visually compare them as well.

Surprisingly, opinion polls revealed a sharp contrast between the voters who had actually watched the debates on TV versus those who had merely listened to them on the radio. While radio listeners clearly thought that Nixon had won the first debate, television viewers were captivated by Kennedy’s smile, charm and overall appearance.

Television underscored the significance of nonverbal communication. As we’ve studied more and more how people communicate with each other, we see that communication is lot more than just talk. We’ve discovered that we “talk” with our body that we “listen” with our eyes. We are not always conscious of this fact, but we are doing this all the time.

I’m sure you’ve all watched the shows on TV where the lead detective is able to catch the murderer because this suspect, who just happens to be the girl’s boyfriend, whenever he was asked a question, he would always look up to the right for a brief fraction of a second, and of course, we all know, because we are very smart, that whenever someone does this, that means he is trying to cover up the fact that he hid the murder weapon in an unmarked brown box in his mother’s basement and he was made fun of as a child because he had a stuttering problem. Of course, we all know this!

Just like some of us are better than others in listening with our ears, some of us are also better at listening with our eyes. So, tonight, to test your skills, I am going to give you a quick test called, “Are You Smarter Than a Television Detective?”

1. What emotion is associated with the “palm to chest” gesture?
A. Superiority
B. Critical judgment
C. Sincerity
D. Confidence

Answer: (C)

2. What is the meaning of the “thumb under the chin” gesture?
A. Deceit
B. Boredom
C. Anxiety
D. Critical judgment

Answer: (D)

3. What does it mean when a person rubs his or her nose?
A. Superiority
B. Anticipation
C. Dislike
D. Anger

Answer: (C)

4. What message is conveyed when a person touches his or her eyeglasses to their lips?
A. Interest
B. Stalling
C. Disbelief
D. Impatience

Answer: (B)

5. When a person looks over the top of his or her eyeglasses, what message are they sending?
A. Contempt
B. Distrust
C. Scrutiny
D. Suspicion

Answer: (C)

6. What is the impact of nonverbal communication in a face-to-face conversation?
A. 20%
B. 40%
C. 70%
D. 85%

Answer: (C)

7. Which of the following gestures is associated with lying?
A. Talking through fingers
B. Eye rub
C. Ear rub
D. Lack of direct eye contact
E. All of the above

Answer: (E)

If you answered all those questions correctly, there is a wonderful career waiting for you in law enforcement. And who knows? One day, you may get your own TV show.

Mark Twain, the great American author said this:

Actions speak louder than words, but not nearly as often.

Isn’t that the truth? While most of the world is listening with their eyes, too often, we have done nothing but talk. And we just can not understand why they are not interested in what we have to say. Well, actions do speak louder than words, but as Mark Twain poignantly points out, this does not happen nearly as often, especially in the church, especially among those who would call ourselves Christians.

We have been doing a series on the book of James entitled, “What Difference Does God Make?” And I’ve entitled tonight’s sermon, “The Difference Faith and Deeds Make.” Please bow your heads with me as we pray. Let’s pray.

Right off the bat, I need to make a few clarifying remarks regarding the passage that we are going to be reading. You should know that there has been quite a bit of controversy regarding the book of James, and in particular, this specific passage that we are going to be studying tonight. In fact, there was great opposition to the book of James being introduced into the canon of Scripture, meaning, that there were people who thought that this book should not be included in the Bible, particularly this section that we are going to be studying tonight. Pretty cool, huh?

We believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, and as Paul boldly declares, “All Scripture is God-breathed.” And it is God, not man, who decided that this passage should be in the Bible. So, we must read it, study it, understand it, and apply it in our lives, even if it makes us uncomfortable.

