Sermon Cloud

The Kind of Arrogance that Ruins Community (James 4:11-17)

 

Introduction:  Donald Trump Video

 

James 4:11-12

In the passage Bob talked about last week James wrote that arrogance, pride was causing all kinds of problems and fights amongst the community of God.  James pleaded with those in the community to humble themselves before God.  We defined humility as an accurate assessment of who we are, that we understand who we are in relation to God and others and don’t think too highly of ourselves or too lowly of ourselves because both are forms of pride.    

 

And in the passage we have today James illustrates by giving two warnings of pride in the life of the community. 

 

The first form of pride that destroys community is slandering other believers. 

 

Do not speak evil against other believers.  It literally says do not slander or judge. 

 

But this is where things get a little tricky.  You’ve got James saying, brothers and sisters (clearly referring to those in the church) don’t judge each other, who are you to judge?  In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians Paul lists off in Chapter 5 a list of some of the sins the Corinthians were involved in.  And says, “12What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?”

 

But wait a minute, James just told us not to judge our brothers and sisters.  But Paul says that it IS our job to judge those inside the church.  So which is it? 

 

Many people take Scriptures like this one in James and think it means that I can do whatever I want and its nobodies business, not even my church community that I’m a part of. No one has the right to question my decisions or behavior.  But that is far from what James has in mind.

 

I think there is a clear distinction in Scripture between judging and being judgmental. 

Isn’t it good and right for you and I to distinguish between good and evil even in other people’s lives?  I want you to be able to correct me if I do something that embarrasses the name of Christ or disgraces the reputation of the church. 

 

What Paul is talking about is discerning judgment and church discipline, James is talking about slander and judgmentalism.  There is a huge difference.  One is done out of love, the other out of jealousy and arrogance, one seeks to be restorative, the other is vindictive, one seeks to build up the body, the other seeks to destroy someone in the body.  Do you see the difference here? 

 

James is talking about judgementalism and slandering others, not disciplining. 

 

We judge others wrongly when we put people down behind their backs, when we criticize motives behind someone’s speech or actions without talking with them about it.  I think a kind of judgment that we’re more prone to at Evergreen, because many of us here make an effort to live simply, when we see others who are not living as simply as we are, or driving a car that is as beat up as ours, or living in an apartment as small as ours, we judge people by thinking we are more spiritual than they are.  “They could have spent their money better.  Did you see their house?”  “Did you see how nice their car is?”  That money could have fed thousands.  The problem is, we judge others for living more extravagantly but even though we live simply we still give no money to feed people.  So who’s better, the person that lives simply and gives no money away or the person who is rich that gives no money away?  Neither!  They’re both not doing anyone any good. 

           

What are other ways you think we could fall into a trap of being judgemental? 

-talking about someone behind their back in the guise of Christian love?

-I think we’re being judgmental when we are quick to label someone.  We hear someone say something or read someone online and we are quick to label.    

 

This takes all sorts of shapes and sizes doesn’t it?  It can be infectious in the church. 

 

I think the difference in wrongful judging and loving correction is about a right spirit and motive and it is about right relationship. 

 

That is why it is so important, to listen to the words of Jesus so carefully. 

Matthew 7:1-6

“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. 2 For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.  3 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? 4 How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”

 

Notice what Jesus doesn’t say.  He doesn’t say, don’t deal with the speck in your friends eye.  He says, make sure you’ve dealt with your own first.  Make sure you closely examine yourself and your motives before you say to someone, “I’ve noticed what you’ve been doing and I’m concerned.” 

 

Judging God’s law:

James goes on to say, “If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?”

 

James alludes to the law in Lev. 19:16 when it says, “Do not spread slanderous gossip among your people.”  And then in verse Lev. 19:18 God says, “love your neighbor as yourself”.  James’ use of the word neighbor here isn’t incidental.  

 

But James isn’t just pointing to the Old Testament law, he is pointing to the new law of the Kingdom that Christ has begun.  Do you remember how Jesus responded when he was asked what the greatest commandment was? 

 

“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Mt. 22:39

 

Paul said in Galatians 5:14 that “The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

 

So if the law is summed up in “love your neighbor as yourself”.  If that is the essence of the law how is slandering or judging your neighbor judging the law? 

