James – Eternity in Mind

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Well, today we are in a series on the book of James that we have conveniently titled James.

And uh if you've missed any of it, let me just really quickly catch you up.

James was the half-brother of Jesus.

I said this last week, but like, how hard would it be to have Jesus as your brother?

Can you imagine that?

You would never be good enough, you would never measure up, he's always perfect because he's, you know, Jesus.

And look, can you imagine how hard that would be?

And but James grew up not convinced that Jesus was the Son of God.

It wasn't until later in life that James was convinced, and he was so convinced, that he became literally the leader of the church.

So it's such a big deal.

Jesus changed lives and he keeps changing lives, and I love that.

The book of James is one of the most practical books in all of the Bible.

Some people call it the Proverbs of the New Testament.

And one of the themes that I think is so important in this book is it's written to those Christians, these new followers of Jesus, the first church, and it's so practical and it's so helpful.

But one of the things he asks that I think is so pertinent to all of us is what good does it do a person to hear the message of Jesus, but not to do it?

Like, of what good is it to hear what Jesus wants us to do, but not to actually live it out?

I heard a Christian uh musician many years ago say it it would be the same as putting a screen door on a submarine.

It's gonna do no good at all.

It's gonna cause there to be problems.

And so in the series, we're talking about what does it mean to actually live out the message of Jesus, to get us started today.

Uh in 2020.

Anybody remember 2020 and how awesome that was?

It was a good time for all of us.

And uh I had something weird happen to me.

You know, we had a lot of time to just sit around.

We had a lot of time to watch YouTube videos, we had a lot, there was no sports on TV, so I had nothing to do.

And I caught myself into this interesting little rabbit hole.

I got myself into a little bit of an addiction that here I am to confess.

I'm Jason, got a confession to make.

Um, I got addicted to watching YouTube videos of chiropractors adjusting people.

Would anybody else like to make me feel a little bit better and like to admit that you enjoy watching those videos?

And I couldn't, there's none of two of us, thank you.

Okay, we'll start a support group.

Uh C A chiropractors Anonymous, and uh, we'll just try that.

And and so I would watch these videos of them twisting people's necks and twisting their backs, and and I'm telling you, like, I couldn't go to a chiropractor because nothing was open, but I got such joy, I got such relief out of watching it.

And I didn't just watch like one or two videos, I watched all the videos.

Every YouTube video on a chiropractor, I watched all of them, and it just helped me, it made me feel looser, it gave me some inspiration.

I love the sounds, I love the relief people had.

But then something weird happened.

I started thinking I could do it.

Like, like, like if you watch enough YouTube videos, you got this.

And so, like, I'd be hugging my wife and I'd be like, girl, you seem kind of tight.

And I'd like rub up on her back and I'd just pull her in real tight like this, and she'd slap me, she's like, What are you doing?

I'm like, I got this.

I said, I'm a doctor.

And she said, a doctor of ministry, shut up, is what she said.

But there is this sense in me that I believed that if I watched enough of it, I could actually do it.

Okay.

Now, did anybody in the room know a person?

Maybe it's not you, certainly not the person you're sitting next to, but does anybody in the room know a person who thinks they can do everything?

Anyone know this?

I I had a friend growing up who you've heard the phrase, he's a you know, jack of all trades, master of none.

He was a jack of all trades and not nothing, like couldn't do any of it, but you couldn't tell this person anything that they didn't know already.

You couldn't say something to them that they hadn't read or researched, oh, I read about that, I heard about that.

This person, like they they just pretended to know everything.

I think one of the signs of maturity is when you start to realize that you might know a lot, you might have a lot of degrees behind your name.

You might have studied at the most prestigious universities on the face of the planet, but no matter how studied you are, no matter how smart you are, no matter how well read you are, there is a limit to our knowledge.

Like there is something freeing about saying, like, I don't really know how that goes.

I don't really have it all figured out.

If you know someone like that, if you know someone who just knows everything about everything, I want you to hold on to that.

Because today we're gonna go to James 4 and the beginning of James chapter 5.

James 5 · chapter mention

And here's what's fascinating.

James is gonna write to Christians who think they've kind of got it all figured out.

