James 4:11-17 Notes from Sunday

Here are my teaching notes, mixed in with the handout, from Sunday:

JAMES 4:11-17 ON SLANDER & RIGHT PERSPECTIVE

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 a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and 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. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
(James 4:11-17, ESV)

INTRODUCTION

After the harsh rebuke and call to repentance at the beginning of chapter 4, James now returns to addressing his readers as ‘brothers’ and pleads with them not to slander one another. In the second section, James brings God’s sovereignty into view as he encourages his readers to have a right perspective of themselves.

DISCUSSION

What thoughts and/or emotions come to the surface when you think about the future?

EXPLANATION

• In v.11 James exhorts his readers not to slander or speak evil against one another.
• What does it mean to slander someone? Review Numbers 21:4-7, Psalm 101:5, and 1 Peter 2:12 for some examples of what slander encompasses.
• Numbers 21:4-7 – the people have witnessed God's miraculous judgment on Egypt, deliverance through the Red Sea, being led by a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, finding God's daily provision of manna, getting water from the Rock – and they have the audacity to speak against Moses and God Himself
• I love the resolution here – read Numbers 21:8-9. How weird does that sound? What's that all about? In a word, Christ. Who knows John 3:16? Who knows John 3:14-15? “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (ESV)  The wilderness serpent pointed to the One who would become the curse bearer, the One who would become the curse so that we might be blessed.
• Psalm 101:5 – through David, we see that God's just wrath stands against the arrogant & slanderous
• 1 Peter 2:12 – we are not to be people who speak evil against others; but are to be people who do good and endure being spoken evil of by non-Christians
• Two reasons are given for this prohibition. When you slander:
• You stand in judgment of both your brother and the law.
• In chapter 2, James referred to the “royal law of Scripture” from Leviticus 19:18 – “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
• You assume a role that is God’s alone.
• Who am I to judge? Judgment belongs to God alone, and yet as James reminded us earlier in chapter 4, He is a grace-giver. How can I judge those to whom God has extended the grace of the gospel? Is my standard higher than God's?

As we come to the part of the passage that speaks about planning for the future and God's sovereignty, I wanted to share some quotes I recently heard in a sermon from Mark Dever.  I'd like to call them, "Great Moments in Predictions of Technology:"

• "Everything that can be invented, has been invented." - the commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office in 1899
• "I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers." - Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM in 1943
• "Computers in the future may weigh no more than one and a half tons." - Popular Mechanics in 1949.
• "I have traveled the length & breadth of this country and talked with the best people and I can assure you that data processing is a fad. It won't last out the year." - editor in charge of business books at Prentice Hall in 1957
• "But what is it good for?" - engineer at the advanced computing systems division of IBM in 1968 commenting on the microchip.
• "There's no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olsen, president, chairman, and founder of Digital Equiment Corporation, in 1977
• "640 K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates in 1981

We don't have to look far to find examples of how bad we are at predicting and planning our futures.  Though we seem to rarely acknowledge it, there is so little in our lives that we actually control.

• The economically mobile merchants James addresses in v. 13 are probably Christians.
• James is writing to believers, and there is no reason to expect non-Christians to acknowledge God's sovereign will.
• Vv. 13-16 reveal that their problem is not in the plan to carry on business or make a profit; rather it is the arrogant self-dependence that is undergirding their plans.
• They have substituted a dependence on God’s sovereignty for a worldly self-confidence.
• One of the interesting & important things to note here is that James doesn't just encourage us to say, “If the Lord wills, we will do this or that” but even “If the Lord wills, we will live.” God is sovereign over every aspect of our lives, and He is sovereign over just how much “little time” our mist appears.

• James reminds us of the fleeting nature of life. How does viewing life as a ‘mist’ help inform your perspective on life, time, and eternity?
• If you've heard me teach before, you know that I love a good quote. Well, I've got a couple that apply here, and I thought I'd turn it into a little game of “Guess the wise man.”
• Quote 1: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” (Ferris Bueller)
• Quote 2: “I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” (King Solomon, from Ecclesiastes 2:11)
• Remember our study in Ecclesiastes? This word “mist” or “vapor” that James uses is related to the “vanity” that was repeated throughout Ecclesiastes. It sounds like Solomon found out what James tells us – that our life is a vapor.

• And then we come to verse 17.
• How does the reference to sins of omission connect to what James has been talking about in this section?
• Who thinks boasting is good? How about boasting in your arrogance? What about slanderous gossip? How about loving your neighbor as yourself?
• James has been pointing out many symptoms of indwelling sin in the lives of a Christians. The answer is not to clean up your own act, but to humble yourself before God. Repent and believe in the gospel. When Martin Luther wrote his 95 Theses that sparked the Reformation, the first was that Christ “called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” As we return to the cross time & time again – God's grace continues to work in us. As believers, as dearly loved children of God, we are not to judge our neighbors, but to love our neighbors. We are not to depend on our own strength and planning, but commit ourselves to the strength of God that is perfected in our weakness and dependence on him.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

Here are my notes, worked in alongside the text of the class handout, from teaching Life Group on Sunday.  We had some good discussion towards the end of class that seemed to hover around the difference between man's perspective "under the sun" and God's sovereignty.

