July 27, 2008

 "God Willing"

James 4: 13- 16

Let's play a little alphabet soup this morning.  We'll see how well you know your initials. 

 NBC-National Broadcasting Company

SBC-Southern Baptist Convention

CRC--   Container Research Corporation

BC-Before Christ

Sometime initials are a little more difficult to figure out because they refer to words from a foreign language, of Latin.  Try these:

AD-Anno Domini  (In the Year of Our Lord)

AM-Ante Meridian  (Before Noon)

PM-Post Meridian (After Noon)

And now there's one that I know I have mentioned in previous sermons.  We will see how well you've been listening.

DV-Deo Volente-two Latin words meaning "the Lord willing"

You might recall I mentioned that when I was growing up they used to put D.V. behind scheduled events of the church.  For example, we will celebrate Lord Supper next week Sunday D.V., Wednesday, the church council will meet D.V.

The message behind this was inspired by verse 15
James 4:15 (NIV) ¹⁵Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 

Now certainly our scripture is not telling us that we return to this practice for our church bulletins or even our personal correspondence.  While it may help us remember this important fact, it certainly is not what the Bible is requiring here or anywhere else. The only Biblical writer to do so was the Apostle Paul and he only did it just a few times.

 So what is the Lord through his servant James telling us?  In order to understand that, it's important to look at the context. 

Look at the command he gives in verses 7- 10,

⁷Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Here are the general teachings:  Submit yourself to God, resist the devil, purify yourself, be sorry for yours sins, and humble yourselves before the Lord.

What does this all mean practically speaking?  James gives the answer in verses 11- 12; 13- 16, and in chapter 5: 1- 6.  Here applies these general principles to real life situations.  Our concern this morning is with his application in verses 13- 16.

In these verses James spells out what it means for his brothers and sisters to submit to God and to humble themselves before him.  Notice in verse 16 he talks about their boasting and bragging.   

Now,  who is James addressing with these comments?  Verse 13 seems to indicate that he was addressing traveling merchants.  Why the merchants?  In chapter 1 verse 1 James addresses his entire letter to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations-in other words to Hebrew Christians.  Clearly, many of these Hebrew people who lived in the Gentile cities throughout the Roman Empire were merchants.  Some were also farmer; in chapter 5 he applies the message to the farmers, here, here he applies it to them.

But here he addresses the Hebrew Christian merchants.  He says to them, "You business people center your lives on your business.  You make your plans and run around as if you have life by the tail.  You think everything circles around you and what you think in important.  That's what I meant by arrogance."  Arrogant people aren't just those that strut around thinking that they are so great.  They are not just those who put down others.  Arrogance at its root is self-centeredness.  Arrogant people are those who can't see beyond themselves and their own plans.  In the case of these merchants, their lives centered on their business.  Much of their planning and much of life, at least six days a week had to do with how they could best get ahead.  What were the best markets?  When should I sell? 

Not all of us are merchants.  But all of us must be careful about this.  As a minister, I have to be careful that my life does center on me, my career, and my plans for this church.  My life cannot center on my sermons; it cannot center on how well our church is growing numerically or on how satisfied the people are.  As a basketball player, you can't center your life on basketball-- on winning and losing and practicing. The same can be said for students and doctors and nurses, and teachers, and homemakers.  No, it's not wrong to care about what we do and to plan and work to do our best.  But, life is more than that.  And the goals in our lives must be more than that.  In the words of Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life, "It's not about you."

And to emphasize that point James gives us a painful reminder in verse 14,

¹⁴Why, 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.

Sometimes we get all wrapped up in our plans and in our goals and in our jobs or our hobbies.  And then something happens, something that wasn't even on our radar screen-a loved one dies, we are diagnosed with serious life threatening disease, we involved in a terrible accident.  And we are reminded that some of the things we thought were so crucial weren't very crucial at all and we begin to realize that there is so little that we can control.

Turn with me please to Matthew 6: 24 and let's read the words of Jesus,

²⁴"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

²⁵"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^£?

