DAFFODIL PEP-TALK

 I didn't do it, but someone planted some little bulbs in the ground around our house years ago.  Each year they come up at an appointed time and for that specific season they sprout and grow and bloom and make a lovely yellow border around our front porch.

For a day or two now James Spann and the other talking heads of meteorology have been telling us it was coming.  "Strong storms with potential for heavy rain" and last night it came.  The rumble from heaven sounded like someone was mad and they planned on doing something about it.  The lightening lacerated the dark sky and it bled billions of buckets of rain. The winds blew as if to clear the earth of all that was standing.
But it only lasted for a few short minutes and it was over.  I laid my head on the pillow and slept like a baby.

This morning I awoke and readied myself for another day of work.  As I walked out the door and stood on the porch I looked at the little daffodils and was so surprised. Oh, they were still there in their little border bed by the porch but their once straight stems were bent until their little yellow heads almost touched the ground.  :Instead of looking up toward heaven and smiling their beautiful smile they were pressed down by the storm and rain.  They were not injured.  They would not die.  I had heard the weather report and knew that tomorrow the sun would be out and it would be warm and bright.  Once again they would stand tall and straight and lift their heads toward heaven and delight us with their beauty and splendor. But they still stood there in their place and look downcast, dejected and defeated.

I was tempted to walk over to them and tell them, "Hey, little guys, look up, it's going to be OK. There is promise of sun and warmth and good days.  After all on a dark overcast day like today we need your bright shiny yellow faces to brighten the world".  But I didn't.

I've seen that before.  I've stood on the platform of our church and looked out over the congregation.  I've walked down the street and looked into the faces of the people hurrying back and forth on their daily task.  I've seen the same downcast, dejected, defeated looks.  Sure they have been through storms.  The weather report in the Bible said we would all go through storms,"In this world you will have tribulations".  But the sun will come back and the Son will come back.

I bet you've had some hard times lately.  I bet the winds of life have tried to blow you off the face of the  earth.  I bet you have trembled at the threatening flashes of doom that tried to intimidate you.  I imagine that some of you are bent by sickness or trouble.  I imagine that your normally bright smiling face could be turned down today.  I didn't say it to the flowers but can I say it to you?  "Look up.  There is a promise for tomorrow from someone much more powerful than "James Spann the weather man".  You were put in your little flower bed for a season.  And your purpose was to glorify God.  So lift up your head little flower and smile.  You need it, and on a gray overcast day like today, the world needs to see you smile.

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ANTICIPATION

Anticipation

In 1971 Carly Simon sang about it.  A few years later Heinz Ketchup started using the song in its commercials and continued doing so until the early 80’s.  In that song Ms Simon said, “We can never know about the days to come but we think about them anyway”.  That’s what I did for a whole year.

Last year my sister-in-law, through the company she works for, kindly allowed us to enjoy a condo down on Orange Beach.  We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies walking in there.  The bed was bigger than our bedroom.  The bathroom was bigger than our living room.  It came with a workout room, a heated pool and a hot tub.  You could stand on the balcony and look out over the azure waters of the Gulf of Mexico and walk for miles along the sugar white sandy beaches. What a vacation! The time of the year was just what Keva and I love it was the off season. We were probably the youngest people within 50 miles of the place.  Can you say “Snow Birds”?

Well, I started right then and there planning this year’s trip.  I determined that if I skipped breakfast just one morning a week and saved that $5.00 in a can, we could have at least $250.00 to spend on eating and having a good time.  So I started that long, arduous task of saving money. That doesn’t even sound like fun at all. I sold some scrap iron and put it in the can.  I raked and scraped and the whole while the thoughts of that big ole condo and all the amenities made me smile. But the anticipation was making me wait.

Well 12 months later, 365 long days, 52 weeks of skipping breakfast at the Main Street café, the time came to leave on our trip.  No one believed that I would stay away from home for 5 days.  “What on earth will you do for 5 days” they asked.  “I’m going to eat as much as I want and sleep as much as I want and have no responsibility” I said. So I drove the 4 hours down I-65 to Orange Beach. 

