Christ Memorial Lutheran Church - Houston TX
CMLC 2024-09-22 Sermon (Traditional)
Howdy. So recently, I was in San Antonio. We were spending some time celebrating the life of one of my cousins who passed recently. And in so doing, it's always a great opportunity to be able to share stories and connect with one another, to be able to have that bond between each other, that love between family. And one of my aunts had come up to speak and to share some words, a story, because she always loved how welcoming her nephew had always been to her. My father's family is a Latino family in San Antonio. And she was one of the white women who had married into the family. And she was laughing about it and everything else. But you see, I was laughing because of one of the other stories that I knew about my aunt. You see, when she was first married into the family, she did not know any Spanish at all. And she did what many people do when they think that they are trying to learn Spanish. You put L at the beginning of a word, and then you put O after work. And that makes it Spanish, right? You know, L-- the car L car row-- oh, well, that actually works. L-cato, instead of el gato, L-dogo, instead of el pero. But she wanted to be cool. So she decided that she would tell everybody in the family that she was L-- cool. Oh, as you can tell from one of our Spanish speakers, that is a term for somebody's backside. So with that is she would say that for years until finally the nephew snickered. And she paused, and she said, why did you laugh? And then realized that the family had been allowing her to say that about herself for over 10 years. My uncle-- he still had the bruises for some time. But she wanted to prove herself. She was trying so hard to attain something, because she was jealous of others knowing Spanish, and she did not. And she ended up losing just a little bit of respect by trying just a little too hard. This idea of jealousy, and what it drives us to-- I can't help but have it in my mind as we read the letter from James. Could you imagine being the half-brother of Jesus Christ? You share the same mom, but then it's like, oh, you're Jesus, brother. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the Savior of the universe. God, the Son of God, God incarnate, coming down to bring hope and joy and peace as the one who died for the sins of all mankind, but conquered, overcame death in the grave to bring hope and life, and sits at the right hand of God the Father. What do you do? I think I want second place in the plan with Derby. I make a really good risotto. And you're just kind of like, well, at the same time, this James, he was actually the first leader of the Jerusalem church during the time of the apostles, but also had written a letter that ends up being in Scripture. Could you imagine if he were to just spend all of his time comparing himself to Jesus and how that might have ended up deterring him from so much that he had to do in this world? I was kind of wondering how to look at things like jealousy and ambition. So I decided that before artificial intelligence comes and destroys us all with creating terminator robots, I'm going to ask you a few questions for my sermon. So I went ahead and asked it, what are some examples about jealousy and ambition? Now I'm thinking in my head about all the terrible things about jealousy and ambition, and it gives me five examples. I want you to listen to what it gives me. Workplace rivalry. Two colleagues compete for a promotion. One feels jealous of the other's accomplishments and begins undermining them while also working late to prove their dedication. Athletic competitors. A runner feels jealous of a teammate's natural talent and success. This jealousy fuels their ambition leading them to train harder and ultimately outperform the rival. These are the terrible examples. Social media influencers. An influencer notices appear gaining more followers and branded deals instead of supporting them. They feel envious and doubled down on their content strategy working harder to outshine the competitor. Four, academic settings. A student feels jealous of a classmate's high grades. This drives them to study intensely and seek help from tutors, ultimately achieving their own academic goals. Number five, entrepreneurs. A startup founder sees another company thriving in their niche. Jealousy sparks a fire to innovate leading them to pivot their business model and attract a larger audience. I went in typing in jealousy and ambition, expecting to hear these things that are terrible and horrible. And I end up getting things that frankly sound positive. It's taking these ideas of jealousy fueling your ambition and then your ambition leading you toward achieving your goals of success and happiness. And I find that interesting since AI is only able to reflect what we have put out there for it to use. If AI shows jealousy and ambition as being positives, it's because that's what we have put out there into the world. Are we really sure in our hearts that living our life, the way that it shows here is really going to be the positive direction that we want to go in? Do we believe that? Because deep down, I think many of us truly think that competition is always meant to have the last word in every choice that we make. Not in whether competition can somehow help us in positive ways, but that ultimately, do we truly see competition as the final word in everything we say