Steadfast Study – Week 3 BONUS

Steadfast – Week 3 BONUS

Steadfast Works (pages 67-93)

James 2:14-26

Lisa:
This is our bonus podcast with a couple more items for discussion.

What are some of the signs you see as “death” when assessing works and faith?

Lisa:

1. Motivation is for self promotion – see my name in lights
2. Begrudgingly showing up and serving
3. Self seeking – not seeing communal picture but just myself
4. Unwilling to overcome obstacles to serve the Lord. – Serving the Lord is a sacrifice but also inconvenient.
5. Lack of desire

Breanne: Instead of doing works they have thoughts and intentions. They are compassionate but then they don’t take a next step and act on it. James makes it clear that if you aren’t doing works – your works aren’t actually working. There is no third category. You can’t be lukewarm.

What are some of the signs you see as “life” when assessing works and faith?

Lisa:

1. Attitude
2. Lightness to their heavy load. The weight they carry is heavy yet their countenance reveals is that someone else (the Lord) is carrying it for them. A dependency on the Lord.
3. Joy
4. Willingness and desire to be available to serve the Lord
5. Attentiveness. They are overflowing to be the light of Christ to others.

Breanne: The point of the works is not to identify our faith – though it can do that. The point of our works is to grow the kingdom of God. We are being a light of his glory in the darkness. Is there anything more exciting than someone living “with” God? Peter from Uganda and watching him experience and know all this trauma yet what flows out of him is that he is serving alongside a powerful God. God is with him.

Lisa: Judgement over mercy. We want to control how our works happen versus trusting God to manage the results. The balance of being a good steward and generous.

Breanne: BC3 does this by being wise in the situations but at the end of the day we are stepping into the story and point to Jesus but it is God’s responsibility to play it out.

Lisa: Our works shine the light on God and draw us into community. The impact of the church is greater by being together than each individual being on their own.

How do we engage in works for the Lord when we are not able to physically do manual labor tasks? Is that what this is about?

Breanne: There is never a circumstance where we put working for the Lord on the shelf but there are chapters where we have limitations that we evaluate what is possible. My grandma was a testimony for this as she writes notes, reads books before they go into the church library, and writes emails. If you have limitations – physical, emotional – you rethink what the Lord would want you to do. There isn’t a season where you should think that you are not useful or a worker. Your purpose and calling from the Lord you want to be living. When you aren’t living that – that is the tangible grace from the Lord to prompt you that you need to pursue Him to know what to do. Sometimes you need people to help you be creative to know what you can be doing in these seasons.

We are hoping in our culture where when you have needs you are letting that be known. We want to minister to you and equip you all to minister to each other. We see beautiful connectivity and life happening in our community and these signs of our works of this steadfast faith and the love we have for one another.