James (part 8)

James 4:13-17 and the Illusion of Independence

Was somewhere. I did them all in one day. All right, so we're gonna go ahead and start. We're in James and we had a conversation with Carol this morning. Sorry to put you on the spot, Carol. But when she heard we were doing James, she figured, oh it's a small book, we're probably done with that by now.

Actually, I believe that between today, next Sunday, we probably will take Memorial Day weekend off and coming out in January, Pastor Jeff. We'll be teaching a class on apologetics. So, exciting stuff.

James 13. Again, 413. Thank you. There are not 13 chapters in the book of James. James 413. When did you say we're gonna finish? Next Sunday.

Is there a question about that? No, I was just looking at the dates for Jeff's announcement.

Yes, that would be what he's going to take. Oh, so he's going to do an announcement. Great. So, we're in the book of James and we know that James, we talked about, most likely this is James, Jesus' brother.

There are many, many James in the Bible. Jesus' half-brother. Jesus' half-brother. And this book is being written to Jewish believers who are scattered and it's, when we get into sections like this one again, it's always good to remember that this isn't a book being written to those that are being witnessed to or outside the kingdom.

This is stuff being written to Jewish believers, very, very relevant to those of us who are already believers. It starts out, verse 13, with a small phrase that also shows up in chapter 5, verse 1. Give me just the first couple of words of Now Listen.

Yeah, Now Listen. Yes, and others will say come now. And others will say go to now. The only thing I can tell you about that for sure, this is the only two times in the New Testament where this phrase shows up.

This is a turn of the words being used by James. It's in the imperative. This is a command, go to. It's how it would be presented. The direct translation of it is, now listen, or listen now. It's, I want your attention.

There's something that you need to not just take and let slide by. There's something here for you, which to me says that these two passages that we're going to come into now, that he's talking about being boastful and arrogant and willful sin, and then in the next chapter he's talking about greed.

This is not something he wants us to say. It's outside of my wheelhouse. This isn't the problem for me. The turn of this phrase is to say that for all of us, take this into your consideration, see how it works, see how it applies.

It's there for a reason. So we're going to go ahead and get into that. Eric, would you open us this morning?

Yes. Dear Lord, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for the beautiful weather. We thank you for an opportunity to celebrate moms today. We pray that all moms would feel loved and blessed by their children, and we especially thank you for John for his preparation.

I just put into this lesson today. I pray that we would learn much and that we would apply it to our lives. I pray this in Jesus' name.

Happy 69th birthday to Israel. May 14th, 1948. It's going to be interesting. I don't know if the world's got 69 more years to go into it. A couple of verses I'm going to assign. Ralph, you're going to take the James 4 for me.

Psalm 10, Judas 22. Okay, Carol, if you would get this Psalm 10. 1 Samuel 2, Eric, if you would get that in Psalm 12. I have a couple of other verses I want to have taken out of here. So Ralph, you're also going to get John 1.

I'm through 5, but you probably know that by memory anyway. Galatians 2, 16 to 18. Carol, that's not on the sheet, but you're also going to get that. Galatians 2, 16 to 18. The problem with my having done this lesson a week ago and then having had another week to go through it was I kept on finding more stuff to talk about.

Boasting, Self-Reliance, and Living as Though Tomorrow Is Certain

13 to 16, please, Ralph. Okay. There is only one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. That's right. I don't think we're.

You who say, today or tomorrow we will go to this city or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. Why do you not even know what will happen tomorrow? What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and vanishes.

Instead you ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone then who knows the good he ought to.

Do and doesn't do it, sins. Okay. Filling in some very simple blanks, just going you who say to you who say. All right. I'll fill that in for you. To you who say, it's like I've got it. And what I've got to say is basically what it is to be.

You who say. It's interesting that that comes right after the term again. It's like, okay, listen to what the Lord's got to say. Okay. Listen to what the Lord's got to say. You're sitting there saying, I've got something to say.

What are they basically doing in verse 16? You who do what? Boast. You boast in, what's the attitude James is conveying? Kind of self-reliance. Self-reliance. Basically saying, I don't need, I don't need somebody to help me.

I don't need somebody else's input on this. I'm a self-made man. I'm a self-made woman. And I pretty much got it. We, we were just kind of half joking. Carol, I'm not picking on you today, but we were half joking.

She said that she was going to be in the missions person. I thank, I thank you for that. And she said, and we'll be in right afterwards. And I said, actually you should say Lord willing, I'll be in afterwards.