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A TIME FOR EVERYTHING

INTRODUCTION

This is the most widely celebrated passage in the entire book of Ecclesiastes. Many musicians and songwriters have latched on to it to explain the seasonal nature of life. Unfortunately, many have also missed the main point: God is sovereign and in control of all the seasons of our lives. His timeliness in our lives is perfect.

DISCUSSION

Imagine and discuss what life would be like without seasons of grief, struggle, or pain.

EXPLANATION

• God is sovereign over every season of our lives.

• Merism – a figure of speech in which two polarities make up a whole.

In addition to the use of merism, the number of pairs – 14 (2 x 7) indicates the fullness or perfection of the poem covering all of life.

This poem may remind us of the poetry of chapter 1 talking about “seasons” in creation – the sun, the wind, the streams & seas. And the question of v. 9 (what gain has the worker from his toil?) reminds us of verses 2 & 3 in chapter 1 – all is vanity, the worker gains nothing. So in looking back to the pairs in this poetry, they all essentially cancel each other out – you're born and you die, and there's nothing left, a tree is planted and uprooted, it's gone; stones are scattered, stones are gathered as if they were never scattered, a garment is torn and a garment is sewn like new. But we're only left with vanity “under the sun," i.e. without God.

The Teacher goes on to say that although we see these things happening all around us, and we have no control over most of them, God controls them and uses them for His purposes, making them beautiful. He has even put eternity into our hearts, an awareness of past & future, even though we cannot completely figure them out or comprehend them. We can no more know the distant past than we can the future.

• The eternal longing in our hearts is at odds with our present mortality. C.S. Lewis explains it this way in Mere Christianity:

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”

• 3:12 and 3:14 (NIV) begin with the verb ‘I know’ and reveal Solomon’s two conclusions:

1. Rejoice and do good. Once more we see a repeated theme, this time in verse 12. Despite our lack of understanding of the times, we can see God's gifts to us, and “rejoice and do good,” taking pleasure in them.
2. God’s sovereignty inspires reverential fear of Him. But why does God work this way, when we cannot “find out” all that He does? Verse 14 holds the answer – God has done all this, God sovereignly controls all things & times so that people fear Him. Though we cannot see God, we come to see how He works things at certain times to accomplish His plans. This was not only true in the days of ancient Israel, but we see this throughout the Bible and can trust that God is no less sovereign today. Consider the “times” mentioned in the New Testament:

• Galatians 4:4-5 - “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” (ESV)
• When Jesus began his ministry, he said in Mark 1:15 - “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
• When Mary comes to Jesus at the wedding at Cana to tell Him they ran out of wine, Jesus initially tells her, “My hour has not yet come.” (John 2:4)
• At one point when people were seeking to arrest Jesus, “but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.” (John 7:30)
• Before the Last Supper, John writes that “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father” (John 13:1)
• Romans 5:6 - “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”
• The time that Christ would be in the tomb was set. In Mark 8:31, Christ taught His disciples that after three days He would rise again.
• Jesus talked about the timing of His return - “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” (Matthew 24:36)
• Again, Jesus tells His disciples just before His ascension, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” (Acts 1:7) – This sounds a lot like Ecclesiastes 3:11, that man cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end
• Just as Paul wrote to the Galatians that Christ first came “when the fullness of time had come,” he wrote to Timothy that Christ's return will be “at the proper time” (1 Timothy 6:15)
• And when Christ returns, He will usher in the new heaven and new earth that John saw in the revelation he received from God.:

[3] And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. [4] He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

[5] And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

(Revelation 21:3-5, ESV)

• Listen to how the poem from Ecclesiastes 3 is turned on its head. Tears are wiped away, and there is no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. And remember from Ecclesiastes 1:9, that there is nothing new under the sun? Well, under the sun, without God, there is nothing new. But the Creator of all will re-create all as a part of His (& His people's) eternal kingdom.  Like the people to whom the Teacher wrote Ecclesiastes, we are called to consider God's sovereignty and stand in awe.  Let us join in the heavenly chorus praising our great God and the Lamb who was slain.

APPLICATION

• Share your stories of experiencing the sovereignty of God in each of these seasons of life.
• How does knowing that God is sovereign over time help you to wait on His timing in your life?

God's Sovereignty

"You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances and tedious annoyances really are. You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies - though that never occurs to you. Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet [God's] beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is".

Read more here.