Somewhere in my year of planning and eagerness to make this trip I forgot that my left hip doesn’t do real well when it sits in a little compact car for 4 hours.  So when we arrived I could hardly straighten up and walk.  But I was as good as my word.  Before we even got to the condo we stopped by a really nice seafood place and I ate whatever I wanted.  (As I write these words I think I can still feel the shrimp just down there somewhere past my Adam’s apple).

I ate soooo much I ate too much and couldn’t go to sleep until 5 A.M. the next morning.

The next day wasn’t much better.  Goofing off, over-eating and not sleeping does not put one in a mood of “happy vacation”. 

Keva enjoyed an afternoon of shopping at the big outlet mall and I enjoyed 3 or 4 hours sitting in the parking lot.  How come I didn’t see this coming?

“Oh, let’s go on a boat ride”.  We pooled our money with Kristi and hired a crusty old sea captain who placed us all on a 22’ fishing boat and took us on a 3 hour tour of the Gulf and Inter-costal Waterway.  I was having visions of “Gilligan’s Island”. 

It was cold.  Even though the sun was shining brightly and the seas were friendly, three hours of Gulf wind in your face and the beach sun unhindered by clouds or shade caused my face to resemble something about the color of a lobster. Can I go home now?

I hate vacations!  I’m never going back.  What happened to all the great stuff I dreamed about for the last year?  What about eating all that good food?  What about the great sleep I was going to get in that great big acre wide bed?  It didn’t turn out like I had anticipated. But nothing ever does.  The anticipation is much more enjoyable than the actual event.  Anticipation, bah humbug.  It’s not worth the effort.

But I got to thinking about it.  There is one more vacation that I’m going on soon. It’s going to be better than this last one.  My Lord promised me that in John chapter 14.  He said “I go to prepare a place for you and if I go I will come again and receive you unto myself, so that where I am, there you may be also”. He said that He would pick out the spot.  He would choose the location.  He would get the condo ready. He is even going to choose how I’ll get there and when I’ll leave.  “I know just what you like, Bill.  I’m going to get it ready for you”.   

“But Lord, what if I eat too much from the banquet table?  What if I bask too much in the Son light?  What if my left hip don’t do well walking on streets of gold? Don’t you think I may be anticipating this vacation just a little bit too much”?

I reckon Paul, the great writer of the New Testament had prophetic hearing.  He must have heard or at least anticipated what I was going to say all the way down here in 2011.  He had me pegged.  He heard me complaining and had this to say in I Cor. 2:9.  “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him”.

If Paul could have spoken in the Chilton County dialect it would have sounded something like this: “Don’t sweat it old man, you ain’t never seen nothin’ like the Lord is going to show you.  You ain’t never heard about nothin’ this good. Why heck, you can’t even “anticipate” the good stuff God is getting ready for you.” 

I needed that.  After the vacation from hell I needed to focus on another vacation.  And you know what? I’d bet my John Deere tractor against your long handle hoe that this one won’t let me down.   

‘Cuse me while I sit here and do a little “anticipatin' "

PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY-JAMES CHAPTER 5

PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY

JAMES CHAPTER 5

VERSES 1-6: Gomer Pyle used to call it “Ill gotten gains”.  When I was watching him on the Andy Griffith Show I never actually realized what he meant.  I never gave it a second thought.  But somewhere along the line there in Mayberry Gomer must have read James chapter five.  Because many years before Gomer was ever thought of, James was writing to the scattered churches about the same topic.  James was warning, almost threatening, his people about getting rich from selfish acts.

I feel really foolish addressing a lesson on storing up wealth among this crowd.  I doubt that any of us in this room or any of you who are reading this lesson, would consider himself rich. The rotten economy, the recession, the general attitude of society today has drained the coffers of every one of us.  If we had ever accumulated anything it’s probably gone by now.     

Honestly though, it didn’t occur to me just how blessed and “rich” I really am until I encountered a lady the other day.  It was the day before the weather service was predicting snow for our area.  I was in the café eating breakfast and one of the waitresses said to me, “Bill, what’s this weather going to do”?  I don’t know why people ask me that.  I am not a meteorologist.  I have never been to a class that will help me predict or read the weather.    Weather maps look to me like something a little kid scribbles on.  But because I work with emergency management I guess people think I am at least supposed to know about what the weather is predicted to do. 

