What Motivates You?

Manuscript Template

Title:  What Motivates You?

Elevator Summary:  

Focus Statement:  

To attain spiritual maturity a believer must do the good he now knows. He must stand confidently on God’s Word even in trials and temptations. He must compassionately serve his brethren without prejudicial favoritism but with practical faith. He must speak carefully with a controlled tongue and wise, cultivated thought. He must submit in contrition to his all-powerful Father, Law-giver, and Judge with a humble spirit, just action, and a trusting heart. He must be what God wants him to be, do what God wants him to do, speak as God wants him to speak, and sense what God wants him to sense.

Function Statement:  

Houghton College president Stephen Paine

“What is the goal of your life?...To do the will of God.”

Tweetable Phrase:  

Main Text:  James 4

Supporting Text:  Ezekiel 36:26-27, Matthew 6:24-34, Luke 15:11-32, Genesis 11:1-9

Redemptive Closure (point to Jesus):  Luke 15:11-32 - Prodigal Son

Benediction:  Matthew 6:31-34

WELCOME

Good morning!!! My name is Ryan Hanson and I have the honor of serving here at The Light KC as the lead pastor. I’m so glad you’re here with us.

‌Welcome to those joining us online. We hope your doing well and hope to see you in person in the coming weeks.

And a special welcome to those joining us for the first time. We’re so glad you chose to be here.

ME/INTRO - Tension

So...

I know we don’t have a children’s sermon anymore, BUT I was reading the children’s bible with the kids the other day and we got to the story of the Tower of Babel. You mind if we read the story together from the Children’s bible?

[Babel - 1]

[Babel - 2]

[Babel - 3]

[Babel - 4]

[Babel - 5]

What stood out to me was the choices in paraphrasing the authors made.

They said the people built the tower so that “Everyone will see how great we are!”

The Babylonian’s motivation for building the tower was to glorify themselves. To feel important. To impress others.

The authors of the children’s bible went a little further with their paraphrase of God’s response. They wrote, “God did not like the way they were acting. It was as if they no longer needed him.”

The Babylonian’s worked together, never consulted God, and planned to build a tower to heaven so they didn’t have to follow the path that God laid out for them to get to heaven.

I know when I read this story growing up, and even recently, it is easy for me to look at the Babylonian’s as terrible people, arrogantly going against God, and deserving the punishment they received.

BUT...

If we’re honest are we, as a society, any different today?

Lets take sports for example.

It seems like every conversation drifts toward arguments over who is the G.O.A.T. It seems like in every sport people want to know who is the greatest of all time. Like the Babylonians we want to know who has worked the hardest, become the most talented, and achieved the most. As Americans, we want to know who did it without any help, pulled themselves up by their own boot straps.

It is such a debate that, Carnegie Mellon University quantified the race to the top. They developed the GOAT SCORE.

Professors Meher Kaky, Baishou Zhou, and Alex Chen looked at Football, Basketball, and Hockey and compared every players Longevity, Performance, Consistency, Winningness from 1980-2022.

The NBA Goat is Michael Jordan

The NHL Goat is Wayne Gretzky

The NFL Goat is Tom Brady (please note since data ended in 2022, Mahomes currently is 4th but still has a chance :))

And when all sports were evaluated, the Goat of Goats was Wayne Gretzky by a large margin.

And even though they weren’t on the list, it seems like every athlete wants to be on top.

Labron James [Labron James GOAT]

The debate between Labron and Michael Jordan is raging.

Whereas Michael Jordan refused to enter into the debate, Labron is very forthcoming that he thinks he is the best.

[Labron James GOAT QUOTE]

Like the Babylonians, Labron wants the glory all for himself.

Simone Biles

In the gymnastics world there are many very talented people throughout history, but Simon Biles has taken the G.O.A.T. title to heart

She even monograms it on her outfit [Simon Biles Goat]

When asked about the bedazzling, she shamelessly points to the international medal count. [SImon Biles Goat Quote]

Like the Babylonians, Simon wants the glory all for himself.

Michael Phelps

Yet. the person that I think has a story worth talking about is Michael Phelps.

He has won 28 total olympic medals, 23 of them gold. He dominated every race he participated in over his 5 olympic games.

Yet when asked what motivated him, at the age of 15 before his first Olympics he said he wanted to be the greatest of all time.

[Michael Phelps - goat - 1]

Heck… When I was young, I did the same stuff. I played high level travel hockey. And I wanted to be the best on every team that I was on. I wanted to be the first line / starting center. I wanted to lead every power play and every penalty kill. When there was a crucial time in a game, I wanted to be the person the coach looked to. I was obsessed. I practiced longer and harder than everyone else. I kept the data to track my progress. I had a paper on the fridge that tracked each game’s TEAM GF, TEAM GA, My G, My A, , My +/-, and my Penalty Minutes. I tracked tends, beat myself up during slumps, and was driven by comparison to the others on the team.

