LIFE MATTERS 6: A Study From The Book of James
James 4:13-17
February 15, 2015
Competition in Silicon Valley has reached a new high, or a new low, depending on how you
view it. We live in the land of cutting edge. It is a place where billions of dollars, worldwide
fame and success are not always about the best in the market but the first to market.
Because of that, this valley churns. Because of that, this valley races forward, and it calls all
of us to speed along with it.
That is what drives people to long hours and long commutes. It causes people to make big
plans and do whatever is necessary to complete them. That is where the competition comes
in. Companies compete with one another by stealing workers from one another; workers
compete with one another and don’t care who they step on in the process. Those workers
then go home to families that are driven to compete with their neighbors. They compete to
have better kids and drive their offspring to make perfect grades, so they can get into the
perfect school and have the perfect career. They compete to have better stuff and they
work even longer hours to buy homes and pay for vacations to prove how successful they
are.
In all of this competition, people are looking for an edge. Faster computing. Better storage.
Stronger networks. But there is a new frontier. We have had better computers, better
workspaces, but now we are striving for better brains. Under the surface of Silicon Valley,
there is a growing market for Nootropics. Nootropics, also known as smart drugs, are a
growing market that are meant to give you one more leg up on the competition to make
you smarter and think faster. The word Nootropic was coined by a doctor in 1972, and it is
a compound word meaning, nous-mind and tropo-bend or curve. These drugs are meant to
bend your mind towards more success.
A couple of weeks ago, CNN ran an article about Nootropics in Silicon Valley. In the heart of
the article after explaining the concept of Nootropics, they began to ask questions about
safety since these drugs have not been tested for long-term safety or side effects. In that
interview, a valley entrepreneur gave his two cents on the safety issue:
"Just like an Olympic athlete who's willing to do almost anything, even if it shortens your life
by five years, to get a gold medal, you're going to think about what pills and potions you can
take," Ferriss said. "In many people's minds, the difference between completely failing ... and
making a billion dollars, is right here," he explained, pointing to his head.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/25/technology/nootropics-smart-drugs/
This is just one man, but I would guess there are a few more like him. With billions of
dollars at stake, everyone is racing, surging forward and making plans and then boasting
about what they have done. It turns out there is nothing new under the sun 2,000 years
later and several continents away.
James 4: 13-17
Big plans. Profits. Arrogance. Boasting. Does any of that sound familiar? We are in the last
week of our series Life Matters. Throughout this series, I have hopefully been pointing you
to unconventional solutions for life’s big problems. This series is about connecting you with
life, not life as it is advertised in this valley, but abundant life that leads to eternal life. Time
and again we have turned to Ecclesiastes 3:11 as the impetus for this series.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
From the day we begin to draw breath until the day we take our last, we are looking for life.
This valley, this country and this world give you several options for finding it, consumption,
success, hedonism and many more. The heart of this series is promoting the subversive
way of Christ, to promote his unconventional teaching against the tidal wave of popular
wisdom. We think life can only be truly found when following Jesus, and we think following
Jesus is simple, or at least the ideas are. If you want life, you need to follow Jesus, and if you
want to follow Jesus, you need to practice three things: Life in God-intentional Christcentered worship, Life with others-practicing your faith in Christian community and Life
for Others-serving and sharing in Jesus’ name.
Today we are concluding this series and focusing on Life for Others, but it really includes all
of those life goals. That is the great thing about these life goals and the life that God offers.
They are inter-related and inter-dependent. Most of God’s economy and the way we relate
to him and others is vicarious. We experience God when we worship, but we also
experience him in community and when we serve. We enjoy life with others because we
learn more about God, but that usually happens when we learn more about one another.
We like to serve because it feels good to be a blessing to others, but we also experience God
in fresh ways when we do this.
Our passage today has a somewhat well known verse within it. James 4:17 is a great verse.
If anyone knows the good or right thing to do and does not do it, he sins. This truly expands
the idea of what God expects from us. Much of the Christian life is boiled down to sin
management and impulse control, which is good. We are called to love God’s law and
pursue holiness, but you could be a bastion of holiness and if you are not proactively
seeking to do good things, you are sinning. I told you a few weeks ago from the movie,
Calvary, that we are too concerned with sin and not concerned enough with virtue.
The fancy phrase that is often used to describe this idea is the sin of omission. This is
actually a big idea that is hard to understand. One Sunday School teacher tried to explain it
recently and found this out:
A Sunday School teacher who was speaking to her class on the topic of sin asked, "Can anyone
tell me what the sin of commission is?"
