Don't Blame God...honor Him Series

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“Don’t Blame God…Honor Him”

“We honor God when we understand our nature and His.”

James 1:12-18

Sunday morning sermon

08.19.07

Intro: (Start with title and text)

We honor God with our actions. We honor God when we show love and demonstrate his love for those around us. We honor God when we teach and preach His desire for salvation. We honor God when we pray with the right heart. We honor God when we seek him with all our heart. We honor God when we speak the truth in love. We honor God when we worship without hesitation. We honor God when take communion after self-examination. We honor God when our giving – our time, our energy and our money actually costs us something. We honor God when we serve those around us, without expecting praise. We honor God when we follow through with what we say we are going to do. When honor God when we honestly offer encouragement to those who give their lives in service to the church, and ministry. We honor God when we take a stand for truth in our society. We honor God when we grow our families in loving homes centered on Jesus. We honor God when we love our spouse. We honor God when we honor our Dad and our Mom – obeying them and following their direction. We honor God when we use the power and authority we have in our jobs and homes in the right way.

A good question this morning is: are we honoring God? When given the chance, when given the opportunity by the lives that we live – do we honor God by doing what is good and right?

Discussion:

Just the opposite of honoring God, is blaming him. One of the commentaries said this: (Advance) “God is never so conspicuously present as when we are looking for a place to lay the blame.” Remember the Garden of Eden – God is walking in the garden, in the cool of the day – Adam and Eve hear him walking and they hid from him. God calls out to them, Adam answers – “God, I wasn’t dressed yet, so I hid from you.” God figures out that they ate from the tree he commanded them not to eat from: Here’s Adam’s response – (Advance)

Genesis 3:12 – The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."

“The woman – it was her fault, she gave me some fruit, and I ate it.” If you want to take it a step further – “YOU put her here – I didn’t ask for her, yeah, I was lonely but look what you did!”

We aren’t much different. Like the preacher who made a new year’s resolution to stop eating donuts. He had to drive past the donut shop on the way to the church office. As he got closer and closer the stronger the temptation became to stop for fresh donuts. He started to pray. The church secretary was surprised when he walked in with donuts. She asked him about his resolution. “It’s God’s will – I prayed, ‘Lord, if you want me to have donuts make a parking space available right in front of the shot.’ Sure enough on the ninth time around the block, there was the parking space.”

This morning – I want us to not blame God for the problems and situations in our lives but honor him through those situations.

Turn with me to James 1:12-18 (Advance) (Read)

James gives us three ways to honor God.

(Advance)

I. Stand the Test (12)

I hate tests! I get nervous, I sweat, and my mind turns to mush. I’m taking a class at Mid-South and we have two tests this semester. The teacher told us that the final exam is just over the last part of the semester – I’m already working through the last part of the semester, trying to ease the pain of taking that test. I remember my driving test – the test giver takes me to a hill and tells me to park. I got next to the curb, set the wheels correctly, I even set the emergency brake but didn’t put it in park, he even asked me if I was finished, which should have been a perfect clue – How do you do all the right stuff and forget one of the most important things? I hate taking tests! I sat in the car waiting for him to grade it knowing that I failed. I passed it, I don’t know how, but I did.

a. God does not want you to fail