LET’S PLAY BALL
James 4:11-17
Those of you who have been around for my Tuesday night class know of a little game we like to play. I have this ball, and I’ll think of a topic. For example I’ll say, “Tell me something you do every day.” And I’ll start by saying, “I drink a Dr Pepper.” Then I’ll throw the ball to someone else and they have to tell me something they do every day. And then they throw it to someone else. We have another variation of it in my country, Hot Potato. You pretend this ball is a hot potato which means you don’t want to hold it for a long time because you will burn your hands. Hot Potato is very fast moving. I haven’t pushed it like that in my Tuesday night class; I just say “Let’s play ball.” And we have fun doing it. Except after I came back from my Christmas vacation, the ball was gone. I hope Noboru didn’t take it.
Instead of saying “Let’s play ball,” what if I say, “Let’s play God?” What would you think of me if I said that? You’ll probably send me out of here before March. Why? Because I’m not God. It is very arrogant for me to do that. But you want to know something? I do it all the time. I’m very good at telling God how I think He should do things.
But let’s get down to something more practical. We play God when we judge others and ignore His working and sovereignty in our every day lives. Don’t believe me? James is going to give us some examples of that. OK, remember, all along what is this book about? It’s about being mature. That’s what God wants for you. Is it what you want for you? If it is good, we’ll see some more today. It it isn’t, gomennasai, I’m going to preach it anyway. I told you this would be convicting, didn’t I? But remember, if you want to grow in your faith, if you want to be mature, you’re in just the right place. And save a place, because I’m still learning and growing. Or as I told my girlfriend, I’m still a work in progress.
We’re going to look at 2 areas where we play God; in judging and in denying His sovereignty and working in our lives.
Last week we inaugurated a new President. I watched it on the internet as Barack Obama became our 44th President. It was probably the most watched inauguration in history. Over 1 million people were there in Washington DC for the festivities. Millions more were watching on TV. I watched it on the internet and didn’t get to bed until almost 4AM Wednesday. In watching it there was a lot of optimism and hope. I don’t know how good a President Barack Obama will be. But one thing I do know. He is not God, he is the President of the United States. God is God, not President Obama. And so I pray for him. Let me just share a freebie with you that I shared with a couple of my English classes last week to encourage you to pray for your leaders.
1 Timothy 2:1 ¶ I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone--
1 Timothy 2:2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.
1 Timothy 2:3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior,
1 Timothy 2:4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
This is not the time and place for me to tell you what I think of Barack Obama. It is the time and place for me to tell you that I do pray for him. And you should do the same for your leaders.
Since President Obama is in a place of authority and this has to do with the Law it might be good to explain a little about the Law. Sometimes a human example helps. In my country we have 3 branches of government; the Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch and the Judicial Branch. The Legislative Branch which is Congress makes the laws. The Executive Branch which is the President, executes or enforces the laws. The Judicial Branch, which is the Supreme Court interprets the law.
You are going to hear a lot about the Law in the next few verses. It is the Law which is given by God. Remember that.
First, when we speak evil of someone, we are judging the law. We are playing God when we do this because He is the one who made the law. We see that in verse 11.
James 4:11 ¶ Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.
Speaking against someone is speaking against the law, and as a result you are, as James says, sitting in judgment. Why is that? The next verse will tell us.
James 4:12 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?
Because you are not the Lawgiver and Judge; God is. Can you save a person’s soul? Do you have that authority to do so? If you don’t, then you don’t have the authority to judge someone. This is pretty strong, isn’t it? But only the One who gives the Law can judge, condemn and save.
Did any of you see the movie Bruce Almighty? Bruce Nolan, a TV reporter isn’t doing so good. A lot of bad things happen to him. And he complains how God can’t do the job properly. God appears to Bruce and says He will let him be God for a week, to see if he can do a better job. So he becomes God and does several things, all to make things better for himself. But remember, with the title, comes responsibility. Bruce is reminded by God that he is also there to resolve other peoples problems. And that’s where the fun starts. How many times a day do you pray? Do you ever stop and realize that at the same time you are praying there are millions, no better, billions of people who are praying at the same time. I don’t know about you, but if John is asking me to do something, I need to give him my full attention. And if Akiko wants something, I need to take care of John first, then I’ll help her. It’s not like that with God. But do you realize He is personally interested in you? And that’s the neat thing. It doesn’t matter how many people want His attention, you can have it any time, any place. And so can they. When Bruce starts receiving millions of prayer requests, all at once, only then does he reconsider how much work God has to do, and maybe he isn’t the man for the job. I remember what one of my seminary professors said, “God is God and He’s not applying for the job.”
