So my name is Alan. I work at the Wesley Foundation on the campus of ULN. A lot of you know me. I know a lot of you, but I know we all don't know each other.
So I just want to say that real quick. My wife and son also attend here. We're the family that doesn't like music. We always come in really, really late and sit at the back.
We do like music, but we're just always late. But yeah, so I've been part of Foundry for a while, and Chad and I were in ordination stuff together. So that's kind of how we know each other. But it's a privilege to get to share with you guys as just a member of Foundry and to be here with you guys every time I can and worship.
But in particular, you get to do this as kind of neat as well. So we're going to look at the book of James. And for many of you, that may be a book that you've read a bunch of times for some of you, maybe you haven't read it many times all. For me though, my first experience with the book of James came when I was a youngster.
I don't even know when this was, but at some point my mother was talking to me about her favorite book of the Bible, and she told me that it was James. And she said it was because it's really practical. It has a lot of good advice in it. You know, it's easy to understand.
And I don't remember when she told me that. I just remember that. I don't know that I went and read James immediately after that, probably like I should have. But I do know when I was in college and I started actually read the Bible for myself and want to understand it and not just be a book on the shelf above my bed and my dorm when I actually really began to read it.
I remember turning to James. And I remember thinking about those words that my mom said. And one of the things that I loved about James was that it's super, super short. Like if you have one of these like archaic printed Bibles that you might find one of these maybe in a library or somewhere, maybe an old bookstore, it's actually like three pages.
You know, depending on how big your print is, it could be less than that. So it's a really, really short book, five chapters. And that was one of the things that I loved about it because you could just sit down and read the whole thing. You didn't get lost in it.
And it wasn't a lot of big words. It didn't sound weird. It was just kind of normal. And so I could identify with it a little bit.
But the other thing that I realized too is that it is full of advice. It is very applicable. And so that's one of the things that I wanted to challenge you this week. I know that you've got a lot to do this week, probably like me.
You probably have even more things to do than I do. Maybe even more important things to do than I do. But I would challenge you because it's so short and because it is so good. Like each day this week, just read those five chapters of James.
Every day make that commitment now. Before we even get into this sermon, before we realize how I don't know what I'm talking about, all this kind of stuff, go ahead and make that commitment now. Read it together with your spouse or your kids or by yourself or on your lunch break or whatever. It won't take you long.
It's like, and you're done on your phone. It's that quick. And then as you're reading it, what I would say is look into it all week long and see what you notice. See what you notice as you look into the scripture this week.
And what I want to do this morning is just talk to you about three things that I've noticed just in chapter one as I've been reading this that I think might help shape our lives for the better. So before we get into it big time, a couple of things really quickly about this book. I should have already said this, but the author of this book, James, most people consider to be the brother of Jesus. Now for some people are like, brother of Jesus, but yes, he didn't have siblings.
No, he didn't have any older siblings. He was the oldest. Do you think about it? That makes sense.
And then, but James would have been the eldest of his younger siblings. That's what most people believe. And most people believe that he was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. So after Jesus is ascended and the disciples, you know, get ready to go out, the Holy Spirit comes and the church starts exploding in different places, a lot of those guys go.
And they go to this country or that country. They move around. James though, he wasn't one of the 12 disciples. He was one of the early group.
And he's the one who decides to stay. He stays at home to leave the church there. And so then he writes this letter, because like most things in the New Testament, they're letters. And so he writes this letter and it says, you can read it in the beginning.
It says, to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations. Now that's in English, so we lose a little bit in translation. But basically, he's writing this to more than one group of people. Lots of times when Paul wrote, even though his letters got circulated, he wrote it to specific churches that he started in certain towns.
This would have went to a lot of places on purpose. So from the get-go as he's writing it, he knows a lot of people are gonna hear it, which makes sense that some of this stuff is very, very applicable to a lot of different situations. And then the other thing is, and this is true for a lot of the New Testament, but we're like 30 years away from these words being 2,000 years old. It was written in like 50, 53, 54, 55, 57, somewhere in there.
So we're really close to 2,000 years. So before we begin to think all this stuff is outdated, let's think just a little bit about how much wisdom is stopping there. About how these ancient words now, to us, might mean something still, kind of like the, I watched Lonesome Dove. Do you remember when you were watching Lonesome Dove on TV for the first time?
I watched that the other day. I don't remember why it's got in my head. But one of the things Gus says is, the older the violin, the sweeter the music. And so this stuff is old, but it has a lot of weight, and it has a lot of weight even for us today.
So we're gonna read three verses here real quick. They're gonna be up here. So it's gonna be way more interesting than that name that was up there. All right, so this is the word of God.
