8 RULES FOR A SUCCESSFUL CHRISTIAN LIFE:
ONE LIFE TO LIVE
JAMES 4:13-17
INTRODUCTION… How Long Things Last, Frank Kendig and Richard Hutton, 1979
· Experts estimate that if a normal cassette tape is played about 100 times a year, sound quality will deteriorate somewhat after about 10 years. But the tape itself will play on.
· A lightening bolt lasts 45 to 55 microseconds.
· The average running shoe worn by the average runner on an average surface will last 350 to 500 miles.
· A hard pencil can write up to 30,000 words or draw a line more than 30 miles long. Most ball-point pens will draw a line 4,000 to 7,500 feet long.
· Leather combat boots have a wartime life span of six months, a peacetime life span of eight months.
· The projected life span of a baby born in the U.S. today is about 71 years, nearly double what it was at the end of the 18th century. The longest authenticated life span of a human being is 113 years, 214 days. Studies show married people live longer than those who remain single.
· A group of subatomic particles known as unstable hadrons exists for only one one-hundred-sextillionth of a second (10 to the negative 23 second)—less time than it takes light to travel a single inch.
· A 100-watt incandescent bulb will last about 750 hours; a 25-watt bulb, 2,500 hours. The number of times a light bulb is turned on and off has little to do with its life-span.
· A one-dollar bill lasts approximately 18 months in circulation.
· Practice footballs used by professionals last two to three days—a playing life of perhaps five hours. Home teams are required to provide 24 new balls each game and these last only about six minutes of playing time.
Today we are concluding our eight-week look at a successful Christian life. One of my goals as your pastor is to see you have a thriving authentic faith. I want you to have a deep relationship with Jesus. One of the biggest questions I have about active mature faith is: How do we get there?
We’ve talked about wholehearted devotion and keeping our focus on God.
We’ve talked about studying the Bible and the importance that plays in our walk with Christ.
We’ve talked about prayer and how it needs to become as natural as breathing.
We’ve talked about sharing our faith and seasoning the lives of the people around us with God.
We’ve talked about following God’s plan for giving.
We’ve talked about remembering the benefits we have from God.
We’ve talked about dodging discouragement.
And now this week, we look at our final topic on this one road map to help us in our faith. All of these are of course not the only means to have an active faith, but they will help you get there. Today I would like to talk about our attitude about life.
READ JAMES 4:13-17 = “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.”
James describes for us the kind of attitude that Christians should have about their life. The basis of our attitude, that I believe James describes, is that Christians are people who know that they have one life to live and it counts how you live it. It matters how you live each day because we have a Savior coming back for us. It matters how we live each day because tomorrow is promised to no one.
ILLUSTRATION… http://www.challies.com/archives/000038.html
All over the United States, churches are participating in the 40 Days of Purpose program that is based on Rick Warren’s book, the Purpose Driven Life. I know that several of you have mentioned to me that you have read this book and enjoyed it very much. I want to read to you one person’s reflections upon reading day six of the 40 Days:
Day Six - Life Is A Temporary Assignment
Day six finishes Warren’s thoughts about "how I see my life shapes my life." You will recall he said yesterday that the Bible offers three metaphors for life: life is a test, a trust and a temporary assignment. Today we cover the last of these metaphors.
The Bible is filled with teachings on the brevity of life. To make the most of life I need to realize that compared with eternity, life is fleeting. I also need to realize that earth is a temporary residence and, as we covered on day four, is only a staging area for eternity. It is important that I live with a view of eternity, realizing that I am an ambassador here on earth. I am only a temporary resident and as a Christian my real homeland is heaven. When I have this view I will understand why sometimes God’s promises seem to go unfulfilled and prayers seem to go unanswered. In the light of eternity no promise goes unanswered and no prayer unheard and in the end it will all make sense. Of course this realization should also help me place much higher value on eternal rather than temporal factors. Warren teaches that as a fish will never be at home outside of water, so I will never really feel at home on earth. Because I have eternity in my heart and heaven is my real home, I will always feel some measure of discontent with life on earth.
The highlight of this chapter is the following paragraph: "In God’s eyes, the greatest heroes of faith are not those who achieve prosperity, success, and power in this life, but those who treat this life as a temporary assignment and serve faithfully, expecting their promised reward in eternity."
