Walking With Christ

(Part 8 of 8)

James 3:1  Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.(ESV)

That isn’t a verse people usually put on ministry recruitment posters.  It probably wouldn’t help attendance at the leadership seminar.

“Come teach!”

“Share your gift!”

“Step into your calling!”

“Also, God will judge you more strictly.”

James has terrible marketing instincts.  Or maybe we’ve learned to market things Scripture expected us to fear.

“Not many of you should become teachers.”

Pause.

James doesn’t say teaching is bad.  The Church needs teachers.

Paul names teaching among the gifts God gives His people.  Jesus commanded His disciples to teach.  James isn’t trying to empty pulpits and classrooms.

He’s warning anyone who wants the authority to speak into the lives of others that authority comes with increased responsibility.

Greater influence.  Greater accountability.  Greater strictness.

That should make anyone who teaches Scripture hesitate for at least a moment.

Pastors.  Teachers.  Authors.  Parents.  Small-group leaders.

Anyone who stands in front of another person and says:  “This is what God says.”

That sentence carries some very real weight.  We often want the authority before we think about the responsibility.

We want the microphone.  The platform.  The audience.  The influence.  The opportunity to correct.  The chance to explain.  The ability to tell someone else what they should do.

James looks at all of that and says:  Be careful.

God is listening to the teacher too.

That should make us pause.

But this is the final message in The Places We Pass, and James isn’t finished ruining our shortcuts.

A chapter later he writes:

James 4:17  So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.(ESV)

There goes another loophole.

Most of us learned to think about sin primarily in terms of things we shouldn’t do.

Don’t lie.

Don’t steal.

Don’t murder.

Don’t commit adultery.

Don’t cheat.

Don’t hate.

Don’t deceive.

Don’t do the bad thing.

That’s real.

Then James reaches into the empty space where we thought we were safe.

What did you know you should do?  Did you do it?  No?

James calls that sin too.

Pause.

I didn’t hurt them.  Did you help when you knew you should?

I didn’t lie.  Did you speak the truth when your silence protected a lie?

I didn’t abandon anyone.  Did you show up when you knew someone needed you?

I didn’t steal from the poor.  Did you walk past someone you knew you could help?

I didn’t say anything cruel.  Did you withhold the word you knew needed to be spoken?

I didn’t cause the problem.  Did you know what was right and refuse to act because doing right would cost you something?

Suddenly “I didn’t do anything” stops sounding like a defense.

Sometimes that’s exactly the problem.  You didn’t do anything.

The priest in the story of the Good Samaritan didn’t beat the wounded man.  Neither did the Levite.  They simply passed by.

That sounds different after James 4:17.

The servant who buried his talent didn’t gamble it away.  He didn’t steal it.  He didn’t squander it in wild living.  He buried it.  Nothing lost.  Nothing gained.  The master wasn’t impressed.

The goats in Matthew 25 aren’t condemned because they personally created hunger, thirst, estrangement, nakedness, sickness, and imprisonment.

Jesus says:  “I was hungry and you gave me no food.”  “I was thirsty and you gave me no drink.”

The accusation is filled with things that didn’t happen.

No food.  No drink.  No welcome.  No clothing.  No visit.

Sometimes judgment has an empty space where obedience should’ve been.

That should make us pause.

Then John walks into the room.

And John isn’t interested in leaving us any comfortable furniture either.

1 John 4:20  If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.(ESV)

Well.  There it is.

No parable.  No elaborate argument.  No complicated theological puzzle.  No room to hide behind vocabulary.

“I love God.”  John says that’s a claim.  Then he looks at how we treat the person standing beside us.

Hate your brother?  Then the claim is false.

Not immature.  Not inconsistent in some minor technical sense.

John uses a much sharper word.  Liar.

Pause.

We’re very comfortable with vertical Christianity.  Me and God.  My prayer life.  My worship.  My theology.  My faith.  My relationship with Jesus.  My salvation.  My calling.  My ministry.  My Bible.

John refuses to let Christianity remain vertical.

You say you love the God you can’t see.  Fine.

What’re you doing with the brother you can?  That’s brutally practical.

And maybe that’s the perfect place to end these two series.

Because this entire journey has been about the places where Scripture catches us moving too quickly.

We paused when Abraham raised the knife.

We paused when God answered Job from the whirlwind.

We paused when Isaiah saw the Lord.

We paused at the cry from the cross.

We paused when Jesus prayed for His executioners.

