2026-09-06 Thinking Differently - Daring to be different

The transcription discusses the start of a new series at West Suffolk Vineyard focusing on the book of James in the Bible. It emphasizes the importance of living differently as Christians and highlights the connection between faith and actions. James, the author, addresses various aspects of Christian life such as trials, wisdom, humility, and perseverance. The letter encourages believers to approach life challenges with joy, seek wisdom from God, and understand the transformative power of faith. James stresses the need for consistency in beliefs and actions, highlighting the temporary nature of worldly possessions compared to spiritual growth. The letter also explores the concept of temptation and the source of true blessings from God. It challenges readers to align their lives with the truth of the Gospel and embrace spiritual maturity. Diolch yn fawr eto. A oes unrhyw un arall wedi teimlo'r term newydd yma? Diolch yn fawr eto. Welcome back to some routine, if you're a parent and if you're a teacher returning to work this week. God bless you. As you go back to new classes, getting to know your kids, what an amazing job it is you all do in schools. Well, this week, as well as the term starting in schools and colleges, we are also kicking off a brand new series here at West Suffolk Vineyard. So whether you're joining us each week here at our Berry site or whether people online, you may be joining in over at Sudbury as one church following the same mission, we're going to be preaching through the same series, same passages, same focus, same mission, one church at two sites. And so through our Sunday talks from this week on for the next few weeks, we're going to be looking to go after and to be formed by what God says to us through the Bible as a community. So this week, Louise is preaching over in Sudbury and us together here in Berry. We're starting this new series, Daring to Live Differently. And over the next few weeks, we are going to be journeying through the book of James, which is in the New Testament in the Bible. So each week of this series, we're going to be unpacking a section of what isn't just a book. It's actually a letter with a different focus and asking the question, what is it that God is saying to us as his church today through this letter? Because as we come to approach the Bible, we're not approaching it as a historical book. We believe that the Bible is the word of God, that it continues to be alive and active and true. And as a church, it is what is in this book. We're wanting to know in relationship with Jesus, with this series of us here this morning have actually done something like this, something similar, a lot of shaking heads in the room. There was a couple at A. That's clearly where all our thrill seekers are. They're up early and they're jumping out of planes. You know, maybe you've done something like this, a bungee jump, a parachute. But from the nod, the sort of shaking heads in the room, for some of us, this is just our idea of the worst thing ever. We're possibly looking at this picture and feeling a little bit unwell, just thinking about it. For others of you, maybe it's on your bucket list. You would love to have a go at something like this. But this image for us is actually a really helpful picture in terms of what a life of faith looks like. As we make that decision to step into that relationship with Jesus, which many of us have done, we take the decision to follow him, to intentionally live like him, to certainly point our lives in his direction. It is a massive step of trust that we take as we do that, isn't it? It's a step into a life unknown, one where we're increasingly looking over to hand over the controls of our life into the hands of God who knows better, into the hands of God who loves us best, but who also sees things and does things differently to maybe how we would do it. As we do this, not just for the first time, but through that whole journey of faith, we can experience the points, the excitement of that. Maybe for now you can remember various points. Maybe you're at that point now of just having that deep sense of stepping into a whole new adventure where you've taken hold of Jesus' hand and you've just decided to throw all your lot in with him and just say yes. All the excitement, all the exhilaration of that. But as anyone who's ever done a jump like this in this picture, you know, don't you, that in between the jump and in between the landing, there is this space which is called the free fall. For us as Christians, for us as those with that relationship with Jesus, it's in this free fall that we are living out our lives. If there's anyone who's ever jumped out of a plane, they will know that far from the free fall just being taking the step and then hoping for the best, actually there is some skill involved in that free fall. It takes an awareness of yourself. What's going on with you as you fall? Which way up are you? Where are you looking? Where are you heading? You know, to free fall well, it needs a focus of where you are and an intention to keep your vision in the right place. To free fall well, it takes an ability to respond to be aware of the resistance that you feel around you and it requires being equipped properly. That guy, he's not there in his jeans and T-shirt, is he? He's clothed with the right things and on him he has equipment that will alert him to any danger that he is in as he free falls. So for us as we take this leap of faith for the first time and each day and each decision that comes after that, there are some things for us to learn to do that well. And this is James' heart