And I don't know how far to take that exact turn of phrase, except that the, the attitude that he's really driving at is this idea that I'm self-reliant. I'm proud. I'm self-made. I really don't need, where does that, we're talking Christians again.

I call that the illusion of independence. It's a great turn of words. Give me a little bit more. How do you mean by that? We're all dependent on someone.

Else to think that we can live independently without needing family, doctors, other people in our lives. That's the false. It can't work. And I think people kid themselves that they can be independent.

And as you said, self-made, you know, I've done all this myself and, and.

So what? And negligent of their own mortality. I mean, we could be dead tomorrow. Correct.

That's, that's what I said. I mean, here we are saying what we are going to do when we're not in control. You, you said self-made man. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave the commencement speech at the University of Houston.

And his whole message was, you know, I only got here because I had help. And like this person brought me to America. And he said, I hate it when people say that I'm a self-made man because he goes, I'm not.

He goes, I only, I only got into bodybuilding because a lifeguard taught me how to do a pull-up on a tree branch in Austria. And then this other guy helped, showed me how to lift weights. And this person taught me how to speak English.

And this person, you know, he's like, he just listed all of the people that got him to where he was today. And he's like, I'm not a self-made man. I had help. And he's like, and you need to, when you leave here, he goes, take down the mirror, stop looking at yourself and think about how you can help the people in the world.

Cause that's why you got a college degree to help people. That's amazing. There's really great speech. I mean, I know it gets knocked for a lot of things, but he probably has it up there now, but I watched it, the live broadcast.

What's interesting about that, but when you.

Started with Arnold Schwarzenegger, my mind went immediately back to the urban legend about Arnold Schwarzenegger, wanted to get into acting and figured the only way he'd get into acting with who he was, was to become Mr. Universe.

And so he set out to become Mr. Universe. So when you started with that, I was going down the path of exactly the opposite of what you just said. That maybe he did these things, but he did them with help.

That's.

Do you know what his spiritual condition is? He said in that commencement that he believes in God. Um, I wouldn't say he's professing Christian, but I mean, he's, but yeah, he would, he, and he was just talking about all these things, like how the two things that he said were going to be his liabilities were his size and his accent.

One of being his strengths because he said, James Cameron said, the only reason that we can make Terminator here is because Arnold's as big as he is, and he sounds like a robot when he talks. And the same thing with Conan, his first breakout movie, like we would have had to have built a person to look like him.

Like he was exactly what they needed for that character. And it.

Was because of his size. It reminds me of what Paul says, when I am weak, then I am.

Strong. So what makes a Christian, what makes a Christian vulnerable to this attitude of self-reliance? Gunainan, listen now, okay? This is something that should be, it is in the wheelhouse, it should be on your radar.

What makes me vulnerable to this? And I'm not asking, am I vulnerable? The intended answer to that is yes. I think because we.

Don't want to admit what Rick said. We don't want to admit that we have to rely on so many people. We want to, I think deep down, each one of us wants to be able to say, I did whatever by myself. Like take a little bit of ownership for our activities.

Yeah, maybe that's, I'm assuming that's the sin nature, but yeah, it's like you want to take, you want to get some credit, but ultimately it's not. So you just hit on a couple of really big ones. One.

Is the self-value thing, but the other is the idea that who we are becomes validated when other people give us the credit for what we are. And therefore we're driven to put up this image that other people would want to congratulate or whatever.

You're right,.

It's a sin issue. I think part of what happens too when you don't really give credit to where credit is due, someone eventually finds out that it was, like I see this in the teaching world all the time, like someone will claim, oh I made this game and post it.

And there's a lot of us out there like, no you didn't. This person put this out 15 years ago and it's like now they look foolish or they mar their name or their ability to have effect change because they're assuming.

First thing, like any time I've ever presented a game, it's like oh, none of this stuff is mine. It's all modifications. Like I don't know if I've ever come up with an original game in my life, but this is what I do for my class.

If you're in the room and you made it, thank you. So I try to deflect that. I don't want to take, because I know it's not, I've just made modifications and maybe tweaked a few.

Things. Give me 14 and 15 again please. Why do you not even know what will happen tomorrow?

What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, you will live and do this or that. Just filling.

In a little tiny word here. You do not, in the passage, you do not know. That can be a really devastating concept. You don't know. In reality, what we do know is limited to what? Our experience. Our vantage.