and do? But you see, I would say in many ways, these choices betray what wisdom is truly meant to be. If instead looking at the workplace setting, could it be that we end up losing the trust of our peers because they know that we will throw them under the bus and then we also end up losing time with our family and our friends as well? If at the times for athletic competition, do people push themselves physically in ways that ultimately hurt them with injuries and steroids and even times where they're trying to perform and they lose themselves to emotional discontent or the social media influencers? I've seen the times where a video pops up and I'm noticing that a woman is emphasizing certain physical assets that she has in order to somehow market housing options or that some guy is basically over there saying the most audacious things in the world that he knows are almost definitely not true, but somehow that ends up getting people's attention. And he thinks that that's going to ultimately help is that if he can bring attention to a subject, even if what he's saying, he knows it's not actually true. The times where I remember being in college in my freshman year, seeing a guy who could do really, really well on a test, but knowing the night before that he would down a fifth of whiskey in order to get his last minute cramming in or the times whenever in our business we decide to pursue monopolies, not because we want to be the best at what we're doing, but rather all we care to do is undermine others instead of innovating and improving. Just like times with our own sermons as well. The thing is that so many times we end up just looking at what performance we need to have on the outside instead of asking what's actually being improved on the inside. I was at a lecture last night at the Lanier Theological Library, and Dr. Amy Orr Ewing was talking about CS Lewis and the problem of pain that he wrote. And the discussion was that oftentimes we are spending so much time looking on the outside, blaming society, looking that somehow time will just cover all of our sins. And as long as we can say everybody else is doing it, then we're OK. Or even, well, I'm better than my ancestors, so it should be all right. And in so doing, we stop looking at what's on the inside, and we end up just masking over it with our performance on the outside. Wisdom is not about trying to say how we get the success that the world measures. Wisdom is asking what are ultimately our goals? What is it that truly matters for real success? Are we headed down a dark path just to get what we want to check off of our list? Are we willing to slow down? Are we willing to respect others, including our competitors? There was an Olympic runner. It was during a cross-country race. There was a Spanish athlete, Ivan Fernandez-Annaya, who was second place. He was very far behind the first place runner. The first place runner was Abell Mutai from Kenya. And the thing is, he was way far ahead, but he didn't speak the language of the signs that were all around. And he got confused, thought he had finished, and he was still 10 meters before the finish line. Ivan saw that and knew he had distinctly lost that race. He could have run past him and taken the medal anyway. And instead, he ran up behind Abell and gestured over and over and got him across the finish line as the first place athlete he actually was. What was interesting, though, is that, well, Ivan knew that if he had taken that medal, it wouldn't have meant anything, because he had not truly won that race. His coach later on was quoted as saying how silly Ivan was, and that that's just what competition is meant to be. And that's the thing about this is how few people would have actually done the right thing at that moment and been willing to support and encourage the true winner and instead would have just taken the credit for themselves. Because in reality, your heart matters. As much as we get caught up in all these things that we are looking at with God and we're looking at with life and we're saying all of these things are so important, is that in reality, how long do they actually matter? Is that position you've been vying for at work, even going to exist in the next year or two? Are you going to be downsized in the next acquisition? Is it so important that you have gotten an A instead of a B plus that you're willing to sacrifice your very physical body? Is it so important that we have followers for apps that may not even still be in existence in the next few years? We have a God that is looking at the entirety of all of human history and what is it that all of those humans have in common? The heart and side of ourselves. So what is it that you think that God actually cares about? Wisdom is willing to be honest about the reality that we face and what we are oftentimes becoming in service to our jealousy and our jealous ambition. Because how often are we willing to harm ourselves and others? Times whenever we are trying to get what we want, that our heart has just been so consumed with desire. How often do we need to get cheap clothing, computers, technology, or whatever? And we find out that in some other land, people have had their land and their possessions taken away from them. That they've had to work slavish hours or even times when they have died. And we have a few moments of, oh, that's too bad as we read the article. And then got upset when we found out that it