Series: Christianity Uncensored
Message #2: Success Uncensored
By: Jud Wilhite
We’re talking about success today – success uncensored. As I listen to the words of that song, some people think success comes together. You are going to have a day where it all locks into place. A day where the stars align. It’s going to happen. It feels like today. Other people think that if you really want to experience success then it really has nothing to do with the stars aligning, you have to work for it. It’s all about education. It’s all about getting degrees. Then you’ll have success. Others say it’s all about self-discipline. Others say it’s all about who you know. Some say it’s all about who you marry. It’s like the CEO of a fortune five hundred company that pulled into a gas station. The service attendant was putting gas in the car so he went in to pay. When he walks back out he notices that his wife is now out of the car and she’s talking to the service attendant. He picks up on the fact that they know each other. In fact, they used to date in high school. They get in the car after it’s all over and they drive along in silence for a few minutes. He gets a big smile on his face and says, “I bet I know what you are thinking about.” She says, “What?” “I bet you are thinking, ‘I’m glad I’m married to a fortune five hundred CEO instead of a service attendant.’” She said, “No, that’s not what I was thinking at all. I was actually thinking, ‘If I had been married to him he’d be a fortune five hundred CEO and you’d be a service attendant.’”
There are all these different perspectives on how you would achieve success. We live in a culture that is infatuated with success – how to achieve more, how to become more, and we see it all around us. There is a whole success industry out there. Millions and millions of dollars are spent on books, tapes, and seminars helping us to become more successful. In fact, there is a company called Successories. I don’t know if you have heard of this company. They do posters, coffee mugs, and all these things you can put around the office to inspire you to be successful. They have quotes. For instance, I had a Successories poster in my office a few years ago. It was a picture of an eagle. It said: FOCUS. Then the inspirational quote at the bottom was, “If you chase two rabbits both will escape.” You have to think about it for a second. That’s good. It inspired me to stay focused.
Well, there has been a backlash to the success industry. There is an organization out there that has done their own posters and coffee mugs. They are called, De-motivators. Their by-line is, “Increasing success by lowering expectations.” They’ve done their own posters. I thought I’d start off by sharing some De-motivator posters with you. You have to think a little bit to follow some of these. This one is called mediocrity. You see the leaning Tower of Pisa there. It says, “It takes a lot less time and most people won’t notice the difference until it’s too late.” Put that up at the office. Here is another one: “Regret.” It has a guy on a snowboard flying off the edge of the cliff. It’s not a good day. “It hurts to admit when you make mistakes but when they are big enough the pain only lasts a second.” This one is my favorite: “Persistence.” You have a guy chasing a girl. “It’s over man. Let her go.” Aren’t those great? This one is great too. It’s called “Wishes.” It has this nice night sky with a star that’s falling. It says, “When you wish upon a star your dreams can come true. Unless it’s really a meteorite that is hurling towards the earth that will destroy all life. Then you are pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for, unless it’s death by meteorite.” Here is one on success. It’s a guy getting creamed on the football field. “Success: Some people dream of success while others live to crush those dreams.”
There are lots of perspectives out there and lots of different books and materials to help us be successful. Much of it is wonderful and very helpful stuff. What is success anyway? Is it fame? Some people think, “If I were just famous then I’d be successful.” Is it money? It is power? How do we define success? The Bible actually has a term for it. It’s the term wisdom. A successful life according to the Bible is a life lived with wisdom. There is wisdom literature in the Bible that tells you how to live your life. What James is going to do for us this morning is peel away the veneer and show us an uncensored look at how we can live with wisdom in our life and really live with success.
Bill Cosby said, “I don’t know the definition of success but I do know the definition of failure. That’s to try and please everyone.” I think James would agree in this sense that success is trying to please one person ultimately, and that is the person of God. Live a life before an audience of one. Let’s break this down. Remember we started the series last week. James is like the noble kind of guy. He’s going to give it to you straight up. He’s going to put it right in your face and you’ll have to deal with it. He doesn’t mince any words. He lays it out there. We are going to look at an uncensored view of success.