The heart of the so-called controversy in James is that he seems to be directly contradicting what the apostle Paul emphatically declares in his writings, namely that we are justified by faith alone, that faith is in and of itself, wholly sufficient to bring us into a right relationship with God. This is what Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8-9:

Ephesians 2:8-9
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

And as we will read here in just a minute, it appears that James is saying that in fact, Paul is wrong, that faith alone is not enough, but faith and deeds. Faith and works. And while this may on the surface appear to be contradictory statements, if we do even just a little bit of background work, we will see that there is no contradiction here. Paul and James were writing to two very different groups, and they were both trying to correct errors. Paul was writing to a group of people who thought that the observance of the law was what was required for salvation, in other words, Paul was writing to correct Legalism. Paul writes to tell them, “You don’t understand, faith is what matters to God. Not deeds. There is absolutely nothing you can do to earn God’s grace and mercy. Salvation is a gift. It is an unearned gift.” But unlike Paul’s audience, the group that James is writing to is on the opposite end of the spectrum, people who gave lip service to God, people who said that they believed in God, but their lifestyle was anything but honoring to God. Paul is saying that you can’t earn faith by deeds. And James agrees. What James is saying is that if your faith truly is a saving faith, it should naturally lead to deeds. In other words, true faith will produce good deeds. Period.

With that said, let’s dive into the book of James. We are reading from chapter 2, verses 14 though 26. Some of you hardcore nerds here tonight may have noticed that we are skipping verses 1-13, but Jonathan recently taught on that passage at the main service, so if you are interested you can go to our website to hear that sermon. But tonight, we are studying James 2:14-26. Let’s read.

James 2:14-26
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if people claim to have faith but have no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or 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. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. 20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that people are justified by what they do and not by faith alone. 25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

The question that James is raising here is this: Is there any relationship between faith and deeds? And if there is a relationship, what kind of a relationship is it? Simple enough, right?

What is Faith?
So before we look at how faith and deeds are related, let’s first study them individually. First, what is faith?

Faith can simply be defined as trust in God. Faith is choosing to believe that there is a God. Faith is a belief. It is something that we primarily associate with the heart. And it relates to our vertical relationship with God. And so when we talk about faith, we usually associate with it things like worship, or prayer and fasting, reading the Bible, having a Quiet Time with God. Things that help us connect with God. Faith is vertically oriented. Well, what about deeds? What are deeds?

What are Deeds?
Deeds are not beliefs but they are actions, things that we do. It usually involves the use of our hands and it relates to our horizontal relationship with mankind, our neighbors. So when we talk about deeds, we usually associate with it things like feeding the poor, volunteering with the children’s ministry, or serving as a greeter at Joshua House. Deeds are horizontally oriented.

Is There Any Relationship Between Faith and Deeds?
Faith is vertically oriented, and deeds are horizontally oriented. So, let’s go back to the question that James is raising here: Is there any relationship between faith and deeds? Is there any connection between our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationship with our neighbors? If so, what is that relationship? James answers this by raising two rhetorical questions in verse 14:

James 2:14
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if people claim to have faith but have no deeds? Can such faith save them?

We should all read this and be like, “Duh, James, tell me something that I don’t know! I learned this in kindergarten! Come on, tell me something new!”

And James hears this attitude in us, and he gets this look on his face, and he says, “Oh, really? Tell you something you don’t know, huh? Let me dig in just a little bit here. Let me give you an example.” And he continues on this way in verses 15 and 16:

James 2:15-16
Suppose a brother or 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?

Okay, maybe this was just a hypothetical situation, but it sure doesn’t feel that way, does it? It just got really personal. I read this and there is something disturbingly convicting about it. Something in me resonates with this idea because I see this everywhere around me. In fact, I can not escape this hypothetical situation.

James 2:15
Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.

“Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.” Suppose? Well, actually let’s suppose that there are 25,000 children who die each and every day due to poverty. Let’s suppose that 660 million people live without basic sanitation. Let’s suppose that 385 million people in the world live on less than $1 a day. Let’s suppose that 400 million children have no access to safe drinking water. Let’s suppose that 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific. Let’s suppose. But remember, this is just a hypothetical situation.

