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Over the last month or two, our pastor, Brad, has been preaching through the book of Ecclesiastes. He recently read to us Eccl 3.1,4:
There is an occasion for everything, a time for every activity under heaven...
A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.
I think this resonates with us as human beings. There is something fundamentally human about laughing and dancing and weeping and mourning. They are a fact of human life. I would guess that nearly all your most powerful memories, the ones that you can still “feel” to this day, involve laughing or weeping.
One of the questions that the Bible asks – and thankfully answers – is this: in this cycle of life, from laughing to mourning to dancing to weeping, where does the wheel stop? Will my life end with a time of laughter or a time of weeping?
This is a very important question. How we answer it will (or at least should) change a tremendous amount in our lives: how we spend our time, who we spend it with will change very much depending on how we answer that question: Will my life end in laughter, or will it end in weeping?
As we try to answer that question in our lives, it turns out to be a very tricky question. Perhaps if I figure out how to do the right things, if I carefully arrange my life so that I can live successfully, my life will end with a time of laughter and not a time of weeping.
But Hollywood legend Ingrid Bergman describes that road well: “I remember one day sitting at the pool and suddenly the tears were streaming down my cheeks. Why was I so unhappy? I had success. I had security. But it wasn’t enough. I was exploding inside.”
Maybe you don’t feel that way this morning. Maybe you wouldn’t put it in quite those words. But who hasn’t felt this way at some point? Have you ever looked your life and wondered whether you’ve made any good choices? I’ve felt that way many times. Am I doing anything in my life well at all?
Even love, that greatest of human emotions, the one that above all else is supposed to make life worth living, brings its own unique kind of pain. Legendary French singer Edith Piaf once said: “I think you have to pay for love with bitter tears.”
One of my students posted as her Facebook status last night: “Love is giving someone the power to destroy you, and trusting them not to.”
Whether it’s the aftershocks of a failed marriage or the tears of a parent whose children are growing up and moving away, even the joy of love is mixed with pain. “Until death do us part” is unfortunately a reality even in the best of marriages.
And this problem is not limited to just me, or just us as a church, or just our nation, or just to the world in the 21st century. Woodrow Wilson, who was a noted historian and president of Princeton University before he became the 28th president of the United States, said: “There is little for the great part of the history of the world except the bitter tears of pity and the hot tears of wrath.”
What we want to ask this morning is: How does the Bible answer this question? Does it say whether my life will end in laughter or in tears?
The book of James addresses this question. James 4.1-10:
What is the source of the wars and the fights among you? Don't they come from the cravings that are at war within you? You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and don't receive because you ask wrongly, so that you may spend it on your desires for pleasure.Adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the world's friend becomes God's enemy. Or do you think it's without reason the Scripture says that the Spirit He has caused to live in us yearns jealously?
But He gives greater grace. Therefore He says:
God resists the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.
Therefore, submit to God. But resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, double-minded people! Be miserable and mourn and weep. Your laughter must change to mourning and your joy to sorrow. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. (HCSB)
Why is weeping a part of human life? Where does all this pain and strife come from? It comes from within: “the cravings that are at war within you.” Here is the problem, according to v. 2: “You desire and do not have.” We crave things and desire them but we don’t get them. Even more, those times we do ask, we ask for ourselves and our own success and our own glory.
So how do we solve this problem of not having what we want? “You murder and covet and cannot obtain,” according to v. 2. Murder and coveting, the Bible makes clear, are problems of the heart. We are willing to hate those around us and rage because we want what they have but can’t seem to get it.
Ironically, if we asked God for our desires, in humility, knowing our place in this world and following his lead, he would give us the desires of our hearts.
Jesus taught in Matt 6:
Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky: they don't sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you worth more than they? Can any of you add a single cubit to his height by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow: they don't labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these! If that's how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won't He do much more for you—you of little faith? So don't worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
Jesus later said, If you then “know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” But we covet instead of asking.
Paul taught in Romans 12: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Try to do what is honorable in everyone’s eyes. If possible, on your part, live at peace with everyone.” But we don’t do that. We have hearts filled with rage and hate and jealousy and envy.
If you don’t think this is true of you, consider this: Who is that person that you just can’t get along with? In your family, your workplace, maybe in your own home. You just don’t understand them, they do such weird things, they make such bad decisions, they are just so frustrating. Who is that person for you? Or persons? We all have them. Right now off the top of our heads, we could all make a list of people that we would prefer to never see again.
Or consider this: Has someone’s success ever made you mad? Have you ever been upset that they did well? Or that they had the opportunity to do something that you didn’t? It might sound a little petty and childish when we put it that way, but aren’t we all petty and childish sometimes?
Why do we do this? Why are we murderous and envious? Because we’re trying to create our own joy. We are trying in our own strength and by our own means to make our lives end in laughter instead of weeping. We want joy so badly that we are willing to take other people out to get it. V. 3 puts it this way: We want to spend everything, even those we love, on our desires for pleasure.
Where does this way of life leave us? James describes us as God’s enemy -- look at verses 4-5 and 7.
According to James, our hearts have sided us with the World and with the Devil, which automatically makes us the enemies of God. The World and the Devil tell us: to find joy, you need will power, you need to follow your heart, you need to think, you need to feel, do better, try harder, fight for every inch and strive for every moment of joy!
