James: Inside Out Spirituality

Well, good morning.

We are in our fourth week studying and going through the book of James.

Now, last week we learned in James 1, verse 21, that there is an implanted word in us.

James 1:21

That was the wording, the image that James gives us.

And that image is of something profoundly spoken into the core of who you are by God of Christ about the core of who you are.

Meaning that in Christ we are already worthy and valuable and righteous and forgiven and totally accepted.

And all of that is not because of your shiny behaviors or your great accomplishments or where you're accepted or not accepted, because you're already accepted in Him.

And so we have that true of us by the word in us.

And James says the core of who you are is like a root that flourishes, a certain kind of life.

What kind of life?

Glad you asked.

All right, so that's James 1, 26 and 27, because that's coming out of the verses that we looked at last week, right?

This was written as a letter, it would have been read all at one time, and so he's building off this idea of the implanted word in us, and what kind of life flourishes?

James 1, 26 and 27.

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

So let's make some sense of this.

Point number one, true Christian spirituality is rooted in the heart and shaped in the life.

Rooted in the heart and shaped in the life.

A couple of days ago, I was invited to go play golf with a friend of mine at a really nice golf course.

Now I've played a lot of very average golf courses.

I actually fit in really well at an average golf course.

My golf game fits in there.

I'm pretty comfortable there.

And I've played at some nice golf courses where like I kind of sneak in, but this is a really, really nice course.

And so I text my friend because I've picked up on that golfers tend to look a certain way.

And so I text them, I'm like, hey, and sometimes there's rules, like lots of rules, sometimes golf courses like rules and stuff.

Like, hey, what, like, what should I wear?

Like, you know, I figured there's probably, you know, and it was the reply I thought, because it's kind of the golfer's uniform.

You've seen it probably this morning.

Khaki shorts.

A golf shirt, probably Peter Millar, and it's gonna have an emblem of a golf course, not the golf course you're playing, but a logo of another golf course, right?

To make sure everybody realizes you've been some places, and so they see you and the, oh, you've been, oh, you've played there, oh, wonderful.

Yeah, and then uh the pullover, quarter zip, but I'm a white middle-aged man, so I got lots of quarter zip pullovers, closets full, that's covered, check that off.

Golf hat of a second course, not the first.

There's one course here, a second one, maybe with kind of a coding, the words, a little coding of it, the logos, a little, you're unsure, and people are like, what does he know?

Where's he been?

Right?

You're trying to really status signal, produce some jealousy out there.

And we've all seen this uniform, right?

Because golfers tend to just look a certain way.

They just do.

Right?

James is saying, a spiritual person tends to look a certain way.

The second part of verse 26, religion is spoken of negatively as someone's spirituality only being external.

Meaning the golfer who has the whole attire, got it all going on, can't even never swung a club, can't swing like nothing, no chance, right?

James is saying that kind of religion is empty, it's worthless, it's a show, it's a performance, it's pretending.

It's you're actually just lying to yourself.

It's nothing.

Maybe you remember.

Do you remember the movie The Money Pit, 1986?

Old people.

You remember?

Old people remember.

Thank you, old people.

1986, of course, it wasn't that great.

Don't rush out.

Don't rush out for it, okay?

Uh but it's early Tom Hanks, okay?

So that's where we're at.

Early Tom Hanks, the money pit.

They, him and his uh significant other, they buy this house.

Impressive house.

Huge white mansion.

I mean, you have arrived if you got this house.

I mean, this is a beautiful home.

It is immaculate, it's impressive.

As soon as they move in, everything starts falling apart.

Everything.

The front door just falls over, the plumbing, the electrical, the stairwell just falls down and one thing.

Like it's falling apart, and then they have to rip the whole thing apart, they have to rebuild the entire thing into what it should be, into this really impressive, beautiful home.

Because the house was not solid.

It was not built with care from the foundation up.

It was a show.

It was a show with no substance.

See, James has a heart for our spirituality to be born in the heart, to have substance, not just be a show, to have substance, to be holistic in our life and to flourish into the external.

James uses the word religion in a positive way to communicate a deep spirituality with God, growing in that great wealth of our identity in Christ, verse 21, that implanted word.

And in this way, the word religion speaks of an inner truth and an outer expression of your spiritual relationship with the Heavenly Father.

To move from being an inward-focused people to an outward-focused people.

So, what does James say this actually looks like?

James gives us three thoughts.

There's probably many more thoughts about what a Christian looks like, but James gives us three in these couple of verses.

First characteristic of the Christian the spiritual person desires for their words to bring life and flourishing to those around them.

A few years ago, my family went horseback riding.

Now, we are not horse people or farm people.

We don't know about fences and like taking care of the land.

We're kind of like walk to session stand type of people, which is kind of a different lifestyle.