He starts in James 1:19 by saying this: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” The first thing that James said is that we have to learn to listen. I don’t know about you but I don’t always listen so well. Listening can be quite a challenge. I can remember not too long ago Lori was going out to run an errand. She said, “Jud, when the dryer goes off take the clothes out and hang them up so they don’t get all wrinkled. Also Ethan needs a diaper change and I don’t have time to do it. If you could please stop the kids from eating crackers because they’ve been eating crackers all day. They’ve had enough.” I said, “Okay,” and I heard nothing. She comes back an hour later, the clothes are still in the dryer, the kid has a dirtier diaper and he’s walking around with a graham cracker in his hand. “JUD! What are you doing?” I’m like, “What?” Has this happened in your household? Listening is a challenge, isn’t it?
Sometimes another person is talking and you are nodding and smiling but really you are daydreaming. You are thinking about scrap-booking or shopping or football later on this afternoon. Or you are noticing some odd feature on their face. “You have kind of a thing going on there. You need to clip those nose hairs.” You are in the midst of this conversation. Here is what we often do, we think about what they are going to say when they’re done. They’re talking and you are nodding and smiling and thinking, “It’s going to be really good when I say this. Just wait. Hurry up.” James says when we really want to experience success in life we have to learn to listen.
Daniel Goldberg has written a lot about emotional intelligence. He says that learning to listen is the most important relational skill you can learn. He says, “Period.” It’s the most important relational skill you can learn. When we sit around at a dinner table, for instance, sometimes we’ll say things, we’ll make jokes, and we’ll try to be funny because we want people to like us. We want them to think that we are funny, witty, or engaging. We’ll say different things so that people will like us. What really bonds two people together is when that other person has the sense that you care about who they are and that you listen to them and hear them. If you really want to impress people and make some friends, exercise your ears. Learn to listen and hear what is going on there. There is so much we can learn from people. As the ancient Greek philosopher said, “There is a reason why we have two ears and one mouth. We should listen twice as much as we speak.” Great things can come as we do that.
When it comes to this whole area of listening, think about an answering machine. We have all called and heard answering machine messages. I will just share a couple funny ones with you. One guy went like this: “Hi, this is Chris. If you are a bill collector, I’ve already sent the money. If you are my parents, please send money. If you are my financial aid counselor you didn’t lend me enough money. If you are my friends, you owe me money. If you are a female then don’t worry; I have plenty of money.” Here is another one: “You’ve reached the Smith residence. We don’t need life insurance, mortgage protection, travel discounts, or magazines. Our carpets are clean. We don’t want the grand prize and we are completely satisfied paying more for our long distance telephone calls. If you are still on the line, leave your name and number and we’ll get back to you.”
Just like with a message, in life we need to learn to listen to the message before we leave our message. Seek to understand before seeking to be understood. Lead with your ears. Proverbs 17:28 says this: “Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent and discerning if he holds his tongue.” Isn’t that great? Even a fool will be perceived as wise if he were just quiet. Or this modern proverb of our age that says, “It’s better to have people think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” There is some wisdom in listening.
It goes beyond just listening to other people. Although in listening to other people you will find more success in your job. You will find more success in your relationships and in every area of your life. But James is also talking about a deeper slice of listening because he’s really referring to listening to God’s word. Learning to listen to what He has for us. Learning to listen to how He has wired this world up and how we can live in this world. That’s what ultimate biblical wisdom is about. He says, “Be quick to listen.” That’s why we talk so much about the importance of understanding the Bible. It’s not just about reading the Bible and trying to get from the beginning of it to the end. It’s not like we are just trying to get through the Bible. We’re trying to get the Bible through us. Maybe we need to take a passage and put it up on the refrigerator or pin it up on the visor of your car. Think about it for a week or a month. Then get another one and put it up. Think about it and let it sink into your life and make a difference there. Really listen to what it’s saying.