One girl raised her hand. "I know!" she said. "The sin of commission is when you do what you
shouldn't do."
"That's right," the teacher said. "Now can someone tell me what the sin of omission is?"
A boy in the back of the room was anxiously waving his arm, so she called on him. He said,
"The sin of omission? Well, those are the sins that you want to do, but you haven't gotten
around to them yet."
Many sins are sins of commission, things that you do that violate God’s law, adultery,
murder, lying, coveting. The sin of omission is about the things you omit. The things you
know you should do but don’t. Life for Others is directly connected to this idea of the sin of
omission. But how do you avoid this sin?
For many of us, life can be a series of missed opportunities, sins of omission. There are
moments when we do or don’t give money to a homeless person. Moments when we do or
do not walk across the room to comfort someone. Moments when we do or do not take a
meal to a family in need. Moments when we do or do not help fund a mission trip or go on
one. Big or small, the sin of omission is tough because you can’t give money to every
homeless person. You can’t buy every lunch. You can’t go on every mission trip. How do I
know this? Because Jesus didn’t heal everyone, and theoretically, he could have, but he
limited himself and his power by taking on human flesh, which meant that he was tired,
and he couldn’t do everything for everyone.
If we are in a similar boat, we begin to understand that the sin of omission is complex. If I
have finite resources and finite time, how do I avoid the sin of omission? You know the
boundaries when it comes to the sins of commission-those big Ten Commandments. There
is some nuance in understanding them, but overall it is clear what you are to do and not do.
With a world of opportunities in front of you and only limited resources at your disposal,
how do you avoid the sin of omission?
I want to show you a picture that went viral about a week ago.
http://instagram.com/p/yoUT8XnEtQ/?modal=true
This is a real picture that a man named Eric Smith took off the coast of Redondo Beach, CA.
Eric spotted some hump back whales and began taking their pictures. He spotted the whale
beginning to surface and snapped more pictures. Later when Smith was looking over his
shots, he noticed this man. Other people on this boat were in awe of this opportunity in
front of them, but this man missed it. Completely. He was glued to his phone when real life
was offering him an amazing opportunity. Smith freely offers that this man could have been
texting with someone about a life-altering issue, perhaps someone who was sick or in need.
But more likely than not, he was not. Maybe he was playing Candy Crush or checking
Facebook, or maybe he was doing work emails and closing deals. Whatever the case, this
picture is potent; an opportunity surfaces and he completely misses it. The question today
is, “How do you avoid the sin of omission?” Without strict guidelines as a finite person with
finite power, finite resources and finite gifts, how do you serve a hurting world? That
brings us back to Nootropics and Silicon Valley.
I don’t really care if you use certain vitamin pills to enhance your day. Most of us are doing
this in one form or another; it’s just a matter if your Nootropic has one pump or two,
whether it contains soy and shots of espresso. The issue here is the insidious nature of the
valley we live in. The hard charging race to win no matter what. That’s what leads to big
plans and big goals and obsession with what we will do and where we will go.
That is why James starts where he does in verse 13.
James 4:13
This is not anti-capitalist. This is not encouraging us to throw away our calendars and not
pursue difficult rewarding work. James’ concern is the order of things. James’ concern is
priorities. James’ concern is that you don’t miss the opportunities that surface. Verse 17
and the sin of omission is directly tied to this passage. When you actually consider this
verse, it is a bit out of place. James is talking about work, arrogance, boasting and planning,
then he seemingly switches gears to talk about the sin of omission, but the two are directly
related.
You cannot save everyone. You cannot fix everything. You cannot be in all places in all
times taking care of all things. If you aren’t careful, you can miss opportunities that surface.
If you get caught up in the Silicon Valley dream, you will miss what God has for you. You
will miss a chance at seeing God show up and show off. If you are consumed with the
competition, you will miss the bigger story.
That’s why James says what he does in verse 14. He looks at the man on the boat missing
the whale. He looks at merchants making their plans. He looks at us who can be neck deep
in the Silicon Valley salt mines, and he reminds us, “You do not know what tomorrow will
bring.” That is a scary reminder. Your time is short, whether you know it or not. James, of
course, is probably remembering the story that Jesus told of the man who built bigger and
bigger barns only to die with full barns and an empty soul.
