Transcript
Well, what a joy it is and an honor to be invited to preach here at the First Presbyterian Church of Berkley Well. My wife Shirley sends her greetings. She wishes she was here too, but she has so many fond memories of every one of you and so many of you in this congregation today. She had a health incident in the spring and a blood clot in her brain and it was a scare, but she is on
the mend and she is way ahead of the curve and it's slowed down some of the long distance traveling we've been doing for a while, but she's really doing so well and it's exciting and so she sends her greeting and we love you. And I want you to know that we pray for this congregation. She prays every single Sunday for this congregation and all the churches we've ever been in. You know, we were at the Union
Church of Manila and Berkley Church, the National Church and University Church and Berkley Church. I'm also excited that I've been invited to be a part of the series on the book of James and I have a text and this text in the first chapter of James is actually a very amazing text. James gives us two words in that text that are just their virtues that James wants evidently those people that receive this letter from James who
is the Bishop of Jerusalem, the brother of our Lord who wrote this amazing book, the book of James and he has two words that he wants those folks to know and both of them are in this text. In fact, the very first verse of the text in James 1:9, the word is introduced to us. Let the believer who is lowly in heart, lowly, that's the word that means humble in the Bible and James wants humility
to happen to the people that are going to get this letter, this general epistle that's being sent to the early church, humble, lowly. It's a word that's used by our Lord himself. Jesus used this word in one of the most marvelous texts we have in Matthew where Jesus says, come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you pause or I'll give you space. Take my yoke upon you and learn
from me for I am humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. Take my yoke upon you. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. That amazing promise from our Lord. The word humble is in that word, in that wonderful promise. And then the other word, the other word is the very last verse of our text today and I just love the way the King James Bible writes or translates for us this
last, the last sentence of our text which is James 1:21. I don't like the new RSV rendering because it seems so stark and so brutal, but therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has power to save your souls. Here's the King James Bible and very often the King James Bible has the best rendering there is. Lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness. I
like that. I like that better. Did you ever hear it better? Say that to your kids sometimes. Lay aside that superfluity of naughtiness and with meekness receive the engrafted word which is able to save your souls. Well there's the second word that James is very concerned to teach us. Humility, the verse first of our text, lowly, humility, humble and meekness, meekness. Well Jesus loves that word too. In fact that word appears in the third beatitude. You
know our Lord's beatitudes are the nine blessings in Matthew 5. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn. Now the third, listen to this, blessed are the meek. You know what the word meek means? In the first century world, in the Greek world, meek prowess is used in a special way and our Lord knows that. It's used to refer to animals, especially horses, that are trainable. A trainable horse is a meek horse, not
weak. That's why I don't like it when people talk about I want you to be meek and mild. That's the wrong combination of words. It should be meek and strong because the meek horse is the trainable horse and when you're trainable or teachable then you become a strong horse. You become a great horse and that's the use of that word. In classical Greek it's used almost exclusively to refer to animals as trainable or teachable and our
Lord uses that word, that wonderful word in Matthew 5. The Beatitudes, the third Beatitude. Blessed are the meek and by the way you know every Beatitude has a reward. Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted. Do you know what the third one is? Blessed are the meek, they will inherit the earth. If you want to solve global warming, be teachable. Be teachable and
then you'll solve great problems and our Lord gives that as the third Beatitude and James, by the way many people think the book of James is in a certain sense a commentary by James on our Lord's Sermon on the Mount and it could well be because he uses all the language of the Sermon on the Mount in the book of James. First the word lowly which our Lord uses when he says come into me all you
who labor and are heavy laden, learn from me I am lowly, I am humble. So humble and meek go together, I am humble and take my yoke and learn of me, my yoke is easy, my burden is light, I am humble. And so humble is the first word and then at the very end of his text after the naughtiness be meek and learn from the word and then you your souls will be saved. All right now
with that let's take a look at the journey through this text that I've been assigned for today which I love by the way thank you for assigning me this text. All right hold your breath here we go. James the first chapter first the word lowly all right let's look at that word and see how it works. Let the believer the brother and sister who is lowly in other words humble boast of being raised up. Actually the
word for boast there is one of the glorifying words and really the best translation of that opening sentence is let the humble see let the humble discover the the glory of their dignity because then the word for highest is used. So the the RSV translates it let the believer who is lowly boast or see the glory of is really the best translation of being raised up of being hit and that word hesta is being raised up