The average drive time in our culture, according to some data I just read, across America is about twenty minutes. In twenty minutes you can listen to a Bible on tape or CD. You could listen to a lot of inspirational or motivation kinds of teaching that would inspire you to really queue into what God is saying about wisdom and doing life. I know for me, when I listen it makes all the difference. I often read a psalm in the morning. That’s one of the things that I try to do. I often turn to the psalm of the day it is. If it’s the eighteenth, I’ll go to Psalm eighteen, twenty-eight, or thirty-eight. Wherever I’m at I follow it along like that. I recently read Psalm twenty-seven and it made a real impact on me. It’s the psalm of David. It says this: “One thing I ask of the Lord. This is what I seek. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.” David is saying, “Of all the things in my life the thing I want more than anything else is just God. To see Him, to be in His presence, and to worship Him. I have to tell you, that’s just convicting me. As I’ve read this passage and listened and tried to get the deeper meaning the question that has come to me is this: “Jud, do you love God for who He is or for what He does for you? Do you love Him for who He is or do you love Him because He gives you peace, joy, and brings good things into your life?” From what I see in David, he loved God for who He was. He said, “You could take all that other stuff away, God. I just want You. I want to be in a relationship with You.” That’s the kind of relationship God wants with us. Seek to listen and God will continue to reveal new things to you in your life.
James says it’s not just about listening. It’s also about thinking before you speak. Think before you speak. How many of you have ever put your foot in your mouth? Have you done that? The rest of you are lying! We all know what that feels like. I’ve put my foot in my mouth on this platform far more times than I would like to acknowledge or admit. I’ve done that many, many times in my life. Yogi Berra is the classic guy of not thinking before he speaks. Some of you will remember some of his statements. Like, “Ninety percent of the game is half mental.” You have to think about that for a minute. He had some other statements that I pulled out: “It was hard to have a conversation with anyone (speaking about a White House dinner). There were too many people talking.” “I wish I had an answer to that,” he says, “because I’m tired of answering that question.” Yogi is always throwing out these statements without really thinking. We often do that in life.
James says this in James 1:19 “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. For man’s anger doesn’t bring about the righteous life that God desires.” Then you jump down to verse twenty-six and he comes back to this theme. “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight reign on his tongue then he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.” James is saying that it’s very important that we think before we speak.
He uses some interesting phrases. For instance, “for the person who doesn’t keep a tight reign on his tongue.” That word, tight reign, is an equestrian term. It’s used in the context of riding a horse. Keep a tight reign on that horse because that horse could buck you off if you don’t. He’s saying the same thing about our tongue. It can take us places that we really don’t want to go if we let it loose.
Another word that he uses is a person who can’t control their tongue, their religion is useless. That word, useless, is pretty loaded. When you look at the way the word is used throughout the Bible it was often used in the context of idolatry, where people would worship something other than God. In the Old Testament, in the ancient world, they would often worship idols, things that were made by hand, gold, statues. He’s saying when a person worships something other than God their religion was useless because it wasn’t connected to anything with real power and meaning. When you can’t control your tongue, your religion is useless. Ouch! There’s James beating around the bush. It’s very important that we think before we speak.
We love to talk. There are talk shows all over. As a kid in elementary school my mom always told me I always got written up at the end of every term for talking too much. They would say, “Jud is a good kid but he just talks all the time. We can’t get him to be quiet.” I remember being in elementary school and the teacher being twenty steps away. When we are walking down the hall in a single file line, nobody talks and I’m talking. I’m caught. But in elementary school I remember thinking, “I’m already caught. I’m already in trouble so I have about twenty steps here to enjoy this conversation before we actually get up to the teacher and then she disciplines me.” I would make everyone uncomfortable around me. “Let’s have fun. I’m already busted so let’s enjoy this before we get there.” We love to talk as people. We love to be heard. That’s very important. James is saying there is incredible wisdom when you think first.