 

This goes back to pride again.  When we know what God’s Word says, and we don’t do it we place ourselves above God.  We say to God, “I know what you said, but I think I have a better idea.”  In that way we are making a statement to the world that we don’t put much stock in what God says. 

 

And then in case we forgot James reminds us who God is. God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy.

 

James says that ultimately, in respect to who God is, by the fact that God alone knows our hearts, our minds, our motives, everything about us, it’s just foolish to talk bad about someone.  We don’t know.  How can we be arrogant enough to judge someone and pretend that we know more than God does?  It would be silly!  We have no authority to talk bad about anyone else behind their back or to make judgement calls on their motives. 

 

How do you speak of other Evergreeners behind their backs?   Do we talk about how someone could have better spent their money for the kingdom thinking that we are better than they are?

 

How do we talk about other communities of faith?  Do we constantly criticize them?  Do we talk bad about them behind their backs?  Inside do we believe we are better than all of the other churches in Portland? 

 

The only way that we are going to avoid this trap of slandering and being judgmental about others lives is to do what James tells us to do just above, Submit yourself to God in humility.  When we keep a view of who God is and who we are in comparison (what we defined as humility) we can avoid this community destroying pride. 

 

One of the ways we submit ourselves to God as a community is to come together and sing songs of worship to God.  It is a time to sing to God and affirm our unity. 

 

 

Part Two: James 4:13-17

 

Think to yourself for a minute of what some of your dreams and ambitions are for your life.  You’ve probably gotten this question during some job interview at least once in your life: “Where do you see yourself in five years?”  Have you ever been asked that?  What do you say? 

 

I will tell you mine.  I would like to be pastoring a church in five years.  I’ve got it planned out that I will be done with Seminary in two more years, I will have planted a church and be pastoring a community and maybe even have a child by then.  Where do you see yourself in five years?  While we are thinking of plans and strategies to get there I think it’s the perfect time to read the second part of James. 

 

James 4:13-17

 

Some people read this and interpret it to mean that any kind of planning is wrong in the lives of believers.  What do you think?  Is James saying planning is wrong? 

 

James is using an example from what he probably commonly heard from merchants, these sea and caravan traders who were already probably very wealthy if they were making plans to travel because traveling back in the first and second century wasn’t cheap!  To travel was a sign of wealth.  These merchants were making these extravagant plans and talking about what they were going to do and how they were going to make more money. 

 

But it doesn’t appear that James is condemning planning here.  He is condemning the arrogance with which they are planning.  

 

What James is condemning is planning that does not take into account the fact that God is in control, not us. 

 

This is a second warning James gives us is…the pride from. 

 

2.  The illusion that we are in control.  

 

James goes underneath to the attitude behind their plans.  In fact, James is not talking about planning at all here, he is talking about is this idea: self-sufficiency. 

 

How would you define self-sufficiency? 

The dictionary defines it this way, “able to maintain oneself or itself without outside aid : capable of providing for one's own needs.  Having an extreme confidence in one's own ability or worth. 

 

Do you see anything wrong with this?  Can a follower of Christ be self-sufficient?  Why? 

 

Having an extreme confidence in one’s own ability or worth!  It is clear that the merchants James was using as an example were absolutely dependant upon their resources and abilities.  They lived under the illusion that they were self-sufficient.  But pretending we are self-sufficient is antithetical to the gospel!  Of course we can’t be self-sufficient! 

 

It’s what the entire Bible points to: Our absolute NEED for God. 

 

We need God’s grace, we need God’s forgiveness, we need God’s redemption, we need God’s community.  We are a people in need and the only reason that we can connect with God at all is because God acted. 

 

Tom Cruise said this “People can create their own lives…I decided that I’m going to create, for myself, who I am, not what other people say I should be.  I’m entitled to that.” 

 

Like Tom, we fall into the trap of thinking that we are in control.  We can create our own lives.  We control our destinies. 

 

We make plans to retire, we make plans to have children, we make plans to marry, we make plans to make money.  And the question is this: do we trust in our plans more than we trust in God?  Have we even considered God when making our plans? 

 

Chances are, something in your life in the last five years didn’t go as you had planned it.  Is that true?  You might be in that situation right now.  How did you respond?  Were you disappointed?  Were you angry?  Did you blame God for not submitting to the plans that you had made that made SO much sense? 

