Super Powers
prelude
Prayer of Preparation Without plans visions can become nightmares. For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12
welcome, announcements, joys and concerns
*Hymn # # 217 I am the Church
*Call to Worship Philippians 4:6-7 nlt Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
*Invocation / Lord’s Prayer Gathering God, you have promised that if we draw near to you, you will draw near to us. In this time, prepare our hearts and minds, that we might receive your wisdom and understanding. Relieve our bodies and souls from all the desires and cravings shaped by this world, that we might be filled with your peace. Pour out your Spirit upon us, that our worship might be joyful and authentic, bearing good fruit in our lives with our neighbors. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, at it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen
responsive reading Psalm 1
*Gloria Patri
Young’s Peoples Moment Show the children a number of different kinds of seeds, and explain what kinds of seeds they are: apple, pumpkin, watermelon, sunflower, etc. Ask them if an apple seed can grow into a pumpkin, or a watermelon seed into a sunflower. No way! Stress that if you want a particular plant, you have to use the right seed. Point out that the writer of the letter of James is looking for a “harvest of righteousness” (James 3:18); that means that he wants to grow Christians who follow the way of God and do the right thing. Ask the children if they think a “harvest of righteousness” can grow from a seed of envy and selfishness and bragging and lying. Let them know that it cannot, but such a harvest requires a seed that is “peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits” (v. 17). Point out that God gives us this seed and plants it in our hearts. Ask the children to name some of the good deeds that they can do, based on this peaceable, gentle, merciful seed from God. Remind them that apple seeds can grow into wonderful apple trees, and a seed from God — planted in each one of them — can grow into an amazing Christian life.
Call to Prayer Linus speaks to Peppermint Patty. "A CAT? What in the world do you want a cat for?" P. P. says, "To put Snoopy in his place! To show him that he's not so important!" She then turns to Snoopy, looks him straight in the nose, and says, "Somebody's got to take him down a few notches." Snoopy, shook up, face flat on the ground, responds to himself, "Please don't bother ... I'm not worth it!" Have any of us ever felt that way about ourselves? (Thirty seconds of silence.) We may have felt that way because we have allowed the mass media to determine that popularity, riches, and power bring true greatness. After all, those persons seem to get all of the publicity, except for rare people such as Mother Teresa. Take a few moments to reflect about your life, as compared or contrasted with the lives of those who get the attention of the mass media. Conclude this act of worship with this conversation between Charlie Brown and Linus. Charlie: "You seem very secure today, Linus." Linus: "I am ... I feel quite secure ..." Charlie: "Where do you think the source of this security lies ... in your thumb, in that blanket, or in the pose you assume?" Linus: "I say it's a combination of ingredients ... Not unlike a doctor's prescription!" For us, Jesus is the Good Doctor, in whom true greatness lies.
Prayer Hymn # 402 Take Time to Be Holy v. 3
Pastoral Prayer source of love and wisdom, work within us to overcome the urgent need we sometimes feel to be recognized and rewarded. Help us to find reward in the good we do, the love we give, the kindness in our hearts. Forgive our persistent failure, renew us by your power. true greatness has to do with the qualities of the child, some of which you may want to name, and then explore in depth later.
Musical response
Offertory sentence How will you put into practice these qualities of a child this week? Remember, also, each of us is expected to sift out the healthy qualities of the child, from the adult's unhealthy expectations of the child.
offering Doxology
offertory prayer Living God, who has given us life and liberty, enable us to glorify you through faithful service. Take first place in our lives, we pray that personal ambitions or unworthy purposes will not tempt us to forget the stewardship that you have given into our hands. AMEN.
Hymn # 179 Breathe on Me Breath of God
Scripture Text James 3:13-4:3, 7-8
Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace. Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Sermon Super Powers
Imagine that you could select a super power, what would you choose? Would you use your power to make the world a better place?
A 25-year-old brunette rock star. A cigar-chomping octogenarian comedian; and a sixtyish black man. Alanis Morissette, George Burns and Morgan Freeman. They’ve all played God in the movies.
Morissette didn’t have any lines, but was God in Kevin Smith’s 1999 film Dogma. George Burns appeared to John Denver in a plaid shirt and a golf cap in Oh, God! in the ’70s. And more recently, in Bruce Almighty!, Morgan Freeman as God gives Jim Carrey a chance to have Godlike powers since Carrey was grumbling about God’s on-the-job performance.
