How to Avoid the Blind Spots

I was one of those kids that couldn’t wait till I could get my learners permit, and so, only days after my 16th birthday, I was sitting on a computer in the local RTA, and thankfully I got them first go.

was one of those kids that couldn’t wait till I could get my learners permit, and so, only days after my 16th birthday, I was sitting on a computer in the local RTA, and thankfully I got them first go.

But then came the fun part. I got to drive on a real road.

Of course, the first time was on some obscure road with no traffic.

Learning with a manual car certainly added to the fun, but a few lessons in, I started to get the hang of things.

With confidence that out stripped my ability, I somehow managed to avoid any impact while on my L’s.

You see, it’s hard to learn all the different skills to become a competent driver.

One such important skill is to always check your blind spots. They are the spots that you can’t quickly see out the front windscreen or with a quick glance of the mirrors.

But while I managed to avoid a crash during my time on my L’s, I did happen to have a minor crash on my P’s, and unfortunately I have to admit that it was my fault.

You see, one of the problems with a high level of confidence without experience, is that you haven’t learnt to be totally aware of what is going on.

Without going into all the details the bottom line is that I did not pay sufficient attention to what was happening around me. As a result I had a minor collision.

This is one of the first things you need to learn. Your eyes don’t just stay looking at the front. You constantly need to be looking at your mirrors.

Thankfully it was only minor and a very good lesson for me at the time. As it happened, my Dad paid the repairs, and then every pay cheque from my part-time job went straight to him until I paid it off.

And one of the early skills you learn, is the lane change. You see, one of the hardest parts about the lane change is what they call the blind spot.

Now, if you think about learning to drive for a moment, avoiding the big hazzards are easy. In the normal course of traffic, it is easy to avoid the cars coming in the other direction. It’s easy to bring the vehicle to a stop when you come to an intersection and wait for the other cars.

It’s that point that your mirrors don’t pick up very well just over your shoulder.

What is hard, is looking out for the unexpected. Looking in the blind spot. Keeping your eye open for the child who runs outs, or the other driver who is acting erratically.

Without looking, you run the risk of smashing into the car coming up from behind.

Blind spots on Christian walk

Now I’m going to draw a parallel with this and the Christian walk. You see, the Christian walk is about drawing close to God and avoiding evil.

Now sometimes, if we just focus on the big evils, it isn’t too hard.

In the same way that I can quite easily avoid oncoming traffic by staying on my side of the road, I can also quite easily avoid being violent towards others, or getting in an adulterous relationship by keeping a little focus.

But just like in a car, those aren’t the ones we need to worry about. What we need to worry about is the sins that catch us off guard.

And the sins that catch us most off guard are the ones that don’t really feel like sins. In many ways, these sins that don’t feel like sins, are the ones in our blind spot because unless we actually take the time to think about it, we won’t even realise it.

So, what sort of sins do we have in our blind spot?

Well, James is going to explore two in particular, but generally speaking, it is when we put ourselves before God.

We can be blind to them, because we are good at arguing that we are actually helping others, but if it’s more about your glory than God’s, then what you are doing is not part of God’s plan - but in fact, sin!

James

Today we’re looking at the last few verses of chapter 4 and the start of chapter 5 of James. Now at first glance it might seem that in these few verses, James gives us two fairly unrelated topics.

You see, chapter 4 ends with a brief reflection on why we need to be careful in our plans for the future, because, who knows what the future may hold.

And chapter 5 begins with a warning to not rely on your wealth.

Now I’m going to argue that what James is doing is highlighting what I’ve been describing as blind spots, but they are the blind spots linked with what he had been saying.

So for that reason, it’s important we look back a little to see the overall point that James is trying to make.

Two types of wisdom

Well, if we consider the overall big idea of the letter, we see that James is outlining for us what having faith in the real world looks like. He shows us that faith is not just a theoretical thing within us, but something that will have real outworking in our life.

By the time we get to , he introduces a new category for us, namely the need for wisdom.

Now we started this section a few weeks back, where James described the two basic types of wisdom, namely the wisdom that comes from heaven and the wisdom that some from the world.

As we moved in the start of chapter 4, which is what we did last week, we saw how James gave some practical advice about how to grab hold of this heavenly wisdom and not be fooled by the worldly type.

And while there was a number of things we could pick up from James on this matter, there was one particular idea that was clear - if we want to have the heavenly wisdom, we need to humble ourselves before God.

