Holy Sweat III, What a Difference

What a wild day. Jeff described the closing of the second service today. And when you're preaching about Y2K, which I wasn't really preaching about Y2K, I was preaching about what is a Christian response. I mean, how should we be looking at this? And I'm trucking along. I mean, it's really a good sermon. And I get to the end, and a couple of our folks, I mean, are worshiping just a tremendous song about God and His sovereignty. And, I mean, people are really rejoicing in that. And I stood up and started to pray, finished my little prayer at the end, and it was like, within seconds, everything goes out. I mean, had I choreographed like a stunt, it could not have been more perfectly timed. And a lot of folks who've been around here a while know that I'm capable of doing such things. And so they were waiting for me to turn the lights back on, but I didn't. I mean, because it was literally a power thing all the way into Wexford Flats. I don't even know what happened. I think it was something I flew across. But talk about like a stunning moment. Some of the women in the bathrooms couldn't see anything. I mean, there's no emergency lights in the bathroom. We found that out. We never knew that. Little things you learn. Babies were in the nursery. Some of the nurseries in the middle don't have any windows, so there was no light. And, of course, like the teenage, I think personally here, Aaron's here. Myers had like a famine, right? All the flashlights are drained and gone. So these little babies came to find them in the nursery. I mean, that's not a good thing. So we're running around. It's just crazy. And one lady came back screaming, How can he do something like this? I know it's a joke. He's going to turn them back on since I found my kid. So I expect some litigation tomorrow. I honestly had nothing to do with it. But if, in fact, there was one person out there praying, God, if this Y2K thing is real, show me a sign. That person's like heading to Montana right now. They're in their car. Because you talk about getting attention. It was something. May I just add one thing that Shelly said about that? Probably even more important. The tape would be helpful. This Wednesday night at seven, I have a group of folks who will be joining me, many of whom are in positions of what you call the know, Carnegie Mellon folks, banking folks, power folks, and so on. We're having a little forum, an open forum, where you're welcome to come and ask them your tough questions. Come on. How long can we be here? Be right here at seven o'clock. There will be a little forum panel discussion group and open questions. So please consider that. If you think you need to know a little bit more about this, it would be a great time for you to plug in. Seven to about eight, 830, there will be child care with flashlights. So we'll have it all covered, and you're welcome to come. It is good to be here with you. I come every once in a while, sort of hang out in the back, and don't usually hang around for the coffee time. I'll tell you why. I'll just be real candid. My wife and I have one night that we kind of hold to ourselves. And for a lot of years, I'm saying maybe close to 20, it's been Sunday night. The reason is, is that I am really tired. I go home after Sunday mornings, and usually there's like a reception today until 2.30 or 3. I take a little nap, and then we go out. That's our night. And my kids are kind of grown. I mean, they're all grown up. Physically. Still working on some of the other things. But they begin to respect that and welcome that, and Caroline and I look forward to that. We kind of hold that time. And so by 6.30 or so, we're usually going out to dinner, we're going to a movie, we're just going out. And it's a bit of a struggle for me. I mean, I want to be here because I love what you guys are doing, and I love the leadership of this group. I don't know some of you. Some of you I'm seeing for the first time. But I just, you know, you have a limited number of things you can do, and we kind of make that choice now. I have to show you how committed Caroline is. She didn't even come to hear me tonight. But I don't blame her for that. I want to take a look, though, at James with you. And the video portion of tonight's service is going to be greatly limited. And I know Dave usually has some great clips and all, and I had three for this morning. And I think that has something to do with the blowing up of the entire system, so I'm not going to show those. But I am going to use some little objects that might help bring some focus to what I want to say tonight. And so we're going to look at James and what I consider to be a rather stimulating little passage. I'm going to read from the message version. I know most of you probably have another version, and that's okay. But it says this. James 3, this is 13 through 18. Do you want to be counted wise to build a reputation for wisdom? Well, here's what you do. Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It's the way you live, not the way you talk. Now, is that becoming a familiar theme in this study, from what I'm understanding? I mean, that's what you're hearing Dave say week after week. Very simple, folks. It's the way you live, not the way you talk. What do we call a person who talks one thing and lives another way? How many of us love hypocrites? It's probably, that's an interesting little prop. You know, if you decorated that right, it could look like another person. A hypocrite is a person that we look at and wonder about. I mean, are they for real? And then something in their actions tells us that it's not real. And how many of you looked at people in church and said, I'm not going there because they're a bunch of... How did you know that? Well, because I heard them saying things or looking at things on Sunday, and then Monday when I went to work with them, they were telling stories about people of color. They were engaging