means to find his full dignity. You find your full dignity from humility he says. So let the believer who is lowly humble discover the glory of his full dignity and then he repeats it this is parallel in the in Hebrew poetry things are said twice now it's done with regard to the rich and the word for rich here is the Greek word plenty and let those who are plenty the rich let them be humble and the
same word is used for humble and I'm sorry the revise has been brought low but actually it's the same word tepeiro which means humble the same word that he used for the lowly let the rich become lowly and discover the glory of their dignity it's meant to be a parallel so let the humble person discover the glory of their dignity and who they are let the rich person discover the glory of their dignity by being humble
all right he puts them together and then he gives an observation which we heard earlier in the part of this service for the sun for the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the field and the flower falls beauty perishes it's in the same way richness in the midst of busy life will also wither away so you'd better be humble and discover the full stature of your dignity because all these possessions and rich things the
plenties will tend to wither like the field will wither from the sun and that's just an observation like a proverbic observation that James gives then he faces up to the fact that you as a believer are going to be tested and he uses one word here that in the New Testament is sometimes translated test and it's the word peirazo sometimes it's translated tempt but it we get the english word peril from this you're kind of put
in peril when you're tested like when you get a midterm exam at school that's a perilous test it's a test and so he doesn't look at it in a bad way notice verse 12 blessed is anyone who endures the test who endures temptation and such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that's a word used to refer to an athletic crown you receive the crown of life that the lord has
promised for those who love him and then he backs up and says no one when tempted should ever say i am being tempted by god same word peril i'm not being put in peril by god for god cannot be tempted now there's the fourth use of that word peirazo god cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one so he's talking about the testing and he says when you're tested it's peril is not by
god tempting you then so then he explains what is temptation and it's interesting in this text he is not talking about temptation by the devil later in the end of the book he'll mention how the devil is a tempter too and we should flee from that temptation but no he's not talking about the devil tempting us he's talking about ourselves and our desires tempting us so he says when one is tempted by his own desire being
lured and enticed by it then when the desire has conceived it gives birth to sin and that sin when it's fully grown gives birth to death so don't be deceived when you're tempted by your own desires so right here James is saying he wants us to be humble and then we'll find our full stature and then if we're rich be humble we'll find our full stature all right temptation is going to hit everyone everyone is going
to be tested now in that test god is not tempting us with peril and putting us in peril is a test is a testing that happens now the worst testing is what we would call in temptation is when we're tested by our own desires that make us create myths about who we are in other words notice that's against the humble the mandate to be humble is now i'm going to create a myth about my own strength
and my own power and he warns us against that and then he says at the end of that paragraph don't be deceived by that by the way i have to tell you the word deceive it's such an interesting word in the new testament it is the greek word planao which is translated to be deceived or swindled it's used in first john to don't be deceived when you anyone who says i have no sin deceives himself and
that word is the word planao planao is it again an interesting first century word but it comes from first century astronomy you know before Copernicus there was a false idea that everybody believed and all the ancient astronomers believed it too that we the earth was the center and all the stars went around us because it looked like that the sun goes around us it looks like that the moon goes around us that is true but the
sun looks like it's going around us and the stars look like they're all moving around us and so the ancient astronomers bought into that until Copernicus showed that was not true we're not the center that everything is going around us we as a matter of fact go around the sun but the early astronomers did get one thing right when they looked into the sky and they saw the stars they realized there were two kinds of stars
there were stars that twinkled and there were stars that didn't twinkle have you ever noticed that and and then they also noticed that the stars that didn't twinkle were moving all the time mars they named them venus mercury pluto they are non-twinkling stars of course maybe they didn't realize that they're just reflecting light from the sun see because they're in our solar system but they were moving but the stars that twinkled didn't move around us
and that's why if you're a sailor you should set your sextant to the north star on the big dipper not venus who knows where you'll go if you're following venus as you're with your compass and even the early astronomers figure that out the twinkling stars are reliable the north star will always be north or if you're south of the equator the southern cross it will stay put but the non-twinkling stars are going to move everywhere
