The Point 153: Would you remain standing for the reading of scripture this morning? Good morning. I am reading from James chapter four, eleven to seventeen. Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you Who are you to judge your neighbor? Now listen, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. Why, you do 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, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes, and all such boasting is evil. If anyone then knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is a sin for them. This is the word of God. Praise be to God. Friends, you may have a seat. Thank you. So, friends, this fall we have been going through the book of James. And the book of James is a book of incredibly practical wisdom. From the beginning to the middle to the end, every part of what James is talking about is how we as Christians can live our faith out in the real world. Put it into practice. What James is trying to do is take the desires that we feel in our heart, the ones that get mixed up. Up, turned around, and we don't always understand what's going on in our hearts, and blend it with, okay, if you submit to God, give it to Him, and then live accordingly, your life will run better because you are living the way that you were designed. You are operating in the way that your creator made you to live. So I'm gonna do a little bit of a review from last week to catch us up to the end of chapter four, is what we've been in. So the beginning of chapter four, James talks about this idea that the reason that we have such conflict with other people is it's not that other people are causing the issues in our heart, but the issue is we already have conflicts in our heart, that we have our desires that have been given to us by God, but that have been warped and broken and twisted by sin. And then when we come into conflict with one another, that's what spills out of us. And we should be quick to address, wow. Why is pride coming out of my heart? Why is insecurity? Why is rage? Why is all of this junk coming out of my heart? And what the world often does when we come into conflict with other people is we say, okay, I'm just going to avoid certain people or all people. And the example that we used last week is if you took a jar, filled it with ping pong balls, and we said, okay, these are the desires of your heart, you take that jar without conflict, just all around, there's no issue, nothing's coming out. But as soon as you bash it up against another jar, all of a sudden all these emotions and feelings and desires are spilling out of you. And the phrase that we often say is they bring it out of me. Do y'all remember that? We say they bring it out of me, but the problem is it was already in us. So instead of just avoiding conflict or avoiding people, we should address what's in our hearts and say, okay, God, I'm seeing there's some pride in my heart, I'm seeing there's some vengeance in my heart, I'm seeing that there's some lust, there's some greed in my heart. Rather than just stuffing it down, when it comes out, I want to say, God, will you take this? Will you transform this? Will you make it new? So that now When I bash into people, what comes out of me is Jesus. What we said last week is that conflict can bring out the worst in us and it can bring out the best in us. It just depends what's In us from the beginning. Are you with me? So James is taking this idea that we need to get our hearts right with God. The way that we get our hearts right with God is submitting to Him in humility. I need to be made new. I need you to do what I cannot do for myself. It requires humility and submission to Him alone to get our desires fixed and healed from the inside out. James then finishes up this section of chapter four by putting a finer point on it. Here's what he is saying. He is saying that okay you have had your heart renewed in a vertical relationship with God. You've submitted your heart to him and said, okay, make me new God. That should impact the way that your relationships run. You should show others Jesus when you're interacting with them because Jesus is changing your heart. James is saying it really doesn't do much good. If you're a 100% church attender, you never miss a small group, you never miss a Bible study, but everyone avoids you like the plague. Because you're mean and nasty and you tear people down. He's like, what good is that? That doesn't make any sense at all. And eventually that's gonna catch up with you and impact that relationship with God. Now, let me put this out there as a hypothetical. Just see if this has ever like happened to you. Okay. You're Christian, you're learning to be with Jesus, you're trying to read your Bible. Let's say in the morning you've got your routine. Maybe you listen to the Bible, you read the Bible, you journal, you're praying, and you're just, you know, you're spending time with God. And you're like, God, thank you for everything in my life. And here's what I need you to show up on. I need, you know, this, this, this. But I trust you. I trust you, God, I trust you. And then you get in the car and you go to work. And let's say maybe you're a boss and you're a total tyrant. And all of your employees are scared of you. And they're like, that guy goes to church. yeah, I pray every day. don't think I want to go to his church because I don't want to be like that. Or again, you go through that routine. You're praying, you're praying, you're