Well, I made my usual “off the cuff” remark.  It was something like, “It doesn’t matter.  We’ve all seen snow and ice before”.  I felt like James Taylor singing that old song, “I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain”.

I quickly found out that although it didn’t matter to me because I get paid whether it snows, rains, or is bright and sunny; it really does matter to others.  You see, this lady’s husband drives a log truck.  He hauls big loads of logs out of the woods and out to the mills.  If he doesn’t haul logs, he doesn’t get paid.  “We can’t stand to loose a day’s pay”, she said, “If he doesn’t haul logs we can’t pay the bills”. 

 Suddenly this lady catapulted me right into the ranks of the rich. Because of the job that God allowed me to have, because of the place where He put me, because He led me kicking and screaming sometime into the position where I am today, I am rich without a doubt. And I imagine if you were to compare your situation to that of others, you would realize that you are among the “rich and famous” as well. 

In the first six verses of this chapter, James expresses a warning to his people.  I believe that the first warning is that it is not necessarily how much money, or possessions or “stuff” you have but how did you come by that “stuff”.  Secondly, James says that it is not the amount of things you possess but what you do with those things.

Look at the use of personal pronouns here:

                Your riches, your garments, your gold, your silver, your fields…It’s MINE, MINE, MINE you say!

I have a habit of writing down little quotes that I hear from time to time in the flyleaf of my Bible.  I flip back to them on occasion and they have proven useful to me.  (That might be a good suggestion for you too.)  Let me share one with you. 

“Satan can’t take what belongs to God but he can take what belongs to you”.

What does that say to me?  All this stuff, these things, this land, this house, this car, this bank account, this retirement account that I claim as MINE, if it is kept in my possession and in my care, it will rust, canker, burn or be taken away.  But if I place it in God’s “safe deposit box” let’s just see who is big enough to rob that bank.

If you were to ask me, I would tell you that I don’t watch too much television.  But from the amount of illustrations that I use from T.V. and movies, it is evident that I watch way too much.  I remember an old “Indiana Jones” movie from a few years back.  The wicked bad guy was chasing “Indy” across a rickety old rope bridge that spanned a long and deep gorge. Indy had a valuable golden treasure that he had discovered and this bad guy was trying to take it from him.  Suddenly the bridge broke loose from one side of the canyon and Indy and the bad guy were hanging on for dear life from what was left of the bridge.  They dangled over the chasm, Indy holding on to the rope with one hand and the treasure with the other.  The bad guy hung beneath him, clinging to Indy’s leg.  How could the hero escape?

He held out the golden treasure and as the bad guy watched, Indy held the treasure above the evil villain and slowly dropped it.  As the golden treasure fell toward the man he instinctively released his hold on Indy’s leg and grabbed for the gold causing him to fall to his death. 

A good “by line” for that story would be, “You can’t hold onto safety and gold with the same hand”.  The Bible says “you can not serve God and mammon”.  No matter how close I try to clutch my “stuff”.  Satan is bigger and is able to take it from me.  But when I release my “stuff” into God’s care (and can I just say that stuff doesn’t just mean possessions, it also means families, work, church problems you name it) well, just listen to what He says in Jeremiah 32:27, “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh:;  is there anything to hard for me”?

How did you get what you have now? 

“Well, bless God, nobody ever gave me anything.  I’ve worked all my life for what I have.  I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth”.

If those are your words, or if they have been your words (they’ve been mine before) I believe James would call you a “fool”.  God gave you the knowledge, skills, strength and opportunity to work.  You have a strong back and a weak mind because God allowed you to have them.  You netted your catch by God’s will, not your skill. 

Now don’t get mad at me.  I’m not saying you stole anything.  No one is accusing you of robbing a bank.  But do you understand that you are rich?  Do you understand where your riches came from?  And the final question concerning riches, “What are you going to do with them”?

