- Well, good morning. Good morning Rockpoint. It is good to see you here, whether it's the warehouse or warehouse down below, or here in this room, or joining us online either right now live or in the future virtual space. This is kind of fun to even talk about that, but it is good to see you. I'm glad that you're here this morning. And I mean that, I really do. If you're new with us thank you for choosing to come and be here with Rockpoint. I know more than ever this time, it is hard to get to know people. Let me encourage you to stop by the next moves booth out in the gathering area. Or if you are online to join in that chat section, there is somebody there wanting to talk to you, or they'll post that text message again, as Ana just talked about how important it is to stay connected, as we seek to multiply disciples in a healthy church. Well, we'll be in James chapter four, this morning, and you can start turning there in your Bibles, we'll get there in a little bit. But let me make two church family comments, as we start off our time together. One is thanks to 2020, you've realized we don't pass offering plates anymore down the rows as we have to smile through mass to each other, right. But as we remember, it is... The act of giving is a part of our worship service, it's part of our response and not only who God is, but what He's done in our lives. And so if you call Rockpoint church your home, we encourage you to continue to worship with us in that way. You can give online @rockpoint.church slash give. They've made it super easy. Otherwise, either where you've walked in the doors out in the gathering, they have these stands where you can drop off your gift at those places, so you could do either way, as we choose to give because he first gave to us, Amen. Well, the second comment is, I know this past week was tough, for us here in America. It was tough to watch. I know for a lot of you, you experienced maybe some deep emotions, some unrest, maybe you didn't even sleep very well as you witness what happened in our Nation's Capitol. And it is unsettling, right? This is not the way things are supposed to be and we know that, but it is a reminder to us of where our true hope is found. As I pondered these events, I had a thought, I don't know if it was a moment of clarity or not, but I realized that probably every generation that has ever lived, has probably thought at some point, what else is gonna happen, right? How bad is it gonna get? What's... and the fears are both present, but even the future arise within us. I think every generation has thought of that. And so it is 2021, and this is our moment. This is ours. We were born for such a time as this, but it is a reminder of where our true hope is found, and our trust in Jesus, both with our lives now and for our futures. And so I want us to turn to prayer now before we jump into God's word, okay. Lord Jesus, so with that in mind, we do with the eyes of faith, remember who you are right now. You are on the throne victorious. You are receiving praise and honor and glory from the host of Heaven. And one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that you are the Lord, the God, and you are worthy, Oh God to receive glory and honor, and praise and blessing, not only now, but for evermore. So Jesus, I pray by your spirit you help us all to rest in that, regardless of what happens outside of these walls, this country, this world, God, you are King, and we choose to remember you. And I pray now God that the words of my mouth and that the meditations of all of our hearts would be pleasing in your sight. Oh Lord our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen, Amen, Amen. Well, as I've gotten a chance to share with you now over the last, however many years, some of you may be caught that I had lived down in Chicago for about 10 years. I went down there for school. I had no intention of staying, and God in his humor kept me there for 10 years, so that's just what God does sometimes, right? So when I went down there back in 2003, my goodness, long time ago now. I was doing some Summer school, some prerequisite work I needed for seminary, and I had a job lined up for the fall, I was gonna be a window washer, it was a great job, but I needed a job over the Summer. I needed to make money to pay my bills, to eat food and things like that, you know, good things like that. And so what was great is, at the school where I was at, they had this big bulletin board where people would post for jobs they needed done in the community. Mostly this was like elderly folks in the community. And so I picked up as much work as I could handle with my Summer schedule, and it was good, it was good. So I ended up pulling a lot of weeds that Summer, a lot of weeds that Summer, right? I spread a lot of mulch. I changed light bulbs, whatever I needed done, whatever needed to be done, right. But then I found myself eating a lot of frozen burned, those freezer burnt cookies and the very weak lemonade. 