and guesses guess what word they gave the non-twinkling stars planets planao they're deceiving you and that's where the greek idea of deceive comes they're tricking you they make you think that they're moving around us and well they are moving around us but they make you think that they're great stars but they're not they don't twinkle look for the twinkling ones and we'll call those stars but we'll call those non-twinkling ones planets and that's where
the idea of deception came in the new testament when they talk about don't be deceived don't be tricked by something that looks grand wow think of all the books written about Venus isn't that marvelous or if you love war think of all the books written about mars oh that's wonderful the god of wars but they are all moving around and they're deceptive and so now james uses that very same word listen when you use your own
desire as your compass and in other words not humble which means you're going to going to find the truth from god no if you do it from yourself you're going to have a planet that you're building your life on and you pick your one it could be venus it could be mars it could be pluto you pick it but it's not going to be reliable it's going to move all over the place don't direct your ship
by it believe me you'll be in trouble but so he says notice how james puts it james is very earthy i love the way he says it here he says so our desires tempt us but do not be deceived my beloved and then comes a wonderful positive passage every generous act of giving every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights and with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change
he stays it stays twinkling in fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we should become a kind of first fruits of his creatures and that's that high dignity that comes from humble notice it's all tying into humble when you're humble you you learn you see the light that's coming down from god's height to us not that we're high and have the light that comes down but the light
comes down to us and we humbly discover it and then you must understand this my beloved let everyone be quick to listen slow to speak slow to anger and then comes that line from the king james bible set up lay apart all faith of filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with now hold your breath the big word with meekness be teachable with meekness the word of the lord and that will save you and so he
puts the two together humble and meek diefrich bonhoeffer love that and did i bring my diefrich bonhoeffer up here there it is i left it behind hey thank you when i when i teach at new college here i always have somebody that watches all the things that i'm leaving behind diefrich bonhoeffer wrote a marvelous essay called after 10 years it was after 10 years of of what was they had all gone through as the young confessing
christians in 1943 he wrote this and in that wonderful after 10 years he has this one great paragraph he says that there there remains an experience of incomparable value for us he says we have learned to see great events of world history from below it's from below that is our lord's teaching on lowly on lowly on humble from below this perspective from below must not become the particular possession of those who are eternally dissatisfied rather we
must do justice to life in all its dimensions from a higher satisfaction from below we'll see the higher satisfaction whose foundation is beyond any talk from below or from above and notice bonhoeffer is doing exactly what james did those who are wealthy learn to come down and learn from below we look up this better better perspective when you look up than when you look down so it's not whether you look up or from above or from
below the deception the planao deception is when i think more of myself than i should think and and that is the way so bonhoeffer says we have been learned the value of seeing things from below and that is this case for humility notice not only for the poor by the way you know there's a different word for economic poverty in the new testament that this is not the word for economic poverty this word lowly is a
word that's describing character a lowly character a humble character there's another word for economic deprivation and that the bible cares a lot about too poverty and that sort of thing it's economic but this is talking about your character let your character be humble look from below and if you're rich look from below do the same thing it's parallel do it and you will then see the glory by the way glory means the manifestation you'll see your
dignity and you'll see the high dignity that god has given you it's an amazing thing and then comes the peril the temptation you're going to always be tempted you're always going to be tested and then but when you're tested by your own desires and those desires take over your life then that is a planao that's a deception and it has a bad effect don't let it happen to your life get your eyes on the north star
your eyes on the star that twinkles your eyes on the light that comes from above and be in a teachable place where you can learn and that's the way the book of james begins it's not a bad book for our generation right now either it's not a bad theme two wonderful virtues for us today heavenly father thank you for this great text thank you that james starts off his book uh and with grace and it is
a grace that when we are lowly when we look from below instead of trying to find a place where we can look from above that lord then mixed with teachableness with meekness we have the the experience of seeing god's light shine so lord thank you for that may that be true for all of our lives in christ's name we pray amen.