as he writes this letter to this early church who have begun, they've taken that leap of faith, but they're now learning how to live between the jump and eternity. So who is this guy, James? Well, James, he was not only an early follower of Jesus, but he was also a pastor. And what James is doing through this letter which he's written, it's not to his church, you'll see from the language, it's to another church. He's writing with his pastor's heart. He's looking on at this church and he's seeing that they've missed some things, that they've taken hold of the truth. They've seen who Jesus is and they've said yes to him. But there's now a gap. They said yes to the truth, but they're yet to experience the change in their behavior or the change in their thoughts, which is the place that our behavior comes from. Now, as we read this letter, it isn't a judgment letter. James isn't sat at a distance wagging his finger at these people and saying, look what you've done wrong. He's not at all. He's got his pastor's heart. But in this letter, he's bringing a really practical perspective on what it is that he sees as he looks on at them, that we are not saved by what we do. That's not what James is saying through this letter. We are all, each of us, just as we've remembered and celebrated through communion, we are saved by grace through our faith in Jesus only. He is the only way. But what he's wanting to highlight to them is that there is a vital connection between faith and between our actions. Our salvation through Jesus is meant to be so much more than just an insurance policy to heaven that we stick in our back pocket and just carry on with our lives. We're saved, but we're also being saved. That day we say yes to Jesus, our spiritual standing has changed. We're seen by Jesus, welcomed by him, seen as his. God welcomes us because we are in Christ. But we are also being changed day by day. You are not the person that you once were. And so really the big questions in this letter that James is helping us answer are after our yes to Jesus, how do we live the Christian life well? Having found the truth, how do we begin to learn to live the truth? And ultimately, how do we learn to grow up spiritually before we grow old? And James has a lot to say. So we're going to pick up on verse 1 right at the beginning of this letter. As we read this this morning, hear it as if it's being written to you. It is a letter, not just information. And James writes, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations, greetings. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position, but the rich should take pride in their humiliation, since they will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant. Its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away, even while they go about their business. Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, because having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me. For a person is tempted when they are dragged to what a desire gives birth to death. Don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly light, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created. Well, as James starts this letter, he certainly doesn't hold back, does he? He's straight in there. And what I love about this letter is James is straight away very, very practical. And he begins this letter with an invitation to begin to look at our whole lives differently. Because what James knows, what he's wanting to switch the light on for this new group of believers, is he knows that there is nothing that Jesus has not come to redeem and to make new in their lives. And he starts straight off by tackling some huge themes of life with these people. You know, in all that we've just read in those few verses, James has covered money, trouble and challenges, status, temptation, failure, sin. You know, these things are huge building blocks, huge aspects of our identity, our security. And what he's beginning to do is unpack for us how Jesus sees these things. And what we see very quickly, what can make this letter uncomfortable reading at points challenging, is that what James unpacks is a polar opposite to what we are fed as we are formed by the world. James is introducing to us what you may have heard us in the vineyard describe as the upside down nature of the kingdom of God. The reality that what it is that the world would elevate, what culture would tell us to aim for and to live for and to look to. James through this letter says that Jesus says to put those things right at the bottom of the pile. What the world says to run from and avoid and be fearful of is actually the very thing that often Jesus will choose to use. And he starts right off with these big themes because these places are so powerful. These themes are so embedded into our culture and so they become James' starting place for all that he has to say in this letter. And he calls out that our faith should change the way we live. Yes, it absolutely should. But before we can even begin to go there, that God would start with our minds, that he would start with our thinking, the place that we live from. And Paul, who was another early follower of Jesus, many of the letters that you'll read in the New Testament are written by Paul. He tells us in his letter to the Romans, do not conform to the pattern of this world. How do we do that? Well, it is to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will. And for some of us this morning, just this promise that we're given that God can and wants to renew our mind, transform our mind, that he wants to slowly begin to remove us from those thought patterns, the hamster wheel that