So what would you do if you were God for a week, or even a day? Or, if you couldn’t be a full-blown God with all of God’s powers, which powers would you like to have? ////////
On NPR’s program This American Life, John Hodgman conducted an informal, unscientific survey asking the question: Which is better? The power of flight, or the power of invisibility? What he found surprised him. No matter which power people chose, they used it in self-serving ways. Their plans weren’t often flashy or heroic. In fact, they were almost never heroic, nor even simply kind.
Here’s something that hardly anyone ever mentioned in his interviews - “I will use my power to fight crime.” No one seemed to care about crime or justice. Nobody wanted to work for peace - personal, local or worldwide. No one tried to be merciful, or even just plain helpful.
Hodgman wondered why no one wanted to take down organized crime, bring hope to the hopeless, swear vengeance on the underworld. If only a little bit.
One typical respondent, who had chosen flight, commented, “I don’t think I’d want to spend a lot of my time using my power for good. I mean, if I don’t have super strength and I’m not invulnerable it would be very dangerous. If you had to rescue somebody from a burning building you might catch on fire. Just having the power of flight, I don’t think it’s necessarily quite enough because you don’t have the super strength. I’d still be weak when I got there. I don’t fight crime now.”
He finished with -“I’d go to Paris, I suppose. I could be ‘Going to Paris Man.’”
“Going to Paris Man” is not a superhero. But his answer is telling. It might just be a representative reaction of all of us, if we’re honest. Right now we might not have the heart, or the wisdom, to do good. Right now, we might, when possible, use our super powers to orchestrate private gain for ourselves or wreak havoc on others just for fun or vengeance.
Nobody interviewed on This American Life took responsibility for others less fortunate than themselves by using their super powers for the common good.
Helping the underdog, saving a drowning kitten, beating up bad guys - nobody’s interested. It turns out most people secretly, or even openly, have oodles of selfishness.
This isn’t a surprise. It’s the wisdom of the world.
The apostle James knows this about us - that we all have a level of selfishness and a powerful set of human cravings. We may successfully conceal our private jealousies, desires and envies from others, but these are, as James points out, a devilish, destructive wisdom.
Having super powers doesn’t change our character. Actually, by using our super powers we might unwittingly reveal our true character, and it might not be so pretty.
Hodgman found that his interviewees swiftly and straightforwardly concocted schemes that they happily shared aloud with him. All relied on their new super powers to acquire their personal desires.
Typically this is how it goes: People who turn invisible sneak into the movies, steal cashmere sweaters at fine department stores, spy on their coworkers, stalk their exes, hang around showers, eavesdrop on conversations about themselves or slip onto airplanes for free rides. Almost everyone he spoke with called invisibility the sneaky power.
People who fly stop taking the bus; they give up their cars. They check out the bar scene by flying in and around, hoping to gain attention and groupies who’ll want to get to “know” them - the flying guy - in the biblical sense. They fly off to Paris, or Prague, or Rio. Flight may be considered the super power of self-aggrandizement.
Such desires as these - stealing sweaters or looking for a one-nighter - are decidedly earthly, and essentially are deeply unspiritual. Predominantly the interviewees are all self-serving. Having obtained their personal super power they use it only for themselves, only for their own good. Lets listen again to what James says, this time in New Living Translation: 3. Genuine wisdom
True Wisdom Comes from God
13 If you are wise and understand God’s ways, live a life of steady goodness so that only good deeds will pour forth. And if you don’t brag about the good you do, then you will be truly wise! 14 But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your hearts, don’t brag about being wise. That is the worst kind of lie. 15For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and motivated by the Devil. 16For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and every kind of evil.
17But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no partiality and is always sincere. 18And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness.
Have you ever known anyone who claimed to be wise but who acted foolishly? True wisdom can be measured by a person’s character. Just as you can identify a tree by the type of fruit it produces, you can evaluate your wisdom by the way you act. Foolishness leads to disorder, but wisdom leads to peace and goodness. Are you tempted to escalate the conflict, pass on the gossip, or fan the fire of discord? Careful, winsome speech and wise, loving words are the seeds of peace. God loves peacemakers (Matthew 5:9).