James 2:16
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?

What good is it? What good is it? Everything inside of me screams out, “Absolutely no good whatsoever!” This question should make us angry, it should get us furious, and make us ask, “Who would do such a thing? Who?” Well, us! You and me! Us!

Too often, we who would call ourselves Christians get so focused on being right with God that we’ve failed to see the casualties all around us, the bodies of our brothers and sisters lying on the streets with no food and no clothes. In our desire to be so close and intimate with God, we have removed ourselves from this world and have become spiritual monks hiding out in the four walls of this church building. Our hands meet together in earnest prayer before God but they never reach into our pockets to give to those in need. Our hands reach up in adoration to worship God, but they never reach out to wipe the tears of those in pain. These hands, while they are holy hands were never meant to be immaculate. Our holy hands are meant to be calloused hands.

Dr. Ralph D. Winter, the founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission, had this to say:

What is the use of evangelism if it produces Christians who don’t act, who don’t do, who don’t follow God’s will? All they do is sing in church.

This is exactly what infuriated Jesus more than anything. You see, this is exactly what the Pharisees were so good at. What good is our worship, what good is our prayer, what good is evangelism, what good is our weekly gathering, what good is Joshua House, what good is our faith if we fail to love our neighbors? James says that such faith is dead!

James 2:17
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Faith without deeds is not a mediocre faith. It’s not somewhat okay faith. It’s not even decent faith. Faith without deeds is dead!

Well, what about deeds without faith? Well, just as faith without deeds is dead, deeds without faith is barren.

In other words, in order for our deeds to bear lasting fruit, it must be accompanied by faith. The things that we do for others with our hands, if our hearts are not in it, we are merely faking it. And we all know what that feels like, don’t we? Many of you are experiencing that right now. Maybe you came to church tonight with the person who is sitting next to you, and you know, you know, that your relationship is not where it could be. You know that there is so much more to be had, but because you are simply going through the motions of being friends, there is no fruit in your relationship. Your hands reach out in care and concern, but your heart is far away. Actions without the heart is meaningless. Deeds without faith is barren.

You can even say that deeds without faith is religion. It is religion. But Jesus is not calling us into a religion, he is calling us into a relationship. It is not faith or deeds. It is faith AND deeds. Faith and Deeds! God’s command to us is Both-And.

God’s Command to Us is Both-And
Both faith AND deeds - Both what we believe and what we do; both our heart and our hands; both the vertical relationship with God and the horizontal relationship with our neighbors. Both-and. Both-and.

But truth be told, this is much easier said than done, because for most of us, we have a natural inclination to either faith or deeds. For some of us, a relationship with God comes so easily and naturally. Your temperament, your passion, your heart’s desire is to seek intimacy with God. So you naturally gravitate towards a life of faith. And the reason that you come back to Joshua House again and again, week after week, is for that very purpose. But maybe you are not connected to a small group, and even if you are, it feels difficult to relate to others. It takes a lot of work to get motivated to care for someone else when they are interfering with your relationship with God.

And for others of us, we thrive in situations where we get to get our hands dirty, being around people, serving the poor and helping the needy. You find deep pleasure and fulfillment in the sacrifices that you make for the sake of your neighbor. But you find it absolutely impossible to sit still. The quietness of the early morning or late evening makes you feel uncomfortable. And maybe the thought of being alone with God feels intimidating and maybe even a little bit weird. So, often, you put God on the backburner, because you say, "What can God do that I can’t?"

And the challenge for us tonight is to find that middle because God’s command to us is both-and, not either-or. The challenge is to become an authentic follower of Jesus who will love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is exactly what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 22:

Matthew 22:35-40
One of them, an expert in the law, tested him [Jesus] with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

In other words, our vertical relationship with God can not be separated from our horizontal relationship with our neighbor. In fact, it is impossible to do one without doing the other. So, we must grow. We must grow. If you are vertically oriented, you must learn how to grow in your deeds. If you are horizontally oriented, you must learn how to grow in your faith. We must grow!

