The Book of James - A Serious Business

James 3:1-12

We now come to the second half of the book of James where James talks about the agenda of our new life in Jesus Christ. That is, the righteous life to which we have been called to walk in Jesus Christ. Now it's impossible for James to talk about that righteous life at the practical level without first talking about our talk.

Let me introduce the practical level at which James begins by sharing Paul Tripp’s opening story in a sermon he preached on this passage at Tenth Presbyterian Church:

“I've always had a bit of a struggle in my marriage – it’s with the issue of time. Luella was raised in Cuba. She has a bit of an island and a Latin view of time; some of you understand. I was raised by a man who thought that the sole litmus test of the value of a human being was punctuality.

And there was one Easter morning in the Tripp family; we were attending a church at that point that had decided the best way to celebrate Easter was to have a full breakfast before the service.

I don't know what that has to do with Easter, but it was a tradition. That meant that we would have to leave about an hour and a half early. I woke up with feelings of impossibility.

I walked into the bathroom, and Luella was standing there; my nine-year-old son was standing there, and I could tell by the way that Luella was dressed that she was not near being ready.

So I began to say “helpful things” to her like informing her that it was not, in fact, an Easter dinner; it was an Easter breakfast…letting her know that a couple of our children were probably already in the car waiting…reminding her that I was an elder in the church, and my arrival before the ham and eggs was very important to my ministry.

About then, my nine-year-old son said, “Daddy, may I say something?” I should've said, “No!” I said, “Sure, you can talk.”

And he said to me, “Daddy do you really think this is the way that a Christian man should be talking to his wife?”

I'm a counselor; I'm good at these conversations. I said, “What do you think?” And this little boy with a sincere faith of a child said, “Daddy, it doesn't make any difference what I think; what does God think?”

slogged my way out of the bathroom being duly chided, got to about the threshold of the door, and he said, “Daddy may I say something else?”

I wanted to say, “No, No, please don't.” He said, “What I mean, daddy, is what does the Bible say?”

I went into my bedroom, and I had a series of thoughts. The first one was, my pride sort of reared up; I wanted to be a hero to my son. It hurt that he saw through and heard through those words and felt for his mommy.

But that didn't last very long. I was overwhelmed with a sense of the love and grace of God.

Think about how small this moment is in the Tripp family, just one moment, on one morning, in one room, in one house, on one street, in one city, in one state, in one nation, in one hemisphere, in one place, at one time, on the globe. And my Lord was in that room, and He cares about the smallest moments of your life. He cares about those.

It’s an amazing thing. It’s hard to imagine grace that present, that magnificent, that active. You see, the reason grace has to be present in those moments is because those little moments happen to be where you live.

We live in the most mundane, normal minor of moments. And if that grace can't reach us in those moments, if God doesn't care about this moment, if His Kingdom doesn't have zeal to reign in those moments, we have no hope!

And that's why, as hard as the words are, that you are about to hear, you ought to hear them as words of magnificent love! Because if God didn't care about you, He surely wouldn’t care about all those conversations you have every day. How can you pay attention to all of them at once? What magnificent power that is, but He does, and He cares.”

I hope you can join us this Sunday morning as James talks about our talk.

For His Glory,

Pastor Wayne