We're gonna read a couple more sections, but we're gonna start here in chapter one. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word, but does not do what it says, is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror.
And after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do. All right, so as we think about that, as we think about this idea of looking into a mirror, I want you to think about when this was written, all right? Think about it just really quickly.
There weren't any photos back then. No one looked through old photo albums, which that doesn't even make sense anymore. No one looked at their old pictures on their phones. A lot of people didn't have portraits drawn of themselves 1000 years ago.
And really there were few mirrors. It's not something that you would normally see. That's totally opposite our culture. We're completely obsessed with how we look.
There's mirrors everywhere all the time. We can check ourselves in. I was here putting my goofy picture up here real quick, just to prove that mirrors exist. So not only are we obsessed with ourselves, we even do this and we take, if you heard of Snapchat, like I don't even know how it works, right?
But it's always about ourselves. We take selfies all day long. We know what we look like now, which is interesting. We're obsessed with ourselves.
We'd never forget what we look like. But how quickly I think we can forget who we are and who God is calling us to be. We're not gonna forget this, because we're looking at it all the time. We forget who we are.
We forget who God is called us to be. And in looking into scripture, it's really important, because I think a lot of times we kind of do drive-byes with the Bible, like as in, you know, drive-throughs. Like we look at it real quick and then we keep going on to the next thing. And so just not in honor of that, because that would be bad.
We wouldn't wanna honor those decisions. But to kind of work through that, I have a little quiz for us today. So we're gonna do this and we'll give both sides of the room as an answer. I'm gonna score because this matters, because you wanna win, but you guys are on one team, you guys are on the other team.
I'm gonna put a verse, a set of words on the screen up here. There's not gonna be a chapter or a book attached to it. We're gonna see if you know where it is in the Bible. So number one, let there be light.
Where is it? Genesis, what about you guys, you think? All right, so, okay, both your point, all right, good. Next one, fearfully and wonderfully made.
Anybody wanna be brave? Psalms, okay, well that's your guess is it. Well, that's gotta be, be like, there's a short window here. What are you guys gonna do?
Psalms, you feel confident? Okay, you're right, Psalms, you're right, you're right. All right, I will fear no evil. What do you think?
Think of Psalms? Okay, you're good, you're good, you're good. You guys are excellent at this. All right, cleanliness is next to godliness.
Are you sure? All right, they're saying nowhere. What do we go over here? First grade, yeah.
Grandma's kitchen, right? Okay. All right, you're right, it's not in there. All right, it's trying to pull one over on you, okay.
All right, I think this might be, no, there's two more, I forgot to qualify these. These might be old, these might be more likely to be kind of the Old Testament than the New. I was gonna give you that little hint, but I don't know if you guys need it, because you're like, you know, perfect score so far. But, and then we'll switch, when we get the halfway point, we'll let this guy go first, just to be fair.
Okay, so this is, do not do anything that endangers your neighbor's life. This is sort of the anti-hold my beer phrase or whatever, if you get my point. Where do you think this would be in scripture? Proverbs, Proverbs is a really good guess, I would think.
Well, is that y'all's guess, Proverbs, okay? What about you guys? Who, what? Leviticus, boom, yeah, winner.
All right, so we're up one, now we're here, good job, good job. Okay, that was awesome. All right, now I work with college students, and so this is the next one, you know, they constantly remind me, you go ahead, they constantly remind me that I'm old, but they don't obey this one at all. They're not walking in the room, nobody cares.
They say, here's the old man, but they don't do it. Where's that one? It's a dream. No, well, I don't, it might be, actually, okay, okay.
Where's that one? Proverbs, another good guess, but, show us up with your original answers. Leviticus, yeah, all right, all right, so, all right, we're shifting the New Testament now, we're trying to move a little faster, I know you don't wanna do these quizzes all day, okay, so we'll start on this side, all right. Now this one, despite what everybody thinks, this did not originate below Timothy Tebow's eyeballs, all right.
Where is this one? Okay, Philippians, fourth, oh, we're calling out numbers right here. Four, three, that's pretty close, yeah, I think, maybe. I don't know, what do you got?
You wanna up that and get to the exact one? Four, 13, yeah, yeah, all right. We'll give it to both of you though, that's good, that's good. All right, this one.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Where we got? John, okay, you agree, John?
Okay, yeah, yeah, good one. All right, this one. That's a giveaway, you should know it, you should know it. King James maybe, all right?
It's not in there, it's not in there. Hm, all right, three more. The previous verse, what was on the screen, it's proof of this verse, whatever, yeah. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Where's this one? Romans. Whoo, all right, all right, all right, all right, points. All right, I need a guess.