The Book of James describes for us this attitude of one life to live. It is an attitude of urgency. It is an attitude of getting priorities strait. Let’s look at what James says more closely.
I. LIFE IS BRIEF
The first truth that James brings to our attention is the brevity of life. The weeks fly by and life sometimes just whizzes past. James comments that we make great big plans for our life and yet we really do not know what will even happen tomorrow. Life is totally and unendingly unpredictable. We don’t even know what will happen this afternoon after church! Life is brief and I realize that is an understatement, but it is the point that James makes. Our lives are like a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
We count our lives in years but God tells us in Psalm 90:12 to number our days. The truth of the matter is that everybody in this room is just one heartbeat away from eternity. David comments on this in 1 Samuel 20:3, “3 But David took an oath and said, "Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said to himself, ’Jonathan must not know this or he will be grieved.’ Yet as surely as the LORD lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death."” David was facing an angry king and did not know what would happen from one moment to the next. David had reflected on his situation and knew his next step could be a misstep.
ILLUSTRATION… Governor John Connally Quote
I was reading recently of events that happened back in 1963 when John F Kennedy was tragically gunned down. It was the Texas Governor of the time John Connally who was wounded in the gun attack. He and his wife Nellie were in the motorcade that day. In an interview he said “As far as my wife and I are concerned, this event brought into sharper focus what’s really important in life. We try not to participate in things that are shallow or in the long run meaningless”. I felt this was an interesting statement. In other words, they felt life was too short to be caught up in meaningless things. That’s probably what David had in mind in his Psalm 90:12 “teach us to use wisely all the time we have”.
II. OUR PLANS AND GOD’S PLANS
James also comments on our habit of making plans. Now, he is not of course saying that we cannot make plans. We can plan for the holidays and plan events and plan for get-togethers. We can plan our life out. In fact, it is a wise thing to do. In verse 15, I see James saying that we need to include God in then plans of our life. His opinion counts when it comes to decision making and planning. As Christians, we are people who confessed Jesus as Lord and Christ… which means His will comes before ours, but many times we don’t live like that. We go our own way and expect God to follow.
ILLUSTRATION… http://www.4literature.net/Aristotle/Longevity_and_Shortness_of_Life/
The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrestled with this issue of the brevity of life. He said, “The reasons for some animals being long-lived and others short-lived, and, in a word, causes of the length and brevity of life call for investigation. The necessary beginning to our inquiry is a statement of the difficulties about these points. For it is not clear whether in animals and plants universally it is a single or diverse cause that makes some to be long-lived, others short-lived. Plants too have in some cases a long life, while in others it lasts but for a year…”
III. WOULD A COULD A SHOULD A
James lastly comments on the unfulfilled things that we all know we should do. All of us have things in our mind that we know God wants us to do or know of some good thing we can do for our neighbor. James says that if we know what we should be doing and don’t do it, we sin. What might cause us not to do some thing we know we should:
· Get distracted by our own life problems and issues (Rich Young Ruler, Prodigal Son)
· Get scared to do what God has said (Moses)
· We just don’t want to do what God wants (Jonah)
· We end up choosing to do what we want instead of God (Adam and Eve)
James is encouraging us to find out what we ought to be doing and make every effort to be doing those things while we live on this earth.
ILLUSTRATION… http://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/ycgp/ycgp03.htm
A Taoist philosopher YANG CHU (Taoism, along with Confucianism and Buddhism was one of the principal religions of China) said: "One hundred years is the limit of a long life. Not one in a thousand ever attains to it. Yet if they do, still unconscious infancy and old age take up about half this time. "The time he passes unconsciously while asleep at night, and that which is wasted though awake during the day, also amounts to another half of the rest. Again pain and sickness, sorrow and fear, fill up about a half, so that he really gets only ten years or so for his enjoyment. And even then there is not one hour free from some anxiety. "What then is the object of human life?
APPLICATION
It is a question that philosophers and thinkers have been asking for centuries. What do we do with the brief time we have on this earth? What is the purpose of man’s brief existence? Why are we here? What should be our focus? The Book of James supports the truth that our life is brief and that we have only a limited time to live our life. What does James say should be our attitude?
1) Remember that life is too brief not to have God at the center of it, plan with God in mind.
2) Commit yourself to doing God’s will
3) Actually do the things God wants you to do
CONCLUSION