'Cause what I found was, yes they needed these jobs to be done, but these older folks, what they wanted more than anything was someone to talk to. And so that Summer, I look back actually with great fondness of a lot of conversations with people, and connecting with them. And we can learn a lot from people who have lived lives, right? If we choose to listen. Because I heard a lot of good moments. There's a lot of good things that they shared, but I also heard a lot of sad ones, a lot of regret You see, and there wasn't regret about money or houses they wish they would have bought, or promotions they wish they would have gotten, or a vacation they wish they would've taken. Actually, where this happened to be was in one of the most richest per capita communities in our country. They had all those things. Now, the voices of regret I kept hearing from them, multiple different people was, relationships. You know, a marriage that had faded or ended, kids who never visited or even talked to each other, maybe a friendship that had been there, but it was now gone. And there was a plea... It was a regret of, I wish I would've done things differently. And I don't mean to start our time off on such a heavy note, but what I was hearing from these older folks during that time was, man, you're young, live for what really matters in life. And yes, 2020 is now finished, Amen. And as my wife has said, for some time, it would be a year perspective. So the question of perspective I wanna us to ask this morning is. What does really matter? What is your life all about? What is your life? And I want us to pause there. We're gonna come back to that question, 'cause I believe that's where God takes us in our passage this morning. We are in James chapter four, and we've been going through this series titled Real Faith, as James is writing about. It's not just like, this is the things that we believe, but what does that look like lived out in your life. And we're covering seven verses this morning, but actually the first two are verses that James, actually addresses even earlier in his letter. It's a great reminder to us that these were real people. This was a letter written by a real guy, a guy named James. He was the half-brother of Jesus, and he's writing this to a real community of people, who were dealing with real life. And there's another great moment later in our passage that I also believe points to this as well. And I can't wait to get to that with you in just a moment, but much like in a letter, or an email that you write to someone and you want to be sure to communicate that thing, you sometimes repeat yourself, right? Sometimes you circle back and say, Hey, don't forget this thing that I shared earlier. And so he continues in chapter four in verse 11. It's not on the screen, just follow along with me here. Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but you are a judge. And there's only one lawgiver and judge, he who was able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? You see, actually the last time this was awesome, as I was preparing. The last time I preached here at Rockpoint, was on that other passage in James chapter two, where James addresses this very topic. We looked at the many moments in our lives, where we feel like we are entitled to be the judge of others. Remember, I shared pictures of people driving on the road. And that thing that rises up in us that says I hope they get what they deserve, right? That thing that's in us, that we feel like we can determine what someone else is worth or what they deserve. And what we saw that day is that only God's mercy is what makes us worthy. Only God's mercy makes us worthy. We judge other people because ultimately, we don't feel worthy ourselves. And we deflect and we try to elevate ourselves desperately wanting to be loved. My friends, God loves you, not because of what you deserve, but because of what you are worth to Him. And not to self promote, but I wanna encourage you to go back and listen to that message that I gave November 22nd, okay. You can go back rockpoint.church slash sermons. If you're bored later day, you can listen to another one, there you go. But then now I want to step us into our remaining five verses in James chapter four, as God helps us answer that question. What is your life? Verse 13, James chapter four. Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town, spend a year there, trade and make a profit." Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. And all such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. This is the word of the Lord. Well, I want to look at these verses in three sections. I kind of broke it down in your sermon notes if you're looking at those. Gave you plenty of wide space if you wanna make notes, or just to take note of those things, but I feel like kind of three sections here, verses 13 through 14, and then 15, 16, he says, again, repeat. Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town, spend a year there trade, make a profit," yet you don't know what tomorrow will bring. In verse 15, instead you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance. You see the phrase that he introduces with, he says, come now, is actually the very same phrase, he uses in chapter five. If you have a Bible, you can go look at that. So I believe he's addressing two different groups of people. In chapter five, he gets to talking about people who were rich, but didn't seem like they were believers. And so he had stronger things to say to them, but here in chapter four, when he says, come now, you who say, I believe he's addressing believers here. I believe he's addressing those who are followers of Jesus. They seem to be either wealthy, or they have opportunity at least, as