Are you first Corinthians' to guess here? What are we out of here? Second Corinthians. Oh, it is.
Ha ha ha, yeah. All right, last one. Second Corinthians, I have to dig up. All right, this one.
Ha ha ha ha. I'm looking at you, Jan. You were so close last time. What do you got?
No, so we both, no, no. This is Corinthians. Yeah, Corinthians is not something, you know, whatever. Running such a way as to get the prize.
So all right, you guys are excellent. You don't even need this sermon today. You know the Bible's so good, we're done, man, all right. So do not merely listen to the word, but look deeply into it.
Don't forget who you are. That's, that was a message of those words from James. We forget. But a lot of times what we do in church, we have these mountain top experiences, right?
You hear a good sermon, you hear a good podcast. Maybe you've been to a conference, you've been to camp, you went on a mission trip, you went on a retreat, whatever. And we're like, way up here. And we see God.
And it's like we see him absolutely crystal clear. And in those moments, we know who we are supposed to be. Like we can turn around and leave that spot right there. We can conquer the world for the kingdom.
Because we're up here. And we've been gazing deeply into who God is. And it's not just that we see who we are. We really see a little bit more about who he is.
But then sometimes, even though we see so clearly, then we walk away, we come back down, and we just forget. It's like we're those ancient people who forget what they look like. They saw the reflection in a lake one day, and they don't remember what they look like. Have this here with God, and then we forget.
And I mean, we feel guilty about it, but it's just true. And so instead of like having glimpses, we should look deeply into the word of God all the time. So we don't forget who we are. Scripture is a window into our soul.
It penetrates us, and it cuts deep. We can't hide from it. And I think sometimes that's why we don't want to look into it too long, because we can't hide from it. Because at that point, we can't hide from who we're supposed to be, and we can't hide from who God is.
If we look too long, like the phrase, take a picture, it'll last longer or whatever. If we look too long, it might sink in. And it might force us to alter some things. So window to God.
It lets us see who he is, and it lets us see how he is working. What he is calling us to do. Who he is calling us to be. And people so many times, I don't know what God wants.
I don't know who he is. I don't know what he wants me to do. Look into it. Not just once.
Not just on a weekend. Not just in an event. Not just for 30 minutes during your drive time. But look into it.
See who God is shaping you to. See who he's calling you to be. Remember the Lion King? Simba comes down to the water and the monkey says look into the water.
He's like you've forgotten who you are here you're supposed to be. He's like I don't see anything. He's just me. He's like look harder.
And then he sees the reflection. Kind of he sees it as himself, but then he sees it as his dad, his father, who had set him to be this new king. Look harder into the word of God. That's what James was saying 2000 years ago.
And that's what he's saying today. Look harder into the word of God to see who you are, to see who God is and who he's calling you to be. Okay, number two. Now we're about to read what I believe might be the best piece of advice in the whole Bible.
All right, it might be some of the best advice anywhere. Maybe I'll put money on it. I think it is for me. It's pretty high up there.
19 through 21. My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
Best advice, quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry because human anger doesn't produce anything good, quick to listen. Even if we just stopped right there, quick to listen. Now just think about it. Everybody in the room probably should fall into some of these categories at one time in a life and another.
So if you can't think about it currently, even though we're not supposed to dwell in the past, dial it back and think about it. But as a parent, if you were quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry, as a parent, what does that change about your life? What would it have changed? Maybe for you as a kid, if you experienced that kind of parent.
Now there's a difference between being a pushover parent and being one who's quick to listen. There's a difference. Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. And then oh, by the way, at the end of the description there, humbly accept the word planted in you.
Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry and practice humility. All right, if you're a kid, what would it change about your life if you followed that? Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. Here's the big one.
If you're a spouse, what if that was the way you did it? Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. What if as a boss or an employer, if that was it? That's how you operate.
If you looked deeply into the Word of God, you allowed it to be planted in you, you allowed it to transform who you are, and that's the way you move forward. How might that change things? What if that became your credo? If that was the thing you had tattooed right here around your neck instead of no regrets, you had that right there.
What if that was it? What if you looked at that every day? What would that mean for your life? And my goodness for the people around you.
I'm not saying that's easy, and trust me, God, will you trust me? I'm not saying I haven't figured out. But what if that's what we were striving for? How might that make a difference?
Okay, last chunk of scriptures. Now I cheated here, we're gonna read one verse from chapter one, and then the other verse is actually do come from chapter three. So I'm sorry, I'm giving you more Bible than I said, or whatever, but those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight reign on their tongues, deceive themselves and their religion is worthless. And then from chapter three, when we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal or take ships as an example.
