What Is Your Life?...Continued from page 3

This first point about living by the gracious will of God is followed by this second observation; it is sinful to take credit unto ourselves for the things that happen in our lives. It is arrogance to assume that the plans we make concerning our future are cast in stone simply we have written them on our date books. Boasting about what we have accomplished in the past or what we intend to accomplish in the future, without any reference to God’s gracious will, is a great mistake.

This word applies in one way to those who are younger and whose ambition and aspiration about the future is keen and pressing It is possible to get so caught up in the daily grind of living and making a living that you fail to include God as part of your life. There is time for work, time for parties, time for romance, time for academic preparation, time for political involvement, time for all the things this world considers important. But are we leaving time for God?

This word applies in another way when the achievements of a lifetime of hard work start rolling in. At this point, it is our own spoken pronouns that announce to the world who or what we think is responsible for our success. How many times has any one of us been overheard giving ourselves credit for what has happened in our lives? Look at what I have done – look at how far I have come in life – look at what I have made of myself. Never a word is spoken about the role God has played in our lives; never even the slightest suggestion that anybody beyond ourselves had a hand in our success.

I wonder if anybody can recall as clearly as I can where your life began. How many of you gathered here today were born to wealth and power and privilege; how many of you were “born with a silver spoon in your mouth?” That does not describe my beginnings. I was born into a two-room apartment in the back of a house owned by the man for whom my father worked. I was raised in a basement apartment by a single mother who was abandoned by her husband when I was ten-years-old. I lived a wild and rebellious life during my teen years, defined primarily by fighting and drinking.

I don’t know how I managed to survive my teen years. I don’t know why I am not in prison or in the grave. I don’t know how I got from the gunfire and gang fights of Chicago’s south side to this pulpit in Cleveland or to a Ph.D. degree and an active life as both a pastor and a professor. Most people who started out where I started out did not end up where I am today.

Now we come to the challenge and test of my character as a Christian and as a human being. How do I account for the course my life has taken? Do I stand up and tell you to take note of the things I have done? Do I point a finger at myself and boast that I have accomplished these things by my own hard work and determined effort? Or do I learn a lesson from James and have the humility and the honesty to declare; “I’ve come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord, trusting in His holy word; He’s never failed me yet?”