²⁸"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?' or ‘What shall we drink?' or ‘What shall we wear?' ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Notice how these verses begin:  You cannot serve God and Money.   If your security lies with your having enough money, then having enough money becomes a priority in your life.  But, because you belong to God, you have no need to worry.  So, don't center your life on these trivial things: what you eat... what you wear.... Just trust the Lord. 

The problem with the merchants is that they wanted to do both things.  They wanted to serve both Jesus and their business.  They wanted make certain they had financial security.  So, they gathered with their fellow believers on the Lord's Day to worship the Lord and they spent the rest of the week serving their business.

Jesus says, "You can't have it both ways.  You either serve your heavenly Father or you serve Mammon: money, material things, your business.  But, what does that mean?  That we shouldn't plan and work hard to make our business a success? Certainly it does not.  We can plan and work hard as long as we realize that we live to serve the Lord and we put our trust in him.

Your business must simply be another way that you serve God.  He must be Lord of your life.   He must be Lord of your business.  He must be Lord of your family.  He must be Lord of your schooling.  He must be Lord of everything you are, everything you have, and everything you do.

In a world where everyone is looking out for number one, our attitude should be a self-giving attitude as that of Christ Jesus:

    Who, being in very nature God,

    did not consider equality with God something to be held on to,

    but made himself nothing,

    taking the very nature of a servant,

    being made in human likeness.

    And being found in appearance as a man,

    he humbled himself

    and became obedient to death-

    even death on a cross!

Let us not forget that he died so that we might become like him.  Our attitude must be like his.

And listen again to Jesus promise when you make him Lord of your life. 

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

In the days of the country store, a little boy used to accompany his mother when she went shopping. The storekeeper always said, "Take a handful of candy, Son." But the boy never would. The storekeeper would reach into the box and give him a handful. One day his mother asked, "Why is it, when he asks you to take a handful, you never do?" The boy replied, "Because his hands are bigger than mine."

That's what we confess when we put our trust in the Lord.  "His hands are bigger than mine."  His hands made and control the universe, mine are often too weak to control even the events of my own life."   Granted, he allows things to happen that we don't understand-- grief and tragedies that try our faith.  But even during those times we consume our lives trying to get a handle on what we cannot understand or we can simply trust him. 

We are never going to succeed in shielding ourselves from such things.  Yes, it's fine to plan and to do what we can to save for a rainy day or to work to tragedies and problems.  It's great to eat healthy and to exercise.  And certainly God wants us to do such things.  But, we had better not count on the fact that because we do this we have a long life.  Our life is in this hands. Our world is in God's hands.   It's fine to work hard save for a rainy day, but we had better realize that this is no guarantee that we will have trouble free life. We can't plan for every variable.  And certainly all this effects nothing beyond the few years we are alive in this world.  The future is in God's hands.  Sometimes we fret over our past sins, over the wrongs we have done.  And we try so hard not repeat them, only to be forced to say with the Apostle Paul,  "the good I would I do not and the evil I would not that I do."  Now certainly we must strive to live like Jesus.  It is central to making him Lord of our lives.  But we must never forget that our salvation does not depend on the work of our hands, but on the completed work of his nail scarred hands.

Turn with me if you would to Psalm 90.  Let's read that Psalm responsively

Psalms 90:1 - 17 (NIV)

  Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world,     from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

  You turn men back to dust, saying, "Return to dust, O sons of men."

For a thousand years in your sight     are like a day that has just gone by,     or like a watch in the night.

You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning-

though in the morning it springs up new,  by evening it is dry and withered.

We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.

You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.

  All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan.

The length of our days is seventy years-  or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,  for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

Who knows the power of your anger?     For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Relent, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants.

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble.

May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children.

May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us-  yes, establish the work of our hands.

Deo Volente:  The Lord willing -- Brothers and sisters, in this unpredictable world may our hands serve his kingdom and his righteousness as we trust his.  AMEN!