How Do We Grow in Faith?
So how we grow in faith? We grow in faith by extravagant obedience to God.

There is this couple, this husband and wife. They were good people. Both of them, they were really good people. They loved each other intensely and they loved God with all their heart. But the one thing they most wanted in life was the one thing that they could not have. They could not get pregnant. They tried again and again, month after month, year after year, against all hope they hoped for a child. And when those hopes were crushed, they mustered up everything inside of them, and hoped some more. They had wonderful friends who prayed with them and for them, and they cheered this couple on. But you know, there’s really only so much disappointment that the human heart can handle, and after not just years, but decades of crushed hopes, this couple stopped hoping. And their friends stopped praying. It wasn’t easy, but life went on for them, but with quiet desperation in their hearts. The one thing they wished for was the one thing they could not have. A child to hold, a child to love, a child who will live the life that they could only dream of.

This is the story of thousands of couples. Couples who are hoping against all hope. Couples who are desperately trying to get pregnant. I imagine that there are some of you here tonight who are living out this story. But the story that I am sharing tonight is unique in that it is a story that affects every single one of us. You see, it is the story of Abraham and Sarah, whose lineage would include the son of God, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

And James uses the story of Abraham and Sarah, and their promised son, Isaac, to demonstrate what extravagant obedience to God actually looks like.

It wasn’t until Abraham was a hundred years old and Sarah was ninety, that they finally had Isaac. They hoped against all hope and finally had Isaac when Abraham was a hundred years old and Sarah was ninety. And as incredible as that is in and of itself, what’s even more spectacular about this story is what happens years later. God visits Abraham and tells him that he must sacrifice his son, this child of promise. Can you imagine what that would feel like? It’s one thing to not have a son at all, but to actually have a son finally born to them, it seems absolutely cruel of God to ask for something so grotesque and mean. Why in the world would God bless Abraham and Sarah with a child in their old age, only to ask them to sacrifice him? Is that really God? Can this really be God?

Have you ever asked that question, “Can this really be God?” Have you ever experienced something in your life that makes you ask, “Can this really be God?” Maybe you are here today investigating God, but you find it extremely difficult to believe because of the things that you’ve experienced in your life and you have asked yourself again and again, “Can this really be God?” Or maybe you have been a Christian for a long time and you find yourself in a season in life that just does not make sense and it makes you wonder, “Can this really be God?” Are you struggling in school? Have you been fired from a job? Are you having a hard time making your rent payment? Is your marriage on the rocks? Are you experiencing pain in your family? Are you battling cancer? “Can this really be God?”

What does it say about God that you can’t find a job? What does it say about God that your marriage is struggling? What does it say about God that you are battling a life-threatening disease? Well, here is what Abraham and Sarah discover.

I don’t know exactly how he gets himself to do it, but Abraham decides that he will obey God. And we get a glimpse into the mind of Abraham in Hebrews 11:19, and here is what Abraham is thinking:

He [Abraham] considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead.

Abraham is saying, “I will obey God even if it means the death of my beloved son, because this same God is the God who can raise men from the dead. Surely, God will raise my son, Isaac!” So in faith, in absolute complete faith, with trembling hands and a heart full of love, Abraham raises the knife to kill his son because he was going to obey God no matter what the cost, because this God can even raise the dead.

Did you know that God can raise the dead? Did you know that God can breathe life into death? Did you know that? Do you know that tonight?

Of course, God intervenes before Abraham brings the knife down, and Isaac is spared. So what was this all about? We are told that God was testing Abraham’s faith. But the weird thing is that God did not need this process of validation. God knew Abraham. God knew his faith. God knew what Abraham would do from the very start. So, in some sense, what transpired on that mountain has a lot more to do with you and me tonight, then it does with Abraham and Issac. God wants you and me here tonight to see this interaction as a demonstration of extravagant obedience looks like. You want to grow in faith? Practice extravagant obedience!