we see some of the things he notes out. But notice... don't misread this. Sometimes, depending upon maybe where you've grown up, maybe places where you've gone to church, you hear them start to talk about money, and instantly you think, Oh God hates money. Isn't money the root of all sin? Doesn't it... Isn't that what the Bible says. No, actually it's not what the Bible says. The Bible says, the love of money, is the root of all kinds of evil. Actually, the Bible talks a lot about money, and why stewardship and investing, and flourishing that blesses other people. There's a whole bunch of that. So that's not what James is knocking. What James calls out is the arrogance of their mindset. The arrogant self-confident boasting that James clearly calls as evil. And the word for arrogant here, it means not only just no respect, but it's an empty presumption trusting in the stability of earthly things. Amen, 2020 is done, but we are still limping in 2021. And we can all agree on the stability of earthly things, we can't trust on that. We don't know what's gonna happen, or where things are gonna go, or how bad things are gonna get like we've talked about before. But in the first 10 verses of chapter four, he warns them against the worldliness. And by worldliness, thinking that the things in this world are all that matters. He says, that's the source of their passions. They're coveting, they're bitter jealousy their selfish ambition in their hearts. Instead he says, if the Lord wills. If the Lord wills, and that's not... Again, the tone or the voice you hear in your head when you read that, that's not just, well, God's gonna do whatever He's gonna do. If the Lord wills it, and we throw our hands up in the air and say, it's gonna be whatever he's gonna do anyway. But when it says, if the Lord wills, it's actually saying, desiring what God wants I want what God wants. You see, God, isn't just a means to some other end. So often it's Jesus and whatever, and we add all of these other things that we add on to, what we think real life is all about. God is not a means to some other end. He is the ultimate end in Himself. If the Lord wills. Which brings us to the next section in our passage. What is your life? The second part of 14. What is your life? For are you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. There's actually two things that I'd like to share about this verse. One that's very personal to me, and one that was actually a surprising thing I had never noticed before, that doesn't always happen when I get a chance to prepare and look at these things, but we had one this time. So first personally, this verse is deeply meaningful to me because it was actually, a verse that I had memorized when I was a young person. Someone had, when I was a teenager showed me how to memorize scripture, and how to hide God's word in my heart. And this was actually a verse I had memorized. It was a verse that meant a lot to me, because God used that verse then later when I was 19, when I was sensing God calling me into ministry. I wanted my life to be about nothing less than serving Jesus and his Kingdom with all that I was, I'm in, I'm yours. We sang that song earlier, right? But we are all called to full-time ministry. I hope you know that as followers of Jesus, you are all called to be followers of Jesus, wherever you live, work, and play, and to help this world come to know who he is. But this verse was meaningful to me, because it was part of a unique calling on God leading me into occupational ministry. That's just a personal thing But the second more important thing, surprising thing I discovered, like I said, that this doesn't happen very often. But I saw something I had never seen before. And man, it encouraged me, and I hope it encourages you as well. I kept focusing on that word mist, okay. Sorry I jumped too fast. The word mist. And I wanted to find out more what that word meant. Now, thanks to technology, there's great Bible study tools out there. We're talking libraries Of commentaries in Greek and Hebrew, and everything smashed into one program, that you can even carry around on your phone. Those are great, and they're expensive, okay. So I don't even use one myself, but actually... So there's free ones out there too. There's one called the blueletterbible.org, blueletterbible.org. I've put a note in there, it says, I want you to know that it's out there. You can have access to things that'll help you dive a little deeper into the original texts and where this shows up in our places. There's tools out there that you can use as you do your Bible study. But I went here because I wanted to lean into that. Sometimes when you read the Bible, and there's a word or a phrase that just grips you a little bit more. For whatever reason as I was preparing for today, the word mist was just gripping me. And I was, okay I wanna find out more about that word. Where else does it show up in the Bible? How is it used? All that fun stuff. Once I used that tool, Blue Letter Bible, I found out that this word, the word that James uses here only shows up in two other places in the Bible, the entire Bible. And it's actually one quoting the other one. So it's actually the same reference. So really it only shows up twice, once in James's letter, and once somewhere else. Which made me ask the question, why did James use this word? He could have used other words that meant mist, or a vapor, or smoke, or whatever, things that vanishes quickly. It makes me Wonder and ask the question, what was he drawing their attention to? 