James 4:13-5:6 March 9, 2003
Jesus – He’s Not Just for Sundays Anymore!
Glen was telling me a while back about a book he had seen. It was a take off on “women are from Venus, Men are from Mars,” the title was “Men are Waffles, Women are Spaghetti.” The idea is that the way that our minds work is similar to these dishes on the plate – for women, everything is there on the plate and everything is connected. For men, the thought world is a big waffle with all sorts of compartments with everything in its compartment. Some compartments are full of syrup, others have butter and still others are just empty. What women need to understand is that there are times in our life when we have entered an empty compartment – we’re flicking through the channels and nothing is on – on the TV or in our brains, so you walk into the room and say “what are you thinking?” and we have a panic attack, because we aren’t thinking anything, but we do not want to admit to thinking nothing, so we scramble like made to enter a compartment where we are thinking something, and then explain it to you.
The difficulty is that we often apply this way of organizing our thoughts as a way of organizing our lives – we have a faith compartment, a work compartment, a play compartment, a family compartment, and we see very little cross over from one compartment to another. When I was running a church youth group up at Humber Blvd. B.C., I was talking one evening about School and one of the girls asked, quite honestly “What does God have to do with school?” We might ask the question, “What does God have to do with my work or business?” But the reality is God wants us to think of our world like spaghetti, and maybe our faith is the sauce – touching every aspect of our lives.
Jesus puts it this way: "What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough."
(Luke 13:20-21)
When we let the kingdom of God into our lives – it is not just our “spirituality that the kingdom touches and changes, but every sphere of our lives and our existence. Our faith in Jesus, our reliance on him, our obedience to him is to be worked into every area of our life.
James is dealing with letting God into our workplace, our business, our money compartments, our “micro” economy, and how we interact with the “macro” economy.
This is what he says:
13Now 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." 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. 15Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that." 16As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
1Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. 2Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.[1] 6You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.
Inviting God into your work/business 4:13-17
Jesus tells a story that illustrates the problem that James speaks about in the first section.
Rich fool
Luke 12
"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
16And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17He thought to himself, ’What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18"Then he said, ’This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I’ll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." ’
20"But God said to him, ’You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
When we do not connect God with our plans for work, investing, business, there is an arrogance the creeps in. We are the masters of our own destiny, the business decisions that we make will earn us a certain amount of money, which we will spend to make more. We seem to learn so little from our history: that the best-laid plans can go bust.
The west seem to be entering this war with the same arrogance – with projections of what it will take, how many will die, and how soon we will be out of there with all the problems fixed and no new ones started. I realize that George Bush wears his faith on his sleeve, but I have to ask the question, did he ask God about this one?
King David never went into battle without first enquiring of the Lord. As faithful people we should at least do the same in humility before we step into war, and we should do so as individuals before we make plans.
You may have never applied Proverbs 3:5-6 to you work or financial life, but this is what it say if you read on.
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight. [1]
7 Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD and shun evil.
8 This will bring health to your body
and nourishment to your bones.
9 Honor the LORD with your wealth,
with the first fruits of all your crops;
10 then your barns will be filled to overflowing,
and your vats will brim over with new wine.
We are not to be people who make decisions about our life and about other’s lives and then, if we think about it, ask God to bless our decisions with prosperity.
We are to lean on his understanding with humility, acknowledge him in all our ways – in every aspect of our life, and then he will bless us.
God is not concerned about our work only as a source of tithes in the plate, or only as a source of income for ourselves, so we stop nagging him about food – Our work whatever it might be, paid or unpaid, white color, blue collar, pink collar, or no collar, our work is to be a source for glorifying God!
Clossians 3:17 “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Graham Cooke?
The Celtic Way
Lately I’ve been reading about the spirituality of the Celtic Church. I appreciate it because it is a life filled with prayer, but it is also a prayer life that is so connected to the here and now. For the faithful Celt, there wasn’t a distinction between sacred work and secular work – it was all God’s work.
So as the priest might ask God’s blessing on the tools of his trade – the chalice, the plate, the altar etc, so to would the people invite God’s blessing on the tools of their trade. There are ancient prayers that were collected that women would have prayed as they spun and wove fabric asking God to bless every part of the loom by name, asking God to carry a blessing with the cloth for the one for whom it was woven. There is a prayer that farmers would have prayed as they milked their cows – blessing parts of the cow you might never think to mention in prayer! But the cow is the Farmer’s lively hood, and if God was not blessing her, the Farmer and his family would starve.
