James is so practical. As followers of Jesus, how do we develop those healthy boundaries, moral and spiritual boundaries, in our life? Where do we draw the line?
 
One of the words that we are going to use in English is filth, the Greek word is either refuse or dung, it can be either. A lot of times when we cover up the dung in our life, it really begins to stink. Can you think of things in your house that really smell bad that you forgot? Like you go away for a weekend and when you come back...What are some things that really smell bad? Potatoes - you can have those just sitting in a bag in your pantry a little too long. You meet a lot of our young staff every week. So here's Sarah. She's brought some stuff that smells bad.
 
Sarah: I brought the gloves, too.

Mike: Sarah, tell us what you do here at Ginghamsburg Church.

Sarah: I've been on staff for nine years as a graphic designer, and I work with the worship team.

Mike: You are married and you have a four-year-old little girl.

Sarah: Having a four-year-old, the first thing I think of that stinks is a dirty diaper. We've got a dirty diaper here. Do you want to smell it? Paul brought this in because his son is potty training and not very successful at it yet.

Mike: Sour milk. Do you know what is bad? How many of you have had a kid with a sippy cup in the car seat in the back and they drop the milk and it's under the seat for a couple of days. There's nothing worse than spilled milk that's left in the car for a couple days.

Sarah: Dirty gym shoes. What's really bad is when you leave them in your gym bag in the car.

Mike: Are there any parents who have baseball players? Especially when they get into the select ball and have the real wool baseball caps. Carolyn used to make Jonathan put the hat in a plastic bag, tie it, and keep it in the trunk on the way home from a baseball game. What else do you have?

Sarah: Kitchen sponge.

Mike: Do they smell bad? It's not one of the things that came to my mind right away. How many of you knew that a sponge smell bad?

Sarah: Anyone who cleans knows that.

Sarah: Don't touch this one. It's the tray that holds chicken from the grocery.

Mike: We've done this two or three times at our house. There is absolutely nothing worse than when you leave the house and think there's nothing that can deteriorate in the garbage can. You come home three days later, after a weekend away, and the tray from the chicken has been left. There is nothing that is more foul. How many of you have done that? If it gets in your garbage can in the garage and you empty the trash, it will continue to smell until you clean the garbage can out. I know that one. I agree.

Sarah: Blue jeans.

Mike: I just made the mistake of hiking on the Appalachian Trail, getting home just in time to throw clothes into my suitcase to head to Illinois. When I got to Illinois and opened my suitcase, my jeans weren't exactly fresh. One of our young interns taught me something new, it's called Febreze. It's a wonder invention for your generation. I won't tell you her name, but she was an intern from University of Dayton and she said, "Mike, now you only have to wash your jeans and stuff about once a quarter." I said, "You are kidding me." She said, "No, we've got this stuff called Febreze and we use it on everything." She lived in The Ghetto at U.D., that is an area where a lot of college students live. She said, "We even Febreze the furniture." Isn't it a great new invention.  Sarah, is that all you have for us?

Sarah: We found out about this Febreze thing because Mike sits next to me in design team and I smelled this semi-sweet, dirty smell and he told me about the jeans.

Mike: Thank you, Sarah. One of the things that we have a tendency to do, especially what I call "playing religious games" is that we Febreze the dung in our life, the junk in our life. We spiritually veneer it and a lot of times we do it by using God language. We get real spiritual. I'm very leery of people who use a lot of spiritual language because it's a way to cover up or deodorize stink that they don't want anybody else in their life to know about. Open your Bibles to James 1:21, "Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you." That word filth can be the crudest word for dung or refuse. We are not here for condemnation, but we are here for healing in all of our lives, self-awareness and healing. Save means to be made whole or well. Will you bow your head in prayer with me. Open yourself to the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "Where two or more are gathered, I am in your midst as your healer provider." "Come, Lord Jesus, come. Renew us and transform us. It's in Your name we pray. Amen."