Gossip is something that many of us engage in. I’ve struggled with it and do struggle with it. Yet gossip is so damaging when you talk about people and you spread truths that you aren’t really sure about or half-truths. We have to keep a reign on that. Slander is another thing. William Buckas has done some studies that say the average American lies two hundred times a day. I’m not sure I can swallow that. We shade the truth. We do a little bit of this or a little bit of that. We step outside the bounds of what is healthy and right. We have to be careful about the words that we use because they can do real damage. Let me ask you, in the office place, are you thinking before you speak? Are you engaging with others at the water cooler or the break room? Are you talking about different people and gossiping about them? Are you talking about your boss behind his or her back in a way that’s not healthy? Everyone talks about their boss, right? But are you engaging in this in a way that is ultimately doing damage to your soul or to their soul? Think before you speak.
I’ve found an interesting thing just in my own life that I think is part of what James is getting at. When I’m in a relationship with someone and they can keep a secret, something confidential, and they can keep it from everyone else when they give you their word. No one else will know this. They really keep that confidential. That’s usually a picture that they’re in control in a lot of other areas in their life. Isn’t that true? They have a lot of other things in their life that they are in control of as well. There just aren’t a lot of people who can really keep a reign on their tongue. If you can trust a person with a secret then you can often trust them with a whole lot more. Just a thought.
James says to think before you speak. Get control of your tongue. It will make a difference. Listen, in your job or in your relationship with your spouse, if you start learning to listen and thinking before you speak you will experience success. It’s inevitable. It’s inevitable that people will begin to think more highly of you. It’s inevitable that people will begin to respect you. Why? Because you respect others. It’s inevitable that they will begin to turn to you because you don’t seem to just talk. When you say something it matters. It’s important. That’s part of what the Bible is getting at in this whole idea of living with wisdom.
The next thing that James says is not only do we need to learn to listen, not only do we need to think before we speak, but he says we can live in freedom – in God’s freedom in our lives. He says it in a very interesting way in 1:22, “Don’t merely listen to the word [meaning the Bible] and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” Meaning to live it out. Verse twenty-three: “If anyone listens to the word but doesn’t do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in the mirror [listen to this] and after looking at himself he goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” What a great analogy.
In the ancient world they had mirrors that were made out of copper. You look in the mirror and you see yourself. But if you walk away and forget what you look like, that’s like the person who looks at the Bible, looks at the teaching of God and then doesn’t do what he just saw. Verse twenty-five: “But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he’s heard but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does.” Just imagine if all of us this morning got up and came to church without looking in the mirror. It’s kind of spooky, isn’t it? If we all got up and thought, “What is – is,” – got in the car, drove here, walked up and sat down- it would be an interesting morning. James is saying, “Look in the mirror but don’t look in the mirror and walk away without doing anything.”
After all, you never know when you might get caught with a camera around. For instance, like this lady with a little baby in her lap. You never know when you might be on a talk show like Cybil Shepherd here. I don’t know what happened there but that’s scary. You never know when you might get arrested like good ole Nick Nolte. Make sure to look in the mirror. James is saying to look in the mirror of God’s word. He says this about it: “It’s the perfect law that gives freedom.” What a cool phrase. The Bible is the perfect law that gives freedom. I’ll guarantee you that if you go out in our culture and talk to people about their perceptions of the Christian faith – what does it mean to be a follower of Christ? Most people don’t think it’s about freedom. That means you don’t have any fun anymore. That means you don’t get to enjoy yourself anymore. That means you go to church and talk about Jesus. I guess you just sit around and become a nun. You wear a collar. People have that perception. When you become a follower of Christ, turn the lights out the party is over. All the fun is done. How are you going to live this life of boring drudgery and duty?