You and I can talk about faith all we want, but unless it produces deeds in our lives, it is dead. You and I can talk about faith all we want, but unless it produces complete obedience in our lives, it is dead. You and I can talk about faith all we want, but unless it produces in us an attitude of radical surrender to God, it is dead. You and I can talk about faith all we want, but unless by faith we are able to give up the most important thing in our lives and believe at the same time that God can even raise the dead, our faith is dead.

James 2:22
You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.

Abraham’s faith was not a faith of words, but it was a faith of deeds, it was a faith of action. It was a faith of complete trust and extravagant obedience to God, even when he did not understand what God was doing.

How Do We Grow in Deeds?
So we grow in our faith through extravagant obedience to God. And the way we grow in deeds is by costly self-sacrifice for our neighbors.

Just in case the story of Abraham didn’t close the deal for you, James tells one more story. This time, it is not some well-to-do, man of great influence and stature. This time, he tells the story of the least of the least, a prostitute named Rahab. It is a story found in the book of Joshua.

After the death of Moses, it was now the responsibility of Joshua to lead the people of God across the Jordan into the Promised Land. And in preparation, Joshua sends two spies to survey the land and they choose as their hiding place, the home of Rahab. Somehow the King of Jerico learns about these two men, and he sends his troops to Rahab’s home to get these men. And if they were caught, it would have certainly led to death. But Rahab, risking her life, puts herself between the soldiers and these spies, and by her wise actions, save the lives of these two men. And this act, this act of love and faith, is recorded in the famous hall of faith in Hebrews:

Hebrews 11:31
By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

Here in Hebrews, Rahab’s name is mentioned among some of the most notable and significant people in the Bible. What she did was that impressive to God. As Rahab risked everything she had to serve her neighbors, the way that you and I grow in deeds is by costly self-sacrifice for our neighbors.

The famous pastor and author Tony Campolo shares this incredible story that I want to share with you tonight.

One year Tony was invited to speak in Honolulu, and he was having trouble sleeping because of the jetlag and the time change. So, at 3 in the morning, he decided to go to an all-night diner. And as he was sitting on the counter, he noticed a group of women walk into the diner. After a few minutes Tony realized that these women were hookers, on their way home after working the evening. Tony was unintentionally listening in to their conversation and overheard one of the girls, Agnes, tell her friend that the next day would be her 39th birthday. Agnes and the group of women left after a short while, and that’s when Tony had this incredible idea.

He spoke to the owner of the diner behind the counter, “Hey, did you hear that one woman say that tomorrow was her birthday? Whaddya say we throw her a birthday party? I’ll come back tomorrow night with some decorations, and let’s surprise her with a cake!” The owner’s wife heard Tony’s suggestion and said, “That is a wonderful idea! Let’s do it!”

Twenty-four hours later the diner was decorated with streamers and balloons, and it was filled with a large assortment of night people who had heard about what was happening. When the prostitutes came in for their usual coffee, everyone shouted: “Happy birthday, Agnes!” Agnes stood speechless as the singing began. Tears started to roll down her cheeks. Nobody had showed her genuine kindness in years. The owner brought out a birthday cake with candles. Agnes was in such shock that she had to be reminded to blow them out. “Well, cut the cake, Agnes!” the man said. She finally said in a quiet whisper, “Please, I just, I just want to keep the cake. I’ll take it to my apartment down the street, just for a couple of days. Please let me keep the cake!” No one knew how to respond. How can you say "no" to a request like that? So Agnes ran out of the diner, holding her birthday cake, with tears running down her face.