I have noticed that it is easy to come into a place, your home, where you spend the most time - and you smell something. You think, "What is that?" Yet the longer you are there, you become acclimated to the smell. Thursday night, I went home and Carolyn had gone home in the afternoon to put something on for supper and had come back to work. I got home about six and she got home about 6:30 p.m. and said, "Do you smell anything for supper?" I said, "I did when I came in, but I don't smell it anymore." Even something that's a little offensive, you acclimate yourself to it. We become desensitized the longer we live in whatever environment. Even though you can't smell it anymore, other people who come in can smell it.

One of the problems we have is that we tend to confuse the ideals and values of our culture with biblical ideals. This is really easy to do as followers of Jesus. Remember, I'm going to keep using that word, followers of Jesus and not just professors of Jesus. We mix those cultural and biblical ideals and values. It's exactly what happened with the serpent and Eve. The serpent tried to deceive her and was pretty successful at it. Eve was very clear on where she drew the line in defining her moral boundaries on the basis of the authority of God. The serpent said to Eve, you can't tell me that there is one God-truth for everybody. Every single person has to decide for themselves what's best; what feels right and good. That's called self-determinism and that's a strong value of our culture where each person determines where they are going to draw that moral line or boundary. What looks good to the eyes may mean death to the soul. It's why so many times in the church we've brought together the values of America with the values of scripture and they really stand, in many ways, in stark contrast to each other. I want to underline this in this election year: I'm going to play heaven's advocate during this whole political season. The chief value of the American system is the value of personal happiness and individual freedom rather than accountability to God and the pursuit of the wellbeing for all people. By 'all people' I don't mean just American people or a particular race of people or a particular religion, but all people on Planet Earth. For God so loves the world.

This is how it works. Think about marriage and how we determine our values for marriage. In a culture where personal happiness is the highest value, then divorce is going to be prevalent. Individual freedom and personal happiness. In a culture where the higher value and the understanding of marriage is my accountability to God and the health of children and the generations that come after, then divorce is going to be much more rare. Why I say this is that divorce in the church of active Christians, today, equals that of divorce in our society. Obviously, where we are drawing the boundary when it comes to our understanding of divorce in the church is more with the American ideal than the value of scripture. It's easy for your senses to become acclimated to the environment. I don't smell anything! We see this in our homes and we begin to erode the boundaries we've set for our children in our families. We become used to it. The values we see on TV. We become anesthetized to the accountability we have to God. Here's the real issue, maybe I don't smell anything anymore, but God does. That's the bigger, real issue. The real question that we need to ask is, who is God and what is my accountability or responsibility to God?  

I want you to look at James 1:20 that came right before this and in the context of anger. Notice how anger is so equated with moral filth. "Our anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires." There's that word, "righteousness." All of the boundaries in our lives to which we commit ourselves, that place where you draw that line for determining moral principles or moral values in your life is determined by right actions toward God. That's the bigger issue, it's not what feels good to you or what looks good to you, but what is the right action toward God, toward yourself and the toward others. If you don't love yourself, you can't love other people. It's exactly what the Bible says, "Love others as you love yourself." When you are talking about moral boundaries, it's always making the commitment, drawing the line. That is a right action in understanding who God is. God is creator. There's that clear distinction when I understand I am creature, not Creator. As the creature, I do not contain the source of life within myself. The Creator is the life giver. Nor do I have the right to determine the laws or boundaries, whether they are physical or moral, of the Creator. God is a moral God. One of the Ten Commandments is "Thou shall not kill." I hear Christians explain that one away. We need to do a series on the Ten Commandments sometime as it relates to war and a Christian's attitude. We need to be much more serious about what it means to pursue peace than sometimes we are so quick, through our anger, to jump into war. God is a moral God. God is a holy God. A great way to understand holy is the word whole or completely altogether or pure which means lack of duplicity, one thing. God is a personal God, that means unlike the understanding of some religions. Buddhism doesn't believe in a personal God. A personal God means that we can have a relationship with God. God created us for a purpose - to be in a loving relationship with God.

