WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.825 --> 00:00:01.725 Let us pray. 2 00:00:03.325 --> 00:00:06.925 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be 3 00:00:06.925 --> 00:00:10.125 acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and Our Redeemer. 4 00:00:10.525 --> 00:00:11.225 Amen. 5 00:00:12.925 --> 00:00:16.925 Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 6 00:00:18.125 --> 00:00:22.025 The pursuit of happiness has been around a long time, even before the 7 00:00:22.025 --> 00:00:26.125 founding documents of our nation, even be back before. 8 00:00:26.125 --> 00:00:26.825 James. 9 00:00:26.825 --> 00:00:29.325 The Greeks were talking. Aristotle, 10 00:00:29.325 --> 00:00:33.925 said that happiness was found in the pursuit of excellence wisdom and 11 00:00:33.925 --> 00:00:35.125 the highest good. 12 00:00:36.025 --> 00:00:40.525 Well, that sounds decent but there was a fatal flaw. Aristotle 13 00:00:40.525 --> 00:00:42.925 couldn't define the highest good. 14 00:00:43.525 --> 00:00:44.825 Pretty soon pursuing 15 00:00:44.825 --> 00:00:47.825 happiness was the same thing as pursuing. 16 00:00:48.025 --> 00:00:48.825 pleasure. 17 00:00:49.925 --> 00:00:51.925 Today as often, as not so much 18 00:00:51.925 --> 00:00:53.725 as pursuing excellence 19 00:00:54.225 --> 00:00:56.525 it's about following your passion. 20 00:00:57.325 --> 00:01:01.225 If you follow your passionate, what you're about, whatever it may be, 21 00:01:01.525 --> 00:01:03.425 that's where happiness lies. 22 00:01:04.125 --> 00:01:06.525 What makes you happy is all that matters. 23 00:01:06.925 --> 00:01:10.425 You are the center of the universe and you must cancel, anything or 24 00:01:10.425 --> 00:01:14.025 anyone who gets in your way of being happy. 25 00:01:15.125 --> 00:01:20.025 Keep all that in mind as the backdrop of our epistle lesson. 26 00:01:20.025 --> 00:01:20.225 St. 27 00:01:20.225 --> 00:01:25.525 James, never mentions happiness in our text, but he does talk about 28 00:01:25.525 --> 00:01:26.225 passion. 29 00:01:27.025 --> 00:01:30.125 And while people are always tempted to put passion and happiness 30 00:01:30.125 --> 00:01:33.825 together, that it's not, where happiness is to be found. 31 00:01:34.525 --> 00:01:37.625 Thus our text tells us about two different wisdoms. 32 00:01:38.625 --> 00:01:41.725 The wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. 33 00:01:42.325 --> 00:01:44.225 God makes it clear in our text that 34 00:01:44.225 --> 00:01:45.125 you can't have it 35 00:01:45.125 --> 00:01:46.125 both ways. 36 00:01:46.525 --> 00:01:51.325 Being friends with the world is enmity with God and whoever wishes to 37 00:01:51.325 --> 00:01:57.025 be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Saint James 38 00:01:57.025 --> 00:01:57.725 describes 39 00:01:57.725 --> 00:02:01.825 the first wisdom by saying that it does not come down from heaven, but 40 00:02:01.825 --> 00:02:07.525 is Earthly worldly unspiritual, demonic and is characterized by 41 00:02:07.525 --> 00:02:07.925 bitter 42 00:02:08.025 --> 00:02:10.625 jealousy and selfish ambition. 43 00:02:11.225 --> 00:02:15.225 It results in boasting denial of truth, disorder, 44 00:02:15.225 --> 00:02:21.325 adultery, pride, lust and every vile practice. 45 00:02:22.025 --> 00:02:23.525 Clearly my friends 46 00:02:23.525 --> 00:02:25.125 this is not the wisdom 47 00:02:25.225 --> 00:02:28.725 we want to hang around. We want to stay away from it. 48 00:02:29.425 --> 00:02:32.525 But if only you could, it's all around you 49 00:02:32.725 --> 00:02:36.925 it's in you because this is what the world considers to be wisdom. 50 00:02:37.525 --> 00:02:38.025 This wisdom 51 00:02:38.125 --> 00:02:42.025 is an attempt to pursue happiness outside of God and his mercy. 52 00:02:42.425 --> 00:02:48.125 This is the wisdom that says, whoever you are follow your passion, do 53 00:02:48.125 --> 00:02:49.225 what makes you happy. 