Do you remember the little story told about a wealthy man who passed away?  As the town’s people stood by the road and watched the hearse pass by taking his body to the graveyard, a couple of old men contemplated just how much inheritance this guy’s children would get.  One old man asked another, “Hey Joe, how much money did he really leave”?

“All of it, Tom, he left all of it” And you and I will too.

VERSES 7-11:

I can see James envisioning the people who made up these churches.  He had known many of them I am sure.  They were:

·         Chased from town to town by people like Saul of Tarsus

·         Their houses and land were taken by the Roman government

·         Tax collectors harassed them even as they entered the temple door

·         They were struggling to make ends meet

·         They faced famines and floods and acts of nature that fought against them

And James big old Practical heart was hurting for them.  He wanted them to understand that what was happening was just a brief moment in time; just over the horizon was home.

“Just be patient” he says.  “Jesus is coming back and He’s coming back soon”.

I don’t know what that did for them.  I don’t know what that does for you but at the very least that makes me feel loved. 

Read Hebrews 10:36-37….and James 5:8….and John 14:1-3.  He’s promised.  He’s coming.  Hang in there. Believe it.  Live like it.  Wait for it.  Be patient.  If that doesn’t feed you then your spoon fell out of the bowl. 

 VERSES 12-20:

Through out the whole letter James has been talking about, work, wealth, worrying and waiting.  Now he starts jumping around and talking about stuff that doesn’t seem to connect.  We have learned that he was a practical leader.  Why is he throwing out all of this “shotgun” instruction now?

I didn’t understand it at first, but I do now.  He was getting to the end of his letter.  He had so much he wanted to tell.  He wanted to cover all of his bases. 

I did this last week when we left for Orange Beach on vacation.  Granny doesn’t do well when you change her schedule.  She likes things to be the same way, all the time.  So when we were going to leave I wanted to make sure that she wasn’t going to be confused or afraid.  I wanted her to know everything was going to be alright.  So I found myself throwing out quick tidbits of information to her as we were going to leave.

• We are only going to be gone a few days
• You will have fun staying with Anita and Bo
• We’ve put all of your stuff in boxes so you can take them with you
• People will come by to see you
• We will call every day
• Derek and Lauren will  take care of the cats
• They will have a nice fire you can sit by

I was just throwing things out quickly for her to remember.  James was too. 

• Watch your mouth.  Talk like a Christian. Not just cursing, just an inappropriate slip can influence those around you. Granny’s Mom, Granny Taylor used to call them “Black Garden words”.  I have no idea what that meant, but I knew I shouldn’t say them.
• If you are in  trouble –pray
• If you are happy-sing (if you are happy and you know it, let your face show it)
• If you are sick-call for the elders, let them pray, have faith
• The effectiveness of prayer.  “The effective, passionate prayer that comes from a pure heart, goes a long way”
• Oh, and don’t forget the number one thing.

Ok, one more example from T.V.  It was a crazy movie called “City Slickers”.  Three men from the big city took a trip out west to hunt for lost gold.  A grizzled old cowboy tells them,

                “You’ve got to remember the number one thing”

Then the cowboy dies before he tells them what the number one thing is, that he is talking about.

But James didn’t.  He crammed in lots of important things that they should remember. 

“Oh, but wait.  Don’t forget the number one thing.

WIN SOULS. 

• Do good stuff
• Manage your money
• Help the needy
• Pray passionately

But first, most importantly, STAND IN THE GAP, MAKE UP THE HEDGE, SEEK THE LOST AND WIN THEM.

James says, that’s the most important thing I can leave you with.  And I agree. 

PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY-JAMES CHAPTER FOUR

PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY

JAMES CHAPTER 4

The church was once strong.  Its members loved God and loved each other.  Their numbers reflected it. The new converts projected it.  The community knew it.  But somehow, someway, selfishness wiggled its slimy little self into the church. Friends who once talked often, shared meals together, laughed together, prayed together and worshiped together now seemed to sense a wedge pushing them apart. 

