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Pocket Paper ______________________ Message by Robert J. Morgan, Senior Pastor The Donelson Fellowship 3210 McGavock Pike 615/871-4769 www.donelson.org For as the body without the spirit is
dead, so faith without works is dead also. James 2:26 Today we’re coming to the end of our series of messages entitled 365: Obedience for Everyday Living, from James 1 and 2. Next Sunday is Easter and I’m planning to preach an evangelistic message from John 3:16, so I hope you’ll bring your friends with you. And then two weeks from today, on the Sunday after Easter, Lord willing, I’d like to begin a new series of messages from James 3, 4, and 5 entitled Faith in Action. And in that way we’ll complete our study through the book of James. It’s taken us ten Sundays and ten messages to look at chapters 1 and 2 of James, but we can say that the theme of the book is summarized in the verse we’re looking at today: For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. James is interested in making sure that our faith is not just a verbal faith, or an intellectual faith, or a passive faith. He wants our faith to be the determining force in our lives; it should permeate whatever we do. The message of the book of James is that our Christian faith cannot be compartmentalized. It can’t be relegated to church or to Sunday mornings. It’s got to kick in on Mondays and Tuesdays and every day of the week. It’s got to work in a demonstratable way at school and on the basketball court and on the golf course and at home. In Now today’s message is a little different. Instead of giving you an exposition of the passage as we’ve been doing week after week in James, I’d like to show you a phrase that occurs repeatedly in the Bible. I want to read a series of verses from a number of translations so you’ll see the preponderance of this emphasis in Scripture, and then we’ll focus on the three verses in the New Testament. Listen to these passages and notice how all-inclusive the Christian faith should be in our lives: If you fully obey the Lord your God and
carefully keep all His commands that I am giving you today…. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be blessed. Deuteronomy 28:1, 6 (NLT) This book of instruction must not depart
from your mouth; you are to recite it day and night, so that you may
carefully observe everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed
in whatever you do. Joshua 1:8 (HCSB) Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. Proverbs 16:3 (NIV) Plan carefully what you do, and whatever you do will turn out right. Proverbs Work hard at whatever you do. Ecclesiastes …do faithfully whatever you do… 3 John 5 (NRSV) Whatever
you do, work at it with all
your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you
will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Colossians And
whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the
Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Colossians Remember that God is going to judge you
for whatever you do. Ecclesiastes 11:9 (GNT) So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the
glory of God. 1 Corinthians The Bible says, Whatever you do… whatever you do… whatever you do… The life of faith is not confined to an hour on Sunday morning; it isn’t merely a verbal or intellectual or passive faith. It is pervasive, it radiates through whatever we do. Now, let’s just take three of those verses and apply them with an emphasis on total-life faith. The apostle Paul used the phrase whatever you do on three occasions, and two of those were in one chapter, Colossians 3:17: Whatever You Do, Do It Thankfully (Colossians 3:17) First, whatever
you do, do it thankfully. Look at
Colossians 3:17: And whatever you do, whether in word or
deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father
through Him. Whatever we do—whether it’s a word that we say or some action that we undertake—we’re to do it in the name of the Lord Jesus, as Christ’s ambassador, as though Christ Himself were doing it, as a Christian. And we should speak that word or perform that task with a spirit of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving transforms every word and deed and day into something special. Recently at a used book store I
picked a volume of poems by Helen Steiner Rice, and I’ve enjoyed them
so much. I didn’t know much
about Mrs. Rice, but let me tell you a little about her story. Helen Steiner was born in
After several years, she opened
her own speaker’s bureau and became a popular motivational
speaker. While on a gig in
Shortly afterward when the
greeting card editor at Gibson died suddenly, Helen applied for the job, and
for the next forty years she churned out cards, verses, and poems like an
assembly line—over two million of them by one estimation. There were poems for every
occasion—Christmas, birthdays, Easter, graduation, funerals, weddings,
and holidays. Since Gibson
frowned on religious sentiments, most of Rice’s poems were sentimental
and secular. But in the 1960s,
she began writing poems expressing the truths of Scripture. When one of them, “The Priceless
Gift of Christmas,” was read nationwide on the Lawrence Welk Show,
Helen Steiner Rice became a household name, and she was soon known as “
Late in life, Helen suffered
from increasingly painful and crippling arthritis, and at about age eighty
she had to give up her work.
“I’m ready to go be with the Lord,” she told one
visitor in her convalescent home.
