But another favorite Tesia moment relates to our Scripture passage today. When Tesia was four, we lived in Panama. Our closest friends in Panama were the Senior Pastor of our church and his wife, Pastor Bill and Marla Johnson. We would routinely get together to play cards on a Friday night, often playing until the wee hours of the morning. One Friday, as we were driving over to the Johnsons again, Tesia spoke up from the back seat of the car saying, “Daddy, all you and Bill ever do is talk, talk, talk.” I laughed at her and said, “Okay sweetie, if you think we’re talking too much tonight, you just come over to the table, look me right in the eye and say, ‘Yap, yap, yap!’” Much, much later that night, my sleepy little girl walked over to Pastor Bill, looked him straight in the eyes and very emphatically said, “Yap, yap, yap!”I’ve retold that story countless times over the years and, almost every time I tell it, I thank the LORD for my two wonderful daughters; I won the lottery when it comes to children. But I also think of our Scripture passage today. I wonder to myself what God must think as He listens in on our conversations. I wonder if God doesn’t sometimes shake His head and mutter to Himself, “Yap, yap, yap! All you people ever do is talk!” Folks, there is gunfire on the quad and you church folks are talking about gym shorts. My church folks are playing religious games and talk, talk, talking while there is work to be done in my neighborhood. Yap, yap, yap!
We are spending some time wandering through the book of James this month. We are listening to old leather knees share with us some profound insights for living. Last week, we talked about wisdom. Today James speaks with us about the unity of faith and action. I’m going to read from the New Living Translation today, skipping a section to discuss next week.
Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.
But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? [Yap, yap, yap!] Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.” You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. How foolish!
Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless? Don’t you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete. And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” He was even called the friend of God. So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone.
Rahab the prostitute is another example. She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.
It has been said “many people wish to serve God, but only in an advisory capacity.” Many people crave what a relationship with the Living God offers, but they have little or no interest in service, submission, or even the slightest suffering. They are completely content to advise and criticize, they thoroughly enjoy hypothetical conversations, rigorous debate and lofty ideals, but when it comes time to shut up and show up, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked or care and protect the least of these my brothers and sisters, they’ve got other things to do. Their perfectly pious ideas do not express themselves in action; faith without works is dead.
This Bible passage wrecks me. I am slow to listen, very quick to speak and quick to get angry. While I’ve been pretty good about dutifully getting rid of moral filth and evil in my life and humbly accepting the Word of truth, I am frequently just a listener and not an active doer of the Word. This passage is so very clear and convicting, it doesn’t need much exposition this morning. God is not interested in what I say I believe. Almighty God wants to see my life so completely transformed by what I believe; my faith will joyously shout from how I behave!
Would people know you were a Christian if you lost the ability to tell them so?
What do you suppose the impact would be on the planet if Almighty God imposed a 30 day moratorium on human speech? What if the LORD of the Universe woke up on the wrong side of the bed one morning, opened up His email, twittered up His Twitter, faced up to His Facebook, tuned in His favorite morning radio or television show and then, in utter frustration, just said, “Alright, that’s it! Yap, yap, yap! Enough with the yap! Nobody talks till I say so!”
This Scripture passage here in James is not rocket science, is it?
My dear Iowan friends Jeremy and Briar Hudson wanted children more than anything in the world, yet when she got pregnant the first time – she bled almost all the way through her pregnancy. The danger of miscarriage was ever present. And yet I knew my good friends were trusting God because I could see it in their behavior. While there were many scary moments, those two were positively serene through it all. Without a word, we saw what they really believed smeared all over them. Their little boy was born healthy and now has a brother.
In a recent phone conversation, Maydelle Fennick told me she believes all of us as Christians should make an intentional point of pastorally caring for each other, visiting each other in hospitals and in times of need. Do you know how I know she believes this? Easy! She and Jim are regularly at hospitals calling on people even before I get the chance to show up!
Do you know how I know Pastor Becky loves the people she does? Because she keeps showing up in their lives, even when it isn’t always easy or personally convenient to do so.
Whether it is grungy Greg Howell walking around in a dirty t-shirt holding the dusty, but now thankfully repaired ceiling fan for the office bathroom, Larry building bookcases, Carol Erickson elbows deep in yummy Monday morning memorial service potato salad, Jan Wilson folding sermons and folding Unlimited clothes, Jill Anderson and her crew collecting up our children or John Mortenson trying to sneak more cowbell into his drum solo or light into his nature scene – we are all easily revealed not nearly as much by our words as by our actions.
Elim Church is not a valuable church because we’ve answered every tricky theological question or settled every contemporary argument. We have not gotten all the words right here. This church matters because we are trying to lean more and more toward action than words. We have many miles to go before we sleep, but this terribly imperfect place is not just talk.
As a snotty, know it all speech communication Bethel College student thirty years ago, I learned a fundamental truth – if the medium and the message disagree, the medium will win the argument every time. If I adamantly declare myself relaxed, yet shake like a leaf, sweat like a pig and faint out on the floor halfway through my speech, what are you going to think?
You’re going to think “Yap, yap, yap! Enough already with the yapping!” If our behavior doesn’t agree with our beliefs, it is our behavior that will be believed. Any idiot knows this!
On Thursday afternoon, Pastors Warren and Nadine Carey and I had the opportunity to hear Bill Hybells speak at the Eagle Brook Church Relevance Conference. It was a fantastic conference. Many people are critical of monster, megachurches with their church marketing and management techniques. As many of you know, I myself have some concerns about how some folks seem to reduce the Body of Christ to a commodity, a product to be consumed.
We can argue church strategy and style all day, but do you know what we heard and saw in Bill Hybells on Thursday afternoon? We saw a man whose faith has clearly expressed itself in his actions for thirty years or so. Every single time I’ve ever heard Bill Hybells speak about lost people, he tears up. He gets passionate. He starts talking about changing things, rearranging programs, raising money, building buildings, starting world-wide associations, writing books – taking whatever action steps he must in order to reach lost people for Jesus.
While Willow Creek Community Church is not a perfect place, as Pastor Hybells is first to loudly admit, I think there is a very good reason over 20,000 people worship in that place every weekend. There are a lot of people in that place whose faith expresses itself in action.
Many years ago in seminary, our professor John Cionca got a little frustrated with our lofty, overly academic class discussion. I don’t remember what we were discussing, but Dr. Cionca rather abruptly cut us off and said, “Oh come on, don’t you get it? The church offers the world countless important things – but at the end of the day, the most important thing we’re supposed to be doing is depopulating hell. There is nothing more important than that.”
Do you truly believe people are going to hell all around us or don’t you? Do you truly believe Jesus Christ is the hope and happiness of the world or don’t you? Do you truly mean it when you pray for thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven? Do you truly believe God loves people or don’t you? Do you believe all this stuff we’re talking about or don’t you?
Yap, yap, yap!
We can armchair quarterback our way through the Christian life, we can brutally criticize the success, passions or hard work of others, but at the end of the day, when we stand before Almighty God to give an accounting of ourselves, we better have more than just a lot of yap.
I have a great sketch on the wall just outside my office door. I’ve had it for years. I’m sure many of you are familiar with it. It is one of St. Francis of Assisi’s most blunt and famous sayings, “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”
How’s your preaching been lately?
If you find yourself as convicted by old Camel Knees James this morning as I am, ask God today to help you make whatever changes are necessary. Ask God to help you shut up and show up. Ask God to give you more and more opportunities to preach without words.
May we all live completely above and beyond the yapping!
May our faith joyously drive us to action!
Amen.
