December 2 2018

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James Week #10  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  24:33
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so every relationship we enter into impacts our personal life Some impacts of greater than others like you probably didn't find some Dynamic life changing shift as a result of meeting your FedEx driver, but the day you met your spouse probably sticks out in your mind, right or it should the correct answer to that is yes. So some intersections are more influential than others, but every relationship with another human being leaves an impression leaves a mark and some relationships we enter into will touch every single part of our Lives just in our families, right we have people entering into new relationships like husband and wife or parent and child in these relationships begin to affect every single area of your life. And the truth is that's not really shocking. This isn't new news to you off it be weird if change was not brought about by these relationships, right I'm thinking about if a friend was newly married and you said hey, how's the marriage going in there? Like nothing's really cheap. Has really affected my life all that much that's going to get some counseling or have you talked to a new parent and said what's it like having a baby and the response was you know, I really don't think about it all that much. Like my life trajectory hasn't been altered at all. Like I have time on my hands for leisure activities. I get the same amount of sleep and knee time finances are about even you go. I don't think that's a positive thing. Like, I'm not sure what's happening. I think maybe you should get a little bit of help because that's not normal. He's kind of relationships like marriage and children should impact your life and dynamic ways. We expect that and if they don't that's odd, that's weird. So this is the whole argument in the Book of James. James is saying if you have an intersection with the holy God if you met the Lord, that's an impact your life and it's such a signal. Forget relationship that it shouldn't impact every area of your life it be weird. If it didn't to be like yeah, I've entered into this Dynamic relationship with the author of all things the almighty God over the universe, but you know, not much changes really. I'm just kind of doing me living my life. However, I want is that the odd right that be weird if you've entered into a union with God it shouldn't pack everything and that's James argument. You come to know God if you have a relationship with him, it should change the way you talk. It should change the way you treat poor people. It should change the way you handle money. And then today James will say Union with God should change the way you make plans for your life. So we all know that James tells it straight so it doesn't say okay buddy, you know, this Union with God should really change stuff for you. Okay. He says things a little bit more like a drill instructor. He's like Change your life. It should be different don't be adulterous and evil and demonic right? That's the stuff that we've been hearing over the past few weeks. James gets right up in our face and we're going to see that today. I'm just going to give you fair warning. This is going to be more from James James going to come after a group of people. So we start in chapter 4 verse 13 and he starts off by saying come now. He's going to confront a group of people. Some people will read this text in James 4 and say he's probably talking to businessmen because he speaks of traveling and making a profit. So this is a text for believing Christian business matter business women and there's some truth to that. We always want to consider the original audience. However, the truth is much broader than that because James is talking to anyone who would say like the rest of verse 13. We're going to say today or tomorrow. We'll go to such and such a town and spend a year their trade and make a profit. So James is say I'm coming after you if you do this, if you say 5 things number one, you plan to travel number to you plan to arrive someplace. Number three, you plan to spend a certain amount of time at some place number for you. Say you're going to do something when you get there. And then number five you have the audacity to say that you expect to get a certain result. So to recap James will say if you plan to go someplace do something and expect a certain result. You're arrogant that's his argument in this text all the feels, right all the feels James very encouraging. So wait, I'm going to get my degree and be a school teacher and love children. He's going to call you area. I want to go hang out with my family. He's going to call you evil or just daring to say that which is weird. Cuz the truth of us as a truth is all of us make plans, right we all do this and it sounds like he's up in our Grill about it. We're like, so I've made plans. I'm actually planning a lot of things and James will say that's wrong. And if you're meeting with God that should change. So what's going on here should we not playing? Is James anti planning know he's not against planning. So is he anti success like a plan to go somewhere and do stuff but if I ever make a profit I should be like, oh I am. So sorry and just give it all away. Is that what he say? James is not anti profit. So what is James madabout? What's James All Fired Up about here? Why is he going to accuse us of being arrogant and evil because of what we're doing? Well, he's not mad at what you rise up to do. He's mad at how you talk about the things you're going to do and not just how you talk about them. Not so much the words but the perspective behind them James is going to take issue with us for making plans and vocalizing them and he'll say what's wrong is that kind of idea comes from a mind that is spoken by a mouth that is failed to do two things spelled to take into account a true view of your life. And it's failed to take into account a true view of God. So if you're stepping out there and say hey, I'm going to go do this. I'm going somewhere and I'm doing something and I'm expecting these results. James says you're arrogant and evil. If you haven't done these two things verse 14 says you don't have a true view of your life and verse 15. He'll say you don't have a true view of God as you've made your plan. So the first issue we see and burst 14th. He says you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life for? You are a missed that appears for a little time and then vanishes. So the first failure is if you're sitting here and you're making plans for your life what you're going to do we're going to go the problem is you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring Jake.