“I can’t wait to shed this aching body…. I’m
ready for heaven.” She
passed away on One of her poems is entitled Make Every Day Thanksgiving: Thank you, God, for everything— the big things and the small, For every good gift comes from God— the giver of them all, Too often we accept without any thanks or praise The gifts God sends as blessings each day in many ways, O, make us more aware, dear God, of little daily graces That come to us with sweet surprise from never-dreamed-of places, And help us to remember that the key to life and living Is to make each prayer a prayer of thanks and every day
THANKSGIVING. (Helen Steiner Rice, Poems of Faith (Carmel, NY: Guideposts, 1981), 143.) That’s a life of faith;
that’s faith in action. Whatever you do, whether in word or deed,
so it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father
through Him. Whatever You Do, Do It Wholeheartedly (Colossians 3:23) Second, whatever
you do, do it faithfully, wholeheartedly, and enthusiastically. Glance down the page and look at
Colossians 3:23: Whatever you do, work at it with all your
heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will
receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you
are serving. The remarkable thing
about this passage is that it was addressed originally to those in the The Romans practiced slavery, and widespread segments of the population were in the bondage of slavery. But the Apostle Paul said, “Even if you’re a slave, do your work with enthusiasm. Do it the best you can. Do it for the Lord, not for your earthly master, and God will reward you with a rich inheritance.” This is a phenomenal message: Wherever you find yourself, do it with all your heart. If you’re a student, be the best student you can be. If you’re a homemaker, be the best homemaker you can be. If you’re a factory worker, or a white collar worker, or a sales representative, or a choir member, or a nursery worker, or a professional athlete—whatever you do, do it with enthusiasm. Do it wholeheartedly. And do it for the Lord, and not for men, for it is the Lord Christ you are serving; and from Him you will receive an eternal inheritance. Maybe you’re saying, “I hate my job. How can I be enthusiastic about it?” Well, one way is to start acting as if you were enthusiastic. When we think of enthusiasm as it relates to American presidential history, we think of Teddy Roosevelt, who tackled whatever he was doing with a burst of enthusiasm and courage that was just spectacular. Where did that come from? The same theory holds true with enthusiasm, and it is a faith-action for Christ. The Bible tells us that when we’re in the will of the Lord, we should work at whatever we do with all our heart as working for Christ. We should do it wholeheartedly and enthusiastically, and so by faith we plunge in. And we work hard. And we work faithfully. And we work enthusiastically. And we work for the Lord Christ. And from the Lord Christ comes the strength and the enthusiasm and the fearlessness and the reward. So here are two qualities—enthusiasm and thanksgiving—that are the most powerful psychological and spiritual attitudes known to us. Enthusiasm and thanksgiving can alter any personality, improve any life, and transform any home. But there’s a third quality, a third “whatever you do” statement in the writings of the apostle Paul. Whatever You Do, Do It Worshipfully (1 Corinthians 10:31) Look at 1 Corinthians 10:31: So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Whatever we do, we should do it worshipfully. All of life is an act of worship. Even the smallest things we do every day—eating a snack, having a drink at the water fountain, sitting down for supper—whatever we do, we should do it for God’s glory. All of life is doxology. That means that upon awakening in the morning, we praise God from whom all blessings flow. We bathe and dress that we might be presentable in our service for the Lord. We eat and drink, asking God to bless the food for our bodies, and our bodies for His service. As we go about our housework or labor at office, factory, or school, it’s as His ambassador. Our exercise and entertainment is purposeful—that we might remain healthy and happy in our service for Him. Crawling into bed at night, it’s another day finished for Jesus and we fall asleep praising Him the goodness and mercy that follows us all our days.
Worship is a lifestyle, and our every moment and movement is for Him. This is, in Charles Spurgeon’s phrase, the art of holy and happy living.
This was one of the great discoveries of the reformation. One of the great Reformation phrases that will ring throughout the church as long as the church endures was Soli Deo Gloria—To God Alone Be the Glory. When Martin Luther and the Reformers launched the Reformation in 1517, at that time there was a Latin word that was used to designate the ministry. It was the Latin vocatio, which meant calling. Our English word vocation is the exact transliteration of this word. In the Middle Ages, when someone talked about vocation (vocation), it was always referring to the calling to fulltime church work. Priests, nuns, and monks had a special calling, a special task, a vocatio. But Luther said, in effect, that whatever vocation God leads us into, whatever our calling in life, whatever our work, it is a holy calling. If God calls you to be a teacher or builder or accountant or plumber or truck driver, that’s where He wants you to serve Him, to bear witness for Him, and that is a holy and an honorable calling. That is your vocatio, your vocation, your calling. All of life should be lived for the glory of God alone—Soli Deo Gloria. That’s why, later, another German, the musician Johann Sebastian Bach, considered his musical skills as a gift from God and his vocation as a musician as a holy calling. And if you go to the British Museum in London and you look at Bach’s original scores, you’ll notice that at the end of his pieces—whether they were spiritual or secular in nature—are the letters SDG—Soli Deo Gloria—for the glory of God alone. Stephen J. Nichols, in his excellent little
book on the Reformation, observed:
“Luther and Bach, both significant figures from the pages of
history, remind us that in our seemingly ordinary work and life we are doing
something extraordinary. Francis
Schaeffer said it well, ‘There are no little people, no little places.’ When we live life, all of it, for the
glory of God, we are engaged in the most profound of activities. We are doing something that matters
truly and ultimately. In the
service of the glory of God there is nothing little at all.” (Stephen J. Nichols, The Reformation: How A Monk and a Mallet Changed the
World (
The English poet George Herbert wrote: Teach me, my God
and King, In all things
Thee to see, And what I do in
anything To do it as for
Thee. George Herbert This is what James is talking about in chapters 1 and 2 of his book. As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead. Our faith—if it’s real—must be pervasive in life. Jesus Christ should be Lord of every day, every moment, every word, and every activity. And whatever we do, we work at it with all our hearts, as working for the Lord, not for men, since we know that we will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ we are serving. And whatever we do, whether in word or deed, we do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. And whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we do it all for the glory of God. Copyright StatementWe grant permission for any edition of The Pocket Paper to be photocopied for use in a local congregation or classroom, provided no more than 1,000 copies are made, the material is distributed free, and the copies include the notice: "Copyright (year) The Donelson Fellowship."For any other use, advance permission must be obtained from The Donelson Fellowship church office.Other messages are available from our website. Just click on the Pocket Papers link on our home page for a list of available messages. |
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