Finding the Right Advice
What are your priorities? We all have hopes, dreams, and visions of things we want to do with our lives. Nici and I took our family to watch the Wes-Del volleyball team win the state volleyball championship yesterday. Their plan at the beginning of the season was to work their tails off to be the best they could be so they could do what they did yesterday. That’s what the coach had planned from the beginning of the year, he planned, was excited, and cast a vision for the team. The girls won in three sets yesterday, it was awesome. We all had the towels to shake whenever anything good happened, and we were excited. Now we don’t have white towels to wave around in church, and I was convicted by that yesterday, when I was holding our foster daughter and a great play happened and I yelled right in her ear, and she got frustrated. Are you that excited when you hear the word of the Lord preached? Are you getting pumped up to hear God speak to you today? It’s good to celebrate what Jesus is doing in our lives, and what Jesus is teaching us!
When you finally get this thing narrowed in, and you think you know what you want to do with your life, what you want to be when you grow up, we start making a plan. How do you want to accomplish that goal or that dream? Recently in the news, there was a young lady who had been given only a few months to live, so she moved to Oregon because they have laws that allowed her to end her own life. We talked about that in leadership when we met a few weeks ago, and she had this list of stuff she wanted to do before she died, her bucket list. What is your bucket list? What are your priorities? Let’s pretend you’re now in your late 80’s and you don’t have long to go, what do you want to look back at your life and know you did? That you accomplished these good things. Your faith should help you set those priorities. When you have a big vision, big hopes, big plans, you start seeking counsel and advice. There are four types of counsel or advice given to us.
First: ungodly advice that goes contrary to scripture. If you follow Jesus and believe God has called you to do something, some people will not give you Godly advice but will give you advice that is contrary to the word of God. I received that kind of advice when I told people I felt God was calling me into ministry. I had somebody say, “No. No way, don’t do it. You need to go into business or some other profession where you can make a lot of money and provide for your family.” And I bought into that lie for years. That was ungodly advice.
Second: godless advice. It’s not anti-scripture, there’s just no scripture at all. It’s not against scripture, it just doesn’t take God into account at all. It’s all about YOUR dreams, YOUR vision, YOUR desires, YOUR life, YOUR destiny, YOUR path. It’s all about YOU.
Third: god-light advice. We want to make our plans, then sprinkle some Jesus on top and hope it’s going to be okay. You may get some really good best practices and business tips, and then hear that you need work-life balance and care for your soul, but there’s no real meat to it, it’s all just fluff with Jesus sprinkled on top. And it sounds good! It says we need to follow God and have faith in God…but is the G capitalized? What are they putting their faith in? Who are they following?
Fourth: Godly advice, which will lead you to a deeper knowledge of Jesus, of God the Father, and of what HIS will is. What does HE want? So many times we get our visions, our hopes, and our dreams, and we map it out. It’s going to be like this, it’s going to be excellent, and after we go through that entire process – you may have it on paper with diagrams and flow charts and decision boxes, and it’s beautiful – but THEN you say, “God please bless everything I’ve just done and let’s go!” Then James shows up and he’s going to give us Godly advice.
When you finally get this thing narrowed in, and you think you know what you want to do with your life, what you want to be when you grow up, we start making a plan. How do you want to accomplish that goal or that dream? Recently in the news, there was a young lady who had been given only a few months to live, so she moved to Oregon because they have laws that allowed her to end her own life. We talked about that in leadership when we met a few weeks ago, and she had this list of stuff she wanted to do before she died, her bucket list. What is your bucket list? What are your priorities? Let’s pretend you’re now in your late 80’s and you don’t have long to go, what do you want to look back at your life and know you did? That you accomplished these good things. Your faith should help you set those priorities. When you have a big vision, big hopes, big plans, you start seeking counsel and advice. There are four types of counsel or advice given to us.