54 00:02:49.725 --> 00:02:53.325 And if happiness is all about following your own passion and doing 55 00:02:53.325 --> 00:02:54.625 what you want to do. 56 00:02:55.025 --> 00:02:57.725 Then selfish ambition must be a virtue 57 00:02:58.025 --> 00:03:02.725 not a vice because selfish ambition is nothing else then pursuing what 58 00:03:02.725 --> 00:03:04.225 you want for yourself. 59 00:03:05.025 --> 00:03:08.625 As your ambitiously pursuing, what you want for yourself 60 00:03:08.925 --> 00:03:11.425 you can't be looking out for other people. 61 00:03:12.425 --> 00:03:14.125 But ambition has a price. 62 00:03:14.925 --> 00:03:19.725 There's often a trail of broken marriages, lost friends, and 63 00:03:19.725 --> 00:03:21.025 neglected children. 64 00:03:21.725 --> 00:03:23.525 There's another part of this pursuit. 65 00:03:23.925 --> 00:03:28.025 It never ends because selfish ambition is never fulfilled. 66 00:03:28.125 --> 00:03:31.225 Happiness is never really achieved. 67 00:03:31.725 --> 00:03:35.825 So it's all around you, current heroes aren't those who serve and 68 00:03:35.825 --> 00:03:39.925 sacrifice, but those who climb over others to get to the top 69 00:03:40.425 --> 00:03:41.825 and it's also in you. 70 00:03:42.425 --> 00:03:45.525 Your passions are at war within you. 71 00:03:46.025 --> 00:03:50.325 There are things you want things that make you happy in the proper 72 00:03:50.325 --> 00:03:52.025 context in moderation 73 00:03:52.125 --> 00:03:53.925 they're not necessarily bad. 74 00:03:54.425 --> 00:03:58.525 But any pleasure can become an idol, and any highest good can become 75 00:03:58.525 --> 00:03:59.025 a false 76 00:03:59.025 --> 00:04:04.925 god. Sometimes passions can enslave us where one is trapped unable to 77 00:04:04.925 --> 00:04:07.825 escape owned and far from happiness. 78 00:04:08.525 --> 00:04:11.525 Maybe we seek to escape pain or heighten pleasure 79 00:04:11.725 --> 00:04:12.025 and so, 80 00:04:12.225 --> 00:04:14.825 turn to alcohol, drugs, 81 00:04:14.825 --> 00:04:15.925 pornography. 82 00:04:16.225 --> 00:04:20.125 We self-medicate we need more and more because the pleasure is 83 00:04:20.125 --> 00:04:20.725 fleeting. 84 00:04:21.225 --> 00:04:23.025 Even when we find no pleasure 85 00:04:23.125 --> 00:04:27.325 we are compelled to risk, family neglect to work, misuse money, and 86 00:04:27.325 --> 00:04:31.925 make all sorts of compromises in order to serve the passion. 87 00:04:32.725 --> 00:04:34.725 Any highest good could become a false 88 00:04:34.725 --> 00:04:35.325 god. 89 00:04:35.725 --> 00:04:37.225 So what makes you happy? 90 00:04:38.025 --> 00:04:39.525 What do you enjoy doing? 91 00:04:40.025 --> 00:04:41.425 What gives you pleasure? 92 00:04:42.225 --> 00:04:43.525 Well, the answers will vary. 93 00:04:43.825 --> 00:04:46.825 The devil will use these gifts to lead you astray. 94 00:04:47.025 --> 00:04:49.825 He wants you to love them more than God. 95 00:04:50.025 --> 00:04:54.225 He wants you to enjoy yourself at the expense of loving, your 96 00:04:54.225 --> 00:04:54.825 neighbor. 97 00:04:55.525 --> 00:04:59.525 For example, time alone can be a blessing for collecting your 98 00:04:59.525 --> 00:05:03.025 thoughts, doing some reading and studying. 99 00:05:03.625 --> 00:05:07.825 But when that time is at the expense of your spouse, your children, or 100 00:05:07.825 --> 00:05:11.825 neighbors in need, the devil has used that happiness to keep 101 00:05:12.025 --> 00:05:15.325 from doing what God has created and called you to do. 102 00:05:16.125 --> 00:05:17.325 Hobbies and activities 103 00:05:17.325 --> 00:05:21.125 can be great for mental health, but when they cut into the necessary 104 00:05:21.125 --> 00:05:25.725 expenses of your family, they become a problem. For the sake of our 105 00:05:25.725 --> 00:05:26.625 souls 106 00:05:26.625 --> 00:05:33.025 and those around us James says submit yourselves to God, resist these 107 00:05:33.025 --> 00:05:35.925 things, resist the devil and he will flee from you. 108 00:05:36.425 --> 00:05:41.525 We draw near to God and he draws near to us by his grace for Christ's 109 00:05:41.525 --> 00:05:41.825 sake. 110 00:05:41.925 --> 00:05:46.525 In Christ is where we find our happiness. Where we are 111 00:05:46.525 --> 00:05:49.025 cleansed and our hearts purified. 