discerning, you're listening to Caleb, you're listening to all the Spotify worship music. And you get home and you're like this with your spouse. we're still kind of arguing. We're still in that fight, we're still petty, I'm cold and I'm harsh, and I'm gonna get the up James. What are you talking about? You can't do that. James is saying, you can't proclaim to love God and treat people like trash. You can't do it. You cannot proclaim, I love Jesus and He has my heart, and then trash his creation. You cannot trash the people made in the image of God. And again, it's gonna come back if you don't treat people the way that God wants you to treat them, it will impact your relationship with God. What do you mean, Pastor? This is what he's talking about in verses 11 through 12. That when we slander and gossip and judge one another, what we're actually doing is judging the law and the lawgiver. Now. What James is saying is there is one lawgiver, there is one person who is holy and righteous and able to pass judgment. But when we put ourselves in his seat, we have elevated ourselves to be like God, and watch this, kicked him out of his position. Don't you think that might have a bad Response to your relationship. Jesus, I love you and I have everything, but I'm gonna do your job and I'm gonna sit in your seat and I'm gonna judge because I know as much as you do, if not maybe more. That's gonna have an impact on the relationship you have with God. Because He's gonna be like, wait, what are you doing? What are you not? I didn't call you to do that. I didn't call you to do that at all. James is pointing out the hypocrisy. Say that word with me. Hypocrisy, a word that gets thrown at churches a lot, isn't it? But what we're trying to do is say, how can we live what we believe? And what that looks like is not judging other people based on Especially on non-moral issues. Most of the time, our gossip and slander is not because of a moral issue. It's a preference, it's a personality, it's just we just don't get along. And yet we're passing judgment, judge, jury, executioner, because we think we know better. And that's what James is warning us. Hey, hey, no, that's God's job. That's not your job. Stay in your lane. God will stay in his lane, and guess what? Everything's gonna be great. And it's gonna spill out into how you treat other people. Now, let me point this out too. What this should do is impact those who are close to you. As you draw close to God, those close to you should see it. So I have this as a rule of thumb. The closer you draw to God, those close to you should see more of God in you. And some of you are like, but hold on, Pastor. The people close to me often aren't the ones who see Jesus in me. They're kind of the ones that I unload on and things like that. We get that. That's a reality. But those close to you should see the process of you becoming more like Jesus. Let me ask you. Would it help the relationship or hurt the relationship? When something comes out in a conflict and it's your fault, it comes out of you, but you instead of defending it, say, you know what? I'm sorry, I'm working on that. Will you forgive me? And would you help me? Strengthen the relationship, hurt the relationship. Strengthen. They should see your desire to want to become more like Jesus. Last week we talked about those ping pong balls. I bet there was like four times I told Melissa, I really don't like the ping pong ball that came out of me right there. I really I didn't like that at all. But because I wanted to address it, not defend it, and say, Okay, would you just help me? Strengthen the relationship, hurt the relationship. It's when we feel like we have to have it all together and perfect that those close to us are like, they're a hypocrite. But when the people close to us see that we're trying to process this, we're trying to grow more like Jesus, they're more likely to throw themselves into the fire and say, Hey, you know what? I'm gonna be praying for you, and I'm gonna be encouraging you, and I'm gonna be thinking about you, and I'm gonna be lifting you up because I see the desire in you and I wanna help you along the way. And then who knows, that fire in you to change and become more like God has a way of being very infectious. That while you're not perfect, you're processing how do I become more like Jesus, especially to those closest to me. So that's me putting a finer point on it, the way that James did. We're moving on to the end of chapter four. It's easy to think that when you read the Bible, it just goes, at least in my Bible. You have these sections in bold, sections in bold, and it's like this is disconnected from this, is disconnected from this. And you're like, that's a good teaching, but what does it have to do with what came before? What's my favorite word when it comes to preaching the Bible? Starts with a C. Context. James is not losing his mind. He's not scatterbrained. This is all connected. We'll see how. Because he starts chapter four saying, okay, submit yourselves to God, give him the desires of your heart, wrestle through that with him. Okay, now give him your relationships, wrestle through that with him. And then it almost makes this weird jump where he's like, hey, you know what? those of you who go about making money and are going, say to city, carrying on your business, hey, what what are you doing? You're arrogant, you're scheming. End of chapter. What? Like what that makes no sense. Why is