Although they are so large and driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boast. Consider what a great force is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue is also a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body.
It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. Now, of course, we can sit around today and talk about a lot about how the tongue could destroy. You don't need me or anybody else for that matter to get up here and say that. The tongue, Facebook, whatever, we don't need to talk about that because that's pretty obvious.
It can take things off course, no doubt, no doubt. But what I thought about was, okay, yeah, that's true, but it can also power things in the right direction, I think, like the rudder on the ship. Or instead of thinking of like a forest fire, you know, as a bad example, just the spark of an internal fire, the fire of the Holy Spirit, the fire of God moving across our country, the tongue, it can be like a spark and I said that on fire as well. It can change the course of someone's life, our words can.
Not just that we can take things off course because we know we can do that, but we can change the course of a person's life by what we say. You've probably seen it on the internet if you scroll or whatever, you know, if you don't, just look up the 16th second, that graduation speech, the 18 year old kid who talks about 15 seconds of glory for achieving this valedictorian spot, but then what do I do after that? What about the 16th second? How do I feel?
And then he starts talking about relationships and the things that really matter in this life. Now it's easy to look at that and then forget it, I get it, right? But man, I bet you some people are reading that and they're going, wow, that's stout. Some people that heard that like, you know what?
It does make a difference, that does matter. And so yeah, you can take things off course, but boy, is there a potential to change the course of a person's life. Think about keywords that have been said to you over the course of your many, many years. Think about those conversations that were pivotal that turned you in the right direction.
You have the ability to do the same thing for other people. I have this really great story that we don't have time for. It kind of starts out like this, a duck and a preacher walk into a creek bed. But the moral of the story though, has to do with the power of the current and the impact on all those within its reach.
On everything that the current comes into contact with. I would say that that's true about us. And we don't have time for, like I said, we don't have time for that story, but I'll tell you this one. This week, I'd have a really tough conversation with a student.
I do that from time to time. A lot of conversations are good. A lot of them are very difficult. And in this conversation, all the right things were said.
I mean, there probably could have been some more things said. But enough of the right things were said. But I can't help but think, what if I said them a little bit differently? What if I applied some of this stuff that I've been reading about?
What if it was said just a little bit different? What kind of impact could that have made? That's struggle when you're really trying to change the course of someone's life for the better. It's a struggle.
But it doesn't mean it always has to be as crazy, because maybe it will speak up. Maybe it will say things and try to say them in the right ways, the right attitude, coming from the right place, and being quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to becoming angry. Maybe it really changes the course of somebody's life. Maybe you don't have a lot of people that listen to you.
Maybe that's what you'd say. Well, I don't have a podcast. Nobody listens to me, whatever. I bet that number is larger than you're willing to admit.
There's always somebody listening, just like there's always somebody watching. There's always someone listening. And that's not a warning for you to be on your toes. That's like an encouragement to go an opportunity.
I have a chance to use this thing to change the course of someone's life to set them in the right way. We don't all have to be teachers to do that, because someone's always listening. What if we realized the power of our words? And what if we handled them and crafted them well?
I mean, I know in the moment things come out of our mouths, right? My dad used to have this saying, now, son, now this would be a dinner table thing, mostly. It'd be like if my brother burped or something and he'd be like, well, son, now you're going to do away from home, what you're going to do at home. And his point was you train yourself at home to be a respectful human being.
There's a good chance you might do it away from home. But what if we sort of Mr. Miyagi at ourselves, right? And we challenge ourselves and train ourselves in our normal speech before the moments get heated to really practice what I say matters, be deliberate with our speech, be deliberate in our conversations with people we talk to, and deliberately be quick to listen, so to speak, slowly becoming, but train ourselves in that way.
If we look deeply into the word of God, staring into that mirror, we won't forget. And then when those bigger moments happen and those heated times, the stuff might just come out of us the way it should. So this week, look into the mirror. Remember who you are, who God is.
And see if you just look long enough and deep enough. Maybe you might see again, or for the first time, glimpses of who he has called you to be. And then may that not just change the course of your life, but the lives of all those that you come in contact with. Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, you gave us your word. And then people wrote it down, and we followed it for 2,000 years. And that has led us to this moment. And so for each one of us, as we look into what you have to say, it's a struggle sometimes.
Because sometimes it hurts to look. Sometimes we look at the reflection, we look at the mirror, and we don't like what we see. But God remind us that you see us as love. And you see us with loads of potential.
Knowing that by the power of your spirit and your word working in us, we have the ability, the opportunity, the chance to change the course of lives. Ours and those in the world around us. So let us look deeply, God, into your word, to see you work, and to see us. OK.