God is a God of covenant. That's a really important word. The closest word we have for covenant in everyday language is the understanding of marriage. I want to read to you from Hosea 2:19-20, God said, "I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord." Betroth is a word used in marriages. Wow! Faithfulness and marriage go together, don't they? Does anyone ever want to get into a relationship where one person is not committed to faithfulness? And trust, everything about marriage is based in trust.

Many times I talk to people about Christianity and why I'm a Christian and what makes Christianity different. Christianity is a contrasting worldview to the predominant worldview of our culture. So many times, people say, "Mike, Christianity is so constraining. It's so limiting. If you make the commitment, then there are a whole lot of things you won't be able to do." I say, "Wait. I want you to think about that for a moment. Do you believe in love relationships?" People say, "Yes, I believe in love relationships." So I say, "Do you believe you make commitments of trust and faithfulness in a love relationship?" They say, "Yes, we believe you make commitments of faithfulness and trust in a love relationship." I say, "Well, then think about this a minute. Doesn't any love relationship put constraints on and limit your personal freedom? You can't do things you used to do. I married Carolyn 36 years ago and do you believe I couldn't date anymore? I was only two days past 21 and I haven't been able to date anyone since then." Do you see? The very meaning of entering into a love relationship limits your personal options.

Before I got married, I spent most of my vacation time skiing. When we got married, I said, "Carolyn, half of our vacation every year is going to be skiing." Guess how many times she's gone skiing with me in 36 years. One time. That was it. She says that's why you have friends like Vic Haddad - he is for the purpose of you being able to go skiing. Think of the way it limits. When it does not limit, when there's not that clear line drawn based on the commitment of that love relationship, do you know what happens even in the name of God? Cults. Without having that clear moral boundary - and you can even use God's name - you have multiple relationships, multiple wives. Women can't, but men can - you even have that double standard. It even becomes perverted to having sex with children, when you fail to understand that any love relationship has constraints.

How many dog owners in the house? I always like to see the dog owners. We don't have any litter boxes at home, so when I go visit my parents in Cincinnati, I always have to check my watch. It's hard to find babysitters for our 115-pound dog. There's a pastors' deal in August and we are thinking, how can both of us go to this in Atlanta in August if we don't have somebody come stay with the dog. Any love relationship, you might not have ever been in a marriage relationship, but if you are a pet owner, you know that it has constraints. That's why the Bible says the love of Christ constrains us.

Joseph is one of my favorite people in the Bible because any temptation you read about in the Bible, I experience in multiple ways every day. I've often marveled at Joseph who must have been this incredible, athletic, good-looking guy and his boss's wife comes on to him. Joseph's whole reasoning came down to this understanding of who God was and his relationship and responsibility to God. That's how he made his decision. If you haven't figured that one out, somebody good-looking enough, at the right time, when you are at odds with your spouse is going to come along who's going to look good and seem right, but what looks good to the eyes, can mean death to your soul. Joseph said, "How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God." The bigger issue is your understanding of who God is in determining your values and how you determine your decisions based on your accountability to him.

What this all comes down to is greater self-awareness. Again, we are not here to condemn, we are here for the purpose of healing in all of our lives. We've got to get rid of these religious deodorants and cover-ups and get honest with God and ourselves. How do we do that? All of this is in this one verse in James. It says, "Strip off moral filth and evil." Anyone who has ever been a pig farmer working in the barn knows that you strip before you come into the house. You don't bring any part of it into the house. "Strip off moral filth and evil."

I've shared with you before that when they still allowed smoking in restaurants and bars, Wednesday nights, when Jonathan was still playing football at Tipp City, was our night to get wings at Hinders. I still think they are one of the best wings, but now I only eat them about twice a year to not clog my arteries. So Wednesday nights, we'd go to Hinders. Carolyn struggles with asthma and it was a little scary when we were out on the Appalachian Trail when she forgot her inhaler and hers is athletic induced asthma. It's amazing that she lets my father in the house. He's not allowed to smoke in the house. My dad is 83 years old. It can be 16 degrees and he's out on the back porch smoking. No smoke in the house. When we would come home from Hinders, it would affect her asthma. So she would make us strip totally, shoes and everything had to be left in the garage. I'm so thankful that you can't smoke in those places anymore because now I can come home fully dressed. When the consequences of the smoke could be deadly, asthma can become a deadly thing, you don't bring any of it in the house. Strip off all moral filth and evil.