The numbers dropped. New converts waned.  The Spirit of God could seldom be felt in the services. Soon came that old Saturday night tongue that we talked about last week.  Things were said that couldn’t be taken back. Feelings were hurt.  Blame was placed, and the church split. 

That was the case in some of the churches that James was writing to in his letter.  And that has been the case in many churches since that time.  There have even been churches on the North and South Alabama District of our denomination that have experienced the very same situation as the churches in James day and time.

Behaving like the good, strong leader that he was, reacting in a practical manner like he did, James In chapter four wanted to address this problem.  So he begins by asking these churches a question, “Where do these “wars and fightings” come from that are among you”?

James knew the answer but his question was meant to help his listeners realize and admit the problems themselves.  Isn’t that a common thing with us?  We know the problem but often we simply refuse to admit it. 

Throughout the next few verses James points out some major issues with those churches and ours. 

Look at his list:

·         Lust

·         Wrong motives

·         Adultery

·         Lack of effort

·         Judging

·         Omission

It would take a very long time to adequately address all of these conditions.  But let’s briefly look at each just to bring some points to light.  Perhaps you can go back over the list later and do some intense study on each item. 

1.  LUST:  (Passionate personal desires).  What are some things that you are passionate about?  Well, perhaps we should first define the word “passionate”.  Some synonyms for passionate are:  Fanatical, avid, zealous, and ardent.  Do any of these words describe the way you feel about anything?

Usually, when the word lust is used people in our day think of it as a sinful, usually sexual thing.  But one can experience lust and it have no sexual connotation at all. In James’ use of the word he seems to mean more like “strong, passionate, personal desire”. 

He tells his readers that the reason “wars and fightings” occur is because of the “lust” that war in your members (church members). Understand that James is not talking about wars between kingdoms and nations, although they will occur from the same type of feelings, he was writing to Christian churches that were being torn apart by “wars” (indicating long lasting hostile, hard feelings) and “fightings”( indicating sharp outburst, skirmishes, snapping back and forth). 

James says all of this “ruckus” in the church is caused by your selfishness.  “Your lust” that war in “your members”.  Lust for power, prestige, “I want it MY way”.  Oh, it doesn’t have to be “spiritual wars” about beliefs or doctrines.  I have known pastors who have had to fight tremendous battles with their church boards, battles that caused hard feelings and fussing because of the choice of the paint color in a Sunday school room. 

You lust, you kill, you desire to have, me, me, me,-my, my, my-I,I,I.  Elvis sang a song that was heralded as a great “hit”, it was called “I did it my way”.  I’ve heard it played at funerals.  What a sad, lonely, dangerous statement to get to the end of your life and claim “I did it my way”. 

Selfishness, lust, passion “it’s my way or the highway” will tare up churches, families, lives and relationships with God Himself. 

2.  WRONG MOTIVES:  I guess this is my wife’s favorite Bible verse; at least it’s the one I hear her quote most often.  “You have not because you ask not”.  I remember teaching a lesson once entitled “What do you want”?   I’m not sure we could even list the things we really WANT.  Oh, we’d like to have a new house and a new car and new cloths and a boat or some kind of material thing, but is that what we really want?  James tells us if you “want” it “ask for it”.  You don’t have it because you don’t ask for it. 

I know it’s a man thing.  But at Christmas and birthdays and anniversaries, I always ask my wife, “What do you want”?  And usually she doesn’t tell me.  If she would tell me, I’d get it for her.  If she would just say, “Bill, I’d like to have a new chain saw”, I’d rush up to the chain saw store and buy her a really nice one.  But she won’t do that.  She will just leave it up to me to think of something.

I wonder what you really want.  Have you asked God for it? 

James knew he was talking to some pretty selfish people, he had already established that.  So he qualifies his statement by saying “You ask and have not because you ask amiss”.  You are asking out of a selfish heart.  That might be a good scale to weigh our request on.  We need a “selfish-0-meter” that calculates the” why”.  Why am I praying this prayer?  Why am I asking God for this or that?  Are my motives for His glory or mine? 