We have a disconnect with our work as urban people – often there is very little obvious connection with the work that we do and the money we get paid. And we often have a love/hate relationship with the tools of our trade – especially if it is a computer. But if the Celtic woman could bless her loom, and the Celtic man could bless the cow he was milking, why should we not be able to bless the keyboard, the screen, the hardware, the software…
Graham Cooke in his tape on stillness encourages us to write crafted prayers for different areas of our life. To spend time in worship and in quiet listening to God’s desire for that area, and then to write those things down in verse so that you can pray God’s will for that thing or situation, or person over and over again. I would suggest that we should all write crafted prayers for our place of work, asking God’s blessing on all the things that we use to get our jobs done.
If nothing else, these prayers will remind us that God is in the house and we need to recognize him in all we do.
Obeying God with Your Money 5:1-6
God has a plan for your work, your business, your money, and it is not just about how much you put in the plate! It is also about how you got that money in the first place.
WorldCom
In the spring of last year the news broke that WorldCom – the largest telecom company in the world had been cooking its books to make it look that they were earning great profits when they were actually running a lose to the tune of more than 7 billion dollars. Thousands of employees lost their jobs and any hope of receiving a pension. Others lost their life savings as the stock bottomed out.
In the midst of this, the executives at the top were initially untouched and may have even benefited. Since then a number of people have come up against
The shocking thing was that the CEO of WorldCom at the time was a man named Bernie Ebbers, an evangelical Christian, a deacon and an adult Sunday School teacher in his Baptist Church. At the height of the controversy he stood up in his church and said “I just want you to know that you are not going to church with a crook.” It became apparent latter that Ebbers knew everything that was going on in his company as they were lying and stealing money from their workers and shareholders. Ebbers himself was receiving illegal loans from WorldCom to finance other business interests.
Somewhere along the line there was a huge disconnect between Ebbers’ faith and the way he ran his business. While he was CEO he opened every board meeting with prayer right before they made the decisions to defraud hardworking people from their money.
If the company that we are running is corrupt, God could care less if we opened up our meetings with prayer.
God says to the people who pray but didn’t obey in Isaiah 58:
1 "Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the house of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 ’Why have we fasted,’ they say,
’and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
"Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.
4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD ?
6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness [1] will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
God is more concerned that we are obedient to him and his ways than that we perform religious acts like prayer and fasting.
God’s desire for our money is not just about tithing – it is about how we use our money in everyway. Most sermons that you hear about money are about giving and tithing, Jesus speaks about money on many occasions, very few of which are about how much we give to God.
God expects us to glorify him with every area of our life – especially the way we use money. James pulls no punches when he speaks of the rich people who use their power to oppress the poor, or who glorify themselves rather than God with their money. “Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.[1] 6You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.”
The reality is that most of us here will not be the CEO of the “WorldComs” of the world. We might work for them though, and we need to ask “What would God have me do?”
It is far more than just trying to sanctify corrupt ways with meeting beginning with prayer!
It boils down to the motivating factors of our economy. For most corporations, the motivating factor is profit – to make more money for the shareholders. For God, the motivating factor is the coming of his kingdom, his rule on earth, and his glory on earth.
What does that look like in terms of God’s kingdom in the economy?
New Heavens and a New Earth
17 "Behold, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy.
19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
will be heard in it no more. Joy
20 "Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
he who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere youth;
he who fails to reach [1] a hundred
will be considered accursed. Health for old & young
21 They will build houses and dwell in them; Housing
they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 No longer will they build houses and others live in them,
or plant and others eat. Means of production
For as the days of a tree,
so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy
the works of their hands.
23 They will not toil in vain Good Work
or bear children doomed to misfortune; Hope
for they will be a people blessed by the LORD ,
they and their descendants with them.
24 Before they call I will answer; Relationship with God
while they are still speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together, Peace
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
but dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,"
says the LORD .
Integrity in the way that we earn money
Are we earning money in a way that seeks the kingdom – are we able to shape the corporation in such a way that seeks the kingdom?
Integrity in the way that we spend money
Are we buying good that are produced by corporations who don’t pay a living wage? Are we feeding into the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of greed?
Jesus doesn’t fit nicely into our “spirituality” compartment, he keeps spilling out into the economic compartment, and the fun compartment and the relationships compartment…
Jesus doesn’t just want your Sunday mornings, he wants your Monday- Friday morning and afternoons, evenings and nights.
Jesus doesn’t just want your tithe – he wants all your money, so that you use it according to his plan.
We worship the God of all that is – including our Jobs and our money – we need to seek God in the areas and serve him as well.
