“Faith works when our faith sets our priorities.”
RUMC August 26, 2017
How many of you have ever played Monopoly?
<<<>>>
Me too. There are three problems with monopoly. It
takes forever just to set it up. It takes forever to play and besides that… I
never win.
However, Monopoly is one of THE most popular games
in the world.
Did you know
there are at least 900 different game variations centered around things like:
• TV shows (I Love Lucy)
• Movies (007/ Pirates of the Caribbean)
• Sports teams … and more
More than 275 million monopoly games have been sold
in 111 countries, and 43 languages.
The longest MONOPOLY game in history lasted for 70
straight days.
And if you would like the version that features a
23-carat gold board and diamond-studded dice, it is a bargain at $2 million.
You know how monopoly works. We race around the
board trying to get to “GO” to collect our $200, only to discover that we have
to do it all over again to get another $200. The lucky ones land on the
railroads and park place, everyone else knows where the power is. The winner is
declared depending on who has the most stuff, and who can be the first to drive
their neighbor to bankruptcy. It’s all about me: my property, my rent, my
money, my victory. Me, me, me.
Unfortunately, that sounds kind of familiar doesn’t
it? Actually, it sounds like the real world, in which we live. We see it in the
relationships between nations, politicians, neighbors, and even (if we are
honest) in ourselves.
• Is
my paycheck bigger than yours?
• I
deserve more than him because I work harder, longer, etc.
• Is
my job more important? He gets paid more but he couldn't do my job.
• Is
my house bigger and grander than my neighbors?
• Is
my car/my boat/my motorcycle – more powerful/more classy/more expensive?
• Are
my kids better looking, better athletes, better students than yours?...And on
and on and on
Why do folks
do that? Because in the culture’s game of “lifeopoly” winning is measured by
having the most stuff, the most power, the most fun, the most fame, and the
most fortune. That is how we know we are winning. That is how we know whether
or not our lives have had meaning. That is how we measure whether we've done
anything worthwhile or if we have wasted our lives.
Unfortunately, the church is part of the world and
it has been influenced by the monopoly mentality. That is exactly the picture
that James paints in the first part of our reading.
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t
they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have,
so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and
fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not
receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on
your pleasures.
You adulterous people, don’t you know that
friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who
chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of Go.”
Is that the way life is supposed to be? NO. Is that
the way the church is supposed to be? ABSOLUTELY NOT. That is not the life God
envisioned for his people. God created life not to be measured by property,
money, power, prestige, or influence.
"Faithopoly" has a whole different
way of winning. Wealth is measured by love and faithfulness. One wins
• Not
by having power we have, but by living faithfully.
• Not
by having influence we have, but by loving extravagantly.
• Not
by having stuff we have, but by having a heart overflowing with generosity.
• Not
how near our opponents are to bankruptcy, but nearly our lives look like Jesus
life.
God
envisioned a world where faith works when faith sets our life priorities.
Our priorities should not be set by money, or power,
or fame, or friends, or stuff.
Our life’s priorities should be measured by how faithful
we are to God, how intimate our prayers are, how honest we can be with God, how
trusting we are for God’s future. That is how we know whether we are a success,
or whether we have done anything worthwhile. Faith only works when faith sets
our life priorities.
Then James
goes on to tell us how to let faith set our priorities: Submit yourselves,
then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and
he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts,
you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and
your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
So Monopoly
has chance cards, RIGHT? I thought faithopoly should have GRACE CARDS. I thought
I would see what we could learn from the stack of FAITH CARDS in the book of
James. I think he has come pretty concrete ideas for letting our faith set our
life priorities.
SUBMIT
YOURSELVES TO GOD.
We don’t like the word “submit.” It has some
negative connotations. But the Greek word is actually made of two root words.
One means under. The other means arrange.
James is saying arrange your life
under God. Not under the worlds rules, not under you own desires, not under the
expectations of others… but under God. Arrange your life under God.
