For most of my Christian life, I have experienced a tension between the ‘gift’ and the ‘call’ of the gospel…between the fundamental truth that the whole Christian experiences stands or falls on the grace of God (on the one hand), and the clearly biblical notion that the lives we live matter (on the other). For my own part, I’ve never been able to resolve this tension entirely, and–as I say toward the end of my sermon from Sunday–maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe this is one of those tensions or paradoxes that actually help us more than they harm us.
In any case, I sought to address this tension in my most recent sermon. This is the first in a brief ‘collection’ of messages from the book of James. I hesitate to call it a series, because the messages are intended (more or less) to stand on their own…and because the group of them will be interrupted by my congregation’s Homecoming celebration later this month.
Living in the Tension of a Faith that Saves
