Bucket or a Pipe

We are in a message series at Catawba UMC called The Three.  The idea of the series is based on what makes a person a person. And if you think about it, the three things that makes a person a person is thinking, feeling and doing.   The series has focused on what it would look like if we submitted each of these areas of our lives (our thinking, our feeling and our doing) to our creator.

Yesterday the message was titled "Doing."

The scripture was James 2:14-26 where James is communicating clearly that faith is about more than just what you believe.  Jame's point is that faith is equally about what you do as well.  Maybe one way to put it is that faith in Jesus Christ saves you and good works done in His name keep you saved.   

The illustration I used was the contrast between a Bucket-like faith and a Pipe-like faith. A bucket's purpose is to hold something. It just sits there. A pipe's purpose is to carry something from one place to another. I asked the question, is your faith a bucket-like faith or pipe-like faith?

Water in a bucket either evaporates or it just gets nasty from just sitting there. Water that is moving is fresh and clean and drinkable. Is your faith like a bucket? Do you just hold to the good things God has done:

-You know God's love...but you aren't showing it to others.
-You believe God has forgiven you...but you aren't willing to forgive when you've been done wrong.
-You have hope for all of eternity...but it's your hope and your not about to share it with others.

Paul says that kind of faith is dead. It's like water in a bucket. It either evaporates and the bucket no longer has a purpose. Or it gets nasty and unuseable.

God is good at resurrection. So if your faith is dead, God can use a pipe and syphon out that hope, that love, that forgiveness and all the other good things of God and allow you to become a conduit of His goodness so that your life honors God and blesses others.

So may your faith be a pipe-like faith and not a bucket-like faith.

If you want to hear the full sermon, you can check it out in the sermon player at the bottom of this blog.