Teleos Blog that we may present everyone complete in Christ

LIFE: The 2 VoicesPosted by Phil on March 29th, 2009

one of my favorite children’s movies is The Emperor’s New Grove.  i enjoy the scenes w/ kronk and his shoulder angels.  the angel and devil that give him advice on what to do.  that image has been in a lot of movies…and i think we can identify w/ it.  2 voices calling for our attention, both of them wanting us to listen to their side.

if you look at the first part of James 4, we’ve got a section that the world is calling for our attention.  and this voice leads to fights, quarrels, and jealousy.  we have the wrong motives…we’re thinking about ourselves and trying to live by what will make life easiest and turn out the best for me.

James then says, “you adulterous people.”  pretty strong language there.  it’s a fairly common phrase from OT prophets.  pick you partner….remain faithful.  chose who’s bed you’re going to lie in.  the spirit inside us envies intensley.  like a husband to a wife….the God wants all of us, he wants us to be faithful.

the prophet Hosea was told by God to take a wife that would cheat on him.  a wife who he loves that will be unfaithful…break his heart.  and then….to take her back.  God wanted him to go through what he goes through with his people.  we commit and are not faithful….we are enticed and drawn away by the other voice too often.

the voice of God calls us to be humble…to put God and others before ourselves.  it tells us we will be happiest when those things happen.

James says, “come near to God and he will come near to you.”  does it ever feel like God is so far away?  David often wrote about that in the Psalms…that God is not listening or turned his back.  i see the psalms in this verse and i see the prodigal son and the father waiting for him and running out to meet him when he finally came home.  i feel like sometimes when we move in God’s direction, he comes running…he was just waiting for us to return to him.

the last part of this section talks about our response to sin.  wash your hands, purify your hearts…grieve, mourn, and wail.  too many people were taking their sin too lightly.  sinning intentionally b/c they’d be forgiven.  they were comfortable in it.  come grieve….humble yourself, and God will lift you up and restore you.  again, back to the OT, people mourned someone in a specific way.  they’d tear their clothes, not shower, have dirt on their face to let people know they were mourning.  but then they’d clean up, shower, put on new clothes and move on.  James is telling us to clean ourselves….mourn our sin, feel bad, submit ourselves to God, but then get up and move on.

so which voice are you listening to more often?
how faithful are you to God’s call?
do you need to humbly admit your sin to God…mourn over it…and then move on free from it?

LIFE: Watch Your MouthPosted by Phil on March 23rd, 2009

i find it interesting that James spends part of 2 chapters talking about how important our actions are.  that our faith cannot depend on words alone, but our lives must back up what we say we believe.  i understand that he’s pointing that our lives should show that the Spirit is at work in our lives.

but he turns around and spends chapter 3 talking about how important our words are.  that the tongue has disproportionate power and incredible desctructive potential.  the tongue is so small, but it can ruin friendships, get you in trouble, leave you hurt…all in a split second.  words are powerful.

and we all know that we say a whole lot more than our words speak.  it’s something crazy like 90% of what we say isn’t said with the words that come out of our mouth.  but how we say them means so much more…how we stand, the look on our face, the inflection of our voice.

James says that we all stumble…we slip up, make mistakes.  no one is perfect with the words they say…they make mistakes.  but the pattern of your life shouldn’t be ups and downs….victories and failures.  we should be aiming and working towards more and more victories.  it makes no sense that we praise God and curse men in the same breath.  we praise our Creator, but curse his creation?  something’s not right there.

so a few reminders on controlling our mouth that we all so often forget:

Ephesians 4:29 says, “do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit all who listen.”
we need to choose our words carefully….this is both thinking through what words i should remove from my vocabulary as well as thinking before i speak.
my words should build others up and be a benefit to all who hear.

at some point, our words will get us into trouble…it’s bound to happen.

consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.  most forest fires today are started by camp fires that are not put out properly or cigarette butts.  thousands of acres go up in flames each year from a cigarette or small camp fire.  you can do a lot of good by taking care of the fire immediately before it gets out of control.
when you say something you shouldn’t….take care of it immediately.  apologize to the person…don’t assume they’ll know you were kidding or that you made a mistake.  if you said something in the presence of others, ask their forgiveness and tell them you made a mistake and shouldn’t have said what you did….even when it’s not about them.
if something is said that hurts you, go to the person and let them know.  chances are it was a mistake or an issue that could be worked out if you talk about it.  it’s so much easier to say something and fire a shot back.  but be the bigger man, let it go, and talk to them about it.

do you have a relationship that is strained or broken because of words that were said?  or maybe words that weren’t said that should have been?
is there someone that has hurt you that you should go talk to?
have you done damage to someone and you need to go take care of it?

if so…take care of it this week.  don’t let it go and think it will get better on its own.  i know my mouth can get me into lots of trouble and life goes much smoother when i take care of things up front…when i stop and think before i speak.