James says first of all the problem is You don't know what tomorrow is going to bring James says your failure. If you talk like that is that you're failing to see yourself rightly and part of seeing yourself right least understand that you're limited in your knowledge. You and I are limited. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. You have no idea what's coming. It's true. You don't know if you're going to wake up tomorrow walk out your door and bump into the what is going to be your BFF for life, or you can get hit by a bus and that might change some things right. You don't know James says you're limited. So did Think Like tomorrow's going to be like today and I'm just going to continue on this trajectory for you to be arrogant enough to think that life is going to go how you think it's going to go you failed to take into account the fact that you don't know. You're limited in your knowledge. You have no idea but then that's not even his biggest problem with how you see yourself. Really that part was just a bill to the next thing. I love the way this sentence run. So 13 and 14 is all one big question. And most of the words of that are to the subject like to us. He's talking us. I'll try to read it how he saying it he saying come now you who say today or tomorrow? We will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit yet. You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? To say hey those of you who make plans but don't know what on Earth you're talking about. What kind of Life do you have any way? And that's his real question before you start making plans. He's saying pause for a minute and just contemplate the quality of your life. And then he doesn't give us a lot of time to think about it. He'll say let me tell you you were a missed the rest of the first 14th. You're a missed that appears for a little time and then vanishes. He says here's what you need to think about. When you start making plans the fact that you're like smoke like smoked it appears literally comes into the light you see it for a second and then it disappears. It's destroyed it vanishes. So before you start making plans understand that you're going to plan wrong. If you don't take into account the fact that you're not here long, you won't last long. There's a fridge ility to you and you have to keep that in mind as you make plans. This is a rally. This isn't something new to all of us, but not many of us spend a lot. What I'm thinking of this so much of what we do things, right? It does if you don't believe me just think back to high school. So I'm being built this Empire in high school climbed the highest mountains near the social sphere all set right here the letter jacket with all the different Badges of Honor but it's over and nobody cares now, right? Like for some be the fact that high school was over was a really great thing because it was a chance to hit the reset button but others if you were still processing that lost like it's all gone. It was a waste why because you build something that you love and it's gone. Maybe it was College where you were just on top of the world, but then you look back and see pictures in her like I cannot believe I wore that I can't believe I did my hair like that and you come to realize that what you thought was so awesome. No one cares about it anymore. Why because we build stuff and it fades it goes away. You might have built the social network with your group of friends. In the day, but maybe now you don't even stay in touch with them anymore things fade and things change and the reality is the same for my life. And your life James says they paid for what happens to a lot of us as we lose perspective we get so fixed on what we're going to do. I'm going to go into the City and trade and make money James says we get so locked into that that we forget our transient nature. We are here for a temporary time. I think about the patterns you go to college so you can pick a major so you can get a job so you can make money and get married and have kids So you kids can go to college and pick a major and get a job and make money and get married and have kids. Who can get a good education so they can get jobs and houses and families and kids were on this trail that we think is awesome. But we need to step back and say wait a minute change of saying hold on all of you were going to die. And you need to ask the question. What was the point of all of that? Some of us are so locked into our narrow little world's that we miss out on what the big story is about James says don't do that. Don't start making your plans without stopping and realizing that you weren't going to be here long because if you do there's a good chance you're going to miss out on what life is really about Jonathan Edwards the great Puritan preacher wrote this resolution while he was in his twenties. He said I resolved to think often of my death and the common circumstances that attend death very morbid, but it's not a bad thing to think about the end of your life right to consider it the Puritans did this with their cemeteries. They always put them in the center of town so that whenever you walk through town, you would see the headstones of your friends and your family and you realize life is not forever life. This life is temporary is not going to last long nowadays where the cemetery is, you don't even know half the time right? We hide them we hide them from ourselves. We know where all the malls are, right so we spend and we buy stuff cuz we're living in the right now, but we forget about the later when we won't be here. The death rate has not changed still one per person. We're all leaving and we need to think what can be said about my life not obsess about it, but consider the fact that you will die so that it affects the way that you live. James is getting all this from his brother by the way and Luke chapter 12. Jesus tells the story of a guy who spent all his time building up his money and buying is Barnes and he said listen I'm going to be comfortable for years to come. Jesus said you. Your life will be required of you and some of your chasing something that if you died tonight, you'd be a fool cuz you miss so much of what life is about James says don't do that. Don't start making plans without keeping in mind that you won't be here. He says let that reality inform what you prioritize.