The kinds of Christians who like, well, you can't really teach me anything because I know it.

I I I may not have the most experience with all of it, but you can't really teach me anything.

In fact, the end of James 4 is written to who I would call the competent, and the beginning of James chapter 5 is written to the people that I would call the wealthy.

James 5 · chapter mention

Today I want to spend our time talking to these groups of people.

And here's the funny thing: if you look at that and you're like, that's not me.

I'm about to show you that it is you because it's you and it's me, and it's the people sitting around you, and it's all of those of you who are joining us at church online.

It's literally all of us.

We are the people that James is talking to.

So to get us started today, I'd like to go to James chapter four, and I want you to notice something.

We're gonna start in the middle of James chapter four, and the first two words of this are kind of a, they're kind of this moment where James shakes you.

He says, I got something for you.

At the beginning of James 5, he's gonna start with the same two words.

James 4 says this, verse 13.

Now listen.

It's like, all right.

Like if you haven't been paying attention to this point, now's a good time to tune in.

Now listen, you who say.

Today or tomorrow, we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make money.

He says, Why?

You do not even know what will happen tomorrow.

He says, What is your life?

You are a, come on, say this word, you are a mist.

You're a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Then he says, instead, you ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.

As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes.

All such boasting is evil.

Now, if you read this at face value, this could almost seem contradictory to some of the teachings in the Bible.

Because it sounds like James is saying, hey, don't have a plan.

Just walk through this life, no plan, no idea.

Scripture all throughout scripture teaches us that we should have a plan.

In fact, you could almost reduce some of the things that Proverbs says to this simple phrase those who fail to plan, plan to fail.

So there is something about planning that is important, but here's what James is saying.

James is saying, no matter how good of a plan you have, if you have a plan that depends on you, your plan is rooted in arrogance.

You don't control tomorrow.

The reason he's setting this up is because we don't control tomorrow.

All we can control is what's happening right here and right now.

So he's gonna give us a challenge, an admonition for how to live this moment right here, right now, to the fullest.

And then he gives us this picture, that this reminder.

The mist, the word for mist in Greek is the word atmos.

It's kind of the root of the word atmosphere.

He says you're literally here for a moment, and then you're gone.

It's like this.

He says, You are your life, it's short.

It comes and it goes, but your life mist.

It's here.

It's gone.

Can I tell you a funny story real quick?

Um, one time I was preaching this verse and I sprayed the mist, and then I took a deep breath, like, and all you could literally see it on the video, all the mist went right into my throat.

It was like, ugh, you're see, you're gonna die, I'm gonna die.

That's what it felt like.

He says you're a mist, and and I don't even know if the picture of like spraying Febreze is even the right picture of what the mist is, but it's here for a moment and then it's gone.

The actual picture of it is kind of like if you've ever gone to glass in your bathroom and and you breathe hot air on it and it fogs it up for one second and then immediately it's back to gone.

That's the picture that James gives us of our lives.

It's a mist.

It's here for a moment, then it's gone.

If I could summarize this whole message for you today, it's simply this don't miss the mist.

Like, I don't want you to miss these moments.

I don't want you to miss all that God has for us.

And I want you to notice in just those four verses that we read, there's three descriptors that he uses that, in my opinion, define our lives.

Maybe you you heard we're talking about the competent, and you think it's not really talking about me.

I want you to see this, and I want you to think, maybe is he describing me?

I want you the first word that he uses is this idea that our lives are fleeting.

They're here for a moment and then they're gone.

I don't know if you've ever had a moment where you've sat in the funeral of a loved one, particularly someone who died way too young from your perspective.

And it's like you stare eternity in the face.

My first memory of this wasn't a family member, it was my best friend from middle school's younger brother.

Well, when I was 18 or so, his younger brother was 16, and early, early in the morning, he'd spent the whole night out.

He was riding a little dirt bike-sized motorcycle, and he came over the hill at an intersection and didn't see, kind of caught a little bit of air, and there was a semi-truck parked literally on the other side, just outside of his visibility, and he died on impact.

One of my best friend's little brothers.