in kind of demeaning sexual things toward other people and all that kind of stuff. And we didn't believe them. And so, I would venture to say a third, maybe half of you, have been stung by hypocrisy. And interestingly enough, Jesus held his most biting condemnation in Scripture to one group of people, the Pharisees, who he called hypocrites, Matthew 23. He said more to them. I mean, he called them a brood of vipers and snakes. He called them stuff. If Jesus were kind of hanging around and said that to me, I'd be shaking in my boots because clearly that is the one thing that God doesn't want you to do. He is more inclined toward an outright sinner who just knows they're a sinner than a person who pretends to be righteous and yet lives another way. Mean-spirited ambition isn't wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn't wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourself sound wise isn't wisdom. It's the furthest thing from wisdom. It's animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you're trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at others' throats. Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. And here's the specific scripture. I think I put it on top of your outline. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor. How many of us would like to be part of a community, I mean a really dynamic community of people? Is that something you would aspire to? Jeff, look at this thing. Yeah, this is impressive. When I read that scripture in the message version, a robust community, I said, what is that about? Something that's robust is something that's full of life. It's something that's magnetic. It's something that people want to be part of. It isn't something where you're kind of direct. It's happening. It's a happening thing. And James says clearly that that doesn't just sort of drift into our lives. It says it happens only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other and treating each other with dignity and honor. Three images. First one, I'm going to dig down here. Forgive me for having... This is part of the carnage of this morning was that I got way behind getting my things together. This is the first thing. Come here. First thing that James says, and on your outline it says, in this passage we've seen James tackle the very challenging issue of character versus charisma and competence. Okay, there we go. And let me just clarify what wisdom is so that we know what we're talking about. Wisdom isn't a word... I mean, I don't usually go and say, Mark, there's just a man of wisdom. It's not a word we throw around and attribute to people very often, but it was in the time of writing the Bible a very significant word. Today, or then rather, in the Greek culture, wisdom was defined as superior intellectual capacities, strong oratorical skills, or other special abilities. By that definition, who would we consider wise today? Give me a couple of names. John said Bill Clinton. But you could have another definition. Bill Clinton, yeah, he would certainly be... wouldn't he? I mean, certainly has oratorical skills. Well, I mean, I can't disagree with that. Who else? Yes, sir. Billy Graham, all right. Bill Gates. I mean, Bill Gates has some kind... he's got something going, right? I could think of Dennis Rodman. Well, no, it says or. No, it doesn't say one, it doesn't say I, it says or. What special ability does he have? He can play with a ball very well. And sadly, he's become a role model, in my opinion, sadly, for lots of people. Very confused person, if you read about him. But we ascribe wisdom to him. Second thing, the Hebrew, or the biblical definition of wisdom, is knowledge that is applied, biblical knowledge that is applied in a pragmatic way to our life attitudes and behaviors. So, to be wise in the biblical sense is to take the knowledge of God's word and put it into action into your life. Whole different definition. With the exception of Mr. Graham, I'm not sure that we could apply that to any other individuals we mentioned there on a regular basis. Something that helped me all along was the difference between wisdom and knowledge. Knowledge is having it up here, wisdom is living it out. A wise person is living what they say. Now, James exhorts us to do the following. In verse 13, he asks the question, who is wise and understanding among you? Well, the first thing you have to do is to examine yourself. In other words, number one, discern your own level of wisdom. And that's why I brought the mirror in here. The first place to look is in the mirror. I'll tell you what I'm prone to do. When it comes to building a robust community, I'm prone to look around and find the faults that I see in other people who might want to be part of the community. I am terrible at that. How many of you grew up in a home where one of your parents was real good at finding out why you weren't doing all that well? How many of you live with somebody like that right now? My wife does. That's why she's not here. I'm discovering that's sort of a lousy way to be. Kevin Lehman last week called him a flaw picker. Somehow that has an image, you know, how orangutans pick things up. That's what we do. We just find the little things we don't like. And I'm sure if we looked around here today, I could find some things, and you could too, about people around you you just don't like and start finding faults. And folks, that beats the heck out of your spirit, doesn't it? There is so much of that in the world today. James says instead of starting there, take a mirror and look in it and ask God to show you some things about you, first of all. Ask God to show you your level of wisdom. Where are you in taking Biblical knowledge and applying it to your life? I have to say that it's a healthy practice once a week to sit down with a legal pad and just ask God, how am I doing? I do that. And I write several pages usually of how I sense Jeff's opening illustration about the