I just want you to realize how nobody can do God’s job. I’ve found out how selfish I really am in my prayers and in my life. It took a trip to Bangkok to realize that.
I listen to my radio station back home on the internet; 94.9 FM KLTY. I always look forward to December when they play Christmas music. One thing they do every year is the KLTY Christmas Wish. If you know someone who really is in need, you can send a letter or email and nominate them for the Christmas Wish. Every day, the station grants 1 Christmas Wish. Just listening to some of them would bring you to tears. Do they have Chick Fil A in Japan? It is a very popular fast food restaurant in the states, that specializes in chicken sandwiches. And they are very good, along with their milk shakes. The founder of Chick Fil A, Truet Cathy is a Christian. Listen to his business philosophy.
"to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A."
As part of their philosophy, all Chick Fil A stores are closed on Sunday. Why? As Cathy puts it,
Our decision to close on Sunday was our way of honoring God and directing our attention to things more important than our business. If it took seven days to make a living with a restaurant, then we needed to be in some other line of work. Through the years, I have never wavered from that position.
Well, each weekday morning in December, up to Christmas, KLTY broadcasts at a Chick Fil A. So I went out to a Chick Fil A where they were broadcasting, and they had books of all the Christmas Wishes they received. There were several thousand of them. And as I read many of them I realized how blessed I really am. I also felt helpless as I saw so many needs out there, but I was reminded God can meet every one of those needs. That’s another reason I’m glad I’m not God; because I don’t have the resources to meet all those needs; He does. Do any of you have needs? Do you tell God about them? Remember, we saw that last week when we learned one of the reasons our prayers don’t get answered is becauses we don’t ask God. I always say, if you want something, ask God for it; and let Him make the decision whether to grant your request or not.
OK, we make ourselves to be God when we judge. We make ourselves to be judges of the Law, and not doers of the Law. This might be a loose translation, but remember in James 1 we saw how we need to be doers of God’s word and not only hearers. With the Law we need to be doers and not makers of the Law. There is only one Maker of the Law and it’s not you.
The second place we play God is when we leave Him out of our plans. Don’t believe me? What are you planning to do tomorrow? Next week? Next month? This year? Have you prayed about it? Have you put it before God and asking Him to show you His will, and if your plans are not His will, say “Thy will be done.” Or have you simply just told Him to put His stamp on them, and carry them out like He isn’t even there? Gomennasai, that’s not the way to do it. We’ll see why we’re not to do it in the next few verses.
James 4:13 ¶ 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."
There were many Jewish merchants or businessmen. They do make very astute businessmen. My father was a businessman and he was very brilliant and very good at what he did. And it is natural to plan like that. Notice what James is referring to in this verse. First, going to a city. Second, spending a year there. And third, doing business and making money. Because that’s what most businessmen are out to do; do business and make a profit. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with any of these things. You know what is wrong? Not consulting God. Because you see God is sovereign; He is the one who is in control of all things; He is the only one who knows the end from the beginning. You are not sovereign and you don’t know the end from the beginning. Don’t believe me? What do you have planned for tomorrow? Can you tell me everything that is going to happen? When you make that call to a loved one, do you know exactly what he or she will say? The obvious answer to all of these is no. And you see when you leave God out of the picture, that is very bad. Why do you need to include God in your plans? James answers that in verse 14.
James 4:14 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.
It’s because you don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Don’t believe me? When I was 15 years old, I got in an argument with my mother one morning, and I said some things that were not very nice. I went to school and I was also manager of the football team. We had practice after school. If I needed a ride I would call home and one of my parents would come and get me. That afternoon I got a note from the office saying my mother would not be able to pick me up and I needed to find another way home. When I got home, my sister said she was dead. I don’t know why she said that; it wasn’t true. What had happened was my mother was in a very serious car accident. She lived, thank God, but that made me remember when I got into an argument to try to patch it up before doing anything else.
