Coming to the Still Waters

  Here is a beautiful old stone church found in England.  It has been a personal goal to insert a stand alone sermon between each of the chapters of our study of the book of James.  We have finished chapter 3 so I had the inspiration from a book on what it will take to reform the church written by John MacArthur, a couple video clips from a recent event as way of illustration, and a great quote from the late A.W. Tozer to take me to the highest concentration in the Scriptures dealing with churches, Revelation 2 and 3. I created a chart to speak through these churches and also offer the congregation a way to organize the order in which the Apostle John lays out each church's condition.  This is something I will improve on because it was just too much information on the screen.  I think this version would work better with offering the corresponding verses and allowing each person to fill in their own words. Hopefully the categories are helpful to understand t...

  Part 2 of this sermon moves James from (p)rophet - little (p) because he is acting like a prophet with warnings to God's people about not acting like God's people to James the pastor as he helps his readers and us to navigate what comes from our tongues and our fingers. James wants us to compare wisdom from here and wisdom from above like we compared God's way of walking through a trial and man's way found in chapter 1.  What is the difference between wisdom from here and wisdom from above?  What is different with its outcomes?  Here is a chart I used in the sermon.        Bad Wisdom (from here)                                       Good Wisdom (from above) The turning point for me in this sermon was verse 14.   "But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts,  do not boas...

  Originally I thought of putting that iconic tongue of the rock and roll group, the Rolling Stones to head this post but then I reconsidered.  Interesting fact, the home we owned in Gaylord, MI had a sliding glass door and when the sun hit it just right you could see that someone had applied one of those tongues to the glass.  The sun had baked into the glass the image long gone.  Maybe that is another illustration about the lasting effects of the tongue. James goes into small (p) prophet mode in this section of his letter.  He gives a stern warning to the Christians about how we are to live our lives as followers of Jesus.  The next section he will go into pastor mode with helps to assist us in this endeavor.  James, the master of illustrations, goes overboard with 8 illustrations, 6 facts, and 4 warnings in these 12 verses. I wanted to write about these two statements. "Have you ever said something you wished you would not have said?" "Have you ever...

  I am not a Greek and Hebrew scholar.  I heavily rely on others and their work to help me understand the original languages of the Bible.  I am so thankful for blueletterbible.org which dissects each verse and provides the multiple meanings of the words of the ancient languages which leads to our modern English translations.  The definition of the terms or words allows us to be on the same page when we talk and apply the verse.   This subject I have spoken of in Maine and Illinois.  Now I take another stab at it in Ohio.  The texts go beyond just the definitions of these lyrical or musical terms to how these types of songs service the church in glorifying God and serving each other.  I do find that the definitions help us to have a different conversation about the music God has given us to use.   One difference is how we might look at a " blended " service.  Typically it means we will have some older songs and some newer song...