Lord speaking to you. The Lord speaks to me about how I'm doing. And I'm happy to tell you that some days He says, you know what? That was some great things that happened there. And there's some days He said, your act needs to get cleaned up there, boy. And here's why. Here's some attitudes that crept in. Here's some things that you did, you weren't listening and so on. But you know what? If you don't look in this mirror and check yourself out and see how you're doing, then you're of not much value to the rest of the community. You won't have something to give to the people that you want to build community with. You've got to begin there. And He warns us of two specific things. He warns us of bitter envy and selfish ambition. You might want to write those two things down. Specifically mentioned, and I know that those are pretty powerful descriptors. The expression bitter envy in the original means sinful zeal. What He's warning about are people who are zealously trying to take control. I like the song that talks about the Lord's in control, but there are people. How many of you work with people who are trying to control? Trying to control. Control is sort of one of the hot buttons in our culture. People want to be in control. Bitter envy is another way of saying, I'm trying to take control. Then He says, watch out for people who are driven by selfish ambition. In other words, they are trying to promote their own agenda. A course of action that will benefit them somehow. When you're trying to build community, watch out for those things, but check yourself out first. Look in the mirror. Do I see in there bitter envy? Am I trying to control things? Do I see in there selfish ambition? Do I want it my way? Folks, if those two things happen to be there, then you might just want to talk to God about how to change them. Because if that's part of the spirit that's working in you, your wisdom, James warns us, if you're reading in another version, will be earthly, unspiritual. He even says it's of the devil conniving, and it will not produce blessing in your life. By the way, this can apply to those of you, I mean, there's a great group up here, 10 or so, 12 people with musical gifts. They need to look in the mirror and say, How am I doing? Some of you are small group leaders. You need to do that. You don't have to just be Pastor Dave, you know, a teaching person. You might be a servant behind the scenes, but inside your spirit, there needs to be some measure of examination on a regular basis. Second thing, James says, Discern yourself, because that is where it begins. Then discern the wisdom of others who will influence you. In other words, you kind of better know what's going on in the lives of the people that are leading you. This discussion would ordinarily lead toward the whole thing of following false teachers, and cultists, and people who are going to lead you to drink some kind of potion and wait for the people from another planet to pick you up. But you know what? I think the percentage of that is quite small. However, what isn't quite as small are the number of people who spin their wheels because, in fact, they get involved with people who are not really pursuing the kingdom of God, but rather their own kingdoms. Another little thing to hold up for you. Pulled this out of my son's room before I came. There you go. A little trophy. And it has competitors on it. How many competitors do we have here? Obviously, we have a lot of volleyball competitors. Competition is great. I think that's why there's a trinity. I think they've got some things going up there. It's the Holy Spirit challenging the Son to a game. Father, you be the ref. I don't know how that all works. But there's competition, and that's a good thing. But one of the errors that I see is that we tend to be attracted to people based on what they can do rather than who they are. And that is a fascinating study in our culture. A lot of other cultures, Eastern cultures, do you know that in some cultures just the fact that you're living to age 65 or 70 causes people to bow when they walk by you? I'm going to be moving there in a little while myself. I'm thinking about it. Because they literally revere maturity. And if you're some particularly gifted individual, if you have some achievements and long credentials after your name, in some cultures it's relatively meaningless. In our culture it's a big deal. And I guess what I just want to say in this point, and to say it rather briefly, is to build a robust community where life is happening isn't so much about who are the all-stars. It's not so much about who's got the great gifts. It really is about the character, the heart. It's about what's going on in the person's spirit. Are they servants? Do they have the capacity to love you where you are? One thing that has been getting my attention a lot lately has been how this has created in the Christian community a hierarchy. How many of you have a Christian hero? Somebody will look at you and say, well, there's a person that I really like to be like. And there's nothing wrong with having mentors and people that you kind of look at as a role model. That's fine. But I know I can tell you in the 70s and maybe early 80s there were a lot of Christian high-profile people. And some of you have been around long enough to name names. You know who they are. And they were way up there on pedestals of people's almost adulation. And then you remember seeing them on the television screen and what were they doing? They were sobbing and repenting and saying they were sorry for the things that they had done to embarrass themselves and God and the church. And what had happened was people had elevated them based on their giftedness, not on their character. I don't need to name them. You know who I'm talking about. Do you know the damage that was done to the cause of Christ by that kind of misapplied wisdom? And may I just tell you that we're all susceptible to