We paused when He said, “It is finished.”

We paused before the throne where the books were opened.

Those passages almost demand it.  They’re enormous.

Dramatic.  Terrifying.  Beautiful.

Then we started looking at the places we pass.

Love your enemies.  Sin is crouching at the door.  You are the man.  Forgive.  Renounce all that you have.  Many disciples walked away.  Love one another.

And finally:  Teachers will be judged more strictly.

Knowing the good and refusing to do it can be sin.  Claiming to love God while hating your brother makes the claim a lie.

There’s no thunder in those sentences.  No mountain shaking.  No fire falling from heaven.  No dead rising.  No angel blowing a trumpet.

Just words.  Simple words.  Dangerous words.

Maybe that’s the lesson.

The Bible doesn’t always need to shout to say something that should stop us cold.  Sometimes the sentence is so simple that we think we’ve already understood it.

And perhaps we have.  That may be why we keep moving.

Because if I really understand James 3:1, then teaching isn’t merely an opportunity.  It’s responsibility.

If I really understand James 4:17, then morality isn’t merely avoiding evil.  It includes doing the good God has placed within my responsibility.

If I really understand 1 John 4:20, then my claim to love God can’t be separated from how I treat people.

Those aren’t difficult sentences.  The difficulty begins after comprehension.

Now I have to do something with them.  That’s been the danger hiding underneath this whole series.

Sometimes we pass because we’re distracted.

Sometimes we pass because the verse is familiar.

Sometimes we pass because someone taught us to read it a certain way.

Sometimes we pass because we’re already thinking about the next sentence.

And sometimes we pass because stopping would require an answer.

Where are you?

Who told you?

What have you done?

Why are you angry?

Where is your brother?

Do you want to be healed?

What are you doing here?

Do you love Me?

Scripture has a way of turning readers into participants.

Eventually, we stop examining the text from a safe distance.  The text begins examining us.

That’s where we often want to move faster.  Don’t.

There’s no prize for finishing the chapter before the words reach your heart.

There’s no spiritual maturity in reading ten chapters while refusing to answer one verse.

There’s no virtue in knowing what Scripture says if we’ve become skilled at moving past everything we don’t want Scripture to say to us.

James gives us the final warning.  You know the good?  Do it.

John gives us the final test.  You say you love God?  Show me what that love does when it reaches your brother.

And James has already warned anyone foolish enough to stand in front of others and teach these things:  You will answer for how you handled them.

That includes me.

That includes every teacher.  Every pastor.  Every writer.  Every person who has ever pointed at a verse and told someone else:  “You need to read this.”

Maybe before we hand Scripture across the table, we should let it sit on our side for a while.

Maybe before we ask who needs this message, we should ask why God placed it in front of us.

Maybe before we explain it, defend it, post it, quote it, preach it, teach it, or use it to correct somebody else—we should pause.

Not because every verse contains some hidden secret waiting for clever people to discover it.

Usually the opposite.

Sometimes the meaning is painfully obvious.

Love.  Forgive.  Obey.  Speak carefully.  Serve.  Give.  Repent.  Tell the truth.  Do the good you know to do.  Love the brother you can see.

The words are simple.  Following them isn’t.

And there’s the final turn.

We began The Places We Pause by asking why some passages make us stop.  Then The Places We Pass asked why others don’t.

Maybe the difference was never entirely in the passages.  Maybe some places are easier to pause because we can stand outside them and stare.

Abraham on the mountain.  Job in the whirlwind.  Isaiah before the throne.  Jesus on the cross.  The dead before judgment.

We watch.  We tremble.  We marvel.  But the places we pass tend to do something different.

They point back.  At our anger.  Our forgiveness.  Our possessions.  Our obedience.  Our relationships.  Our words.  Our responsibilities.  Our love.

And suddenly we’re no longer watching Scripture happen to someone else.

You are the man.

That was the trick all along.

So here at the end, there’s only one thing left to do.  Stop scanning.  Stop looking for the next verse.  Stop deciding who else needs to hear this.

Let the words finish their work.

What do you know is right?  Do it.

Who do you claim to love?  Show it.

What responsibility has God placed in your hands?  Carry it faithfully.

What truth have you been teaching others?  Stand under it yourself.

The places we pass are still there.  So are the places we pause.

The question is whether we will finally learn the difference.

Sometimes Scripture stops us.  Sometimes we have to choose to stop.

This is one of those places.

Pause here.