Now humbling yourself is a big component of the Christian walk - as we explored last week, while we might want to minimise it, you could tell by the language James was using that he did not consider this issue a minor issue, but one with huge implications for the way we love God and the way we love other.

But here’s the interesting thing. You see, though humility can be hard, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can actually learn to become humble.

And this is where I’ll bring back my analogy of driving. You see, we first identify the big hazzards. These are the big obvious boasts.

Outside the church these are obvious. Donald Trump and his very large brain. Elon Musk and his super clever inventions. All around us everyone is trying to convince us why they are the best.

Now of course, I’m not deluded enough to think that no one boasts within the church, of course they do, but we do learn that we should turn these around so that they give glory to God.

And so, with some help from the Holy Spirit we can avoid the obvious boasts that centre on ourselves.

But while those obvious boasts might be easy to avoid - at least easy when we’re paying attention, what is much less easy are the boasts that I’m going to describe as being in our blind spot.

And I believe this is why James adds these two short sections in his letter.

He has just told us to be humble - but if you’re going to do that, then this has to be throughout your entire life, not just in the obvious boasts.

So let’s explore what he has to say.

Being presumptuous

In verse 13, James makes a statement which on the surface sounds quite benign. In fact, on the surface of it, you could say that it is perfectly normal.

“Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”

So we can ask - what is wrong with such a statement? Well, nothing and everything.

On one level, planning is a perfectly legitimate thing to do. In fact, I’d even suggest that being planned and organised is in line with an ordered God who does things in a very orderly way. If you recall last week, I even made an argument that one of the themes you see running throughout the entire bible is God creating order out of the chaos that resulted when sin entered the world.

So I believe I am on very safe ground when I say that James is not telling us that we should not plan.

What’s wrong with it?

So what is wrong with it?

Well, when you look what James has to say about it, what we start to see is that act of being presumptuous is actually the sin of pride hiding in our blind spot.

Let me say that again. When we are presumptuous, we are allowing the sin of pride to creep up behind us in our blind spot.

It’s in the blind spot because it doesn’t seem like pride - at least not when we compare it to the big boasts that we sometimes hear.

You see, while planning is good, the problem comes when we leave God out of it.

And unfortunately, we can walk right into the sin without even realising it. In fact, I dare say all of us would be guilty of this at one point or another.

If we look at what James actually says, you will see that he doesn’t beat around the bush at all. In fact, it can seem rather harsh.

He start by reminding us that we do not even know what will happen tomorrow. And I’m sure you don’t need examples of when you’ve had certain plans for a day, only to be thrown multiple curve balls, often before you even get out of bed. The kids are sick! The car broke down. The dish washer has caused a massive flood in the kitchen!

Understanding where we fit

But James doesn’t even stop with that. He then starts question your life - “What is your life?”

You know, we wish that somehow our life has some greater meaning - but do you see what James actually says about your life. He says that you are simply a mist. Something that just appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Now that is rather depressing and if we didn’t understand Christ’s love for us, it would remain depressing.

Thankfully, while we might just be a mist - with Christ dwelling in us, that changes everything.

But you see, that is the important distinction we need to make - and its the important distinction that we need to take into any of our plans.

How to avoid the blind spot

And that is why in verse 15, James offers us a pointer in how to avoid this blind spot.

He tells us: “Instead, you ought to say, ‘if it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that”.

Now we do need to be careful that we don’t just make this an empty mantra before we say anything. But by adding “if the Lord wills it”, then it will be a great first step in putting God back into the scene.

You see, in God, we can have confidence about the future. By ourselves, we can be tossed by the winds and waves.

Nathan Tinkler

Do you remember Nathan Tinkler? He was the young billionaire who made it big on some good fortune in the mines. You might recall that with his huge wealth, he bought up the struggling Newcastle Knights and Jets.

But if you don’t remember him, that’s probably because he left the scene almost as quickly as he came onto it. It would seem he made too many bad calls and he lost most of his wealth.

I don’t pretend to know much about him, but it would certainly seem that he was relying on his own ability and did not recognise the one who allowed the riches to flow to him.

He was boasting in his arrogant schemes.

While we might not be on the same scale as Nathan Tinkler, we can fall down the very same path.

When we rely on ourselves, we are boasting in our arrogant schemes - and as James says in as blunt a tone as possible: “all such boasting is evil” (v16).

Wealth

So the first blind spot is being presumptuous in our planning.

