Living Humbly

SERMON: 2006-06-02--js0620--living-humbly SOURCE DURATION: 00:39:38.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The entire sequence of candidates is highly lyrical and repetitive (suggesting a hymn or sung benediction), indicating that the main spoken sermon ended prior to candidate 0. Since all provided material constitutes a unified closing devotional element (non-sermon music/hymn), I select the final token as per the instructions for when no clear transition point is found within the candidates. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:35:58.100-00:39:36.520 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- we saw three weeks ago which is the last time I believe that we look together at the book of James that one of the keys to experiencing the presence of God is to come to him in humility verse 10 which really introduces these two paragraphs that we have just read now puts it this way humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up to humble yourself before the Lord is to acknowledge that he's God we're not he has created us our lives are in his hands he has the authority to tell us how to live what to do and when and our obligation is to seek his will submit to it and live for the praise of his glory as we do that he comes into our lives and we discover paradoxically that when we're weak we become strong and when we humble ourselves he is the one who lifts us up that stands in sharp contrast to the world in which you're always trying to prove that you're bigger and better and stronger now having thus introduce the subject of humility and having described what it is James now goes on in the rest of this chapter to give us two practical illustrations of what living humbly in the real world looks like in the time that remains this morning we're going to look at those two themes then and that James continues to develop as this passage goes on so what does living humbly look like well first of all it comes to expression in how we relate to our neighbor for notice again how James puts it he says 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 now if you have a good memory you will recall this is the third time James brings up the subject of slanderous talk the first time was back in chapter 1 verse 26 when he says if anyone considers himself religious and does not keep a tight rein on his tongue he deceives himself and his religion is worthless then in chapter 3 verse 6 the tongue he says is a fire a world of evil among the parts of the body it corrupts the whole person sets the whole course of his life on fire and is itself set on fire by hell the third time then is that verse that we've read in chapter 4 do not slander one another and as if that isn't enough he comes back to it one more time in chapter 5 verse 9 when he says don't grumble against each other brothers or you will be judged the judge is standing at the door clearly how we use our mouths and how we relate to one another in community is a major issue from James's point of view the area of speech is serious business and the reason for that James makes clear is when we live in a fallen world as we do we all have a tendency to build ourselves up at the expense of others you've probably experienced that in your own life times maybe when you were tired or feeling maybe a tad insecure other people seem to be you know driving newer cars and having better jobs and and and and getting the right girl or the right guy and and and and you look at yourself and you say what in the world am I doing and and then somebody begins to gossip about that person and they start pointing out their flaws and their failure and and sort of intuitively you lean into the conversation and you grab hold of those tidbits that that enable you to feel better about yourself at the expense of somebody else they go deep into your heart and they become a way of of hiding your own shame because now you can bounce bounce it off the failures of the other and sometimes perhaps you'll take that information and when opportunity comes up in another conversation you can slide that information and just under the table maybe in a subtle fashion maybe in outward critical gossip and there isn't the one of us here who is immune to that and there isn't the one of us here even as God's people who don't sometimes fall into that scene the sin of slender now remember that the word devil means slenderer so that that very habit of cutting other people down in an attempt at lifting or building ourselves up is demonic in nature and so for the third time in his epistle James comes back to this subject once again and then he goes on in the rest of this passage to give us three reasons slanderous talk about our about other people is such serious business and is so desperately wrong let me quickly try to walk you through each of those arguments follow along in the scriptures and you will see how in fact he develops his argument the first reason slander is wrong is that it hurts our brother or our sister for notice again how James puts it he says brothers do not slander and one another anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it in the original Greek three times in that verse he uses the word brother you say I can only count two well the translator is good kind of tired of throwing in the word brother each time and so they changed one of them to him anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him brother in Greek speaks against the law and judges it why is slander so bad because it hurts our brother or our sister now think this through with me for just a little bit because what is a brother and what is a sister well a brother and a sister is a member of your family it's somebody have a relationship with you look out for each other you help each other you protect each other you may fight like dogs and cats upon occasion but should you come over against a common enemy then blood is thicker than water as they say and you stand up for each other because you belong together now slander is false accusation it's saying something that is not true or that is a man to expose the weakness of the other and put it in a bad light now James's question is why in the world would you want to do that to a brother or a sister your members of the same family if it reflects badly on them it also reflects badly on you