'Cause you know, how you hear like a word, or you hear a phrase and it triggers something in your mind, and it makes you think of something, a moment, or an experience, or maybe a group of people that you're with at one time. You guys know what I mean, right? It's like we just celebrated Christmas, and maybe someone started singing a song. Or if you're like my family, someone quotes a movie, and you're like and y'all rattling off, like the movie or the thing, and you're remembering all of these moments, and they're great. Because words not only have meaning, I believe words carry memories, right? They draw us back to a moment. They draw us back to experiences and oftentimes with other people. And this is where I believe, this is the second moment in our passage that reminds us that this was written by a real person to real people. Who is the author? James, he's the half-brother of Jesus, think about that, right. He's the half brother of Jesus. So he grew up, and the biblical accounts tell us that he was one of the major pillars of leadership in the early church. When the church first started there in Jerusalem, James, was a front and center. He was one of the top guys, helping bring leadership to everything. 'Cause you remember what happened, right? Jesus not only died on the cross. Three days later, he rose from the grave. And the Bible tells us, over in the next 40 days after that moment, what was Jesus doing? A resurrected Jesus. He was popping up all over the place. It's hilarious sometimes, right? Walking through... He's showing himself to people again and again and again. I'm alive guys, I'm alive, this is real. It wasn't just a one-time thing. Even First Corinthians 15 says, he showed up to as many as 500 people at one time. This wasn't made up by one person who had hallucination, as some people say. Jesus made it inevitably clear to many people, He was alive, right. And then Jesus ascends to Heaven. And then 40 days later is when, or in that moment, then the disciples are waiting. It was 10 days after Jesus rose to Heaven. They're waiting in Jerusalem, 'cause God said go back to Jerusalem, wait for the power, wait for the promise that God sent you. And what happens at Pentecost, right? God pours out his Holy Spirit on his people and the church is born. And Peter, remember that moment at Pentecost. This is the Southern Steps of the Temple, by the way, where some people believe that that happened. Peter stands up and he gives the sermon of his life, and it wasn't him, it was God speaking through him, right? And 3000 people, gave their life to Jesus in that moment. I believe that is the moment that James is pointing his listeners back to. Check this. He uses a word for mist, or vapor, that Peter used in that sermon. And Peter used that word because he was quoting the Prophet Joel, from the Old Testament. So I don't think it's the actual word that James is making a big deal about. What's he drawing their attention to? Do you remember that moment? Do you remember that moment, that moment when Jesus was so clear, that He was the Messiah, King, He was the Promised One, He brought salvation, and by virtue you now belong to him forever. 'Cause who is James writing to? Remember. He's writing to the Jewish believers who had to leave Jerusalem, because of the dispersion that happened. James writes this letter 10 to 15 years after that moment. And I believe it is very likely, I can't prove this to you. This is just what grip my heart, but very likely that some of the original readers of this letter were a part of the 3000 that gave their life to Jesus that day. Because James says, do you remember that? And he's reminding them when they first believed in Jesus, when they had such clarity about what really mattered in life, when the eyes of their faith did behold Jesus victoriously sitting on the throne. We sang about it this morning, right? We sang about it in that new song that Doug talked about, right? I'm in, I'm yours. If you want this breath, Lord, I'm not gonna second guess, your love won't leave me here. 'Cause your love pursued me even to the cross through the grave, and now through the resurrection and to eternity. Why does James remind them of this? Why does he have to remind us about this? Because we forget, we forget. Time goes by and we just start living life. We make plans and we build our lives around things that are just... as if this world is all that matters, right, we forget. Now I want to pause for a moment, because there could be a bunch of different people here in this room or online joining us right now. Some of you are just still exploring this whole Christianity thing, and maybe you're leaning in, and you're still new to the whole faith in Jesus thing. And I'm so glad that you're here. Keep leaning in and I believe Jesus is in the process of revealing himself to you. Some of you are here and maybe it was in recent days that you truly trusted Jesus with your life. And that moment when you said yes to Him is still new. And maybe you've been baptized recently, maybe that moment where you've gone from what is old and now you are a new creation in Christ, and your heart is still just burning with man, I can't believe what