The problem is that even if one is the best like the GOATS, it doesn’t satisfy.

Even when Michael Phelps achieved more than anyone had ever achieved in swimming, he went into a deep depression, started taking drugs to numb the pain and try to fill the hole that success within swimming couldn’t fill.

[Michael Phelps - goat - 2]

The pain / depression / and pressure to be the best got so bad that he even became suicidal.

[Michael Phelps - goat - 3]

So if literally being the Greatest Of All TIME (GOAT) isn’t enough to satisfy our desire for greatness. What can?

WE - Tension

I ask you...

Have you gotten caught up in this line of thinking?

Have you wanted to do something only to impress others?

Have you found yourself in a situation where you’ve achieved some level of success, but the attention you got for it didn’t match the desire you had in your heart?

That is exactly the topic that James tackles in our passage today.

Please turn with me to James 4, as we continue our series called RESOLVED.

We’re in the fifth week of our series where we’re walking through the entire book of James. Over the 5 chapters of this book James gives us 12 very practical teachings, pulling from Proverbs and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Our goal throughout this series is to listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice as we walk through these chapters and discern what goals / next steps God wants us to RESOLVE to accomplish over 2025.

If you missed some of the previous messages, please feel free to catch up. Their easy to find on our new and improved website!!!

TheLightKC.org

As as we begin, please turn with me to James 4:1.

We’ll have the scripture on the screen, but if you have a Bible with you, or Bible app on your phone, I’d encourage you to turn to the passage and follow along. There is nothing that replaces having God’s word in your hand.

AND...if you don’t have a Bible, we have Bibles under the seats. If you don’t have a bible and would like one, please come see me after the service and I’ll get you one you can keep.

Lets dive in.

GOD - Text

The Problem - Wrong Motivation

James 4:1–4 NIV

1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

James starts this chapter by pointing out that too often we get into fights and arguments (as in the GOAT debates) because we have the wrong desires and motivation.

The Greek word for

Desire

epithymeo

Setting one’s heart upon something, longing for something, coveting something

Just as our GOAT contenders set their heart upon, longed for, and coveted being the greatest in their sports, and in many cases ended up miserable, James is pointing out that if we desire things that we think will make us happy and don’t pray to God for guidance as to what we should actually be doing, we’re walking down a path that will lead to disappointment.

So my question to you...

What things do you long for? Desire?

What are you setting your heart upon?

Do you consult God to guide your heart toward what He wants you to desire?

The Solution - Recognize God’s Sovereignty and Submit to Him

But...

James doesn’t leave us with just a scolding for chasing our own selfish desires in an effort to seek pleasure. James offers a solution.

James 4:5–10 NIV

5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

If we are to have the right desires, we need to be motivated by what God wants for us. James is calling us to recognize the sovereignty of God. To recognize that God is the one who created us, who created us with a purpose in mind, who created us with a good purpose in mind, and subsequently we need to recognize God’s power and authority over our lives.

If we are to have the right desires, they cannot be for selfish gain, like our athletes or the Babylonians.

To have God honoring desires we must...

Submit to God - acknowledge his sovereignty

Resist the devil - fight / flee temptations to sin

Draw near to God - spend time reading God’s word, praying, listening

Purify our heart - Seek to align our will to God’s will

Humble ourselves - don’t think less of ourselves, but think about ourselves less

If we are to have the right desires, we need to seek God’s guidance through prayer and be singularly motivated by fulfilling God’s will for our lives.

When we submit and humble ourselves to God, our desires for ourselves and requests of God need to conform to His nature in order to be granted.

So...

What is your prayer life like?

What do you pray for?

If you pray, what do you ask for (things for yourself, things for others, or God’s will to be done)?

Example

To make this less theoretical and more practical, James continues in V13 with an example.

James 4:13–16 NIV

13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.

Here James tells the story of some business people who makes plans to travel, do business, make money, and get rich.

But...at no point did they seek God’s will in their planning.

Planning is good. But planning in isolation is not.

We need to do the work to align our will with the will of God.

Making plans w/o God’s involvement, is as James writes, arrogant and a sin. It is the sin of presumption, assuming we know enough that we don’t need God’s input.

What are we doing w/o seeking God’s input?

What plans do you currently have that God is not a part of?

Warning

James ends this chapter with a warning.

James 4:17 NIV

17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

This is one of my favorite verses.

Basically James is calling us to become mature.

Not sure about your houses, but the topic of maturity comes up in mine all the time.

My kids want to be treated like adults (reasonable request).

I’d be happy to do so...when they can show me that they can act like an adult. When they can show me that they have matured.