The truth is, it might surprise you that pastors
struggle with this more than anything else. After all, we are mostly people
pleasers. If the people aren’t happy, being a pastor can be miserable. But
placing our lives under our people is absolutely the wrong place for us to be.
Faith only works when faith sets our life
priorities. Therefore, it is up to each and every one of us, pastors and lay
people, to not place our lives under the pleasing other people, or under our
own desires, which James says is why we have fights and quarrels. We are to
place our lives, not under the pressure of our job, or under the pressures of
our friends, or the pressures of the advertisers, of the pressures of the
culture. It is the job of each and every Christian to make sure that their
life’s priorities are set squarely beneath the throne of the God who created us
loves us, saves, us and desires nothing more than our faithfulness.
There is no easy, one size fits all formula for
submitting our lives to God. It is a life long journey of listening for God’s
voice …and then obeying it. That is pleasing to God, and that’s where we fail
sometimes. We hear what God wants in the Bible, or in prayer, or on Sunday
morning, but we forget to do it. Remember that James says Faith without works
is dead. Faith without listening to and obeying God …is dead. Faith without
living to please God… is a dead faith. Sometimes we all do a better job than
other times, but we have to know that Faith only works when faith sets our life
priority of pleasing God in what we do.
The second
concrete instruction for letting our faith set our life priorities immediately
follows upon the first. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” You can
use whatever language works for you. I prefer following our baptism vows,
to “resist evil.” Actually, we vow, “to
resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever form they present
themselves.
We have all heard, “All that is necessary for the
triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
That is so true in my life. I find if I do nothing to resist evil, or at
most take the path of least resistance, or find the easy way out, evil is quick
to pounce.
There are plenty of temptations in this life. We are
all tempted by one thing or another… actually, if you are like me its more than
one thing... We are all tempted. But temptation is not the problem. Temptation
is not sin. Temptation is just temptation. We don’t have to resist temptation.
We DO have to resist acting on temptation.
Sin is like quick sand. We might just think we’ll
stick our toes in, but pretty soon, we are up to our necks in sin.
Evil is just like lays potato chips, no one can east
just one… so the trick is to not eat the first one.
An alcoholic
left to their own devices will drink.
A gambler left to their own inclinations will gamble
until there is nothing left.
Sin is an addiction just like any other. One day at
a time. Frankly it is more like one hour at a time, or even one minute at a
time. But if faith is going to set our life priorities we have to resist evil.
Faith only works when faith sets our life priority of: resting evil
Finally, in
verse 8 we have the third concrete instruction for letting our faith set our
life priorities “Come near to God, and God will come near to you.” I am not sure
that those of us who have grown up in Christianity understand how amazing that
is. What kind of God do we have who wants to come near to people? What Kind of
God do we have who wants to be in relationship with us creatures? What kind of
God do we have who even when people didn’t come near to him, came near to us in
Jesus Christ… and not only near, but became one of us.
And what kind of God do we have who wants to fill us
with God’s Holy transforming Spirit to help us live faithfully? A WONDERFUL
KIND OF GOD! That’s what kind. We serve a wonderful God.
How do we come near to God? Worship is a good start,
but any of these spiritual practices that I keep harping on will bring you
closer to God. Worship, read the Bible, pray, fast, be in a small group, be in a
class, serve, give, love… you name it there are probably a hundred ways to come
close to God. Chose a couple and do them because Faith only works when faith
sets our life priority of:
growing closer and closer to God.
I set before
you the same question as James sets before us at the very end of the chapter. .
When you plan for tomorrow, James says, “Who gets the final say; you or God?”
When as we live our lives, who gets the last word… you or God. Whoever gets the
last word, has set the priority in your life.
Jesus asked this same question
“Everyone
then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who
built his house on rock. 25 The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew
and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on
rock. And everyone who hears these words
of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house
on sand. 27 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat
against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”
On what is your life built? Stone or sand? Are you
just taking a chance card from the pile… or are you relying on the rock solid
grace cards that Jesus bought at the cross.
Faith only works when faith sets our life
priorities.
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