and he says God in his word has told us how to handle differences in interpersonal relationships and you don't do that by broadcasting it and spreading around no Jesus in Scripture very clearly says no if your brother offends you go see him you and him alone and if that doesn't work take somebody else with and if that still doesn't work then bring in the church on it and make sure that the church sits in judgment and exercises proper discrimination in this particular situation and so when you fail to abide by the instructions that God has given when you step into it and judge the other person then you are setting yourself up you are ignoring the law and you are demonstrating ignorance and arrogance because you're no longer submitting yourself to God's authority you're taking matters into your own hands and so anytime we willfully ignore what God has said we want to do we're not living humbly we're not walking in humility before God we are setting ourselves up as superior to the law of God I remember reading a story a while back I don't remember all the particulars of it but a church was having major hassles I think the elders in that particular church were trying to work the preacher out because they had differences of opinions as to where the church ought to be going and as often happens in those situations the whole thing had deteriorated into mud slinging and at all sense of fairness and fair fighting had gone out the window and these elders were bound and determined to get rid of the preacher come hell or high water and another preacher came alongside these elders and said to one of them at a given point do you realize that what you're doing is contrary to the way of Jesus and the elder said yes I know but then he said this we're gonna do it anyway now that folks is arrogance and puts you in a place of judgment James ends this passage in verse 17 with these words anyone then who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it sins so why is slander wrong first of all because it hurts your brother or your sister and then secondly because it means we set ourselves up as judges 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 and what James is saying there is this every time you and I not having been called by God into a position of authority judge somebody else or criticize their actions we're setting ourselves up to be their judges now remember the job of a judge is to find out right from wrong the job of a judge is to punish the wrong and to reward the right but when God has not called us into that position and we take those matters into our own hands then there were two immediate problems that surface the first is because I'm not called to it I'm not equipped for it that is to say I won't have the knowledge and the ability to really discern what has really been happening and the chances are therefore that I'm going to jump to the wrong conclusion I love this story of Mildred Mildred was the church gossip the self-appointed arbitrator of the church's morals she kept sticking her nose into other people's business several members of the church were unappreciative about her activities but they feared her enough to maintain their distance and their silence she made a big mistake though when she took on George George was a new member and she accused him of being an alcoholic after she saw his pickup truck parked in front of the town's only bar one afternoon and so she made it her business to point out to George that she was on to him and she told everybody else the George had a drinking problem George however was a man a few words he stared at her for a moment and then he just walked away didn't explain didn't defend didn't deny he said absolutely nothing but George was a wise man later that evening George Urie quietly parked his pickup truck in front of Mildred's house and he left it there all night I bet you that fixed Mildred we don't know all the facts not only but we're also not equipped to handle the sad and woeful tale that comes our way here's something that I've seen happen a lot and I bet you you have too somebody will do something hurtful or something will happen in a relationship and that causes a person to be deeply wounded and grieved what do people do when they're deeply wounded and grieved well most of them find some shoulder to cry on and they come to us or they come to somebody else and they pour out their sad and woeful tale all the injuries that they have received and all the badness which they have experienced and there's a place for that as we'll see in a few moments we all need some shoulder to cry on but see what happens a lot is that the people we pick for the shoulder to cry on our people that are often not mature enough or knowledgeable enough to take it and so we dump all our poison into their soul and now they're stuck with our burden and they're highly indignant and broken and angry because they have heard our side of the story and they are now extremely frustrated and extremely anger angry they tell ten other people and before you know it all of community bogs down in bitterness and in resentment and there is a very important principle that is at stake here when you need to dump on somebody make sure that you pick somebody who is mature enough in the Lord not only to be able to handle all the information that you're giving them and all the emotion that lies behind that information but one who is sensible enough to know that you're speaking through your pain you're speaking one side of the story there's a verse in Proverbs that says a man comes along and states his case and seems to be right until this second person comes along and states his case you've heard me say often when you listen to people's controversies and the challenges in relationship and you hear two different stories you often cannot believe that they refer to the same event and if you're gonna be a sounding board for somebody you need to be mature enough on the one hand to be able to empathize with people's pain and yet you have to be strong enough on the other hand that it doesn't take your own emotional life down the tube so that in fact you can work it out and work it out redemptively whenever we set ourselves up as judges if God has not called us to that position then we're going to have significant problems so it hurts our brothers and sisters slander does we set