So here's the truth if we just stop here, like if it's the end of the talk, this isn't really a distinctively Christian message, right? Anybody could say this like I could have just played the movie The Bucket List for you or play the song. I Hope You Dance and you could have been like We would have all gotten the point, right so it's not distinctively Christian just yet. But James isn't done. So he goes on in verse 15 and it's to those of you who are focused on planning your lives out and saying what you're going to do. He says instead you ought to say if the Lord Wills we will live and do this or that She says number one. You have to see yourself rightly that you don't last long. And now number 2. He says you have to see God rightly. You need to look at the Lord and you need to know two things about a number one. It's the Lord who wills and it's his will that determines whether or not we lived you see that the Lord determines if I live it's his determination if I continue to exist, that's God's Duty. That's God's perogative. You have no control over when you will live or when you will die, you know, but the Lord does and it's his decision as to when he's ready to stop letting your molecules go here to each other if he wants you to keep living He will allow that but that's completely his call. So it's important to remember as you walk through life. It's the Lord's will that determines whether you live or die and not just whether or not I live James also says if the Lord Wills I will do this or that the Lord not only determines whether or not you continue to exist but the Lord determines what you do while you exist if you have plans of something you want to accomplish, you will accomplish that only because God allows and he chooses to let you do that so we don't have enough control to determine. You know what I'm going to get this job and I'm going to build this company maybe if God allows but not on your own it's his prerogative the Lord Wills if you continue to live or do this or that I remember most of you know that I was up at Pastor in Connecticut for 9 years. And I moved back to New Hampshire and I took a part-time worship Pastor job with a church in New Hampshire and at the same time to kind of Bounce things off. I started working for United Healthcare and I had a really solid 3-year plan of when I would be working full-time for that church. That was 9 years ago. I've kind of navigated through some changes and some different positions and opportunities and even coming to Brookridge. There was the opportunity to come and coming in as a new pastor. I don't know if you know this but it's not always easy to come into a church, especially where a pastor hasn't been there for a couple years and you're coming in and you're like all man. I have all these great ideas and everybody's like, who are you? How about you just settle down a little bit and get to know some of us first and then look start having these conversations. Taking some time to navigate through these things. Like I had a very solid idea and picture of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to accomplish and I and I look back now and I'm like, you know, what got a different plans. So if the idea is we follow him we have our plans. We think I'm going to do this like, I'm smart enough. I had the skills to build this job with this company. Will you know what? God gave me the ability as you have to read and think and walk and talk and he causes your body to continue functioning you're alive cuz he wants you to be and you'll do whatever he allows you to do. It's good for us to remember that it's good to think like that. It's his will if we live or do this or that but James doesn't burst 16th. If you're not putting God into the equation. He says you boast in your arrogance and all such boasting is evil. He said if you're not thinking about me as you make your plans, that's evil. So it's good for us to think about this reality that life is just a vapor to contemplate. What's on the other side. It's good to think that question if my life is going to end. What is my life about is there a bigger meaning to all of this? And James has given us an answer. He says if the Lord Wills we will live and do this or that for many of us that could sound terrible, right? It sounds oppressive a little bit. But the truth is it's beautiful because James doesn't just say well there's this God out there who will deter me doesn't use a generic term. He says the Lord determines the Lord. Will City points to a name that he had pointed out very early in his book The Lord is the person Jesus Christ and I hope you don't miss that because there is a lord who causes your molecules to cohere who runs the whole universe by the word of his power. He's the Lord Jesus Christ and he will determine what you do and He will determine when you cease to do anything at all and that could sound like really bad now. Until you understand that the Lord is a great