Bitter jealousy and selfish ambition are inspired by the Devil. It is easy for us to be drawn into wrong desires by the pressures of society and sometimes even by well-meaning Christians. By listening to the advice: “Assert yourself,” “Go for it,” “Set high goals,” we can be drawn into greed and destructive competitiveness. Seeking God’s wisdom delivers us from the need to compare ourselves to others and to want what they have.
4:1 What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn’t it the whole army of evil desires at war within you? 2 You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous for what others have, and you can’t possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. 3 And even when you do ask, you don’t get it because your whole motive is wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.4 You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with this world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy this world, you can’t be a friend of God. 5 What do you think the Scriptures mean when they say that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, jealously longs for us to be faithful? 6He gives us more and more strength to stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say, “God sets himself against the proud, but he shows favor to the humble.”
7 So humble yourselves before God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, you hypocrites. 9Let there be tears for the wrong things you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. 10 When you bow down before the Lord and admit your dependence on him, he will lift you up and give you honor.
Conflicts and disputes among believers are always harmful. James explains that these quarrels result from evil desires battling within us: We want more possessions, more money, higher status, more recognition. When we don’t get what we want, we fight in order to have it. Instead of aggressively grabbing what we want, we should submit ourselves to God, ask God to help us get rid of our selfish desires, and trust him to give us what we really need.
James mentions the most common problems in prayer: not asking, asking for the wrong things, or asking for the wrong reasons. When you talk to God, what do you talk about? Do you ask only to satisfy your desires?// Do you seek God’s approval for what you already plan to do?// Your prayers will become powerful when you allow God to change your desires so that they perfectly correspond to his will for you (1 John 3:21, 22).
There is nothing wrong with wanting a pleasurable life. God gives us good gifts that he wants us to enjoy (1:17; Ephesians 4:7; 1 Timothy 4:4, 5). But having friendship with the world involves seeking pleasure at others’ expense or at the expense of obeying God. Pleasure that keeps us from pleasing God is sinful; pleasure from God’s rich bounty is good.
The cure for evil desires is humility (see Proverbs 16:18, 19; 1 Peter 5:5, 6). Pride makes us self-centered and leads us to conclude that we deserve all we can see, touch, or imagine. It creates greedy appetites for far more than we need. We can be released from our self-centered desires by humbling ourselves before God, realizing that all we really need is his approval. When the Holy Spirit fills us, we see that this world’s seductive attractions are only cheap substitutes for what God has to offer./////
Because of our fallen nature, we have a tendency toward envy.
Although God and the Devil are at war, we don’t have to wait until the end to see who will win. Revelation 12:10-12 God has already defeated Satan, and when Christ returns, the Devil and all he stands for will be eliminated forever (Revelation 20:10-15). Satan is here now, however, and he is trying to win us over to his evil cause. With the Holy Spirit’s power, we can resist the Devil, and he will flee from us.
////// The superpower we need is divine wisdom. //////////
James calls it wisdom from above. The Old Testament calls it Sophia; the New Testament commonly calls it the Holy Spirit.
In Proverbs, the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” In the Psalms it is meditation on the law of God. In James, it is something for which we should ask of God - who gives generously - to all - without finding fault (1:5).
It is also something that is “from above.” This is true wisdom. It is characterized by purity, peacefulness, “gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (3:17).
True wisdom yields a “harvest of righteousness.” In other words, James is arguing that you can talk all you want about being wise, smart, powerful, but unless your life bears witness to good works, you’re not too wise. In fact, you’re stupid. “Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom” (3:13).
False wisdom, he says, is something altogether different. It is characterized by “bitter envy and selfish ambition.” It is “earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind” (3:14-16). Moreover, false wisdom results in conflicts, disputes and cravings in the Christbody (4:1).
What to do? James is never one to leave us without some practical advice.
You want to be Me Almighty? You want to be truly wise and powerful? Here’s what you do: • Submit yourselves to God. • Resist the devil. • Draw near to God.
• Cleanse your hands. • Purify your hearts. • Lament and mourn and weep.
• Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection.
• Humble yourselves before the Lord.
Unless our inner focus shifts from the earthly to the spiritual we’ll wreak greater havoc on ourselves and others.
Without super powers we’re able to do sufficient damage: We brag, we covet, we murder, we’re hypocrites, we quarrel, and we create conflicts.
With the gift of holy wisdom we can, even in our weaknesses, learn to live lives of mercy, purity, peacefulness and gentleness, which is exactly what James tell us God wants for us and from us.