I can think of all kinds on other examples in which something unexpected happened. Probably the best one we all remember is 11 September 2001. For most people in my country it was just another day. I don’t think anyone had any idea of what was to come. And I don’t want to give the idea that it’s always unpleasant things. For example it was August 2004. I had paid my credit cards off, and that was a big relief. I had really been interested in serving God in Japan. I think I already told you about the group of Christians I met in the JR Tsudanuma train station who asked me to pray for them, and they prayed for me that I could come to Japan. I was 6 months away from being able to retire from AA, but I needed to have a new place of work and ministry. I found a message on my voicemail a month after that trip to Japan from Yoshi Hanks telling me of the ministry here, and the church needed a missionary, and would I like to come. I think you know the rest of the story. I also remember a conversation with a very special woman at HKG airport in which I didn’t think we were walking down the same paths together. I found out otherwise, and that was a very pleasant surprise.
Friends, we really don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Now we can make plans, and I think we should do so. Don’t believe me? Read Proverbs. We need to see our lives as God sees them, and as how James describes it. Remember, I already told you he is very good at using illustrations from nature to prove his points. It’s like mist, or smoke; it appears for a time and then it is gone. It’s only here for a time; it’s not here forever. In my country, when you die, your friends and family will have a funeral for you. They’ll have a service at the church, talk about how good you were, and hopefully the pastor will give a message and present the gospel. Then they’ll take you to the cemetary, lay you in the ground and cry over you. Then they’ll go to a restaurant and stuff their faces with fried chicken and the like. 100 years later most people won’t even remember you. For example this church was started by missionaries. I couldn’t even tell you their names because I don’t know who they are. I’m not even sure if I can tell you who the President of the United States was 100 years ago; I think it was William Howard Taft, but don’t quote me on that. 100 years from now, if we’re still around, most people won’t remember Barack Obama. Or maybe they will if he turns out to be a great President. It’s just the shortness of our lives, or the brevity as we like to say. I heard a message on this passage the other night from Charles Swindoll, a pastor and Chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary. Most of us usually live to be 70 or 80 if we’re lucky. I know that in Japan people live even longer. My next door neighbor Mrs Takagi turns 91 on 1 February. Her cat still hates me.
Swindoll said that as a pastor, it is amazing how many funerals he has had to do for people in their 40’s and 50’s. I turn 59 1 March. There’s no guarantee I’ll be around for my 60th birthday. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. And we are reminded how brief our lives really are. I remember when I went to camp when I was 10. There was a girl I liked who was probably 14. I found out 2 years later she was already dead; I don’t remember what she died of.
Can any of you tell me how much longer you have to live? I can’t. You can’t because you’re not God.
OK, we don’t know what will happen tomorrow, and we know our lives here on earth are short. How should we live in view of this? James gives a very simple answer in verse 15; recognize God is sovereign.
James 4:15 Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that."
In other words, it is OK to make plans. But we need to submit our plans, not to our will but to God’s will, and recognize that if they are His will they will come to pass. The writer of Proverbs tells us this.
Proverbs 16:3 Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.
We need to depend on God in order for our plans to succeed. And if they are His will, they will succeed. If they’re not we don’t want them to succeed anyway. I remember when I was a dental student. It was a long lost dream for me to get into dental school. Now before I became a Christian, I had my own plans for my life and to be honest I didn’t care what God thought about it. I came to realize that I needed to submit my plans to His plans and allow Him to bring them to pass. And that was OK. Well I had finally made it into dental school, and the future looked very bright for me, except I failed a lab course. No problem, they said, they gave me a chance to retake it in the summer. It looked for sure I would do much better; probably make an A or a B but I didn’t. I failed it a 2nd time. My plans didn’t succeed. And it was hard to submit them to God because of the uncertainty and the question of if He had a better plan for me. He did. A year after I quit dental school, I enrolled at Dallas Theological Seminary and I liked that much better anyway.
Friends, if the Lord wills, you will do this or that. And if He doesn’t will, then you don’t want it anyway. Like I heard Charles Swindoll said, the only will we need to be concerned about is God’s will.