Jesus has done in my life, Amen. Remember who He is and what He's done. But I'm guessing for a lot of us, that moment when we first said yes to Jesus, was a long time ago. And we come to church, and we do the church thing and the Christian thing, and we got our Bibles, and we have our rhythms of life, and we have our families and we live life. And we forget, we forget that moment when God first captured our heart, and we said, I'm in, I'm yours, I'm all yours. Take me and use me for your glory. What is your life? Jesus is your life, that's it. The things of this world will fade away. Your life is a mist that will briefly peers and vanishes, but then you will be, eternally be with Jesus in glory. We're not home yet, but we will be. And as the great song says, and Doug sang this, Amen, my goodness several weeks ago, and I was just in tears, 'cause I grew up in an old church that sang that song too, is turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. Which helps us better understand our final verse in our passage today, verse 17. Whoever knows the right thing to do or literally says, for whoever knows what is good and fails to do it, for him it is sin. Now, when you first read that, I know many of you hang your head, feeling the weight of not doing enough. You still believe that God judges you on your performance, and your ability to live out the Christian life. Please listen to this. This passage does give us a deeper understanding of sin. Not only sins of commission, where we willfully do something that violates God's commands in scripture, like lying or stealing, that sins of commission where we we break the rule. But a lot of you think that's all that sin is, is just breaking the law, breaking God's list of rules. But the Bible says there's also sins of omission. Which is not doing what we know is good. Not doing what we know is right. So the God's were not only deals with our behaviors, the things that we do, but it deals with the attitude of our hearts and the motivations. And those wrong attitudes and motivations are usually inordinate desires where we've... Normally we've turned something that's even a good thing into an ultimate thing, and that is called idolatry. And maybe you've heard Tim Keller talk about this and he does this really, really well. He says, sin isn't only doing bad things but it's more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and your meaning on anything, even a good thing, more than on God. Whatever we build our life on will drive us and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry. Sin is idolatry, which is misdirected love, you understand that, right? Idolatry, is not these little idols that you maybe imagine a Buddha or whatever, someone puts on the shelf, no. An idol, is a thing that we love, we worship it, we bow down to it, because we believe that that thing will give us life. We think it's the thing that will solve our problems. We think it's the thing that when we're not okay, that that thing is gonna make us okay. And that's what we pursue, that's what we worship. We operate on a value system, and you cannot deny this because you are human, you are made human. Which means that deep down, there's a part of you, inside of you that operates on what you think is most valuable, what you think is most important, what you think is real, what you think is true and you will worship that thing. Nobody has to tell you to do it, you will do that. Because we were made to ultimately worship God. So we will chase after these other things. But the more we love God, the more our hearts will align with His. The more we love God, the more our hearts will align with His. So the sins of omission, that he's talking about here in verse 17, those come from motivations of either fear, Oh, I'm not okay, I gotta find something to make me okay. Or it's complacency of, I don't really care. We kind of got numb or we just shut off everything because we just kind of give up. Or pride, what's in it for me. And James touches on that earlier in chapter four and even boasting arrogance in verse 16. And James calls them back. He calls them back to that clarity of what is their life, reminding them of their new lives in Jesus, and then he calls them to live for what is good. So the lesson I learned from my elderly friends back in Chicago, those many, many freezer burnt cookies and weak lemonades, and those conversations of saying, Hey, there's stuff that matters in this life and then they're stuff that doesn't. As D.L. Moody, is quoted for saying, "Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at something that doesn't really matter." If Jesus is our life, what is the good that we can go after in 2021? And I'm not talking about new year's resolutions and anything like that. I think that's a personality thing a little bit, but it's good to have goals, okay. Have goals and go after that kind of thing. It's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the reorientating of the reframing of our lives around what is good. I'm actually in the middle of a book right now that my father-in-law gave me in saying that, you know the majority of our daily life is actually done out of just habits. We don't even think about it. It's like, we're on cruise control. It's like when you're driving home from somewhere and you don't even realize how you got home, and your brain is just thinking