If you look back at the Bible it’s completely different. James says, “If you really want to discover freedom in your life, look into the law of God.” It’s like the law of gravity. We don’t break the law of gravity. You can jump out of a thirty-story building and you aren’t going to break the law of gravity. Listen, it’s going to break you. The same thing is true with the law of God. God has commands. He’s wired the universe up a certain way. When we break those laws, we’re not really breaking those laws. We’re going to find out eventually that those laws will break us. But if you begin to live in obedience to the commands of God that’s where you will find real freedom, joy, and fun. You’ll find friends who will care about you and love you no matter what. You will find people who will gather around you and celebrate with you. There doesn’t have to be alcohol and drugs involved for that to happen. You will find all kinds of good things that will flow out of your life when you begin to obey and live in the laws of God. James says it’s the perfect law that gives freedom. Do you want real freedom? Turn to the Bible and begin to live it out. It’s like looking in the mirror. When you look in the mirror of the Bible it says some things to you. The challenge is when you walk away, friends, do you live your life based on what you have just learned?
For instance, when you look at the Bible it’s going to tell you that you are not alone. God is here. The world ultimately is about God. The Bible begins with God and ends with God. In the beginning was God. That’s great news because that means that you are no longer the general manager of the universe. Someone else is. You can resign. Turn the pink slip in. Give it up. Surrender. You can walk into life that day knowing that someone else is in charge that is much greater than we are. Listen, He’s much greater than our problems. He can take care of it.
We look in the mirror of God’s word and it says, “Don’t worry,” because God is in control. You look in that mirror and it says that you are accepted. Accept the fact that you are accepted. You can walk out into the world and live as a person who is accepted by God not because of how great you are but because you are made in God’s image and Jesus died for you. The Bible says you are forgiven. When you come to place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ you are forgiven. Not because of works but because of His grace. You go out into the day and you live your life as someone who has been forgiven, not as someone who is trying to earn forgiveness. When you look into the law of God you realize that you are a saint. Sounds kind of weird, doesn’t it? Paul says we are saints. He wasn’t writing about St. Bob or Mary. He’s writing about saints today like you. Saint Tom, Saint Sue - I had a lady come up to me after the last service and said, “St. Bob, that’s my husband.” I said, “Yeah, it’s quite a thought.” The Bible says that we are saints. Why? Because that is what Christ has done for us in dying for us and declaring us righteous. Through faith we are saints. Live like it. Start to match your life to what the Bible says you already are. You will begin to discover the freedom that God holds out for us in our lives.
The next thing James says is not only should we live in freedom but also he says we should help the helpless. That’s where success and wisdom is found. In our culture sometimes we reduce success down to this idea of just having more. Just getting more, having more money in the bank account. James is going to show us that true religion and true success in life involves also helping others. Particularly, the helpless. Help the helpless. He puts it this way in James 1:27, “Religion that God, our father, accepts as pure and faultless is this: Look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” This is true religion, James says, to take care of orphans and widows and keep yourself from being polluted by the world. In the ancient world it was very different than today.
We are going to look at this more next week but there really wasn’t a middle class. About ten percent of the people were wealthy, and I mean wealthy. Ninety percent of the people were truly poor. That was it. The wealthy were extremely wealthy and the poor were extremely poor. James is saying that we have a responsibility to take care of the poor. He talks about orphans and widows. The early church took care of orphans and widows and did many things for them. In fact, Paul at one point felt like some of the widows in the early church community might be taking advantage of the church’s generosity and actually put a qualifying statement in first Timothy five on what kinds of widows would qualify for help. He says, “They must not have children or grandchildren who can take care of them. They must not live for pleasure. They must be over 60-years-old.” It wasn’t that she was a widow, it was that she was destitute. In the ancient world, because it was a male dominated society, if a woman was a widow there was a high likelihood that she would have a very hard time because men often worked and made money for the family. The point isn’t just take care of widows and orphans. The point is this: Help the helpless. Help those who are really destitute in life. That can be in simple ways. That could be helping an elderly person across the street. It can be changing your next door neighbor’s tires. Maybe they aren’t able to do that.