ourselves up as judges and the third reason slander is wrong says James is that when all has been said and done God alone is the ultimate judge there is only one lawgiver and judge he says in verse 12 the one who was able to save and destroy but you who are you to judge your neighbor only God knows everything only God knows the thought and the intentions of our hearts and unless God has called us and placed us in positions of leadership and authority and I'll talk about that in a few moments it is not our business to do God's business Paul writing to the Corinthians puts it this way he says I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court indeed I do not even judge myself my conscience is clear but that doesn't make me innocent it is the Lord who judges me therefore judge nothing before the appointed time wait till the Lord comes he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts at that time each will receive his praise from God God is the ultimate judge so then what about the question of judging others does this mean we never exercise the judgment or discernment relative to somebody else's words or actions and of course the answer is no that is not true God not only rules the world directly but he also rules the world indirectly and he places people in significant positions of authority he gives children parents he gives us teachers he gives us lawmakers he gives us policemen he gives us judges he gives us other people who are over us in varying spheres of influence all of us to one degree or another will find ourselves in situations where God has entrusted responsibility to us now in those areas of responsibility whether it's a parent with a child a teacher with a child a government with its citizens elders deacons pastors or other church leaders over the community in those areas of responsibility where God has appointed us as judges if you will he will also give us the equipment that we need to do the job that is to say the mechanism to try to discern truth the authority to bless and to punish the authority to exercise God's authority over creation and over our sphere of influence and in those places we must obey him for to not obey him in those areas is the default on our responsibility and that produces chaos in community and chaos in society but the one thing that we need to remember in all of those things is that we are all under the authority of God and we are accountable to God to exercise his rule and reign over the lives of other people and we need to apply the same standard of measurement to others or to ourselves that we are prepared to apply to somebody else so how do we live humbly well we live humbly in our conversations with our neighbors we don't step into places that is not our business we're not busybodies we don't pretend to know more than we know we don't pretend to have more authority than we have we accept the position that God has placed us in and we use that wisely not to tear other people down but to help build them up then says James living humbly also comes to expression in how we live with a false confidence in the world or to put it another way the lack of living humbly will be demonstrated in living life with a false confidence for notice how the passage goes on 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 why you don't even know what will happen tomorrow what is your life you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes instead you want to say if it is the Lord's will we will live and do this or that now sometimes if you look at a future announcement in a church bulletin or sometimes if you get an announcement in the mail about some future event if it comes from certain kinds of Christians you will see that the announcement is followed by the letters DV ever notice that stands for the Latin deo will NT God willing and that comes from this passage if it is the Lord's will we will live and do this or that you don't hear it a lot you don't even hear it a lot among God's people because one of the characteristics of fallen human nature is that we have a certain arrogance about life earlier we called it the pride of life we have a tendency to think that we're going to live forever particularly when we're young and feel strong and have the future before us and one of the ways in which that arrogance surfaces is in the way that we like to plan our lives after high school or after college this is the job or this is the career that I plan to follow now when I reach a certain age you know I want to get married and and have this many children and I want to buy my house then and this is the kind of house that I want to leave the end and then when I get to a certain age you want to retire and after I retire I have all these plans about traveling and and making up for all the years that I had to do hard work and there's nothing wrong with planning the Bible is full of instances where God's people are invited to make plans even God plans but what's wrong about that mindset is the arrogance the pride of life that makes us think that we have the power to make it happen that somehow or another trouble may come to everybody else but it's not gonna come to me and I'm gonna go through life sailing the way that I want because after all I am you know the master of my own soul and the captain of my own destiny that is arrogance humility is understanding that we are but a vapor we are here today and we are gone tomorrow we are a mist driven by the wind we are like the flower of the field we are like the grass we flourish we experience life wonderfully but before you know it somebody pulls the plug and dust we are to dust we will return instead says James you ought to say if it is the Lord's will we will live and do this or that now that doesn't mean we have to be super spiritual and super pious every time we speak and open our mouths but it does mean that deep down in the core of our being we have to have this understanding about the frailty of life and the need for God's affirmation God's blessing and God's approval this happened a number of decades ago now but I read recently the story of a television talk show host who interviewed the then editor of prevention magazine ever hear of prevention magazine it's one of these you know you eat right and you live right and you live forever we get it at my house that's why I know it and