We played Mario together, we hung out together, we we did a lot of hanging out, and he was gone, and he was so messed up from the wreck that they there was no way that the artist at the funeral home could put him back together.

So the casket was closed, and I sat with my mouth ajar watching this funeral service, realizing that life is fleeting.

It's a miss.

It's here and it's gone.

Another word that he uses to kind of describe our lives.

Our lives are forgettable.

And nobody wants to hear this.

Nobody wants to think, well, my life really doesn't matter, it's just kind of forgettable.

But the truth is, time will move on.

It just does.

For those of you who are outside of your college age years, have you ever had the experience of going back to your high school?

Isn't it a weird feeling?

You walk onto that campus and you think, I used to run this place.

Everybody knew me, I was the star, I was big man on campus, everybody loved me.

And now you walk onto that campus and people are like, who's the creepy old guy?

Like, what is wrong with this person?

Because we're forgettable.

I can prove it to you like this.

Um, I want you to think for a moment, and I want you to raise your hand if this is true for you.

Can you name the names of your great grandparents?

You name their actual name.

A few people out of hundreds of people, only a few people can do that.

That's only four generations ago, and people who were related to us, who are responsible for the fact that we're even alive, we we forget them.

In James chapter one, he gives us this other picture.

He compares our lives to the grass in a field.

And if you think about the grass in a field, you have no idea how many generations of that grass have come and died, grown and died.

You don't know when you look out over a field which of those blades of grass grew to be tall or stayed short and stubby.

You don't know which of them had life for a long time or which died quickly.

You don't know which blades of grass were weeds or had flowers.

You have no idea because seasons come and seasons go, and that's the picture James wants us to have of our lives.

If we're not careful, our lives will become forgettable.

And then here's the last picture that he uses.

Our lives are fragile.

They're fragile.

And I want you to see this because there is this part in us that thinks that we can do more, try harder to extend our lives.

We we live in a social media world that pushes supplements and exercise and diets and all kinds of things to make our lives better.

But I want you to see something.

Even the strongest person alive, even the uh Navy SEALs or the Army Rangers, even those who are the most trained, the most in shape, with the perfect diets, perfect exercise routines, even those people are so fragile.

The book of Isaiah says it like this, Isaiah 2, 22.

He says, Stop trusting in mere humans, have but a breath in their nostrils.

Why hold them in esteem?

Other translations talk about this idea of our noses more specifically and say, even the strongest person, if their nose and mouth are plugged, will die.

Even the strongest person can have a microorganism of bacteria get into their nose, into their systems, and can kill them from the inside out.

Now, nobody likes to hear this, but he's trying to remind us that our lives are fleeting, forgettable, and they're fragile.

But that's just the setup for what he's gonna say.

The question is now what do we do with this?

What are the words that he's gonna use that should characterize our lives?

And I want you to see this.

The first word he uses is this idea of humility.

Humility.

Let me say it to you like this no person got to where they are on their own.

It is irresponsible.

I would even go as far as to say it is sinful to live your life and to think that everything you have in your life, all that you've accomplished, all that you've done, where you grew up, who you married, what you've accomplished, all of those things happened all by yourself.

James 4, verse 15, he says this.

James 4:15

He says, Instead, you ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.

I tell you, um, one of the most silly phrases a person can say.

One of the most silly things that a person can say, and I think it's silly to us, but it's gotta be so silly to God, is simply this.

I got this.

In Polk County, we might say, hey, y'all watch this.

Like we we don't know.

Because this line of thinking presumes that we can do everything on our own, and we got here on our own.

Here's something interesting.

Even non-Christian secular authors are starting to write and say things like we didn't get where we are all on our own.

You might have put in the work, you might have put in the sweat equity, you might have invested your money, you might have taken some risks, but you are not exclusively the product of your best effort.

You need to understand God is providential in every part of our lives.

Humility says, God, I am where I am because of you.

Everything I have is because of you, and it's all from you, it's all for you, so I offer all of it back to you.

The first word that should characterize our lives is humility.

The second word is the word eternity.

I want you to understand this.

We have got to start thinking differently about our lives.

David in the book of Psalms said this: he said, Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Hold here for just a moment.

One of my favorite illustrations I've ever seen.

