Sermon - Rogate 2024 - James 1:22-27

The Mealtime Prayer, Fritz von Uhde, 1885

Living the Christian Life with Intentionality

1. Moving from the abstract to the concrete

2. How to be both a hearer and a doer

3. How overcoming the world leads us into action

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

What does it mean to be a Christian? This is a valid question which Christians must be able to answer. Last Sunday I talked a bit about evangelism and why and how we Christians do that. But this question today is one that the hearer needs to have answered. Because if being a christian isn’t any different than not being a Christian, then why would they want to be one? What’s more, before someone becomes a Christian, they need to know what they’re getting themselves into. Before people join a club they need to know the cost and what they’ll have to do. The church is much more than a club, since this is the body of Christ, therefore they must know the cost of discipleship.

When great crowds were following Jesus, He turned and said to them, teaching them about discipleship: “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? … Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? … So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” To be a disciple of Jesus, that is, to be a Christian, requires a great deal of intentionality and counting the costs.

Sometimes in life you can just fly by the seat of your pants without any planning or preparations and things will go just fine. You can afford to do that when you don’t have much to lose. But when your eternal soul is at stake, you can’t afford to be unintentional about the Christian life. Just like you wouldn’t begin to build a house without plans, or go into battle without a clear path to victory, neither can we just fly by the seat of our pants as Christians.

The first step towards living the Christian life with intentionality is to move from the abstract to the concrete. As St. James writes: “Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only.” It’s easy to live in abstractions because it doesn’t require anything of us. But living in abstractions isn’t very appealing in the long run, because abstractions ultimately don’t impact a person’s life whatsoever. For too long we’ve treated Christianity as just a set of abstract ideas, and not something real, not something concretely livable. But we’ve liked to make it abstract because that makes it easy, and we think that easy things will attract people.

For example, we will often talk about sin in the abstract. We will say things like: “sin is bad.” And so long as we keep sin as this abstract, undefined bogeyman, then no one is offended. But as soon as we define what that bad sin is then people become uncomfortable since they’ve done that bad sin. It’s much harder to say that gossiping is bad, or fornication is bad, because then someone needs to change their life in a concrete way.

But if christianity is so easy and so abstract that anyone could be a christian without any effort or changing any part of their life, then what is compelling them to be a Christian? Nothing. But thankfully Christianity is not just a bunch of abstractions, rather it’s very concrete and bears weight upon every aspect of life. There is a peculiar way of Christian living unlike the way that the rest of the world lives.

I know we don’t want to be accused of being holier than thou, but frankly we do want to be holier than the world around us. If we christians are sinning just as much and in the same way as the unbelievers, and we’re not trying to make real changes to our lives, then that makes us just a bunch of hypocrites. Later in James’s epistle he writes: “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Therefore, we must move from the abstract to the concrete. We must be both hearers and doers.

I know I preach about reading the bible all the time, like I did last week. However, the logical next step after reading the bible, memorizing your catechism, listening to sermons, is that the word of God bears weight upon your life such that you take action. For one thing, hearing the word of God and not doing anything based upon that is just boring. It’s like reading cookbooks and never cooking food, or reading about the outdoors and never stepping foot out the door to be in it. That would be boring, and Christianity is not boring! The christian life is good, beautiful, and vibrant!

Too often we miss that beauty of the christian life because we dismiss good works as legalistic, or being stuck in the mud. As Lutherans especially we don’t want to be seen as focusing too much on good works. But to correct us the epistle of St. James says some things that seem shocking. For example, he writes: “A person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” That sounds shocking and it sounds wrong, but we need to read it while understanding that James is talking to Christians who have already been justified by grace through faith in Jesus. Having been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, the Christian has faith in Jesus’ saving death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins. The Christian is not saved by his own works, but by the work of Jesus on the cross alone. Jesus has overcome the world, sin, and death by dying and rising. The Christian receives that forgiveness by grace through faith alone. But faith is never alone, since faith is always living and active. If faith does not have works, then it is dead and it is no saving faith at all. Thus, a living and active faith, informed by hearing the word of God, leads the Christian to doing concrete actions.

In fact, this vibrant christian life is driven to action because Jesus has overcome this world. Jesus said: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Jesus has conquered the devil, He has conquered the world, He has won the victory against sin and darkness, and therefore we overcome the world with Him. All of the worldly allures that seek to draw us away from Christ have been overcome in the blood of Jesus. Because the world has been overcome, it would be utterly foolish to live according to this world. It would be like betting on a horse race that has already happened, and you still put all of your money on a losing horse when you know full-well who is going to win. Jesus has already won, so put your full life on Him, and forget about trying to gain the world’s approval.

And if all of that were not enough encouragement to lead an intentionally christian life, God still promises to give us daily support whenever we ask. Jesus promises: “Whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He will give it to you… Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” So you see, even when you’re struggling to lead a christian life, even when you fail and fall into sin, God bids you to pray to Him. This isn’t abstract at all, it’s concrete: pray to God everyday and He will help you. When you wake up, before you eat, when you go to bed: pray to God and He will answer your prayers. He will aid you and strengthen you on the way. The Lord is on your side, He fights for you, and He is your Champion. With God Himself backing you, be unafraid, and see that the Lord’s plans for your life as revealed in scripture shall not fail in the end.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!