about processing all these things and you also like, how did I get home? And you didn't think about blinker, or turn, and don't run over that thing over there, right. We do some things based on habits that we've just programmed our lives to do. And I believe that God's word prompts us to say, well what are the habits we've built into our life? And what are some habits that would help us go after what's good. The stuff that really matters, and not just be on autopilot in life. So what do those things look like for you? Relationships? Remember those are the voices of regret I kept hearing from my friends. What does it look like for you to invest and plan in your marriage this year, and not just keep going on autopilot? What does it look like for you to invest and plan on good things for your family? Maybe your personal family, if you have kids great. Those moments in the season of life that they're in, maybe it's a Rite of passage moment, or a chance to maybe talk about just what's going on in your kid's life. But maybe if you don't have kids, maybe it's your own family, your siblings, or your relationship to your parents. And if you do have a grandparent, you're connecting with grandparent. What about our church family? Okay, we're not just spectators that show up to an event. This is, we're multiplying disciples in a healthy church. This is our family. What's look like for you to invest and plan on going after what's good in your church family? Have you found that community like Ana talked about earlier. Maybe 2021, is a year for you to join a life group, or a huddle of people and say, Hey, I wanna go after this, I wanna know other people, but I want people to know me. I want people to really know me. I wanna peel back the layers and say, Hey, I'm not pretending anymore man, I got my good days, I got my bad days. And Doug mentioned that earlier too. But maybe it's a chance to serve in a fresh way this year. Maybe, it's a chance to go after a friendship here within the church But there's one more category I wanna give us. And what does it look like for you to invest and spend time with people who don't yet know Jesus. It's not because you should, it's not because you feel guilty. It's not because you think God will be disappointed in you. It is not your job to save anybody. That's His job. But what He does call you to, is to draw close and to love people with the same love that He loved you. And sometimes we need to remember that moment when, your love, you love me. I know I don't deserve it, Amen, does that just wrecked me, that I know I don't deserve to be loved by God. And that allows us to draw closer to other people. So a quick pasture moment, before we wrap up. Some of you hear this and hear what we're talking about, and maybe you are already filled with that regret. Maybe your marriage isn't in a good place. Maybe your relationship with your kids is distant. Maybe you did have a friendship go bad, and I'm sorry. And I don't bring this stuff up lightly. And just like with my elderly friends in Chicago, there's this stuff that does weigh heavy on our hearts. And some of this is on our end, we all know this. We are guilty on our end of this... our side of the street, but also a lot of us, have to deal with the brokenness and pain of other people's choices. And God doesn't call us to be perfect, my friends. God, doesn't call us to be sinless, that's not possible, this side of heaven. The word that God uses is to be blameless. And that means that whatever is in our ability to do, as much as it depends on us, whatever relationship, whatever friendship dynamic we find ourselves in, God says, Hey, remember who I am and live in that, and then go after what is good. And all we could do is today. That's all we got friends. We can't rewind, okay. There's no VCR in life that we can do that rewind thing, right. All we have is today. And then the next day and on and on. And I was encouraged in my Bible reading plan this week, reading through the Bible, some friends, Matthew chapter six, and I'll add my little side note commentary in this Matthew six, it says, seek the Kingdom of God today, above all else today, and live righteously today and God will give you everything you need for today. It continues. So don't worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will bring its own worries Today's trouble is enough for today. God is first and foremost reminding us of where our life is found. It is found only in Him. And if you have been seeking your life elsewhere, the word for repent, isn't just saying, sorry to God. It's actually turning away from those things and turning back to God's saying, God, I want you, I choose you again. And then Jesus' overflowing his love through you to go after what is good, to go after what really matters. And that is God centered relationships, where you live, where you work, where you play, with your family and with your friends, let's pray. Jesus, thank you for this morning. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your spirit that can communicate to that place in our hearts that only you can go. Jesus in your name and for your glory I claim that and I pray that you speak to each and every one of us, reminding us again of who you are and who we are in you. And then give us the strength and the courage again today to go after what is good. It's in your name we pray, Amen.