LIFE: Why Works?Posted by Phil on March 17th, 2009

James lays out in chapter 1 that works are important.  faith isn’t faith unless you back it up with the things you do.  but are works a requirement for salvation?  not at all…we can probably quote a handful of verses that tell us otherwise.

if works are not a requirement….why are they so important?

Ephesians 2:8-10 tells us that we are saved not by works, but only by grace in order to do good works in Christ.
2 Corinthians 5 says that we are a new creation….the old has gone and a new life has come.  it goes on to say that we are God’s ambassadors.  an ambassador has a HUGE responsibility….they speak for the king.  their words are the kings words.   when they utter the phrase, “the king says….” it is heard just as if the king had said it.

we have been saved to do good works, because we represent God.  we are his messanger and we are to carry out the things that are important to him.

but it goes farther than that.  salvation is a process.   there’s definitely a distinct moment where we are saved.  and we should realize there is an ending point when Christ comes back and we are taken to heaven.  but there’s a period in between those two points.  the fancy Bible word for this time is called sanctification…that we are being made holy, the process of being made new, transformation….we are becoming more and more like Christ.  it’s the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

so James is asking….is the Holy Spirit working?  are you being transformed?  are you doing good things and showing the change that is occuring inside of you?  or do you have “faith”?  “faith” where you say you believe but nothing changes at all….isn’t really faith.  so you say you believe in God….great…big deal.  the demons believe that God exists and it causes them to shake with fear.

is your life being transformed?  works are the sign that you are becoming more and more like the child of God he intended you to become.

LIFE: A Look in the MirrorPosted by Phil on March 8th, 2009

when you wake up in the morning and look into the mirror, what do you look for as you get ready?  for me, i make sure i don’t have eye bugers, check to make sure i don’t miss part of my face shaving, and i check this one clump of hair that always sticks up to make sure it’s rightfully in place.

we all have things that we look for.  every time we use the restroom, we’re going to look at the mirror to make sure things look how they should.  no food in your teeth, no new zits, and no marks on your face your friends decided not to mention to you.

James says that a mirror is a lot like the word of God.  a foolish man can look into the mirror, be convicted and see that things aren’t quite right, and walk away and be able to forget about it.  it seems ridiculous that you would look in a mirror, see that you have snot hanging from your nose and then say….”man, that’s too bad.  wish that would go away.”

but too many times this is how we approach faith.

Francis Chan said in a sermon recently, “be careful when you can hear the Word of God and do nothing.”

that says a lot.  how many times do you go to church, are convicted by a sermon and tell yourself you need to work on that?  and the next day you can’t even remember what church was about the day before.  you looked at the mirror and forgot.

James is dealing with real, true, messy faith.  not praying a prayer and calling yourself a Christian.  faith isn’t there to make life easier…in fact, it might make things more difficult.  if you truly want to follow Christ….it’s not easy.  it means you can’t be lazy and i think we all know, it’s much easier to be lazy.  real faith is authentic and can’t be faked.  it means you don’t put on a mask at church and pretend to be happy when you really don’t feel like loving people or worshipping God that day.  but it doesn’t walk away from God when you have those times where you don’t want to worship.

real faith looks at the perfect law and asks you to willingly turn your life over to him.

when you look in the mirror…what needs to change that you continually ignore?  are you willing to change it even if it’s scary, difficult, or embarrassing?  do you call yourself a Christian simply because you prayed a prayer, or because you are passionately trying to follow God?

LIFEPosted by Phil on March 1st, 2009

we kicked off a new series looking at the book of James.  i love James…that it deals very practically with how to live out your faith.  it’s all about life.  the book was written most likely by James, the half-brother of Jesus although it could have been James the brother of John, one of the sons of Zebedee…but they think the letter was written about 2 years after his death, which is why the half brother of Jesus is the most accepted James as the writer of the book.

the book starts off talking about trials and temptations.  consider it joy when you face trials.  it’s not a matter of if you face trials, but when….they’re coming….how will you deal with them.  we’ve been hitting this topic a lot through our series on contentment and our time of sharing last week.  so we wanted to take a fun and fresh approach.  this book deals with every day practical life….so we spent most of our evening playing the game of life.  definitely brought me back to my childhood.  i remember as a kid doing everything possible to avoid bad spaces….even if it meant cheating…like double counting a space so i came up one place short.  (you can get away with that sometimes when you play with people younger than you)

but we can’t avoid bad times….they come.  how will you respond?  will you respond with joy recognizing that it develops your faith?  or will you shut down and hope it will end?  will you ignore it and pretend it’s not happening?