But to strive for ourselves above all else is to make ourselves the purpose of the universe. It is to make ourselves God.
Can you see the irony in this? We battle so hard to create our own joy, but in doing so we become the enemies of God. And what is the outcome of being an enemy of God? A life that ends in weeping, not laughter. By pursuing laughter so hard, we end up with weeping.
And that is the Bible’s answer to the question. Do our lives end in weeping or laughter? James tells us that in ourselves, apart from God’s work, we pursue joy so badly that we leave a wake of destruction behind us. Our lives are wars and fights to satisfy our cravings. We are allied with the World and the Devil and thus enemies of God, which means our lives will end in mourning. In ourselves, apart from any intervention by God, that is the answer.
But thank God that he has intervened for us! Look at v. 6: “But…” – what a wonderful word! – “But He gives greater grace.” The gracious gift of God – his intervention on our behalf, his saving us from ourselves – is greater than our own sinfulness!
God’s gives greater grace. Look at v. 6: “Therefore, He says: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” God gives grace to the humble.
Note that humility is the exact opposite of what we did before: Before we made ourselves the center of the universe. We saw everything and everyone around us as existing to serve me, to fill my life with joy and laughter. Even God himself: when we did ask him for something, it was so that we could “spend it on our desires for pleasure” (v. 3).
Twice James tells us to be humble: v. 6, v. 10. We need to admit how sinful we are, turn to God in repentance, and cease our pride. We need to be so honest about our sin with ourselves and with God that it brings us to tears. James writes in v. 9: “Be miserable and mourn and weep. Your laughter must change to mourning and your joy to sorrow.”
Has your sin ever made you weep? Have you ever been so distraught over something you’ve done that you’ve shed tears over it? Believe it or not, that’s a good place to be. Because God resists the proud, but he gives his overwhelming, unbelievable grace to the humble.
The most important verse in this entire passage is v. 10: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.” We want our lives to end in joy so badly, but the incredible irony of the work of God is that a life of joy comes through weeping.
Instead of exalting ourselves, we need to see ourselves as we really are: inadequate, broken, sinful – yes, even shameful. We need to mourn over it. And then we need to remember the promise of God:
“Blessed are those who mourn, because they will be comforted.” That’s not an empty platitude or a wishful pleasantry. That’s a vow made by the God of the universe! If we mourn before him, if we admit defeat in the joy-at-all-costs game that we’ve been playing with our lives, then he will comfort us!
The God of the universe humbles the proud and lifts up the humble. That is how he works! Think of the things Jesus taught: The first shall be last and the last shall be first. The shameful sinner’s prayer is heard, but the arrogant theologian’s prayer is meaningless. The poor will be rich and the rich will be poor. The gentle will inherit the earth, but the violent conqueror will lose it all.
The God of the universe turns mourning into laughter and sorrow into joy. Psalm 30.5 says, “Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” If we humble ourselves before God, then our lives will not end like an evening, when the light fades into darkness and the world around us fades into quiet slumber. No, if we confess our brokenness to him, our lives will end like a morning, with new light and hope and purpose.
Have you ever seen one of those chick flicks where the girl & the guy almost get together, but in the end they go their separate ways. Doesn’t your heart react against that? No! They’re supposed to be together in the end!
Or one of those westerns in which all the good guys die and the bad guys ride off into the sunset? Again, you say, no! It’s not supposed to be that way! The good guys are supposed to win!
The God of the universe has intervened in the world so that things will end as they should. This world is going to be a comedy, not a tragedy. It’s going to end in blissful summer, not bleak winter. This is a world of light and knowledge, not darkness and ignorance. God is turning this world into a place of life, not death; of joy and laughter, not sorrow and mourning.
Now I want to be clear: I am not saying that the sorrows of this life aren’t real. Nor am I saying that once we become a Christian, and perhaps have enough “faith”, we will stop experiencing the pain of this life. The weeping in this life is all too real, and it will be with us until God makes all things new.
What I am saying is that we can now answer the question: Will my life end in laughter or in weeping? If you are in Christ, you can know that your life will end in joy.
But how do we know all this? Is this just wishful thinking? Are we just deluding ourselves into believing in unicorns and happy endings?
Everything I have said today has been most powerfully displayed in the person of Jesus. Think of the downward spiral that was Jesus’ story: the creator of everything took on our limited, finite nature. He was born to a poor family and was mocked as illegitimate in a culture where that mattered a lot. He was rejected by his countrymen, his close friends, and his own family in ways that we can’t even imagine. More than any of this, he was the only innocent man who ever lived, and yet he died a savage death on a cross.
Imagine what an observer to that whole story would have said: Weeping and mourning really are all there is. Life is pain – anyone who says differently is selling something. Think of the real sorrow, the horror even, that his disciples must have felt. We bet everything on this guy! And now look: all is lost.
But Jesus’ story doesn’t end there! Jesus humbled himself before God, and just as James claims, he was exalted! He rose, he ascended, he was seated, he is the name above all names and the ruler of all that is.
And in his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus opens the way for us to follow him. That same path can be ours. If we too humble ourselves, God will exalt us. That is the only way we can have the laughter & joy that we’ve always wanted.
If we will not humble ourselves, we will have our moments of laughter, but that joy will only slip through our fingers.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. That’s God’s promise. Be miserable and mourn and weep, change your laughter to mourning and your joy to sorrow. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
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