Our limited viewpoint. Our limited viewpoint. There's a real famous video that was taken in the height of the war demonstrations in the mid 60s. It was a staged event. One camera was on the National Guard and what they were doing.

And another camera was on the crowd and what they were doing. It portrayed two entirely different stories. And the third camera was from up top coming down and it was yet a third story. What you know, what you experience, you don't know.

And that's okay. And that's.

Okay. Only God sees everything. Only He's omniscient. And the thing is, like Eric said, we seek the approval of men more than the approval of God, like the Pharisees. Then.

The next simple question is, what is your, in the passage there, what is your, to us it is the ultimate of experience. It's the ultimate of what we are. But he said, what is your life? If you take it in the big picture, if you take it in the big context of God's creation, what is your life?

You are not the most important. It's a mist or a vapor. Didn't Solomon find that out, right? He tried and he tried and he tried. Vanity, vanity, chasing after the wind. What is your life? We ought to say, okay going back to the passage, we ought to say, wills.

Okay, I got to ask the question practically how do we apply that? Practically, how do we, how do we approach tomorrow with this teaching?

We start out with prayer. Lord, I would, I plan to do this, but if your will is different, let me know. I want to do your will, not mine.

One thing that Allison's father, Bill Plum, used to say is that Christianity, our Christian life can be boiled down to one beggar telling another beggar where to find food. And I think that's a very good analogy.

We have to realize that, you know, we have received God's grace and it's our job just to share that grace with others.

I think too, when you're boasting about tomorrow, you're not focusing on what you need to do now and today. You know, we just, we see about Jesus coming like a thief in the night and we're to be ready for his coming.

And if we're thinking about tomorrow or what we're going to do in a year from now, we're not being ready and doing, like there are people that need to hear God's word today. There are people that need to see us being different in our workplace and neighborhoods today, now, not planning out like our own future.

I mean, it's hard to say because there are, it's like, it is Lord willing that we get there, but you know, it is good to not have plans. This passage goes back to one of the.

More central teachings of the Old and the New Testament, that's the heart. It comes down to that. John 1, 1 -5, who's got that? It's not on the list, I gave that to somebody extra. Okay, go ahead, John 1, 1 -5.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made, without him nothing was made, that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the way of men.

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

This is the truth, this is the absolute truth, this is our vantage point, God created everything. Okay, there still is this darkness, there still is this darkness. Who's got Colossians 2, 16 -18? I gave that as an extra one.

Did you say Galatians?

Colossians 2, 16 -18. It's one of Jeff's favorite passages, by the way.

I thought you originally said Galatians.

I may have done that.

Okay, then it's probably mine.

Alright, Colossians 2, 16 -18. If somebody has it, go ahead.

Okay, I got it.

Go ahead.

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival, or a new moon, or a Sabbath.

Is that 2?

2, 16.

2, 16.

Okay, go ahead.

These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

Okay.

Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind. That goes through 18 anyway, if that's what you meant.

Okay, this is my first typo of the day. Chapter 1, 16 -18.

Aha. Aha.

For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created by him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

He is also head of the body of the church, and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself might come to have first place in everything.

Okay.

I believe that one of the antidotes to this issue of prideful, willful, self-control, self-reliant, is to submit to the reality of who God is. Give me a definition of evil.

Self-will?

Not doing God's will.

Okay.

Disobeying God's law.

There's a very famous story, could be nothing more than a story of a professor who chose to prove that God didn't exist. If God is all-powerful, he creates everything, there is nothing that exists that God didn't create, but yet evil is, and if God is all good, how could he have created evil?

Therefore, there is no God. And the one student says, Professor, I'd like to ask you a question. Give me, what is darkness?

Absence of light.

Absence of light. What is a vacuum? There is no such thing as vacuum. It doesn't exist. Vacuum is the absence of pressure. What's the definition of cold? Well, there is no such thing as cold. Cold is the absence of heat.

There is no such thing as evil. God didn't create it. Evil is the absence of God. It was Satan's desire to take God out of the equation, bringing it on down to Eve and to Adam and into mankind. It's the absence of God.

Evil was not created by God. Evil was God taken out of the equation. If we have these passages, and we can go to Genesis 1, we can go to John 1, we can go to Colossians 1, we can understand the truth of what it is about God.

So what gets in our way? We take God out of the equation. Who's got Psalm 10 for you? You do, I think.

For the wicked boast of his heart's desire, and the greedy man curses and spurns the Lord.

It's taking God out of the equation. It's spurning the Lord. It's taking God out of the equation. That's when you get stuck in this stuff about saying, I've got control, I know what's going to happen tomorrow.