James jumping in this way? Why is James connecting this to the rest? Here's the through line. The through line is James is addressing the same thing throughout the chapter. He is addressing the temptation to be arrogant. The temptation to be arrogant by thinking I can defend my desires in my heart. The temptation to think I don't need to treat people the way God wants me to treat people, and the arrogant temptation to think my plans and my time and my future belong to me. What James is saying is submit yourselves to God with everything. When we say in church and sing, God, you can have it all, you have everything, that sounds really nice in a song. And then in reality, when God starts calling it everything, you're like, whoa, I didn't, I didn't realize that. Fell into it. Because what he's saying in this passage is hey, your life plans are not your own. If Jesus is your Lord and Savior, your future's not yours, buddy. It's his. Your plans for your life are no longer yours. They're his. Ooh. Kinda thought I still had some control of that. Nah, not really. Be careful when you let the Lord of the universe into your heart. He doesn't have good boundaries. He wants all of it. He wants everything. Good luck trying to draw that line. He's not very respectful of it. He wants it all because he wants all of you. He wants every part of you. And this is what is being addressed in the first century when James is preaching this message. What was happening in the culture, specifically with this passage of scripture, is there were merchants who would come into town, hear the gospel of Jesus. But their hearts weren't being transformed into their business practices and into their business ethics. They thought, I could come into church, worship Jesus, and then leave church and keep living the way I was before. Ever experienced that before? It's kind of a weird phenomenon, but like it happens all the time. And what James is addressing is if you are a Jesus follower. This will impact how you live outside of Sunday church. It must impact how you live outside of Sunday church, or else, where is the proof you've actually been changed? Where's the proof you've actually been transformed? That you've truly submitted yourself to him. So, what he's saying is: let me just read it again so I can point out what he is saying, what he's not saying. Now listen, you who say today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make money. Is James ripping on long-term planning? No. If you're a financial advisor, don't worry. James is not opposed to your occupation. That's not what he's saying. Is the Bible against making money? No. The Bible actually says long-term planning and making money are prudent. It is wise to do so. So, what is he railing against? He's railing against the arrogance that I can make my own plans apart from God. That I don't need to include God in my life plans. That's the part that he's saying: hey, when you submit it to Jesus, you gave him this as well. And that's a hard thing for us to wrestle through because we don't talk about it very much in church. So here's where we're going for the rest of our time. I have a question. When are you bringing God into your life plans? Not how. When. When matters. Let me just let me just see. This is how I typically do it, and I think most people do it. When it comes to our life plans in our future. Jesus follow or not, we all kind of operate the same way. We see what we're good at or what we want to do. And we start making a plan. And then we say, hey, I'm gonna go to college for this number of years. I'm gonna get this kind of job. I think I live like to live in this city. By that time I'll be looking for a spouse. After a few years, we'll have kids, and then we'll buy a house, maybe two kids and a third, however that stat works out. We'll have a little golden retriever and I'll retire at this age and then I'll die. That's that's roughly how we process life. At some point I'll move to Florida and that's it. Who in here has had plans for their life? Just plans in general for their life? Whose plans went according to plan? My mother-in-law has a great saying when we play cards. She says, I have a plan, but my plan didn't go as planned. And so often that's how it is with life. We have these plans, we have these ideas, and then maybe we become a Christian, we become a churchgoer, and then we get to add God into the equation of our plans. But here's how we add God into the equation of our plans most often: we treat God like middle management. he's the supervisor just above us and we need him to sign off on something real quick. So we come to God and we know he's busy. He's God's He's running the universe. So I'll make it easy for him. I'll write up my plans and I'll present them to him and say, I just need you to sign off here, here, and here, and then I'll be on my way and I won't bother you again. Thank you, Lord. Really appreciate it. I saw you gave me these gifts, these talents. This is gonna be great. This is how I'm gonna make money. I'll provide for my family this way. Who knows? If I make enough, I'll throw an extra few bucks into the plate. Maybe I've got a job with some flexible hours outside the office so I can volunteer. This is really gonna work out, God. I just need again your signature here, initial John Hancock down here, and I'll be on my way. Thank you very much. And then we go about our plans. And then all of a sudden our plans aren't going as planned, and then we start