was the store that we regularly visit. Times whenever we even look and even look at ourselves as somehow victims, that we are the ones that we end up harming others. But we end up turning it back on ourselves because, oh, how could you possibly point out my flaw? Oh, I'm being victimized. Even whenever we've been causing harm to others. Or the times whenever we're wanting to pursue a relationship not because of true connection, but we just don't want anybody else to have them. We know that others would be jealous of us. So we'd rather pursue that relationship even if we don't genuinely want to be with them. And frankly, even pastors, we struggle with it. The times whenever I don't want to see somebody else's sermon or what's going on because I don't want to spend my time comparing mine to theirs. And as much as there are holier than now pastors who say they've never done it, I'm a little bit hesitant to believe it. But there have been even times where I might be in a forum discussing a topic that I know so much about. Maybe it might be discussing science and faith and areas where I've actually done studies. And I see somebody up there saying that they have no experience in that area. But they're still there because nobody else was able to be there. And it hurts. It's frustrating. But it's so focusing on this. How much does it take away from our heart to end up pursuing the good and the benefit of those who are living and serving in this world because we're so consumed with what we missed out on? And that's the thing about it is that our heart, our spirit, is what God is governing. And are you willing to be humble and to admit when your heart is not always pure? Because we can spend so much time. We can blame God and blame other people. We end up getting so frustrated at things not working out for us. And we blame the person who's doing well as if somehow their success is the reason why we're not doing as well. Or we blame God because somehow He hasn't given us the gifts that we wish we had instead of somebody else. Are we even willing to admit how often that jealousy and ambition in our hearts is the reason why we see so much pain in the world around us? But that's the reality about who our God is. Is that our God is not waiting for us to pray the right prayer in order for Him to now give us all of these physical external blessings we wish we had. Is that this is a God who brings grace for the humble. Peace, hope, forgiveness. How often are we willing to see that? Because God wants us to be willing to accept the times of sadness and seriousness and frustration, the times whenever we don't have what we want. God wants us to have those moments. Not because He's trying to frustrate us for its own sake, but because God is actually changing us and blessing us through those. Because it's real, because God is doing His work and that only by being willing to live with the weeping in the morning, the gloom and the wretchedness, only by being willing to be in those times and to let those times bring us closer to God, only in those times can He actually change what really matters the heart inside of us. Because if every time we feel those, we reject it and look at whatever we can do to avoid it, then how much is it that we're avoiding what God truly wants to do? Because this is what Jesus was willing to suffer for us for. Is that there, there were religious leaders all around him who could see what he was doing, see that he was somehow able to do things they never could. And yet, he's doing it in the name of God. Well, then clearly, he has to go. There must be something wrong with him. It doesn't matter what he's actually doing or who he actually is, because now he's undermining what we have pursued for so long, so he has to go. And the irony is that the humility that they could have demonstrated not only would not have pushed Jesus to the cross, but also in some ways would have negated the need for it in the first place. But we are people who let our jealousy and ambition destroy ourselves and the people around us. And so Jesus, knowing that, willingly allowed it to send Him to the cross. And the reality is that our life in Him, we only change, because we're willing to face who we actually are and who we need Him to change us to be. See, we're all in that same place here. We may be sitting here in this sermon, judging the people that we see around us. That's the jealous and ambitious person. But aren't we doing the same? As we see others doing this, are we willing to forgive them for their jealousy and ambition? Are we then willing to admit that we need their forgiveness as well? Are we willing to stop undermining others in order to promote ourselves when Jesus let Himself be undermined so that we could have life? Because at the end of the day, the one who sacrificed everything, he was the one who has lifted up to the right hand of the Father. And isn't that ultimately the reward that we have been promised and the reward that only comes because of Christ Jesus? So who is the true judge? It's not us. And as much as I am saying this for you to hear, this is then for you to receive God's forgiveness and a change, because ultimately, the only thing that will truly bring gratitude is not achieving what our jealous ambition wished to have. But the only thing that we can truly be grateful for is what will last forever, our life in Christ Jesus. May God humble us so that He can lift us up in His name.