I define maturity to my kids as

“Doing what is right, even when you don’t want to”

Which is tough because kids do what they want even when they shouldn’t.

And if we’re honest, we do to.

God calls us to the same here. If we know what God wants us to do, we need to do it, even if we don’t want to. If we don’t, that is a sin.

God is calling us in this verse to Spiritual Maturity.

I am reminded of a quote from

Stephen Paine the president of Houghton College. He was asked:

“What is the goal of your life?...To do the will of God.”

YOU - Takeaway

It is so simple. Yet...so hard to live out.

Are we putting in the work to understand what God’s will for our lives is?

Are we reading God’s word, praying, listening, seeking wise counsel?

Once the Holy Spirit makes God’s will known to us, are we doing it? No matter what it is?

WE / JESUS - Redemptive Close - Call to Action

Jesus tells a similar story with the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32.

Just like the Babylonians, just like our athletes, like the business men in James 4, just like us, the son wanted to be someone. He wanted fame, fortune, attention from others.

He took his inheritance from the family farm before his father had died, basically telling his father he thinks his life would be better if the father was dead.

Against all logic, the father gives the son the money.

The son squanders it in what the bible calls “wild living”.

But as we all would expect, when the money ran out, so did the friends.

The son worked at a pig farm, something a Jewish person would absolutely not do, unless there were literally no options.

The son had hit rock bottom. He put his desire for pleasure ahead of everything else, and lost.

In a moment of clarity he thinks that life would be better if he went back to his father and asked to work on the farm as a hired servant.

Before he would even ask, the father runs to his son (something a Jewish man would not do) and shows him Grace.

The father gives him the undeserved gift of forgiveness. The father gives him the family ring, a robe, a pair of sandals, and throws a party celebrating the son’s return.

This is a picture of the God we serve.

We serve a God that doesn’t give up on us, even when we foolishly strive after all the wrong things and make a mess of it.

As James writes in James 4:6

James 4:6 NIV

6 But he gives us more grace.

Like the father in Jesus’ parable, God is waiting for us to realize the error of our sinful decisions, our selfish desires, and twisted motives. God is waiting for us to humble ourselves, draw near to Him, and submit to His will over our lives.

You may know the story, but.

Michael Phelps story didn’t end in suicide.

Luckily he found help. He turned to therapists that help him see that he was more than just a swimmer, that his value was in more than just the number of medals he could win, and he had a purpose. He now advocates for mental health.

[Michael Phelps - goat - 4]

My story ended similar. In HS, I was asked to help coach a youth team, like Michael Phelps, I found more joy in helping little kids learn a sport I loved, learn to play as a team, learn to deal with the ups and downs, and learn to be proud of themselves no matter the outcome...than I ever did playing.

And in honor of today’s big game, I found this quote from Andy Reid, when asked if he was going to retire of come back to try to keep winning so he could be the GOAT of NFL coaching.

[Andy Reid GOAT QUOTE]

Andy Reid says he is not retiring, but not to be the GOAT, because he loves teaching other to be their best.

In Chapter 4, James calls us to RESOLVE to be spiritually mature. To do the good that we know God wants us to do.

We must stand confidently on God’s Word even in trials and temptations.

We must compassionately serve each other without prejudicial favoritism but with practical faith.

We must speak carefully with a controlled tongue and wise, cultivated thought.

We must submit in contrition to our all-powerful Father, Law-giver, and Judge with a humble spirit, just action, and a trusting heart.

We must be what God wants us to be, do what God wants us to do, speak as God wants us to speak, and desire what God wants us to desire.

We must only act if it is God’s will for us to do so.

So what is God’s will for your life this week?

What is God calling you to do?

Who is God calling you to help?

Where do you need to humbly submit to God’s will when you’re currently chasing something else?

PRAYER 

Will you join me in prayer...

SONG 

As we enter into our final song, I want to open the steps up front as an altar to anyone who needs God this week. The steps are open for you to pray to the God who is with you, who loves you, you wants to give you His peace.

‌

You may feel a hand on your shoulder as I or one of the elders join you in prayer.

BENEDICTION 

Matthew 6:31–34 NIV

31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

This week...Lets commit to being what God wants us to be, doing what God wants us to do, speaking as God wants us to speak, and desire what God wants us to desire.

Quick reminder...

Superbowl party tonight at 5 PM - bring your friends

Next Friday (2/14) is our Couples Valentines Date Night - great opportunity to share the love of Jesus with your friends though a great night out - childcare is provided

Town hall is next Sunday (2/16) at 5 PM. Please come with all your questions as we share some changes and our vision for 2025.

If you’re new, please stop by our info desk, or see me. We’d love to say “hi” and get you know you a bit better.

I hope you have a great week.

Go in peace.

You are dismissed.

SMALL GROUP QUESTIONS