First: ungodly advice that goes contrary to scripture. If you follow Jesus and believe God has called you to do something, some people will not give you Godly advice but will give you advice that is contrary to the word of God. I received that kind of advice when I told people I felt God was calling me into ministry. I had somebody say, “No. No way, don’t do it. You need to go into business or some other profession where you can make a lot of money and provide for your family.” And I bought into that lie for years. That was ungodly advice.
Second: godless advice. It’s not anti-scripture, there’s just no scripture at all. It’s not against scripture, it just doesn’t take God into account at all. It’s all about YOUR dreams, YOUR vision, YOUR desires, YOUR life, YOUR destiny, YOUR path. It’s all about YOU.
Third: god-light advice. We want to make our plans, then sprinkle some Jesus on top and hope it’s going to be okay. You may get some really good best practices and business tips, and then hear that you need work-life balance and care for your soul, but there’s no real meat to it, it’s all just fluff with Jesus sprinkled on top. And it sounds good! It says we need to follow God and have faith in God…but is the G capitalized? What are they putting their faith in? Who are they following?
Fourth: Godly advice, which will lead you to a deeper knowledge of Jesus, of God the Father, and of what HIS will is. What does HE want? So many times we get our visions, our hopes, and our dreams, and we map it out. It’s going to be like this, it’s going to be excellent, and after we go through that entire process – you may have it on paper with diagrams and flow charts and decision boxes, and it’s beautiful – but THEN you say, “God please bless everything I’ve just done and let’s go!” Then James shows up and he’s going to give us Godly advice.
James 4:13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town
and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"--
and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"--
That sounds good, right?! We do that. Back 2000 years ago when the Christians realized they couldn’t all be in ministry, they had to go do work, they started saying, “I’m good at fishing, you’re good at agriculture…” And they made plans to go out and work, grow their businesses, make money, and retire by the time they were 45. I know a guy who works like that. He works 70 hours a week: 40 hours a week for a software company and then Friday nights he flies out of town and installs sports equipment all weekend, sometimes not getting home until Monday mornings. His plan, if everything stays on track, is to retire and be done with everything at 45. He has young kids now – in ten years, they’ll be set in what they’re doing. He’s doing James 4:13.
Some of you are Type A. You’re planners, and you LOVE this verse. This might be your life verse. You can do this! So…is planning a sin? NO! Proverbs talks about planning a lot. Is organization a sin? Type B’s are like, maybe a little! It causes me to sin! Here’s where James is going: some people plan too much, and they rely too much on themselves and not enough on God. They sprinkle some Jesus on their flowcharts, think they know exactly where they’re heading, and think they’re good. Is James saying that because you don’t know tomorrow, don’t plan anything? Don’t pursue anything? No, he’s not saying that at all. He’s saying pursue it humbly. In other words, if you still have a physical calendar, write it in pencil. It’s not saying not to plan, because all of our Type B folks are thinking, yeah it is, don’t plan at all! This is MY life verse, I got this! Because you can take this verse and say no, I’m not going to plan anything because you’re leaning too far the other direction. You think it means that you’re relying on a “God’s got this” kind of mentality, but this doesn’t say not to plan.
Some of you are Type A. You’re planners, and you LOVE this verse. This might be your life verse. You can do this! So…is planning a sin? NO! Proverbs talks about planning a lot. Is organization a sin? Type B’s are like, maybe a little! It causes me to sin! Here’s where James is going: some people plan too much, and they rely too much on themselves and not enough on God. They sprinkle some Jesus on their flowcharts, think they know exactly where they’re heading, and think they’re good. Is James saying that because you don’t know tomorrow, don’t plan anything? Don’t pursue anything? No, he’s not saying that at all. He’s saying pursue it humbly. In other words, if you still have a physical calendar, write it in pencil. It’s not saying not to plan, because all of our Type B folks are thinking, yeah it is, don’t plan at all! This is MY life verse, I got this! Because you can take this verse and say no, I’m not going to plan anything because you’re leaning too far the other direction. You think it means that you’re relying on a “God’s got this” kind of mentality, but this doesn’t say not to plan.