I wish I came up with this, but I saw a pastor years ago come up with it, is this simple idea of seeing our lives differently.

And the funny thing is, I want you to look at this rope, and I want you to look at this red section, and I want you to imagine that this red section represents the course of our lives.

We are born one day.

We crawl one day, we have our first steps one day, we have our first solids foods at some point.

We grow a little bit, we make it to kindergarten, have kindergarten graduation.

We make it through middle and high school by the grace of God.

If a kid survives high school, Lord bless them, he's with them.

Maybe we go off to college, maybe we get married, then there's a day when you have your first child, and it's one of those monumental best days of your whole life.

Get a little older, you have some kids.

You grow old with your spouse, your kids get married, and they have children, and grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your own children.

You know this?

And you love those grandkids, and then time just keeps going.

And then there's an end.

I've heard it said about the breadth of our lives that when we're children, our lives crawl.

When we get to college, our lives run.

When we get to parenthood, we struggle to keep up.

When we get past childbearing years, when we get into the later years, our time seems to fly.

And by the time we get to retirement, time seems to vanish.

It's here and it's gone.

And if all you think about in your life is the little tiny bit of red, this is a really terrible way to think about your life.

What James wants us to understand is there is this little part of our life, but the real truth is there's way more to this life than this life.

That this life isn't all that there is, but this life is really the beginning of all the years of eternity.

In fact, in the grand scheme of our lives, we will get to heaven, and maybe three seconds into heaven, we will have forgotten about all of this because all of this will feel in eternity like a mist, like it was gone here for a moment and then gone.

I actually wonder if we were to think about our lives this way, how differently we might live our lives.

Think about parents who have their kids in travel sports on the weekends.

We do everything we can to give our kids the best shot.

We stress about what schools they're gonna get into.

Does it matter?

Absolutely, absolutely it matters.

But we we're thinking about the red and we're not thinking about the eternity.

We're thinking about the little moments, we're not thinking about all that God has for us.

You see, I believe that if we started thinking about eternity and not just the red, I believe if we started thinking about all the time of eternity and what eternity looks like, it would cause us to live our lives in an entirely different kind of way.

We would start to see every soul around us as urgent matter to God.

We would celebrate baptism Sundays like today, even bigger.

We would hold on to our money way less tightly because we would realize that it's literally here for a moment, but then it's gone.

Amy Carmichael, a missionary, said this.

She said, We will have eternity to celebrate the victories, but only a few hours before sunset to win them.

We only have the short breath, the mist of the red section of our life to do the stuff that matters.

It's not really popular anymore, but a few years ago, this phrase was so popular.

YOLO! You only live once.

This is what was said before people did things that were crazy or silly or stupid.

YOLO, YOLO, and I just want to say YOLO is dumb.

The truth is, it should be Yauf.

You are living forever.

Your life goes on, it doesn't stop in this moment.

Your life matters, and you need to understand when you think about your life in the context of eternity and not just the short season in between our first and last breath, it changes everything.

When you think about eternity, you should ask the question what lives forever?

And it's literally only two things it is the word of God and the souls of people.

So I would say to you, we should probably center our lives around the word of God and the souls of other people.

You say, What is what does that look like?

If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would be left on this earth for you to do?

Why don't you do it today?

Final thought is this, let's keep moving on.

The final thought in this is that three words that should characterize who we are is humility, eternity, and then immediacy.

Kind of setting this up with the eternity thought.

Immediacy means don't put off till tomorrow what you are supposed to do today, because according to James, if our life is but a mist, we don't even know if we'll have tomorrow.

So do it here and do it now.

I've heard one of the greatest regrets in adulthood is not filling up your gas when it's empty that evening and putting it off till tomorrow because it's always worse.

Okay, keep that in mind.

What's way worse than that is lying on your deathbed and living with regret of what you should have done and who you should have shared your faith with and what you should have done with your life that matters.

James 4 17, he says it like this if anyone then knows the good, they ought to do it and doesn't do it.

It is sin for them.

Jim Elliott, this wonderful missionary, said this.

He said, Make it such, Lord, that when it comes my time in life to die, all I have left to do is die.