112 00:05:49.425 --> 00:05:52.325 For Christ, has conquered sin and the devil. 113 00:05:52.525 --> 00:05:57.425 He has redeemed us from sin, selfish ambition, and bitter jealousy 114 00:05:57.725 --> 00:06:00.725 by the sacrifice of his son on the cross. 115 00:06:01.425 --> 00:06:06.825 The cross is the complete antithesis to the wisdom of the world. Where 116 00:06:06.825 --> 00:06:09.825 sinners pursue happiness for themselves out of selfish 117 00:06:09.825 --> 00:06:11.825 ambition, the son of God 118 00:06:11.925 --> 00:06:17.825 came to serve and sacrifice himself to redeem sinners like you and me. 119 00:06:17.825 --> 00:06:20.425 We are God's redeemed 120 00:06:20.425 --> 00:06:23.525 and therefore we are enemies of the world. 121 00:06:23.525 --> 00:06:25.725 What is the world to us? 122 00:06:25.725 --> 00:06:28.425 When the world operates out of bitter 123 00:06:28.425 --> 00:06:33.625 jealousy for what others have Jesus Christ submitted to the cross and 124 00:06:33.625 --> 00:06:35.925 his father's judgment for all sin. 125 00:06:35.925 --> 00:06:41.425 Jesus declares that salvation is found in him in his work, his death 126 00:06:41.425 --> 00:06:41.625 and Resurrection 127 00:06:41.925 --> 00:06:44.825 all a gift to us. 128 00:06:45.925 --> 00:06:51.125 All of this is summed up in our text with five words, but he gives 129 00:06:51.325 --> 00:06:52.925 more grace. 130 00:06:53.725 --> 00:06:57.325 As the wisdom of the world continues to deceive man into rejecting 131 00:06:57.325 --> 00:07:00.425 God, God continues to pour out Grace. 132 00:07:00.725 --> 00:07:01.225 He does 133 00:07:01.225 --> 00:07:05.325 so, for the sake of Jesus, who for the joy set, before him, endured 134 00:07:05.325 --> 00:07:07.825 the cross, scorning and shame. 135 00:07:08.525 --> 00:07:12.725 Jesus Christ is your savior and he is the wisdom of God. 136 00:07:13.625 --> 00:07:16.625 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you, 137 00:07:17.025 --> 00:07:23.525 James tells you. The Lord calls you to hear his word to read, mark, 138 00:07:23.825 --> 00:07:26.225 learn and inwardly digest it. 139 00:07:26.525 --> 00:07:31.125 Not as just some textbook for this great institution in a class, 140 00:07:31.125 --> 00:07:34.625 you're taking or for a reference book for a Bible study. 141 00:07:34.825 --> 00:07:36.025 It is more than that. 142 00:07:36.225 --> 00:07:37.425 It is life-giving. 143 00:07:37.625 --> 00:07:41.425 It is the sword of the spirit, the the word, and power of God unto 144 00:07:41.425 --> 00:07:42.425 salvation. 145 00:07:43.225 --> 00:07:48.525 It is where you draw near to God and he draws near to you. And you come 146 00:07:48.525 --> 00:07:52.325 to him in his Holy Supper, where he draws near to you, in his very 147 00:07:52.325 --> 00:07:56.225 body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your 148 00:07:56.225 --> 00:07:58.925 sins. In your baptism 149 00:07:59.325 --> 00:08:03.425 our Lord reached down into the muck and mire of our sinfulness and 150 00:08:03.425 --> 00:08:06.225 cleansed our hands and purified our hearts. 151 00:08:06.725 --> 00:08:09.825 He came near to us. By his grace 152 00:08:09.825 --> 00:08:12.325 he created in you, a clean heart. 153 00:08:12.925 --> 00:08:14.125 By his cross 154 00:08:14.325 --> 00:08:19.825 he has redeemed your heart and your hands, not for selfish ambition, 155 00:08:20.225 --> 00:08:25.425 but for the happiness of being exalted, as a child of God, redeemed by 156 00:08:25.425 --> 00:08:27.225 the blood of the Lamb. 157 00:08:27.725 --> 00:08:30.025 What is the world to us? 158 00:08:30.525 --> 00:08:31.025 Amen.