3.  ADULTERY:  Here we find James referring to a topic we have discussed a lot in our Wednesday night Bible study.  We have talked at length about the fact that Christians should be different.  Christians should come apart and be separate.  Christians should not be like the world.  If we are going to be “married to Christ” then we must live like we are “married to Christ”.  If we don’t, James says we are guilty of committing adultery. 

If when I decided to ask Keva to marry me, I got down on one knee, presented her with a ring and asked her “To make me the happiest man alive by marrying me”, we stood before the preacher and said our vows and then I went off to live with another woman, enjoy her company, take her out to eat, spend time with her, what would the world call me?  (No, not dead) My actions would be called adultery and rightly so.

When we stand before God and men and claim to be a Christian and then go and live like the world, James says we should be called the same, adulterers and adulteresses. He reasons that I can’t be married to one and live with or like the other.  If I’m going to be a “friend” to the world, I will be an “enemy” to God. 

A few verses on down in this chapter James calls this condition being “double minded, Christians with mud on their hands and trash in their hearts.  He cautions us to have clean hands and a pure heart.

(Verse 5 is a little puzzling.  In all the reading and studying I have done I can not find the verse that James quotes here.  Nowhere can I find in the scriptures the verse or anything like the verse “The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy”.  That would be a good homework assignment for you if you have nothing else to do this week.)

 4.  LACK OF EFFORT:  We already know from our study of the last 3 chapters of James that James was a man of action.  He believed in Practical Christianity.  He believed in DOING something.  In verse 7 he instructs us to RESIST and DRAW NIGH both are ACTION WORDS. 

The word resist means desire, but NOT JUST DESIRE, it means doing something about your desire.  “Oh, I don’t want to do wrong”.  Then make an effort! 

If a “bad guy” came up to me and wanted to take my money, I wouldn’t want him to steal my money, it wouldn’t be my desire for him to steal my money, but he WOULD steal my money if I didn’t RESIST. 

When Satan comes to us and tempts us to do wrong, when he puts bad thoughts in our minds or bad things before our eyes, we don’t “want” to do wrong, but we fail to RESIST.  We fail to DO SOMETHING.  Paul told Timothy to FLEE, run, get out’a there.  Make an effort. 

If you are hungry, work, grow something.  If you are thirsty, find some water.  If you are cold wrap up in something, if you are tempted and are being beat up by the devil RESIST. 

And the opposite is true.  If we want to get closer to God we must also make an effort.  It is not by our efforts that we are made righteous and holy but when we make and effort God honors that effort and “draws near” to us. 

One would have to question your “wants” if all you did was “want” and didn’t make an effort to accomplish those wants.  If I want to get closer to you I must make and effort to get there.   I can’t just stand here and say I wish I were standing over there close to you, I have to make an effort.

5. JUDGING:  “I don’t judge, I just form opinions”.  “I’m not a judge; I’m just a fruit inspector”.  Call it what you will.  James says you are putting yourself in God’s place and isn’t that what got Satan in trouble in the first place?

The thing about judging is that we like to use two different sets of rules when we judge. I want to judge you by your actions.  But I want you to judge me by my intentions.  

If I do something wrong I justify it by saying “Well, that’s not what I meant to do”.  But if you do something wrong I am not concerned with your intents I only want to criticize you and punish you and talk about you because of WHAT you did, not WHY you did it. 

Two sets of rules, no matter how you look at it, that’s not very fair judgment.  How just would it be for us both to stand before a judge for a wrong-doing and he use one set of standards for me and another for you.  But that’s exactly what you and I do when we judge each other.  Don’t know about you but that makes my toes hurt.

6.  OMISSION:  “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin”

We have used John Wesley’s definition of sin in the past, “A willful transgression against the known will of God”.  That means knowing that something is wrong and making the choice to do it anyway.

But James goes further. He says knowing that something is right and choosing NOT to do it is sin.  In “Christian-ease” we call that the sin of omission. 

I believe that James did a pretty good job of answering the question, “where do the wars and fightings come from among you”?  Like most all of our problems they come from US.  It’s our fault and it will take our trust in God’s mercy and grace and some effort on our part to overcome them.  It seems to me that makes sense.  It seems to me that is Practical Christianity.