leader. See, it sounds oppressive to go if somebody else is going to control my life and I don't have any say as to where it's going to go. It sounds awful. Right? I mean, it does sound awful unless you absolutely trust that leader. There was a part in the miniseries Band of Brothers were at the end of the battle of bastogne. The 101st is camped outside for 3 or 4. Yr. And they were called in to take the city. The problem was they had a lieutenant guiding them who was incompetent and didn't care about them. So it's really scary to see somebody who didn't care about the mission. They were on and didn't care about them as people leave them into battle and he made decisions that were causing them to die needlessly and it was bad. But then the commanding officer did something really brilliant. He replaced that incompetent and uncaring Lieutenant with a different one Lieutenant Spears and Spears when charging into the battle alone across an open field and he later recalled that not only were the Germans firing machine guns Adam, but they also shot at him with an 88 which is a huge gun. And he said I was impressed that they would fire such a large weapon it just one single man. Just the fact that he would pause to think about it such a large weapon and as he was running across an open field towards gunfire, it tells you what an odd man that he was but he took over and he starts barking orders about what they were going to do how they work. Accomplish their mission and then he put them in a place where they could succeed and as his men describe the scene. They said the most interesting thing about this moment was that he gave them the plan said everybody follow me and then he charged towards the Germans never looking behind his shoulder to see if anybody was following. They said he just ran out there willing to take the hit for us. And all of them when they saw that he was willing to sacrifice himself for them. They gladly followed him. And the truth is James will say the guy who's determining whether or not you live or what you do is the guy that stood up in front of you. He charged into the bullets for you. He didn't just risked his life. He gave his life and that's the guy you follow see the Lord is the person Jesus Christ. You didn't just ran up in heaven as we dealt with our Brokenness here on Earth. He stepped into our problems. He took on the very form of a man. And then he said there is a mission on this planet bigger than anything else bigger than making money or raising a family said the mission is to see all this sin all this Darkness that's corrupting you and destroying your life. There's a mission to see this beat back and the kingdom of God return and you can just say her at you guys you go do it be good people and try to make the world peaceful. He said no follow me and that he stepped out toward the enemy he stepped out toward the sin and he took on all the penalty of our sin and our sickness unto him. So he took the hit for us and he died for it and then he rose from the dead and he said I have beat Death and now I'm calling others to join me to forsake sin. Had to come in the right relationship with God through me. And then he looks at his children. Christ's followers. He says You Follow Me you run in the path I have for you. Will there be pain in it? Sure. But I know and you can know that it will be no more pain than he endured when he was on this Earth. It will be a path that has our best interest in mind because he cares for us and I know that he has the great mission in my bigger than just living and making money and collecting stop. It's the mission of seeing human beings come to know God. That's what I want to do. And I want to follow the lord who will not some random DD that doesn't care. It's the Lord who came and lived and died for our rescue will bring us with him to glory in eternity. So if you don't know him the reason that you exist as you were made by him and for him, and I pray that even today you would cry out to the Lord Jesus Christ that you would enter into a relationship with them and then walk with him for a lifetime. And then for the rest of us make your plans get a job buy a house build your family's but do it saying if the Lord Wills I will do this or that and I will live let spray.

That in the Lord's Prayer you asked us to pray your will be done. So we do that today, not our well that will be think is going to happen. Not what we comprehend. That this life is going to be about let us follow you.

You go before us you go with us.

Maker Labs about something bigger than ourselves that bigger story. So that we still make plans. We still enjoy our families we still work hard. But at the end of the day, let us always remember that life is short and that there is a God who has a big plan for us and it seemed people come to know him must be a part of that every day with everything that we do you mean

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