that. We're all inclined to want to follow the people that have the goods in the worldly sense. So be discerning about that. If a person has a heart that's humble, if a person has a willingness to serve, if a person just cares, those are the qualities, really, that you elevate. Those are the kinds of people that God looks at and says, I like what's going on there. It's not the achievers. It's not the great competitors, as it were. And that's something that you can discern. I just want to say about the leaders here at Kairos and the ones that I know. I mean, I don't know everybody. But I know about Pastor Dave and Shelley and I know Dan and Bonnie and Kent and Vicki and Louise and Bob and some of the others that are here that are leaders. These are people that are leaders because in their heart, in their character, there's a willingness to serve you people. And I want to talk to the people that are newer, the ones I don't know. You're in good hands with these people. They're not here because they're superstars. They're here because they have a passion to love you and to love God. And they pray for you. And they care about you. And they're struggling in their soul to cause this group to want to be all God wants it to be. And I have confidence in them. And I have confidence in their love for you. And they're not asking you, don't put them up there. Don't raise them up there to the higher levels. Just simply embrace their leadership. And that's the last thing I want to talk about. Look at this. Third thing he says is this. Discern the nature of true wisdom. What is true wisdom? Discern the nature of it. Wisdom that comes from heaven is, and let's just go ahead and fill in these blanks because it's good stuff. Pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. How many of you would like to work for a boss? Who's like that? Aaron does. And Shelly. Tell me what. See, I just blew it. That's the great thing about humility. As soon as you confess that you have it, you're out. It doesn't work. That's real wisdom. Once you find a person or a group of leaders that have some of those characteristics flowing in their life, then I want to submit to you that you need to put yourself, and I want to grab your attention here, you need to put yourself in the place of flowing with that stuff. And if there's one passion that I have about Kairos, I'm going to kind of spill it out right now. I'm going to do it by means of one other little image for you. Recognize this? It's a little cone. I mean, it's big brother sits out in our parking lot. It's a little baby. I didn't want to bring in a big one because they were all crusty and messed up. So I brought in a clean little one. I want to tell you a story about something that I learned about how your life and my life gets led. This happened just about a year and a half ago or so. One thing that I still enjoy doing, I only do it on a limited basis because I can't afford to do it the way I'd like to. As I was growing up, throughout my family, young life and growing up, my family always had a passion for cars. My uncle owns one of the big car racetracks around here. My grandfather sold cars. My dad restored cars. Always had something mechanical going on. I was never mechanical, but I loved to drive. I loved to ride. I loved to beat myself up. I'm not quite as good at it as Kent or some of the other people around here, but I love to do it. About a year and a half ago, I was invited by a friend to go out to a racetrack called Lime Rock out in Ohio. It's a closed two-mile road course. I don't know if you know much about cars. I'll just name a couple of cars. One person had a new Corvette. Another person had an Acura NSX, which is a really sleek $85,000 sports car. I had a Dodge Neon. What a cool car. It was a happenin' little car. A four-door Dodge. The instructor for our day was a six-time national Porsche driving champion. We're talking about a top-shelf guy. He's a local guy, but has won races all around the country. He sat us down. We were itching to just get out there and drive. Can you imagine? A two-mile track with curves and the whole thing. All yours. Fast as you want to go. It was like a dream. I didn't want to hear all this stuff about... So we flipped through the notebook. He finally looked at it. Kind of like I'm looking at some of you who are saying, come on, I want to take a commuter home. I was thinking, come on, I want to shut this down. Just get in the car and go. He said, okay, let's do it. We looked at the NSX. It's a two-seater. Looked at the Corvette. It's a two-seater. There was four of us. Three guys there for driving, and the instructor said, well, it looks like it's the Neon. Hey, man, you know, my car got picked to be the instructor's car. And so we took these cones and we put them on the longest straightaway, about 50, maybe 60 feet apart. About eight cones, I think it was. He said, okay, who's going to go first? My car, hey, I'm taking the Neon. It's going first. He said, fine. I want you to go about 40 miles an hour, and I want you just to go do a little serpentine right through the cones. Piece of cake. So I get back, and we crank up the old Neon, and two guys are in the back, and the instructor's in the shotgun seat, and we're going down. And I come in on this first cone, and I do pretty well, but I swing out just a little bit. And if you can just picture in your mind, as you pull out, then you have to compensate a little more to get around the next one, and a little wider the next one, and by the time I'm on cone six, I can see the guys in the back, and they're doing this, and this, and slamming against it, and the instructor's holding on. But I knocked the last two cones right over. I mean, I didn't even come close to get through. And we went down there, and I went, whoo, in a while. He looked at me and said, not bad. I felt pretty good, really. I felt six out of eight, not bad. And he said, now, do you believe it's possible, maybe, to