May I have fully obeyed.

May I have fully done everything you asked me to do, so that when my time comes, the only thing left for me to do is just to die.

That's it.

Let me offer you this thought.

As a follower of Jesus, we are called to obedience.

If God tells you to do something, do it.

If God puts someone in your path to share your faith with, share it.

If God encourages you to serve someone, serve them.

If God lays it on your heart to be open-handed and to be generous and give, be open-handed and give.

Here's the reason.

Delayed obedience is disobedience.

And I think for a lot of us, we think to ourselves, if I can just like hold on, then I'll be generous later.

If I can just build a bigger nest egg, then I'll be generous later.

If I can just have a huge 401k, and if I can just have a lot of money in my retirement, then when I die, I'll leave a portion of what I have to the work of God.

And what James wants us to understand is we are not guaranteed tomorrow, so we've got to live now as if now is all we've got because now matters.

And then comes James 5.

James 4, he talks to the competent.

James 5, he's gonna talk to people that I would call the wealthy.

And if you're like, well, well, good, I'm off the hook on that one.

I got good news for you.

You're wealthy.

You're like, what do you, what do you, how am I wealthy?

Okay, if you walked into a closet today that had clothes, and you thought to yourself, I don't really have anything to wear, wealthy.

If you've got a jar in your house somewhere that has loose coins that you'll probably never spend ever, wealthy.

If you go into a pantry that's full of random ingredients and you think, oh, we have nothing to eat, wealthy.

Statistically, if your household earns more than$60,000, it puts you in the upper 1% of earners in the whole world.

We are in the wealthiest generation in the history of the world.

And James is gonna talk to us, and here's what he says, and this is kind of brutal.

Brace yourself.

He says, Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you.

Aren't you glad you came to church today, everybody?

James is like, sucker punch, gotcha.

He says, Your wealth has rotted and moths have eaten away your clothes, your gold and silver are corroded.

Goes on, their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire.

Breakfast of champions.

He says, You have hoarded wealth in the last days.

Look, the wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you.

The cities of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.

You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence.

You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.

Everybody take a deep breath.

Take a deep breath.

He's talking to those of us who are wealthy, and he calls out three groups of people, and I want to land the plane here quickly.

The first group of people he's talking to are people who live their life to get worldly, self-indulgent, all about me kind of wealth.

The first group he talks to is the people who are hoarding.

Now there's a difference between saving and hoarding.

Saving is being wise and being prepared.

Hoarding is thinking that everything I have is for me.

It's the wrong assumption that everything I have is for my consumption.

When you think in light of eternity, you stop hoarding what you have and you start living open-handedly.

James 5, 3, he says, Your gold and silver are corroded.

Your corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire.

You have a hoarded wealth in the last days.

Okay, let me offer you this thought.

God didn't call you to die with a fat bank account.

Nothing wrong with leaving an inheritance.

In fact, Scripture says that a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.

I'm for that.

But also, if all we have is this fleeting, fragile moment, then we should think about our resources very differently and we don't hold it all for ourselves, but we live open-handedly when God asks us to be obedient and give.

The second thing is we're not, we're not going to be hoarders.

The second thing is we're not going to be self-indulgent.

Now, this is very important because so many of us think that everything we have is about me.

If I get more, we think it's about raising my standard of living, and what scripture teaches is counter to this.

It's not about my standard of living, but it's about my standard of giving.

Here's what he says in James chapter 5, verse 5.

James 5:5

He says, You've lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence.

You've fattened yourself in the day of slaughter.

There's nothing wrong with money.

There's nothing wrong with having money.

There's nothing wrong with earning money.

There's nothing wrong with even being wealthy.

It's what does that do to you as a result?

Can I teach you something I've learned about money?

A lot of people think if I just had more, then I would be, dot, dot, dot.

If I just had more, then I'd be generous, I'd be more grateful.

If I just had more, I'd be extravagant in my blessing of other people.

If I just had more.

Can I tell you what more does?

More magnifies.

More just makes you more of what you were in the first place.

So when it comes to money, if you're stingy and tight-handed, tight-fisted with everything you've got, and you get more money, spoiler alert, you're gonna hold on even tighter.