And it’s not just for one of us. It’s a gift to all of us. All of us are expected to be channels of spiritual wisdom for our own greater good and for the good of those around us.
James gives five ways you draw near to God: (1) Humble yourselves before God (4:7). Yield to his authority and will, commit your life to him and his control, and be willing to follow him. (2) Resist the Devil (4:7). Don’t allow Satan to entice and tempt you. (3) Wash your hands … and purify your hearts (that is, lead a pure life) (4:8). Be cleansed from sin, replacing your desire to sin with your desire to experience God’s purity. (4) Let there be sorrow and deep grief for your sins (4:9). Don’t be afraid to express deep heartfelt sorrow for what you have done. (5) Bow down before the Lord, and he will lift you up (4:10; 1 Peter 5:6).
All we have to do is ask.
So, if you could be God, what would you do? // Who would you help? // How would you handle the most powerful responsibility in the universe? You are not God - God is God and I am not. repeat after me: ...but
You are called to be on God’s Team.
Source: Hodgman, John. This American Life: Super Powers, National Public Radio, thislife.org.
Hymn Change My Heart, O God
Benediction In the name of the risen Christ, good-bye. Welcome to God's world, as individually and corporately, we live lives of true wisdom and greatness.
Commentary
Biblical wisdom is never mere speculative thought. Wisdom in the biblical tradition is always the wisdom that is embedded thoroughly in the practicalities of life, which includes, inevitably, an ethical dimension. The purpose of wisdom is to learn how to understand the world in its deepest aspects and, in so understanding, live in accordance with those aspects.
In contrast to this false, earthly wisdom, the true wisdom, “from above” (v. 17), yields those traits mutually uplifting to the body of Christ: “pure,” “peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy,” a list of qualities highly reminiscent of Paul’s list of the qualities of love in 1 Corinthians 13. The connection between knowledge and right behavior is clear. This heavenly wisdom is rooted in the tradition of wisdom as God’s eternal companion, found in Proverbs (2:6; 8:22-31) and especially in the Deuterocanonical literature.
The desire to receive in order to spend on one’s own “pleasures” is the error,
To be “double-minded” (a word found in the New Testament only in James, here and at 1:7) is to lack both the clarity to perceive the proper path (of the wisdom from above) and the resolve to persevere in it. The call to choose one from two or more options is a recurrent biblical theme (e.g., Deuteronomy 30:19; Joshua 24:15; 1 Kings 18; etc.), and the inability or unwillingness to choose was tantamount to choosing evil. To attempt to follow the world and to follow God simultaneously was an impossible desideratum in the minds of the biblical writers, and the truly wise person knew which option was the only ultimately viable one.
Animating Illustrations
Underneath your T-shirt lurks a heroic alter ego, about whom none of your friends is aware. When the time comes to battle the forces of evil, who exactly are you as the telephone booth swings shut?
You regard your special power as ...
• A great responsibility to be used solely for the benefit of humankind
• An annoying imposition that plays havoc with your love life
• As good an excuse as any to rampage through town as a leather-clad vigilante
• A hellish curse. Voodoo monsterism. The ruin of countless shirts and trousers.
—“Which superhero are you?” Guardian Unlimited Web Site,http://film.guardian.co.uk/quiz/questions/0,5952,724258,00.html. Retrieved April 8, 2003.
Holy religious superheroes, Batman! You’ve got some competition. It’s Bibleman.
At first glance, Bibleman looks like other action figures. Like Superman and Batman, Bibleman uses his powers to fight evil in the world. He has rippled muscles, a cape and a Robinlike sidekick named Cypher. But Bibleman is different; he has the wrath of God on his side.
Clad in purple tights and yellow body armor, this action doll is a Scripture-quoting hero. Kids can take a 12-inch version of him home from any of the hundreds of Christian-theme toy stores nationwide for $12.99.
Bibleman preaches his message of faith and redemption through videos, books, live tours, CDs and on his Web site, www.bibleman.com. Approximately 75,000 copies of each video have been sold along with nearly 500,000 action figures since the products were created in 1995.
—Jennifer Farley, “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s Bibleman!!” Columbia News Service, April 10, 2002, jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/cns/2002-04-10/127.asp.
Worship Resources
Come Down, O Love Divine
Near to the Heart of God
Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts
I’ve Got Peace Like a River
Draw Me Into Your Presence