I want you to see that word that is so prevalent - filth. There is not a good English translation. What that word means in Greek is residue or what remains. Here is the best way to understand that. You have had a conversion in your life and you begin to see immediate changes. It's amazing some of the immediate changes I saw in my life. But there was residue of past dung that hung around. It's like smoking. Let's say you have a conversion and you quit smoking. A lot of times people make Christianity a moralistic thing like you can't smoke, drink or chew - or date girls who do. I'm not saying that. I'm talking about health; we are moving on to health. You have this conversion and you quit smoking. Even though you might not have smoked for 10 or 15 years, there's still residual effects in your body from smoking. Let's say you haven't smoked and you have stayed on this pattern of perseverance in this area of physical health for 20 years. What I have heard is that your lungs have the capacity to regenerate. What it is saying is that we have to continually strip off the filth, the dung in our life, and evil that still has residual effect. "And humbly accept the word that has been planted in you." What does this mean? Remember, this is a Jewish author. Immediately this Jewish author has in mind the prophesies of the Old Testament. When he is talking about the Word that is planted in you, he's not talking about a written word like we think of the word. Most of the written word of the New Testament didn't even exist when James was writing this. He's talking about the Living Word. I'm going to read this from the prophet Jeremiah, hundreds of years before Christ came. "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. I will now put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. No longer will it be written on tablets of stone, but hearts of flesh." It will be internalized. It's not just me walking around thinking, "I am faithful to my wife and I'm not in any affair," But, I'm playing with pornography and all of this other kind of thing. I think, I wish, I fantasize about doing that kind of stuff. No, it's no longer this external law written in a book, but now it is the Living Word, the presence of God through the Holy Spirit that is regenerating my mind and heart. He's talking about this Living Word of God. I want to make sure that my spirit is receptive, fertile ground all of the time for that Word, and that evil can't steal it away. The moment you make a commitment to act right toward God, yourself, and others, evil is lurking. I have to be aware and make sure that daily worries and my desire to produce wealth or pleasures don't become choking weeds that strangle the work of this Living Word in my life.

It is so great when you live in submission. It means to humbly receive, to submit all the time. That voice of God is speaking in you constantly. You can always know when you've determined that line, that healthy, moral boundary. It's like I always say, here's the line - and not in my house. I told that to my children and everyone else. Not in my house. What I always know is that when I begin to feel bad, that's the Living Word. When I am feeling good about a decision, that's that Living Word. As your pastor, I never get up here and say the things that I think are going to make you happy. I always say what I perceive the Living Word within me saying. There's no freer way to live than acting on the truth of the Living Word rather than the expectations of other people or your twisted desires.
   
I want us to bow our heads in prayer because we are always here for the action of the Lord in our life, not just intellectual knowledge, but to hear the word and do the word. I want you to name, before God, something that smells really bad right now in your life. Something you might have been 'Febrezing' with all kinds of things, even denial or rationalization. It might even be the neglect of your relationship with God. Humbly submit to the Living Word that has been planted within you. Submission is not my will, but your will be done. I will not rationalize, I will not argue. You never win an argument with God. Make a commitment through the strength of the Living Christ who dwells within you to act on the truth that the Spirit has revealed to you.

"Lord Jesus, we are amazed at the gift of life that we have today and how we learn through failure. We thank You for the areas in which we no longer struggle - where we've seen victory. Again, we name and submit to You those areas where we still struggle, and trust Your victory. It's not by might nor power, but through Your Holy Spirit that we leave this place. In Your name and strength, Lord Jesus, Amen."