The root of the word miserable is the word miser, and a miser is someone who holds on tightly.

This is not the point.

One of the questions I think that James is trying to get us to ask when it comes to thinking about our money is this idea of sufficiency, sufficiently versus extravagantly.

What does it mean to live sufficiently?

Where your needs are met and you're taken care of, where you do the occasional vacation and you do bless the people in your life and you do enjoy the things of God.

But you're extravagant in the way that you give.

Let me show it to you like this.

I think you should ask the question in these three categories of the ways we use money, am I living sufficiently or extravagantly?

And spending, saving, and giving.

I can tell you my goal when it comes to money.

My goal is that I'm spending sufficiently, taking care of my family, occasional fun vacation, occasional blessing of a gift.

I want to drive cars that are safe and secure and that are not going to break down.

There's things that I want, I want to live my life and spend sufficiently.

I want to save sufficiently and be wise, but I want to give extravagantly.

The funny thing is, most Christians, if you were to actually look at their bank account, they give not quite sufficiently, because they've extravagantly spent on themselves and maybe extravagantly saved, but their giving calls their faith in God a liar.

Final thought.

Final word is it's bad to live a hoarding life or a self-indulgent life.

And finally, it's bad to live an injustice kind of life.

And here's what he's saying.

Let me read you the verse, then I'll explain it.

Look, the wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you.

The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.

Just leave this here for just a moment.

What he's saying is if you're a follower of Jesus, the way that you're generous and bless the people in your life should be evident.

You should pay your workers that work for you well.

If you go out to eat at a restaurant, listen to me.

Don't you dare be a Christian who leaves like a 3% tip and then like a message about Jesus.

You should be the most irrationally generous kind of person when it comes to this area of your money.

He's saying, do not dare.

Do not dare make this all about you.

Do not dare be stingy.

Do not live open-handedly with what you have and see how God blesses.

And here's the question I want you to wrestle with when it comes to your money and your wealth.

Question is, why did God give you that?

Why did God give you the money that's in your bank account?

Why did God give you the ability to earn money?

Why did God give you what he's given you?

You ready for the answer?

It's not all for you.

It is to steward.

What is a steward?

It's someone who watches over something that belongs to somebody else.

And you need to understand, Scripture says, the book of Psalms multiple times says, the earth is the Lord.

Everything in the world is God's.

But he entrusts to us to steward what we have.

So let me offer you one thought, then we'll be done when it comes to your money.

This is right out of the book of James.

Here's the three ways that I think we should think about our money that we have.

The first one is this priority.

Priority asks the question, what is first in our lives?

And I believe that tithing is such an important deal because when I tithe, when I give God first, when I bring to God what belongs to Him first, it says, God, you're my priority, not me.

Second way to think about your money is learning to think in terms of percentage.

And this is one of the things I love about God's system for generosity.

What if God just said, hey, it's a free-for-all, just give as you feel.

Some people will give like nothing, some people would give extravagantly, and it would just be a free-for-all.

But God levels the playing field and he says, whether you make one dollar a year or one trillion dollars a year, I want you to bring back to me a percentage, and the percentage is 10%.

It's called a tithe.

And here's what I love.

I mean, if we had time, I would unpack this for you.

Malachi chapter 3.

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

God says through the prophet Malachi, bring your whole tithe to the storehouse.

What's the storehouse?

It's the place where you're fed spiritually.

In the context of our country, it's our church.

Bring your tithe to the storehouse.

And in trusting me, watch what happens.

He says, See if I won't open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing on you, you can't contain it.

Why?

Why do we give?

Why do we live open-handedly?

Why do we do this?

It's not for the church.

In fact, if you're like, well, church is just after my money.

No, we're not.

We are doing wonderful.

Can I can I brag on you for a second?

You need to get this.

Last weekend we received our legacy offering.

You're the most generous people I've ever met.

Last weekend alone, you gave over$92,000.

You're amazing.

That's so much money.

You're incredible.

We don't need more money.

God's after your heart.

We need to honor him in priority.

He's first, in percentage.

The first 10% belongs to him.

And then here's my final challenge to you.