praying and saying, Okay, God, I need your help because it's not working out. And that's when we need him to show up the most. True? Yeah. We show up to God asking Him to bail us out of our plans when they're not going as planned, but we don't want his input. What that is communicating is: I want your power. I want you to bless what I want, but I don't want you to tell me differently. I don't want you to push back. I just want you to bless it. This is what I want. Now, please give me the ability to do it or receive it or whatever. And then we get frustrated at God and we're like, He's not answering my prayer. Well, you're treating him like a genie. You never actually had a conversation with him. We had a gold pass to King's Island this year. And the plan was we're gonna ride this roller coaster, that roller coaster. And there were times when the kids would run up ahead of us and we're like, where are you going? To the roller coaster, it's the other way. We so often do that with God. We run up ahead and then we turn around and say, Where's God? You took off from him, you ran away from him, and he's good and faithful, and he's gonna pick you up, bring you back to the path. But you best believe that good shepherd is gonna say, So what did we learn? That is the Christian walk, my friends. This is what James is railing about. When are you bringing God into your planning? And he's not even saying don't have plans. He's asking them to say, if it's the Lord's will, we will go do these things. Do you see the difference? One is saying I'm in charge of my life and my time, and the other is saying, I have some ideas. But I'm open to being redirected. I'm open to God pushing back. I'm open to him saying, you know, that sounds good, but what if we went this way? So the question that we have to wrestle with is: are you, am I available to be interrupted and redirected by God? Do we actually want that? Do we actually want the God of the universe to show up and say, Are you ready for the plans I have for you? The only way we can really know what it is that God wants us to do is to spend Whoa. Love this, is to spend time with him. You have to recognize the sound of his voice. You have to know it's actually him that's talking to you. And that can be a first conversation, but it doesn't have to be a first conversation. You begin by spending time with God every day, yearning just to hear the sound of his voice, spending time in prayer, spending time in scriptures. Listening to how others are hearing God move in their life and saying, God, is that your voice? And the more and more and more that you hear it, the more you will recognize it as only being the voice of God. That's what builds the relationship. That's what builds the trust to saying, I'm willing to be redirected and interrupted to do what you want me to do. I said this in the first service, I'll say it again. There is one human being. That if they called me, who said, I think we need to pick up and move, and I would listen, is my wife. If a stranger off the street said, You should sell your house and move out to here and here, no, don't know you. We don't have that kind of relationship. It's the intimacy that allows God to step in and say, Are you willing to trust me with your planning? Because it might not be what you want, but it's better. So you must develop that every single day, spending time, developing the relationship, listening for the sound of his voice. So if he does interrupt, it's not even an if, it's a when he interrupts, when he redirects your life. You are ready for it and you already trust him, and you've been waiting for it. How do we know that we're doing what we're supposed to be doing? How how do we know? Here's the first thing we need to wrestle through is our do we have our priorities straight? Do we have our priorities straight? Life can get so busy. Amen. I am so impressed how many people showed up during a Bengals game today. If you're watching from home, we are praying for you because your priorities. I'm just kidding. How do we know we are spending our life the way that we are meant to spend our life? Does anyone want to get to their deathbed thinking I wasted my life? What a tragedy. What a tragedy to get to the end of your life and be like, what did what did I live for? What were these 85 years for? What was the point? Why did I do this? How do we know we're doing what we're supposed to be doing? How do we know we're living how we're supposed to be living? Friends, the primary call on our life is not to go and make money. That's not why you were put on planet Earth. The primary call on your life is not just to be a worker for the rest of your days. That is part of it. Making money is part of it, but it's not the whole. The primary call in your life is not even to be a husband or a wife or a parent. That's not the primary call on your life. The primary call on your life. Is to know Jesus and do what he has planned for you to do. That's the call on your life. Because he has a plan that only you can do. You were put here for a purpose, not by accident, to do what only you were called to do. That's what gets you to the end of your life. And you're on your deathbed, and you can say, I didn't do it perfectly all the time, but to the best of my ability, because I was open and I built that relationship, I did what the Lord called me to do with the time he gave me to do it. And James points this out to us by saying, Life goes fast, life goes pretty