this man who was the editor of that magazine was the epitome of physical fitness he didn't look a day past 50 and when he shared with a studio audience that he in fact was 70 years old they gasped in amazement and they plotted enthusiastically interview was ended you know how they always sit on the couch so he shoved over to the other end of the couch new guy came in and as the new guy was being interviewed the audience noted strange happenings with with with this with this man I got to tell you yet that before he sat down he made the bold assertion that he was gonna live till he was 100 very very dangerous because what happened as the other interview was taking place this man keeled over with a massive heart attack and died on the spot and it reminds you does it not of that story in Luke chapter 12 where Jesus tells the parable of the rich fool this was a man who had planted crops and had a particularly good year and he said what am I gonna do well he said I'm gonna tear down my barns and I'll build bigger ones and then I will have room to store all my grain and all my goods and I will say to myself you have plenty of good things laid up for you for many years take life easy eat drink and be merry very dangerous words I think God has a way of taking us up on those challenges because you know how the story ends don't you God said to him you fool why is he a fool because he thinks life consists in the abundance of his possessions this very night your life will be demanded from you then who will get what you have prepared for yourself and then Jesus concludes this story with these words he says this is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich towards God how many times in your own experience haven't you seen something similar to that how many times haven't you seen an older couple looking forward to their retirement looking forward to spending time together maybe they're building or buying a new home and yet before they move into their new home or shortly thereafter one or the other dies and their plans are sent out speeding my brother Gerard went for a regular blood test when the diagnosis came back that he was suffering from a medically incurable form of cancer called multiple myeloma a cancer very rare of the bone marrow Michael had gone to the hospital for his regular CAT scan as a follow-up to his earlier cancer treatment when the doctor called him back in and said listen we've got a problem there are two lymph nodes that are acting up see James says you don't even know what will happen tomorrow what is your life you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes and leaving humbly means that we understand and we recognize the frailty of human life and how much we are at the mercy of God and how quickly God can change our plans man proposes says the proverb but God disposes don't know if you've ever heard the name Jay Adam Jay Adams is a well-known Christian counselor and I just recently read the story where he and his wife used to sit down every three years and write out their plans for the next three years and then three years later they'd open up the envelope and they would compare what had actually happened with the plans they had made and every time what surprises them is that the number of plans that didn't turn out are always much greater than the plans that did we're like the mist we're here today we're gone tomorrow now does that mean we ought to always live in fear does that mean we ought never to plan does that mean we ought to just spiral down into passivity and say what was me because I could step out of the door and die tomorrow well that's not a very healthy way to live really is that nor does it mean that we go through life with long faces saying well you know what's the use because I'm here today and gone tomorrow no what it means is that I am keenly aware of the fact that I live before the face of God and that ultimately my future my hope my life doesn't rest in my talents doesn't rest in my riches doesn't rest in my abilities all of those can go tomorrow but they rest in the hands of a faithful God and you know what the good news is about all of this is that as long as our lives rest in the hands of our faithful God he will either revert all evil or he will turn it to our good and nobody can take from us that which he is entrusting to us until our race is run and therefore Christians don't go around moping they don't go around saying woe is me they live confidently before the face of God because they know that he who is for them is greater than he that is against them and even death itself none of the powers of the universe or anything that can happen past present or future can in the final analysis separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord and that enables God's people to rise above the downward pull of a broken world that is lost in sin and that enables us to remain confident even in the midst of pain and in the midst of [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:35:58.100; remove through 00:39:38.000] suffering God [CUT] is good all the time all the time God is good morning star would choose to light the way for my ever-wandering because of who I am but because of what you've done not because of what because of who you are I am a flower quickly fading is a day and gone tomorrow a wave talks in the ocean a vapor in the wind still you hear me when I'm calling Lord you catch me when I'm falling and you told me who I am Who am I that the eyes that see my sin would look on me with love and watch me rise again Who am I that the voice that comes to see will call out through the rain and calm the storm in me not because of who I am but because of what you've done not because of what I've done but because of who you are I am a flower quickly fading is a day and gone tomorrow a wave talks in the ocean a vapor in the wind still you hear me when I'm calling Lord you catch me when I'm falling and you told me who I am Who am I that the eyes that see my sin would look on me with love and watch me rise again Who am I that the voice that comes to see will call out through the rain and calm the storm in me Who shall I fear? Who shall I fear? Who shall I fear? Who shall I fear? Because I am yours I am yours [CUT] you [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:39:38.000; resume after this marked segment]