do it without knocking over any cones, and hardly moving? I said, no, it's not possible. And he said, well, let me have a shot at it. We flip-flop, get in the car, and just for good measure, he cranked it up about another, I'm going to say, five to eight miles an hour, going about 45, 48, not quite 50 miles an hour. And we came in on the first cone, and it was like, just like a Ginsu knife. I mean, I looked in the, the guys in the back were just doing this. I mean, they're hardly moving. I hardly moved. And we get all the way down, and then he hammered it, and did a 180, and slid the back end of the car around. It was being cool. I mean, we were kind of breathless, like, how did he do that? I mean, I had just blown the whole thing, and he just, and I said, how'd you do that? Guess what I'm going to say. He said, it's easy. He said, your problem was, you were looking at the cones. I said, well, of course. You told me not to hit the cone, right? I mean, that's the whole idea. He said, no, that's not how you do it. I said, well, what do you do? He said, you don't look at the cones. You fix your eyes on the farthest point of the horizon that you can see, and you keep looking right there, and it'll stabilize you, and keep you right on course, and you'll cut right through the cones. I said, no way. I mean, you've got to see the cones. He said, do you want me to do it again? Okay. Cranks it up. I turn sideways. Now, I'm not looking at the cones. I'm looking right at his head, and his eyes are absolutely straight near the top of the windshield. Never looked at the hood ornament. Never looked at the cones. Right through the cone. Amazing. I said, I've got to try that. He said, okay, get in there. And fixed my eyes on the horizon. I was trepidation. It just didn't make any sense to me. And here's what I discovered. Now, I didn't do it, obviously, quite as smoothly as he did it, but I was astonished because, in fact, it was a lot better, and by the third time, I did it without knocking over a cone, and the guys in the back didn't have a headache. And they did the same thing. And what I discovered is this. What is true about high-speed driving, and he went on to tell me that, you know, all the guys that do the big, you know, the Indy races, the car races, the NASCAR races, that's all they do. They never, they're not watching the cars. Their eyes are on specific marks all around the track, on the horizon, and everything around them. God so created your eyes that it processes what's in front of you by keeping it on what's at the farthest point. And try it on your own. It is astonishing. You'll think, I'm going to hit that pothole. No, the pothole, you'll catch it by keeping your eyes on the horizon. It's astonishing. And I've proven it now, and I act like a champ. I sometimes just try doing it up there. I try to go between the passing of the broken lines on 19, you know. Eyes on the horizon. Now, it works in life. I've discovered that so many of us have our vision on the potholes and the cones and the problems and the stuff in front of us, and we're doing this to try to not, you know, make a wreck of our life, and we're knocking them over. When the secret all along, God is saying to put your eyes on the author and the finisher of your faith. For the joy set before Him despised not the shame, but suffered on the cross for us. And here's the thing, I want to close with this. God wants to build a robust community here at Kairos. I mean, He wants it to be a really happening thing. But it's going to take work. It's going to take the work of looking at yourself and examining what's going on in your heart, making sure that there's not envy and jealousy and ambition going on in you. And it's going to take fixing your eyes on a higher goal. And I just want to ask a question as I conclude here. What are you looking at? What is this group going to become? What's the vision that you're fixing your eyes on that all the cones and potholes and obstacles that are in the way will fall aside if you keep fixed on it? Do you know what it is? In a personal level, it's your walk with God. But at a corporate level, you need to see what that vision is and say, you know, that's it. That's where I'm going. That's where I'm headed. I'm locked in. And come what may, obstacles come, potholes, distractions, competitive drivers, whatever. You're going to be able to cut your way through it. And in the end, what God's going to give you here is what he described as a robust community that lives right with God, enjoys the fruit of true wisdom, peace, purity, consideration, submission, mercy, good fruit, sincerity. See, in the end, the bottom line of character versus competence and charisma is this. A higher law comes into place. It's the law of sowing and reaping. What you sow into this is what you're going to reap out of it. And I want to encourage you. Find that vision. I want to say to the leadership and those of you who are committed to core people here, know that vision, transmit that vision, lift that vision, and then keep your eyes on it and God will fill you with true wisdom. And it'll become a robust community, a wonderful place to be. Let's pray. Jesus, I praise you that your word is timeless in its truth. Lord, I thank you for forgiving us when we fail, when we tend to pick out the flaws and weaknesses in others before we look at ourselves. I thank you, Lord, for placing leadership in this community that seeks to be God-honoring and not self-exalting, that seeks to be faithful and loving. And Lord, I pray that the vision that's on the horizon for this body, for this group of folks, for Kairos, Lord, that that vision would become powerful and clear and it would compel us. Lord, it would drive us through the obstacles and the cones and the hassles. And Lord, that we would sense that you're building a robust community of life that exhibits heavenly wisdom and draws others unto Jesus. Let it happen, Lord. In your name we pray. Amen.