quickly, and it's easy to just come and go. and miss it. He calls it a mist. Your life is like a mist. When I take Hannah to Dayton Christian in the morning, we pass this cornfield on Spring Valley. And this time of year, it's all been harvested, so it's just been laid waste. And there's always a thick fog, like a thick mist that just lays on the ground every time this time of year, as we drive by, it's like you can't see to the other side. And not 10 minutes later, when I'm driving back the exact same way, it's gone. James is saying your life is like that. Blink and you'll miss it. Take this seriously. Ask the questions now before you get too far and you're like, why am I even doing all this? What is this for? Is all of this matter? You can either answer, I hope so, or yes, based on the conversations you have with God, your openness. To be redirected and interrupted is how you can stand with confidence. I know I'm doing what God has called me to do. Are you with me, friends? Now, these plans may include making money. These plans may include being married. These plans may include raising children. It may include all the things I said. But all of that finds its purpose when you're living out the plan He has for you. And trusting the plan that he has for you more than the plans that we've come up for ourselves. So that when you're parenting, you are parenting differently. Because you're like, I am parenting the way that God has called me to parent, because this is who he's called me to parent. I am treating my spouse this way because this is part of God's plan. I am working in this way because God has called me to this work. When I say this work and that all that we do for God's plan is what lives on to eternity, I always get asked the question so does that mean we all have to quit our jobs, become pastors, and work for the church? No, but primarily because our budget can't afford that. What I really mean is God has called you to do what only you can do. If God made you a CEO, be a CEO for the Lord. If God made you to be an accountant, be an accountant that praises God. If God made you to be a stay-at-home parent, be a stay-at-home parent that honors the Lord with your work. If God called you to singleness, honor your singleness to the Lord. If He called you to be married, Honor him with your marriage. If he called you to be a parent, honor him as a parent. If he called you not to have children, honor him in your waiting and you're praying. Whatever it is that he's called you to do and only you to do is not for us to look around and say, Can I have that plan or this plan? Like, no, you do what he called you to do in that relationship with him, and you do it as if doing it for him, because in fact, friend, you God made you to do what only you can do, and that is what lasts into eternity. It's everything we do for God. Everything we do for ourselves to make a name for ourselves, to become impressive, will all get forgotten in the end in just a few generations. How many of us can even name a person from American history 200 years ago? Two or three handfuls? How many of us even know our great-great-grandparents' names? What they did, how they No. It gets forgotten, it's like a mist. But everything we do for the Lord gets bound up on earth, will be bound in heaven, is what Jesus told Peter. So whatever it is he has called you to do, do it with all of your ability. As if working for the Lord. Submit your plans to him. Submit your future to him. Check in with him often. Am I still, are we still we're still on the plan? We're still doing this? Yes. Yes. Just again, to use a football analogy because it's on my mind. He's the coach. You go execute. That's the call. Every single time. That's what we're asked to do. But what James is checking is our hearts. Do we actually want that? Do we actually want him to redirect us if we're off path? Does do we actually want him to interrupt us to get our attention and put us back on the path? So the question that we need to wrestle through as we pray, and Joey will come up and play music in just a moment, is this. How willing are you to be interrupted and redirected by God? Is there an area in your life where you're like, I know God's been telling me to do this and I just keep putting him off? I just, not now, not now, not. Is there an area where you're like, I didn't think Christianity meant submitting this to him? How willing are you to be interrupted, redirected by God? Is that a prayer? Is that a desire of your heart? I can't answer that. Your neighbor can't answer that. Only you can. So let's tell you this, Joey. You come up. I'm gonna pray. We're gonna leave the question on the screen and just wrestle with God about willingness to be open to hearing Him and being redirected in our plans. Let's pray. Father. We want to live like Jesus. And what Jesus did was he was in constant communication with you, his father. And he did what you called him to do. He went where you called him to go, even if it was a great sacrifice for him. We see this in the garden. That was not his plan. He did not want to go to the cross, but he submitted himself even unto death because he knew your plan was better. He knew your way was greater. May we have the same level of trust and love that Jesus had for you because that's what you have for us. Lord, we give you our plans. Redirect us, interrupt us, get our attention, whatever it takes, we want the plans you have for us. It is your name that we pray. Amen.