we can get stuck on, which feels like it dominates. Actually, Jesus has come to bring freedom from that. Maybe for you, that's the biggest promise that you can be handed this morning. A changed life starts not with changed behaviour, but with our thinking. And one of the building blocks that James starts with is how we pray. We've just done a whole preaching series all through the summer on prayer. If you've missed any of those, head on to YouTube, you may find those really helpful. But what prayer does, as we build this habit and this lifestyle of prayer for ourselves, is it takes us from being people who are looking to ourselves or looking to the world for answers. And it grows us to be people who are looking to God for the answers. What prayer does is, as we build that and as we grow in it, it positions us to grow in our awareness of God and in his desire to be involved in our lives. Our relationship with God is our prayer life with him. It's the talking, it's the listening, it's the bringing things to him, sharing things, confessing where we're at with him. But as part of the importance of prayer, James prioritises a particular request as we do this. Which seems really small at first, but as we unpack it, it becomes like, you know if you get a glass of water and you get a tiny little drop of food colouring. As that one tiny little drop goes into the glass, suddenly all the water becomes coloured. James says, if you need wisdom, ask for it. Who here recognises their absolute need of wisdom in their life? Who regularly thinks, I don't know what to do, what is best, where do I go, who can help me? Whether you found yourself in that position this morning, this week, as we do life, we're faced with choices and difficult situations and options that we just don't know the answer to. And a really good question for ourselves is, when I'm in those situations, where do I go? Where do I find myself looking? Is it to friends or family? My kids just say, Mum, just Google it. We don't have AI just ready and waiting to give us very confident answers to what to do in life. Maybe you look to what others are saying on social media. But James tells us when you find yourself in this place, ask our generous God and he will give wisdom to you. It's God's invitation to us to take this faith and this truth that we found in Jesus and to begin to hook it into every part of our life. Because as we take that question, as we take that bit of our life and as we make that choice to seek God's heart for it, as we go after his wisdom for living in every situation, we're not just looking at our faith as a ticket to heaven, but we're starting to view it as a doorway to life. And as we start to live in this way, he will begin to transform us. We get to ask in any situation, God, what do you see that I just don't? With that person, what do you see? What's going on with them? And get his perspective on situations and people. When we go to react, we get to instead ask, God, how do you want me to respond? Rather than just replicating what we may see spewed out elsewhere, which is unhelpful. Not just asking for things that we need, but taking it as an opportunity to ask for more of Jesus in our days and our decisions. And it's no accident that when James talks about prayer, he's also very defined out that a life of faith does, like you will, have trouble. He himself knew that, experienced it, lived it. And the most tricky parts of this passage, the bit that can jar with us as we read it, is when James writes, consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds. Can you imagine receiving that letter and thinking, oh, that's not what we're hoping to have read, is it? And in this room this morning, we together, we will be facing troubles of many kinds. And I don't know about you, but I find that when trouble comes, I often have some really knee-jerk reactions. And those often look like either running from the trouble, avoiding it, just praying that it will go away, finding all the sticking plasters I can to try and make that thing feel okay, or just running to some places for comfort before I've gone to Jesus with it. But James recommends, he advises, his instruction to this church that he loves is when trouble comes, consider what your reaction is. When there's issues with your health, when your finances just feel like they've just fallen through the floor, in that relational issue that you're encountering, that difficult family member, when that pain and that hurt that you thought had gone away just comes to the surface again. James' encouragement to us is to slow down our response rather than react, to pause with that thing, to not send the email, to not try and fix it ourselves, to not go down the saw and the internet rabbit hole. Don't run to that thing that we think is going to bring us comfort. But to bring it to Jesus instead, to ask for how he sees it and where he is in it with you. And to consider it a place that he wants to meet you and that he wants to bring you life, even amongst the things that would do you in. Some of us, we found ourselves in situations and those looking on at us will say, I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you're carrying on. Well, I would want to say to you, that's probably the work of the Spirit in you, that work of perseverance. It's not for us to find that and to manufacture it. It's what the Spirit is producing in us as we go through these things with him. Because where is the joy to be found? How can we consider it pure joy? Well, it's in the middle of that to discover Jesus's closeness to you, his faithfulness to you and his care of you. And in that place, the promise that he is always