If tomorrow is not guaranteed, then James is saying, be mindful of today. Randy Pausch was
an author and Professor at Carnegie-Mellon University. He was given a terminal diagnosis,
which led him to give a speech at his university dubbed “The Last Lecture.” You can actually
find it on YouTube, and it was turned into a New York Times best selling book. Randy
Pausch talked about life and death, and he had many great quotes, but I loved this one:
I think the only advice I can give you on how to live your life well is, first off, remember... it's
not the things we do in life that we regret on our deathbed, it is the things we do not.
Randy Pausch understood the sin of omission. The first thing you can do today is audit
where you are in the Silicon Valley rat race. You should have a meaningful career and you
should work hard at it, but what is driving you? How many opportunities have surfaced
that you have completely missed? The second thing to consider is your fleeting presence on
this earth. If tomorrow is not guaranteed, then how will that change what you do today?
Previously, you might not have given money away because you were worried about
tomorrow. Previously, you might not have supported or served on a mission trip because
you didn’t have the time. Previously, you might not have walked across the room to a coworker because it might complicate your relationship. What are you doing today?
Then we get these final two verses before verse 17, and he discusses two practices that are
polar opposites of one another. James suggests you start every day with the idea of, “if the
Lord wills it.” This is not so much a recitation as it is a state of your heart. I don’t know that
every statement of purpose needs a pious addendum of, “if the Lord wills it,” but it is a state
of mind. If you lift up your head from the Silicon Valley salt mines, if you come to grips with
your brief stay in this mortal coil, then this state of mind comes much easier. “If the Lord
wills it” is not a sanctimonious saying, but rather a position of the soul, a giving up of
control, a practice of holding all things loosely.
The exact polar opposite is boasting and arrogance. Those who boast and live in arrogance
are completely in control or so they think. “If the Lord wills it” is about humility. “If the
Lord wills it” is about surrender.
The sin of omission is about missed opportunities. The sin of omission is about missed joy.
We have discussed this in this series at length, but I want to remind you that this is not a
picture of God lightning bolt in hand, saying, “Don’t you dare commit the sin of omission.” I
think it bothers him and hurts him when we miss opportunities, but don’t forget we are
talking about life, abundant life. These opportunities that surface are for your joy.
As with all sin, God is not going to love you less when you commit the sin of omission, but
you just might miss out on something grand. An opportunity to see him show up and show
off. An opportunity for real growth and insight where you help someone in need and your
heart is blessed in the meantime.
One of the great stories of Jesus is all about missed opportunities. Many of you are familiar
with the story of the Good Samaritan as told in Luke’s Gospel in 10:25-37. A man is robbed
and beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. An opportunity for doing good has
arisen as a priest and a Levite both pass by on the other side of the road. For practical and
religious reasons, they miss the opportunity and step right over this wounded man. Then,
an unlikely hero, the Samaritan, sees this broken and bruised man, and he cares for him. He
spends money and time on this man and brings him back to health.
In this story, Jesus is teaching the people to consider all people as their neighbor and to
love people tangibly. Here is what I don’t want you to miss: this whole parable was told
because of a simple question. What must I do to inherit eternal life? This leads to the two
truths that we are to love God and love our neighbor and then the parable is an excursus on
who is our neighbor. Do not miss this, the parable is tied back to the question, “Where do I
find life?”
Life for Others is a chance to enjoy the life that God offers. Yes, it is difficult and yes, it is
costly, but it is an opportunity, an opportunity for joy, an opportunity to see God in a fresh
new way. It is a chance for God to use you in a way you never thought possible. Next week
is our Serve Sunday. This isn’t a day where we will fix the Bay Area. This isn’t a day where
all problems will be fixed. This day is an opportunity for people who have been hurt by the
church to see God’s people loving them. It is an opportunity for those who have written the
church off as a holy huddle to see us out in the field, and it is an opportunity for you to see
God. It is an opportunity for more life. Don’t miss it. Sign up today.
I’ll finish with this; Nootropics offers to bend your mind to more of what Silicon Valley has
to offer. God has another offering for you, the renewing of your mind. Romans 12 pushes us
to no longer be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our
minds. I don’t think that conforming to the world is only about moral maintenance and sin
management. I think we conform to this world when we keep our heads down and miss the
glory and when we don’t see an opportunity for beauty and redemption surfacing right in
front of us. Lift up your eyes this week. Survey the world around you. You can’t fix it all, but
you can do something. It won’t be free but not doing it could be costly.