I heard a story last night and I was so inspired. A lady was telling me that she was in Pahrump and gassing up at a gas station. A woman came out of the gas station and tripped and fell. She walked over and helped this lady stand up. Some things fell out of her purse. She helped her get those things back. She could tell the woman was a little distraught. She said, “What’s wrong?” The woman said, “We’re leaving.” She and her boyfriend had just broken up. Her life was exploding. She said, “We’re trying to get out of here. I don’t want my daughter to see me this way.” She put two and two together that this woman had gassed up but didn’t have enough money for the gas. She said she continued to have a conversation with her but she walked over to the gas pump and stood between her and her adult daughter who was in the car. She took her credit card out and put it in. She helped her get gas. I though it was a beautiful picture of real time, in life, helping someone who was in a helpless moment. She was just bringing some encouragement to her. That’s what we are called to do.
Jesus talks about how we can experience His presence in communion. We take communion periodically. We will take it this First Wednesday at 6:30 right here in the auditorium. We’ll take the bread, which reminds us of Christ’s body, and the cup that reminds us of His blood shed for us. We have it every weekend for those who want to take it upstairs. When we take communion, Jesus tells us that we experience His presence. Which is awesome, but you know He only said that once. Many times He said we could experience His presence in another way. That was in serving the poor. In serving the poor we could actually experience the presence of Jesus. In fact, in Matthew twenty-five Jesus tells a story. In this story it’s the end of times. People are all called before God. He says, “Come and enter into my kingdom because when I was thirsty you gave Me something to drink. When I was hungry, you fed Me. When I was naked you clothed Me. When I was in prison you came and saw Me. When I was in the hospital you came and visited Me. Now enter into your reward.” All the people are looking around at each other thinking, “What? Lord, we never saw You in the hospital. You are God. We never went to prison, why would You be there? What?” In Jesus’ story He says, “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of Mine you did for Me.”
I love the story of Mother Theresa in Calcutta. She is cleaning out the wounds of a person who is sick and dying. It was grotesque. A priest walked by. Just being authentic and honest he said to her, “I don’t think I could do that for a million dollars.” Mother Theresa said, “I couldn’t do it for a million dollars either, but I’ll do it for Jesus.” The smallest acts, a cup of water in Jesus’ name. A dollar bill, a hand, all of it counts and God remembers.
That’s why I am so proud of those of you who serve in the homeless ministry here at Central. So many go out to the prisons and to the hospitals. You are serving Christ in serving those people. You are making a difference. Don’t get paralyzed. Don’t get overwhelmed with guilt. I just say to all of us, think about this week, the little things that we can do to help people. Helping the helpless you will experience the presence of Christ. My hope and prayer for us at Central is that this value, this truth, grows deeper and deeper in our hearts and lives. I have a conviction that for too long the church in America has talked a lot and has done little. My hope and prayer as we move into the future, we may talk a little less and do a little more. Let our actions speak louder than our words. Let our actions make the statement about who Christ is and how much He loves people and the difference He wants to make in people’s lives. That’s what God has called us to do.
I love this story of a pianist who was playing a recital, a very important one in his career. Really it was the first one that was like a launching pad for him. When he was done the people went absolutely nuts. Everyone was standing except for one guy on the front row. A reporter from the Times could tell that he was a little bothered that this guy on the front row wasn’t standing, clapping, and applauding. He wanted to encourage him because it was an unbelievable performance. After it was over, he went backstage. He said, “Son, that was amazing. You need to know that tomorrow you will be famous.” The reporter from the Times is raving. The reporter from the Washington Post was raving. In the New York Times you are going to have an amazing article. You will be famous and your whole life is going to change. That was the performance of a lifetime. It was unbelievable. Don’t let one guy get you down. That was amazing. The pianist said, “That one guy was my teacher. I was only playing for him.”
In our lives we play for an audience of one. When it’s all said and done, if everybody cheers and everyone applauds and everyone loves and thinks you are wonderful and God isn’t pleased then what is it for? But if God is standing and applauding, that’s success. James says how you can achieve it is to learn to listen, think before you speak, live in the freedom that God offers you in the Bible, and help the helpless. In doing that you will experience not only that, but the real difference you will make in the lives of others. God will be applauding as well and cheering you on as you help other people.