See, when you boast and brag, it is arrogance. Or like this translation says, evil.
James 4:16 As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.
I won’t go into a discourse on pride, because I think we saw last time what God thinks about it. It is evil. Can any of you tell me where you can find the verse in the Bible, “God helps those who helps themselves?” Can’t find it? I’ll give you a little hint; Hezekiah 3:13. Don’t look any further, there is no book of Hezekiah in the Bible. Probably a better translation is “God helps those who admit they are helpless, and are dependant on Him.”
James closes this passage on a serious note. We need to be careful we are doing the right thing. Because if we’re not we are sinning. Look at verse 17.
James 4:17 Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
Now you might tell me, you don’t know the good you should do, or you don’t know the right thing to do. Gomennasai, if you have been following with me in this book you do. As a pastor, when a young person comes to see me you know what they want to see me about? They want to know God’s will for their life. I know I often went to my pastor when I was a young Christian; because I knew my pastor would know God’s will for me and he could tell me. Gomennasai, it doesn’t work that way. But you know what? I do know what God’s will is for you. It is first that you be born again and have eternal life through Christ Jesus. Second it is for you to present yourselves to God, available for His service. And third it is to do the things you know you should do, like what you’re seeing here. A dentist told me that 95% of God’s will is already revealed in the Bible. Someone once said that a good place to start is read the book of James because of all the things it tells you you should do. And you know what? All along in this book we have been studying the right thing to do. I’m going to quote from the Bible Knowledge Commentary which was written by Dallas Seminary graduates. Ron Blue who was a professor in World Missions wrote this one and I like the way he put it.
“To attain spiritual maturity a believer must do the good he now knows. He must stand confidently on God’s word even in trials and temptations. He must compassionately serve his brethren without prejudicial favoritism but with practical faith. He must speak carefully with a controlled tongue and wise cultivated thought. He must submit in contrition to His all powerful Father, Lawgiver and Judge with a humble spirit, just action and a trusting heart. He must be what God wants him to be, do what God wants him to do, speak as God wants him to speak, and sense what God wants him to sense.”
I’ll make that a little easier. Do what you now know you should do. Go back and read this book again if you need to be reminded. It is God’s word and you can trust what He says even in trials and tempations. Serve others, but don’t pick favorites. Be careful what you say and be wise in all you think. Trust God and submit to Him as your Father, Lawgive and Judge. Be humble before Him and not proud. Do what He wants you to do, be what He wants you to be, speak as He wants you to speak and sense what He wants you to sense.
Spiritual maturity doesn’t come automatically. There are no easy roads to get there. It comes from doing what you know is right. I think this professor put it very well when he quoted this.
I’m thinking about what I will be doing after I leave here in March. I have some very big decisions to make. And I need God’s wisdom and help to make those decisions so I can do what He wants me to do. It only comes from walking close to Him and doing the things James has written. You know if someone comes to me asking about God’s will, I also ask them questions like, “Are you spending time in God’s word and prayer?” “Do you come to church to meet with His people and hear His word?” “Are you doing the things you know you need to be doing, and not doing the things you know you don’t need to be doing?”
If you’re not doing the things you know are God’s will, why should He show you more? We often listen to a message and do the things we like to hear but don’t do the things we don’t like to hear. Graeme and I talked about that several times when he was here. There are a lot of preachers who tell people what they want to hear. I call them “feel good preachers.” They don’t talk about sin because that might make someone feel bad. They might talk about all the blessings God wants for you, but they don’t talk about personal holiness and discipleship. And you wonder why so many Christians live shallow lives without having a clue what God wants for them. Friends, if you want to be all God wants you to be you can be there is a price to pay. It means you cannot settle for living a mediocre Christian life, it means you need to live your life the way God wants you to live.
Have you ever been around someone and you come away thinking, “He or she has really been in the presence of God.” I am seeking counsel on some decision I need to make, and I assure you, I don’t just ask anybody. No, I ask someone who I know has been walking with God. Because I don’t need the world’s perspective on what I should do, I need God’s perspective.
Any time you think of playing God, and thinking you can do the job better than He can, watch Bruce Almighty. Then let God be God and allow Him to work out His purpose in your life. Let’s pray.
