Another summer experiment. To shorten the service, I just gave an extended Message for All God’s Children. This was to put us in a good frame of mind for a optional discussion that occurred after worship.
James 1:17-27
The Bible has two kinds of words, two kinds of messages. The first, and it always comes first, is about what God does. We call that grace. God acts first and what God does counts forever. The second message is about what we do–how we act, what we should do. So the Bible care a lot about what you do, but it cares more about what God does.
Now wait, you’ll say. Why do I come second? I thought what I did was important? Yes it is. But what God does is even more important. And, by the way, God can do things through you. So, the first two verses we heard from the reading, the verses that came first, are about what God does.
Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above—the best things we do, and if especially if we do something good for someone that is perfectly done, is from above. (Not literally up there, but beyond us.)—coming down from the Father of lights. Or Mother of lights. It means God. So God does things through us. James even says God gives us the power of truth, so that we can become the “first fruits of God’s creatures.”
Now, what are first fruits? …
So we are the first fruits of all God’s creatures. They are all created good—like us, all creatures do good things like eat and grow and play and keep each other company.. But God gives us the word of truth so that we can be God’s choice fruit. Not just fruit, but God’s own possession. We do God’s work and speak God’s words. What we do becomes God’s own blessing on the earth. God does things through us.
Now wait a minute, you’ll say. I do things for myself. We’re back to that question again: Why does God get all the credit? Why does what I do come second? Hold on a minute. This is actually a really good thing, to come second. Why is it good for us that we come second, and God comes first?
- If you do something good. Say you score a goal in soccer. Or you say the right answer in school. People cheer, or your teacher says good job, or maybe you even win a prize. That’s nice. But then it’s gone. The cheering doesn’t last too long. Five minutes later, the teacher is telling someone else, good job. But if God does something good through you, then you good work is part of something much, much bigger than you. Your good act becomes part of what God is doing through people all over the planet, and things God has done through the church for 2000 years. So that’s not just going away in five minutes.
- Often in school or sports it what you do that counts. You don’t get good grades or bad grades because of someone else. You only get your own grades. So if what you do comes first, then all the pressure is on you. And what happens when you don’t do well? Everyone’s looking at you and saying: Why did you let her score that goal? Didn’t you do your homework? You mean you haven’t cleaned your room yet? / So, we still need to try hard in school and sports. But if what God does comes first, and what we do comes second, than we don’t have to feel so terrible when we make mistakes.
So see, it’s good that God’s actions come first, and ours second. This is the beauty of God’s grace. And in our reading from James, God’s grace or God’s actions come first; then our actions come second. And I think it’s absolutely vital for us as a church to understand that God comes first, and it’s not what I do that comes first.
But what we do is still very important. Actually, it’s even more important because what I am doing as a Christian I am doing for God, so God can work through me. So James has a lot to say about what we should do. He says “be doers of the word, not just hearers.” He tells us to do good stuff, like “Care for orphans and widows.” Care for people who are all on their own. So first, listen to what God says and does; that comes first. But if you just listen, you can’t do the works of God.
So what do we do? We’re just going to look at one thing.
Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.
You know what that means—quick to listen, slow to speak? (Not speak slowly…) This is all about how we listen, speak, and react to what we hear. Do you listen and speak every day? Right! So this is about what we all do every day.
Let me ask you, who gets the most attention in class, and who are the most popular kids in school? Is it those who are really quiet, or kids who always talk a lot? Yeah. How about in church? Who has the most say in church—those who are very quiet, or those who talk the most? Right. And who talks the most? Me. This is not the way the world usually works. But the Bible often tells us, “Don’t do what everyone else does. Don’t follow the same rules that everyone else follows.”
I wonder why some kids are really quiet. What do you think? …
This is a holy place. It is God’s place. And God always looks out most not for the popular kids, or the big talkers. God looks out for the quiet ones. And so, we should too. We should be quick to listen. Slow to speak. Let the quiet ones speak. And then we should be slow to anger. Because when quiet people are allowed to talk, sometimes the first thing they say is that they are mad it took so long for anyone to listen to them. Right? So don’t get angry. (See! That’s why we never let you talk in the first place!). Make room for the quiet ones to speak, and don’t get angry if their first words are words of hurt, of pain.
/When the Bible talks about what we should do, it often gives us a difficult word. Be quick to listen, slow to speak. And the words in our call to worship were pretty hard too. And I was amazed that the readings from today had so much to do with how we speak, with communication, because that is what some of us will be meeting about after worship today.
So I listen to these difficult words from the Bible, and I begin by applying them to myself. Now I did some teaching a few weeks ago here at church. And it was about some scary topics, like the way some churches like ours have had to close for good. And at first it went pretty well. But then I was running out of time. So I became very quick to speak, and slow to listen. Is that what James says we should do? …And I like listening, especially here, because people have a lot of good things to say. And it wasn’t because I was angry. I actually enjoy it when people disagree with me. But I failed in being slow to talk, and quick to listen. And then we can’t hear each other, and especially the quiet people don’t get heard. So today, we’re going to be talking together in small groups downstairs, to make sure we listen to each other and everyone gets listened to. Because only that way do we hear each other. And only in that way, will God speak through us and among us, and then the things we do become the things God is doing, and they last forever.
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