working for your good, even if it would look like the very opposite. His promise is true. And that though God may not have brought you to all that you're navigating at the moment, he will carry you through it if you'll come to him. Because prosperity, whether that looks like our money or it looks like success of any other kind, prosperity is not the marker of the presence of God or the blessing of God in your life. Having money and success in any other way is not a sign of God's blessing on you or his approval of you. These things in themselves, and James particularly names money in this passage because it is so powerful. It's a neutral. And more than how much we have of it, God is much more interested in how we think of it. And James describes money in this passage like a flower. It can be beautiful for a time, but like all flowers, it will pass away. But it is something which because it can appear very beautiful, it's powerful in our minds. We can find ourselves pursuing it, looking for security and comfort in it, allowing how much or how little we have of it to determine how hopeful we feel about our lives. It can become the thing that gets in between us and God. And it's not just money that can have this effect on us. There are many things that are a good thing, but as we begin to focus on it and pursue it, we make it a God thing. It begins to nudge God out, and it turns into an area of sin, which is the fourth thing that James begins to turn on its head. And he gives us this incredibly powerful picture to help us identify where sin lies in our own lives. When we think of sin, our own and others, our focus is often on this outward behavior, isn't it? That thing that we should stop doing, that thing that that person should stop doing. But what James is saying, he's inviting us to think differently about sin. He's saying start way back, because our own sin starts in our thinking before it is ever played out. And he corrects a couple of incorrect assumptions that these people in this church have, but also are really easy for us to fall into as well. Firstly, he's really clear. He says if you are experiencing temptation in your life, if you're finding a place where you're putting something else before God or something else in the place of God, whether that's jealousy or hatred, whether it's lust, pride, lying, this is never a test from the Lord. We are all, each one of us, broken people. But God doesn't come to test us. He cannot put temptation in front of you. Evil has no place in Him, so temptation is not from Him. And all those feelings that I've just listed, the thought or the feeling is not a sin in itself. It comes from human desire, and sometimes that desire comes from a broken place. But James says be aware when it becomes sin is when you start to attach an action to that desire. It's when we begin to dwell on it, to feed it, to act on it, to make that the space that we live in. This is when sin happens. And sin is so harmful that James likens that feeding of it to the beginning of a death. Because he knows that when we start to invest in that place, it brings a spiritual death to us. It brings the opposite of life, the opposite of maturity. So his encouragement to us is don't look at the action, begin for yourself to look at where it begins. And with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit shining His light on those places to recognize them, find those desires which lead to sin. And invite the Holy Spirit into that place. For some of you, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And I just want to say this morning, if that's you, if you've already got places in your life in mind, God's not coming to bring shame to you. That's not what He's doing. But He's shining His light to bring His loving conviction to you. And in that place, He invites you to come and see Him differently. As God begins to work in us, those places that we would run and be ashamed of, God sees, God knows, He shines His light. And He wants to bring His freedom. You know, I look back, I think I've had faith for most of my life, but my ongoing story is that year by year, I find that God is so much better than I ever thought He could be. You know, there are difficult places, but I find at the end of it, He is so much more loving and merciful and good and faithful than I ever knew. It is that standing in awe and wonder of who He is. Now, does that mean that there are not difficulties? It absolutely doesn't. Does that mean I'm more sorted now than I ever was? Well, I have known His healing in incredible ways, but equally each year, I find out how little I know, how much more I need Him, and how much more freedom there is available to me as I continue to say yes to Him. You know, as we begin to see God, as we continue to look to Him, we begin to see Him differently because as we surrender to Him, it's like the fog begins to lift. We see Him clearer. We know Him closer. James finishes that letter by talking about us becoming like these first fruits. It's an interesting phrase. But what that means is that God's plan for us is as those who choose to follow Him, as us who choose to continue to surrender to Him, is that we might become, in this freefall, that He would form us to become an example to the world of what it is that it looks like when God takes a very human life, the one that each of us is living. And as we do that, what He can do with the life that is surrendered, that these first fruits He describes is you and I with lives increasingly being lived as an example of that to the world around us as a sign of all that God can do and all that is to come. And we're going to head into a time of ministry now.