 

You can tell a lot about a person when they face adversity, when they face something they hadn’t planned on, when they are surprised by a twist that life takes.  You can learn a whole lot about where a person places their trust.  In themselves and their own resources or in God? 

 

What about Evergreen?  Are there areas where we have become self-sufficient?  Where we have stopped depending on God but are depending on our own abilities and resources?  Are we arrogant enough to think that we have what it takes to change Portland, to serve the poor, to grow a church?  Or do we cry out for God’s help, for God’s direction, for God’s power?  I pray that we will never fall under the illusion that by our own strength or through our own planning we can do anything! 

 

And listen to what James says next. 

14 How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.

 

James says, do you know why it’s so foolish to believe that you are in control, that you can trust in your plans? 

 

Because you have no idea what is going to happen.  You can have a five-year plan, we can put strategies into place to accomplish them, we can do everything we can to make sure life is how we want it, but in reality, you have NO idea what will happen tomorrow, you have no control over the future. 

 

You are a morning fog that appears for a little while.  It says in other translations, your life is like a vapor, like smoke or steam.  The word used is a picture of steam from a kettle or smoke being carried away by the wind. 

Living under the illusion that you are in control is foolish because life is transient and things change in a heartbeat!  How can you possibly trust in your plans and your resources when those things can be gone in a second?   

 

Jesus told a pretty shocking story: 

 

Luke 12:16-21 “A rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. He said to himself, ‘What should I do? I don’t have room for all my crops.’ Then he said, ‘I know! I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll have room enough to store all my wheat and other goods. And I’ll sit back and say to myself, “My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!”

 

That sounds like the American Dream doesn’t it?  We’ve worked our entire lives, we’ve built up all this wealth, we even need more places to store our wealth.  We’ll save it up, get a nice retirement fund and then play golf the rest of our lives, right? 

 

Now listen to how God responds to this man,

 

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’ “Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.”

 

Why was God so harsh with him?  Didn’t he deserve to sit back and enjoy life?  He’s worked all his life.  What is God so angry at? 

God was angry at a few things, he put his trust and his hope in what wouldn’t last.  He put his hope in his own resources and plans.  And God is saying, what good will those do you, you’re going to die tomorrow and then we’ll see what was worth putting your hope in.   To live as if you’re in control, that we’re self-sufficient, to trust in our resources and plans is just foolish. 

So what do we do?  James tells us in vs. 15.  He says, “What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.  Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans and all such boasting is evil.”

Why is James encouraging us to use this qualifier? 

What James encourages is not the constant verbalization of the formula “if the Lord wills, I will have lunch here after the gathering today”, which can easily become a meaningless recitation.”  James is saying, Don’t leave God out of your planning!  It means than when we face a decision, big or small we pray and ask God for His wisdom, it means we are seeking God’s wisdom for our lives in Scripture to make sure that it matches up.  It means we give up the illusion that we are in control, that we are the gods of our own lives. 

 

Closing story: 

I went caving once in North Carolina.  We walked for about 2 hours through almost complete darkness with nothing but a helmet light to show us our way.  We trudged through water up to our necks, and came out with bruises on our legs from all the times we hit our legs on rocks.  When we first got down there, we received the most important advice we could ever get.  Stay close to your guide. 

 

As I thought this week about the unpredictable nature of life, I thought, life isn’t so much unlike the caving experience.  We do not know the future.  In reality, the future is almost complete darkness to us.  I can guess that there is going to be a rock ahead, but we don’t know.  Only the guide does and it is up to us to follow him.

 

I never want to live a life that falls for the illusion that we don’t need a guide.  I never want to be a church community that relies on our own strength, on our own strategic planning, our own brilliant ideas.  I want to live in reality.  And that means that we submit ourselves to God in humility.  That means we stop pretending we are God by judging other people and making plans as if we were in control of our future.  That means we start living as if we really trust God with our lives.    

 

I want to respond to God by reading this part of Psalm 39 together:

 4 “Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
      Remind me that my days are numbered—
      how fleeting my life is.
 5 You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
      My entire lifetime is just a moment to you;
      at best, each of us is but a breath.”

 6 We are merely moving shadows,
      and all our busy rushing ends in nothing.
   We heap up wealth,
      not knowing who will spend it.
 7 And so, Lord, where do I put my hope?
      My only hope is in you.