But we're there, we're there.

We're gonna get on these horses and ride the trails.

So we all get on top of these massive animals, huge animals, right?

There we are, massive, huge animals.

We don't know what they're gonna do because we don't know about horses.

They can buck us off, they can kick us, they could throw us off, they could sit on us.

We don't know.

We're not horse people, so it's all very intimidating.

And then my youngest daughter, she's there at the time, probably 65 pounds.

She's on top of this huge horse, huge horse.

And the guide explains to her.

She says, Hey, sweetie, I know this is intimidating, it's a big horse.

But there's a bit that is in the mouth of this horse, and there's two leather straps, and it goes up top, and you're gonna hold these leather straps.

And isn't it wild that you can control this massive beast with this bit and these straps is called a bridle.

And James says, That's it.

That's the image.

Our words are a massive beast that can cause destruction, but also can help people really flourish.

See, as we grow in grace from that implanted word in us of who we are in Christ, we can begin to guide our words to be words of flourishing.

I'm 44 years old.

I can still remember when I was 15 years old, I was on the JV basketball team.

After practice one day, our basketball coach, he took us into the weight room next to the gym.

I was in 10th grade.

Basketball was everything to me.

99% of my identity was basketball.

And he takes us in there and he sits us down, a whole bunch of scrawny 15-year-olds.

And he looked at me, still remember it, but still fresh.

Must have been almost 30 years.

And he said, Masterson, we thought you were gonna be something.

You haven't lived up to any of it.

I still remember that.

No coaching, no real coaching there, no encouragement there, no life, no life.

Now, 11 years ago, I was working at a big church down in Atlanta, and we had decided we're gonna come up here and plant this church.

I was real nervous.

That church had been so good to us.

God, my wife and I, we had our babies there.

We kind of grew up there in terms of like becoming adults in a young adulthood.

And I was nervous because I loved that church, I was sad, I was excited, it's sort of unsettled, and I had to go and resign to three different pastors, all sort of my bosses in different ways.

And so the day begins.

I go to pastor number one, and he was he was so kind, very kind.

Pastor number three, very, very kind.

And then there was pastor number two, which really surprised me because it sat down in front of me.

He was a very stoic man, very emotionless for the years that I knew him.

And I gave him the spiel, you know, God's calling and how we're gonna do, and God's moving, and like, you know, really selling this.

And he's thinking, I gotta hire another guy.

That's his first thought, right?

Then I'm selling, God's calling to another, going through it, going through it, the church we want to start.

And this man has always been so stoic, so stoic.

He tears up.

And he says, 11 years ago, still remember it.

I've always known you wouldn't stay here.

I've always known you would leave to go do something great.

I hadn't done anything at this point, right?

Man, those are words of life.

Right?

Flourish.

You've had somebody say something so horrible to you that it sticks with you, sticks in you, you keep replaying it.

Just destruction, words of destruction.

You've also had somebody say something to you that is so life-giving.

And then we have the ability to do that.

We have that kind of power.

Words have power.

And whatever fills our hearts shapes our words.

So before we interact with people, we should probably settle ourselves into the implanted word in us.

Who we are in Christ.

So we don't walk into these relationships unsettled or insecure.

But if we're already totally approved, already totally enough and worthy and forgiven and righteous, and we're all this in Jesus, we're beholding the word in us.

Imagine what we can do to speak life into others.

My mentor says, if our words are just like 3%, I don't know why he picks 3%, 3% of the lavishness of the gospel to us, just imagine the flourishing of our words in people's lives.

Verse 27.

Second characteristic of the Christian: the spiritual person's heart and life moves toward the one in need.

So the word visit means to look upon, to help, or benefit.

It doesn't mean you have to help just like your friend Susie helps, right?

Like it just means that you are lovingly moving toward the person in need.

And in this passage, when it says widows and orphans, it means people in need.

These would have been the most vulnerable in their society at the time.

So it's a calling for us.

Whoever it is in your life.

Whoever it is, if they're in need, that you are lovingly moving toward them.

James is teaching that true spirituality begins in the heart and it moves outward.

So true spirituality is not introverted, it is extroverted.

Now, as an introvert, I don't like that.

Like all the introverts in others are going, eh, I don't know, I just want to be contemplative.

That's all I want to do.

But James is saying, no, no, it actually starts to flow out of us.

Now, I will never love people like my wife, Christy, loves people.

She's always going to love people a lot better than I do because she is extroverted, she's a people person.

That is just coming out of her naturally.

But even for the introverts, there's a movement of grace in us.

There's a movement.

A movement of growing secure in the core of who we are, and it empowers awareness and care of others.

The apostle Paul teaches that all this happens as we remember the gospel.

His letters are even structured that way.

That all the indicatives of who we are in Christ, all these great promises of how we're righteous and we're forgiven and we're worthy, all of that.

