Speaking out of James 1, Jamie Dew challenged University of Mobile students to look introspectively at four diagnostic questions to find out if their life is pleasing to God or not. Dew, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, spoke during the Feb. 12 chapel session.
Although Dew was still recovering from a recent knee surgery, he noted he didn’t want to miss the opportunity to speak to the students about a compelling and convicting word that the Lord had placed on his heart.
Looking under the hood
“The reality is that every last one of us has this course of days on this earth,” Dew said. “One day that course of life comes to an end, and we stand before our Maker. When we stand before Him, we want our lives to be pleasing to Him. The question today is, ‘How would you know if your life is pleasing to Him?’
“What I want to do today is ask you four questions. These questions are what I call diagnostic questions. Let’s make sure we understand what that is … it’s a question that helps you diagnose the issue by looking at the symptoms like when you go to the doctor or to a mechanic. You don’t owe me an answer to these questions. You owe yourself an answer to these questions, and you owe the Lord an answer to these questions. The questions are designed to help you access how to know if your life is pleasing to the Lord.”
The first diagnostic question Dew asked students was, “Are you trusting what the Bible tells you to trust in for your salvation?”
“If we want our lives to be pleasing to God, then we have to start with this first question,” he noted. “Lots of people trust in the wrong things for their salvation. Most people tend to trust in their own good works or their lineage. Some people trust in emotional experiences or mountaintop experiences. You do not get into Heaven based on emotional experiences; you must repent of your sins.
“The gospel of Jesus Christ can quickly be summarized with 2 Corinthians 5:21, ‘For He [speaking of the Father] made Him [speaking of the Son] who knew no sin [that is the perfect, spotless lamb of God], to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ.’
“Here’s what that means: Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. You cannot save yourself by your own good works, by your lineage or emotional experiences. You cannot redeem yourself, but Jesus died on a cross — shedding His blood for you. He takes the wrath, the death, the shame, the guilt that is mine and yours upon Himself. He became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ. The Bible tells us to turn from our sins and throw yourself on the person of Jesus Christ. Let me ask you a question this morning, have you done that? I would simply ask you, why would you wait or hesitate? You can turn from your sins right now and receive the grace of God.”
The second diagnostic question that Dew challenged students with was, “Do you ignore or do you obey the instruction of Scripture?”
“Are you obedient or disobedient to the teachings of the Bible?” Dew asked students. “James says it’s a law of liberty, instructions that bring us freedom.”
Words have power
Before getting to the third diagnostic question, Dew mentioned “just a note before I get here that I’m not trying to step on toes, but the text goes here so shall I …”
Dew then asked students, “Is your tongue a source of poison or a fountain of blessing?”
He went on to ask, “Is what you say and how you use your mouth a source of poison that corrupts, kills and destroys, or is it a fountain of blessing? Words broke me growing up, but they also spoke life into me. Words actually do big things in this world. We are foolish if we think our words don’t have an impact. We need to recognize the power of our words and be intentional with them.”
The fourth question that Dew gave students to reflect on was, “Is there any compassion in your heart for the marginalized?”
“Isn’t it interesting that the Word of God tells us that real, authentic Christianity is the kind of thing that causes me and you to care about marginalized people. Orphans and widows are the easiest people on earth to forget about. They are also highly vulnerable, alone, isolated and quite frankly kind of desperate. They are easy for us to forget about and to overlook, but the Bible says that the real thing is the kind of thing that causes me and you to pay attention to those very kind of people. The Bible mentions orphans and widows, but I’m sure we can think of lots of people who might fit into these categories.
“You might be in this room and maybe not an orphan or a widow, but you feel like you’re just sitting on the margins. You’re not in this group or that group or in this clique. You may feel like you’re on the margins or feeling like you’re thrown away. I assure you that you’re not. James says the real thing is the kind of thing that makes us see people like that and care.”
Reading through the four gospels
Before wrapping up the chapel service, Dew encouraged the students to read through the four gospels from a new perspective and fresh outlook.
“I challenge you to read through all four gospels and pay attention to the rich, theological things that Jesus says,” Dew noted. “Pay attention to the miraculous stuff that He does but keep your antenna up for this — as you read back through the gospels, I want you to watch who Jesus pays attention to. The fascinating thing is that as Jesus walks through the masses and the multitudes, His eyes always seem to find those people who are on the margins — the throwaways of society, the little guys, the underdogs, the forgotten abouts. The people that no one else sees about and no one else cares about. Jesus always seems to have His eyes on those.
“As we watch our Lord that we claim to be following doing those things, remember that a follower goes where He goes,” Dew said. “A follower does what He does. A follower is about what He’s about. A follower gives himself or herself to the things that Christ gave Himself to.”
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