Instead of acknowledging that I should be planning for tomorrow, yes, I should be doing today, yes, but it's still God. It's still God. It's spurning Him, taking Him out of the equation. 1 Samuel 2, 3.

Have you got that, Rick?

I have it. Okay.

Talk no more so very proudly that not arrogance come from your mouth. For the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him the actions are weighed.

The Lord is the God of knowledge. We are not the God of knowledge. Keep Him in control. In Psalm 12.

Psalm 12, 4. Those who say with our tongue we will prevail. The tongue that makes great boasts. Oh, those who say with our tongue we will prevail. Our lips are with us. Who is a master over us?

Who is a master over you? It's the Lord. You see, everything about God is true, but man, the issue of sin is taking God out of.

The equation.

That's the issue of sin. And so those times when we take God out of the equation, we put ourselves back into that realm of knowledge, of control, of everything else. Boasting.

Yeah, and this goes along with a verse from Jeremiah. Jeremiah 17, 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick or wicked. Who can understand it?

Matthew, Mark 8, I think it's Matthew 16, I think it is, records a conversation between Peter and the Lord. And the Lord says, who do men say that I am? Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah. And Jesus looks at him and he says, but who do you say that I am?

That, by the way, that was one of my screensavers at work for years, who you say that I am. The question here is who, if the Lord is the Lord over me, to what extent is the Lord the Lord over me? That's why this is written to Christians.

The question is, is the Lord the Lord over me, or is the Lord the Lord over only those things that I allow him to be Lord over? If you don't allow him to be Lord of you in that sense in entirety, you are going to fall into this kind of arrogant, pride, self-reliance in some reign of your life.

And it may be that you've got your professional life under control, or it may be that you've got your friendships under control, so you don't need the Lord's help in there. Name a part of your life that God shouldn't be under control.

Good answer, none. Which takes us now to verse 17, if you would give me that. And I'm going to talk to these other passages just for time. Give me chapters of verse 17.

Anyone then who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

Whoever knows, filling in a really simple blank, whoever knows the good he ought to do, whoever knows the good he ought to do and does not do it. What's the action and the attitude James is addressing here?

Self-will.

It's like Nicolette, it's casting aside God.

If we see something that we can't have a situation in the simplest form, someone who needs us, someone who needs something, if we see it and don't respond or don't react to it, we're supposed to, we're told we're supposed to.

Refer to it as the sin of omission.

If I have an addiction problem to pornography, if I have an addiction problem to abuse, and I know, and I know, and I know, but I go ahead and do it anyway, it's willful, defiant, disobedient. If I haven't gotten addicted to it yet, but I'm intrigued by it, what's it going to hurt one time, what's it going to hurt?

That willful, defiant, disobedient, you know what you should do. And how do we get down this path? How do we get beyond this path and continue on in life? It started way back in the garden. What did Adam say?

She made me do it.

It's worse than that. It's worse than that, that's true.

You gave me God, you gave me her, she made me fall, it's really reflecting back on you.

Oh my goodness, the ultimate blame game. Ultimate, ultimate blame game. If you go into Proverbs, there's a ton of stuff in Proverbs, you go to Proverbs 2 .10 through 14, there is a contrast of wisdom and rejoicing in evil.

The insidious rejoicing in evil. We've talked about this before, how it's pleasurable for a season. Jeremiah 10 talks about the people who wandered and therefore that God is going to do this, he's going to do that.

The Lord's Prayer has a powerful phrase in it. Does anybody have a clue which one I'm talking about?

Thy will be done.

That's true. Okay, thank you. Lead us not into temptation. Don't even let me go there but deliver us from the evil one. Don't even go to the places of weakness. But James 2, James 1, 2 through 4 says, what about temptation?

Ah, hello.

Why?

Because you now have the power to resist.

Perfecting our faith.

Perfects our faith. We got no excuse for this verse 17. There are no excuses for verse 17. We have the ability because of the Holy Spirit within us, we have the ability because of His grace, to not be in verse 17.

Gunana.

Take heed.

Gunana.

Listen.

This is an area for all of us, even if we say no. Going into chapter 6. It opens up again.

Chapter 5, I'm sorry.

Chapter 5. It opens up again with Gunana. This time he's going to talk about another area. Ralph, give me verses 1 through 6, please.

Now listen, you rich people. Weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth is rotted and laws have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire.

You afforded wealth in the last days.

Look.