Now, out of that flows, be patient.

Or love people or speak words of encouragement.

Because you don't have to be as defensive or angry or afraid.

Do you remember my sage plant in my yard?

I talked about a month ago.

Thrilling illustration.

Everybody was so thrilled by it.

I wanted to give you an update on this sage because it's so thrilling.

I can tell that y'all just love this illustration so much.

So it's been about a month since we talked about the sage.

So if you remember, just to catch you up, if you haven't been here, if you remember the sage, I had planted it on the other side of the trampoline.

Do you remember that?

And it was in the shade, and sage loves the sun, so it's in the wrong place.

As soon as I planted it, it was droopy, it was struggling, it looked horrible.

And then I realized it was it wasn't in the right place.

It was resting in the wrong place.

And so it's like, ah, okay.

Now let just move it to the other side of the trampoline immediately.

Flourishing.

Unbelievable, right?

And we learned we need to rest in the right place.

It really matters where we rest, to be rooted in the right place, to rest in the correct place where we actually belong, this is when we begin to flourish.

Now here's what I've noticed over the last month.

Here's the update.

Every time I walk by that area, usually I cut that grass right there or pull a few weeds, I am hit by the fragrance.

You ever smelled sage?

This is a sweet, sweet smell.

I can't be in that area.

I can't be in that area of the yard without being affected by it.

See, by rooting where we belong, we begin to flourish, and as we flourish, we just begin to bless other people.

We're a sweet fragrance to them.

Not because like we're like having to or obligated to, but because we know positionally who we already are.

Secure and free in Jesus.

And this actually empowers this inner heart to be expressed outward, this lavishness of the gospel that's in us to begin to flow outward to other people.

Back to verse 27 again.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

So, third characteristic of the Christian, last thing.

True spirituality is a shift of the heart and life to live for more than this world.

The word world means that there's this pull on our heart's affection and our mind's attention to focus on the temporary, to the systems of the world that are usually have to do with merit and usually have to do with escape.

And James says, don't get all messed up by that.

Don't get broken from that illusion.

I love C.S.

Lewis's quote about our desires as we're in the world.

Our desires are not too strong but too weak.

We're half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.

Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.

We are far too easily pleased.

This idea of world is always temporary.

A world that fades.

Isaiah worded it this way: Isaiah 47 and 8.

The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it.

Surely the people are grass.

The grass withers.

The flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

Temporary world.

This week our town and our church lost a high schooler, a high school junior, lived Teverino.

She died in a car crash.

She was an amazing person.

Had meaningful friendships, loving family.

It doesn't make sense.

There's no making sense of it.

It's just horrible.

It's just sad.

Most days we don't live like the world's temporary.

And then something happens, and then all of a sudden we're face to face.

We really are passing through.

Most of the time we don't have to think about that.

Most of the time we get to just enjoy a run in the woods.

We enjoy a meal with friends or family.

We get to laugh and we get to go, oh, whatnot, that's so good.

That's so good.

And it's all a foretaste.

That's real.

That loveliness is real, but that loveliness is a foretaste in the temporary world of where we were created to live.

Eternal beings.

Those foretastes are meant to send our hearts onward.

See, death is foreign to our hearts because we were created for everlasting life.

Life that flourishes and is holistic and it's harmonious and it's always flourishing.

Genesis 1.

And death did not enter until sin entered.

Death is a result of sin, not God's heart.

So our hearts long for the life of restoration of heaven.

This is why we can't make sense of death.

Our hearts don't make sense of it.

Because we weren't created for it.

And in this in-between, in this broken temporary world, our hearts, by the brokenness and by the loveliness in this world, are sent onward to the restoration of heaven that our hearts really long for, this place where there's no tears and there's no fear.

And all is redeemed.

Paul wrote this to the Roman church, kind of ties us back into our passage of James.

This is from the message translation, so it's kind of casual wording here.

So here's what I want you to do.

God helping you.

Take your everyday, ordinary life.

Your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life, and place it before God as an offering.

Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him.

Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.

Instead, fix your attention on God.

You'll be changed from the inside out.

Readily recognize what he wants from you and quickly respond to it.

Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that you know all of us in our hurt and our mess, in the ways that we have created brokenness and our sin, and the ways that we've created brokenness in the world, and in the ways that the world has broken us.

That you know all of us.

You know our guilt, our shame, our anger, our frustration, our sadness, our kind of numbness.

You know it all, and you love us.

And thank you, God, that you are maturing us.

Thank you that our hearts were not created for this temporary world, but for an eternal world.

Would you help remind us in these days of what it means to live as a Christian rooted in you, at rest in you, fully yours, and flourishing from the inside out.

And may we find a deep peace in you this morning.

Comfort our hearts, have mercy on us as a people.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.