The second blind spot perhaps shouldn’t be a blind spot, but it is. It is our wealth.

Now most of us here probably don’t think that we are very wealthy and therefore this probably doesn’t apply. But before you think that, perhaps you should talk to Josifus about what poverty really looks like.

I’m not saying that you might not struggle. Certainly the struggle is real, but in some ways, this is why this one actually does fit in the blind spot category.

If you were crazy rich, then perhaps as a Christian we might be more aware of the issue. But when we’re just a regular old punter, trying to make ends meat, well… we fail to see the trap we can so easily fall into.

Why it is a problem

He starts by telling us to weep and wail, but I’m going to come back to this, because in verse 2 (of chapter 5), he describes why it is so foolish.

Now in our moments of clarity, we know this full well, but in the day to day living, we can fail to see clearly. But… your wealth will rot. It is a temporary thin to be used in the moment, but it does not last.

As the old saying goes - you can’t take your things to heaven!

How it manifests itself

Now James is able to tease out some of the issues in this blind spot. And I think it is helpful to consider them briefly as it will help us identify when we are falling into this trap.

Hoarding

Firstly, at the end of verse 3 he highlights how we hoard our wealth in the last days.

Now this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a savings account. Again, like before when I said that planning is actually a good thing, a savings account can actually be a wise way to be a steward of the money God has given us.

But like our plans, we need to recognise that this is not our money. God has provided and God can take away. The important part is that we can’t trust in that wealth we have hoarded.

Defrauding others of pay

The second way we do fall into the trap of wealth is by defrauding others of their pay.

Interestingly, I found it very curious that the other day I was reading in the paper about the huge number of companies that are not paying their workers what they should.

But while we can shake our heads at them, perhaps we should be thinking about ourselves and the ways we will happily pay the lowest price for a product, even when it has become clear that it was unethically produced.

You may know that Baptist World Aid has put out an ethical buyers guide for both fashion and electronics. You can see the companies that are ensuring that everyone is being treated ethically right through their supply chain, and those that don’t.

Know don’t get me wrong - I am well aware of how hard it is to buy ethically.

But just ask yourself - am I put off from trying because I don’t want to have to pay the higher price? If you are, then perhaps you need to heed the advice of James.

Self-indulgence

The third way we fall into the trap is perhaps thee obvious one. It is luxury and self-indulgence.

Now this is perhaps worth considering for a moment - because in every Christians mind, the question has probably been asked at least once: can I justify spending a little luxury on myself?

Certainly we all have - but is it justified?

Well, there isn’t a simple answer to it, but I would add that God has provided a good creation for our enjoyment. It is a question we should all wrestle with, but perhaps a guiding question should be: how is God being glorified?

When you are able to enjoy some of the pleasures of this world, make sure you are able to give thanks for God’s provisions.

What we need to do

But I want to come back to verse 1 because it is here that we see the correction for the traps of wealth that we can fall down.

And the correction actually draws on something we looked at last week in when he tells us to “grieve, mourn and wail”.

You see, again James tells the rich people to weep and wail. Now in this verse he specifically says this is because of the misery that is to come on you - but I think in the overall flow, and remembering , we can see how this can help to humble ourselves and recognise where our wealth comes from.

You see, wealth becomes a blind spot for us because we know it is necessary for life. But it is as we recognise that it comes from God and can be taken by God, that rather then trusting in it, we trust in God. We can only truly do this as we humble ourselves.

Conclusion

It might be easy to hear me talk about sin and feel a great sense of guilt. Thankfully we have a God who forgives us and will help us through. But the purpose of me going through all of this is actually not to make you feel guilty, but rather to highlight just how easy it is to fall into traps of sin without even realising it.

You see, we know that we are to be humble, and so we can avoid the big obvious boasts - at least, we can when we’re paying attention. But staying humble is harder than that because, as James has highlighted for us, we can be tricked into a selfish way of thinking with just some basic everyday examples. Whether it’s in our planning or in our money. The common factor is us.

Plans are necessary, as money is as well. But these cannot become our gods, rather we need to understand these in relation to what God is doing.

This is the equivalent of looking over our shoulder in the car to see the blind spot. If we can just quick acknowledging God, then we can avoid these blind spots.

This requires awareness, but more importantly, it requires spending time with God in prayer, bible reading and meditation.

We need to be taking hold of the heavenly wisdom that James introduced for us back in chapter 3, but this means we need to avoid those blind spots that can so easily knock us off.