The wages you failed to pay the workmen. The moon your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached your ears in the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence.

You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men who were not opposing you.

He's going to shift from the issues of pride, the issues of arrogance, the issues of self-reliance, now to the issues of things. And things drive us to what sin?

Greed.

Yes, it does. Things drive us to greed.

Gunanan.

There it is again. That's the second time it's used there. We have an issue. We have things, so we have an issue.

Now things aren't bad.

It's what these things can do to us. It's what Satan can do to us because of these.

This passage reminds me of the commercial with Bill Devane saying, buy silver and gold, you know. You're hoarding up silver and gold in the last days, it says here.

I'm going to fill in some blanks for you. We've been this. In verse 3 it says that you have laid up treasures. Matthew 6 says, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where?

You walk among us.

But lay up for yourself treasures in heaven.

Refuse to not break it as steel.

So it's not bad to have treasures if it's the right treasures. And by the way, gold and silver are not bad things. It's when they become this idol of this, become this I have to.

When we're trusting in him, we're not trusting in God.

Correct.

It's funny, there's a joke. I can't remember it, but there was something about a man who was hoarding gold and silver and God was speaking to the angels and they're like,.

Why does he want so much pavement?

Because this is the street made of gold and heaven. He's like, what is he hoarding pavement for?

And you fool today, your soul is required.

There you go.

The second impact of it is not only does this stuff become its own I got to have treasure thing, but in verse 4 it says we keep back wages. And so we've become dishonest. This can be applied in a lot of ways.

We keep back wages from those who rightfully earned it. We cheat on our taxes. It can look a lot of different ways.

Corporate exploitation of workers.

Or we choose to calculate our 10 tithe on only part of our earnings.

Whatever.

And I'm not telling you how to tithe, but I'm telling you if God is telling you what to do,.

Don't play games with God.

He's talking here about keeping back. And eventually it becomes we live in luxury and self-indulgence.

Reminds me of Haggai.

Go ahead.

Passages in Haggai where they were more concerned with building their house and taking care of themselves. That's the things of God.

At the height of his power, John D. Rockefeller was worth 2 of the national GDP. 2 of the national GDP.

John D. Rockefeller.

And he was asked, how much is enough? He said, just a little bit more.

I mean, that is just mind-boggling.

Just a little bit more.

That's that carrot you never get. A little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more.

It says in verse 2 that your riches have rotted. Others say corrupted. It says that your gold and silver have corroded. Others say cankered. They are not capable of satisfying you. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be.

That's where our... The problem with things is not things, because God gives us everything. God gives us every good and blessed thing. For us, it's when we turn it into greed and we turn it into love.

This passage says the results of greed is that we have fattened our hearts.

That's what philosopher Blaise Pascal talked about. We have a vacuum in the soul. We try to fill it. Nothing satisfies it. Only Jesus Christ can fill the vacuum that's in our heart. Things can't. Money can't.

Sex can't. Nothing can.

What kind of strength and endurance... Eric, what kind of strength and endurance endemically exists within fat? Other than we can burn it for energy.

Well, fat has more energy per carbohydrate or protein from a caloric standpoint. It takes more energy to...

Are you better off with muscle or fat?

Are you better off with muscle?

You've fattened your heart. You've fattened your heart.

I'll give you a heart attack. I want the muscles and the heart working.

The corrosion that we have built up, it says, will be an evidence, a witness against us. And it will eat up your flesh like fire. The descriptions of what this stuff can do for you is not real encouraging.

And then it says the cries of the laborers reach out to the ears. Again, we're talking about believers here. We're not talking about the hardened criminal, the drug dealer that we would choose to... We're talking about believers who, good or not...

Listen.

Listen to this. Listen to this because there are things... What is the underlying issue behind all of this?

Not seeking first the kingdom of God.

Yeah, absolutely right. It's a vision, probably.

Why don't you read Matthew 6 .33. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be added unto you.

Who's aching?

It's the thing I got swallowed up by.

Right.

Or opened up, swallowed up.

Took the plunder.

Eric got it. He took the plunder. Why did he take the plunder? Was he greedy? It was. It got his attention. He lusted after it. And it was such cool stuff that he took it home and he shared it with his neighbors and he was able to lay it out on display for everybody to see.

He hid it. He buried it.

He rotted against his will. I think what the lesson there is, those areas in our life where we fall into this are probably not areas where we would be really proud to share with our care group. They're probably areas that we would rather not anybody know when we're being talked about.