It's to be progressive in your giving.

What does this mean?

There's a lot of stuff I did when I was 10 years old.

Started tithing when I was young.

If I got a dollar, God got a dime.

That's good.

There's a lot of other things I did as a child.

I ate children's food, I ordered off the kids' menu.

I did a lot of like kiddie things when I was little.

As you get older, you mature.

Part of maturing is realizing in light of eternity, in light of what really matters in this world, I'm choosing to live open hand.

And I'm choosing to be more progressive in the way I give.

And let me say this just full transparency.

I know that's hard.

Like some pastors are like, if you don't, you're sinning.

And I hear that, but let me say this to you.

It's hard.

Making the leap to trusting God with the first 10% of your income is one of the hardest jumps a follower of Jesus can make.

Like I say, what happens after that?

You just walk in the blessing of God, and it gets easier and easier and easier.

As you trust God, as God blesses, it's not to raise your standard of living, it's to raise your standard of giving.

I don't do anything the way I did when I was 10 years old anymore.

So I don't just give 10%.

Every year we try as a family to increase our giving, to increase our generosity.

This is through our church.

My primary channel of giving is through our church because I love the good that we get to do.

But it's more than that.

As God blesses our family, if we take a vacation, we typically try to bless someone with something comparable.

If we buy something for us, we try to be open-handed and do it for someone else.

Why?

Because I want to be progressive in the way that I give.

What is James' point in all of this?

His point is there is a time for you and me to grow up.

Part of following Jesus is realizing that this life isn't all that there is to this life.

So I'm going to approach this life with a different sense of humility.

I'm going to live this life realizing that it's fragile and it's fleeting and it's forgettable.

So when I live in light of eternity, when I'm not self-indulgent, when it's not all about me, when I realize that in comparison to eternity, I have this little gap called life.

I'm going to prioritize the word of God and the souls of other people.

What happens when you do this?

You stop living in fear, you start living open-handedly, you start being a blessing to the world around you, and God gets all the glory for that.

Come on, if you believe that, will you say amen in this place?

So will you bow your head and close your eyes?

Let me pray for you.

God, here's my simple prayer.

Give us courage.

Help us to see through your eyes.

Not to see what's in this for us, but to see how you can use us to be a blessing to the world around us.

God, help us to think in light of eternity, to realize that this life is fleeting and it's forgettable.

It's here for a moment and it's gone.

It's so fragile.

And when we think about eternity, God, give us the courage to really trust you.

To trust that we don't have it all together, but part of our understanding of life is we live with humility.

We live with eternity in mind and we live with this sense of immediacy and urgency because we realize that eternity is what goes on forever.

Forgive us if we've lived in the YOLO mindset.

God, give us the courage in every part of our lives to fully trust you.

God, I thank you that your word especially is so clear in the area of money.

It's not to get something from us, it's because you want our hearts.

God, would you give us the courage to go look at our finances according to what James says?

And to ask, where am I living sufficiently and where am I living extravagantly?

For those of us who need to make some adjustments in our life, give us the courage to flip the script and to say, May I live sufficiently and spend sufficiently, and may I may I save sufficiently so that I can give extravagantly.

Because in the light of eternity, that's what matters.

We thank you for that, God.

Your head still bowed and your eyes still closed.

Maybe you came today and just you just don't know if you're right with God.

Today you need to make things right with God.

If this is you and you say, Jason, I want to start or restart a relationship with God.

Will you raise your hand right now?

I want to give you a moment to make things right with God.

Thanks.

Yeah, thanks.

If this is you, I'm gonna ask you to pray this short and simple prayer.

Say, Jesus, today I give you my life.

I invite you to be my Lord and Savior.

From this day on, I'll follow you.

Jesus, I believe that you're the Son of God.

I believe when you died on the cross and rose again from the dead, you did that for me.

Because of your sacrifice and because of the power you displayed when you rose again from the dead, I believe you can change my life.

You save me and make me new.

So, Jesus, take my life.

From this day on, I give my life to you.

I love you and I'll follow you.

And it's in your name I pray, Jesus.

Amen.

Church fam, we just had people pray to make that decision.

I love it so much.