Everyone in the diner was completely silent, all taking in the beauty of what had just transpired. Tony finally broke the silence: “I have another idea. Why don’t we pray for Agnes?” Without hesitation he began to pray that God would bless her on her birthday, that God would bring peace into her life and save her from all that troubled her. And at the Amen, the diner owner said, “Hey, you didn’t tell me you were a preacher. What kind of church do you preach at?” Tony thought for a moment, and then he answered with a grin, “I preach at the kind of church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning!” What happened next was the most poignant moment of all. The man looked at Tony in disbelief and he said, “No! No, you don’t! There is no church like that! I would join a church like that!”

Lord, make Joshua House a church like that! May our extravagant obedience to you and costly self-sacrifice for our neighbors allow us to change the world, one person at a time, people like Agnes.

In talking about faith and deeds, I think sometimes it can easily lead us into despair. We’ll either try for a while and find it absolutely impossible to live out, or we simply don’t even try because it seems so completely out of reach, so completely out of our league. But we must remember this: The goal of Christian living is to become more and more like Jesus.

Be Perfect!
I don’t know if you know this or not, Jesus is perfect. Jesus is perfect. And this perfect Jesus, in his great Sermon on the Mount, gives this outlandish command to his followers:

Matthew 5:48
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

“Be perfect!” To become more and more like Jesus means to become more and more perfect, as he is perfect.

“Be perfect!” We read that and most of the time we just glance over it without much thought simply because it sounds so ridiculous and out of reach. But once in a while, we read that and we pause for a moment, and we ask ourselves, “Did he really say what I think he just said? Did he really mean that? You don’t understand, I don’t even know how to even begin to talk about becoming more and more like Jesus when I’m still just trying to figure out this whole faith and deeds deal! You have no idea how hard I’ve been trying, but I fail miserably again and again and again and again!” And I think the apostle Paul can sympathize with us in this regard.

Romans 7:15
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

He goes on to say this a few verses later:

Romans 7:21-24
So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

And here is his glorious epiphany!

Romans 7:21-25
Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

The only hope for you and me is Jesus Christ! Jesus raises the standards to a whole new level, to perfection, making it impossible for us to reach on our own, but our hope lies in the fact that it is this same Jesus who has made a way for us to meet that standard. C.S. Lewis, in his wonderful book Mere Christianity writes this:

The command “Be perfect” is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command.

In other words, when Jesus says, “Be perfect!” he absolutely means it. But he is not expecting us to do this on our own. He is the one who will do this in us!

The revolution of Jesus is not merely about changing how we act and talk. He is not merely interested in fixing our outer appearance. He is not merely interested in making us into nice people. But this revolution is about the transformation of the entire person from the inside out. There is absolutely nothing in us that is not affected by this revolution. Jesus realizes that our actions and our words do not emerge from nothing, but they reveal something about who we are in our deepest part. And it is exactly that part that Jesus wants to transform. And that’s why he says in Luke 6 these words:

Luke 6:43-45
No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44 Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. 45 Good people bring good things out of the good stored up in their heart, and evil people bring evil things out of the evil stored up in their heart. For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

A true disciple of Jesus is not someone who merely says all the right things and does all the right things. Nor is the true disciple of Jesus someone who believes in all the right things. But the true disciple of Jesus is someone who truly desires good things, whose fruits, whose deeds are good because his heart is good. He is someone who has deep integrity, a word that means complete, unbroken, and whole, someone who’s inside and outside look identical. And if you have ever tried to become a person of integrity on your own, you know that it is an impossible task. Our hearts are despicably wicked. And it is here, where we are completely at a loss as to how to become a truly good person and live a truly good life that Jesus steps in and says, “Be perfect! And let me transform you into the person who can actually obey that command!” What’s required is a total transformation of the self from the inside out.

And so how does this transformation actually begin? It all begins in a relationship with Jesus. This is what redemption is all about. This is what salvation is all about. It all begins in a relationship with Jesus.

Let me close tonight by sharing a little more of what C.S. Lewis continues to say in Mere Christianity.

“Make no mistake,” He [Jesus] says, “if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in my hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect – until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said he was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less.”

Let’s pray.