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The Bible says over and over again in the Old Testament and the New, what is man? He is but a breath, here for a moment and then he's gone. That's a pretty discouraging message, except that we have this hope in Christ Jesus when we understand the text.
Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Visit our website at www .utt .com.
Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.
Thank you, Becky. We are in James chapter 4 and we've got five more verses to look at here at the close of the chapter and then moving into chapter 5. So it's almost like you got to ignore that there's a chapter 5 there because these 11 verses all go together.
We'll start in James chapter 4 beginning in verse 13. Come now you who say today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance.
All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. Come now you who are rich. Weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten.
Your gold and silver have corroded and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold the wages of the labors who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you.
And the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person.
He does not resist you. Let's come back to verse 4 here where James says, come now you who say, tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and we'll trade and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. This is a continuing theme, especially throughout the Old Testament. So as James is talking about, you're a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
Likely he's coming back to those who had written about this very thing in the Old Testament long before. Job in Job 7 says, remember that my life is a breath. In fact, I'll start at the beginning of this chapter.
He says, has not man a hard service on earth and are not his days like the days of a hired hand? So you can see how this connects with what James is saying here. Like a slave who longs for the shadow and like a hired hand who looks for his wages.
So I am allotted months of emptiness and nights of misery are a portion to me. When I lie down, I say, when shall I arise? But the night is long and I am full of tossing till the dawn. My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt.
My skin hardens, then breaks out afresh. My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and come to their end without hope. Remember that my life is a breath. My eye will never again see good. The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more.
While your eyes are on me, I shall be gone as the cloud fades and vanishes. So he who goes down to Sheol, that is down to the grave, does not come up. He returns no more to his house, nor does his place know him anymore.
Anything that we are working for, striving for in this life, anything that we store up for ourselves on this earth will not last. All of it will perish. All of it will vanish. In fact, our life by comparison is nothing but a mist that is here for a moment and then it's gone.
Poof. And that's the description that we have all throughout the Old Testament. And you're talking about in the Old Testament times, the earth was much younger than it is now. And yet, even those who spoke of these things in that period of time knew that their existence is but temporary here on this earth in the realm of things.
It's here for a moment and then gone. What difference does anything that we do make? Except that we do all things to the glory of God. So keep that in mind. I mean, this sounds very despairing, the way that we talk about these things.
And even in what we're looking at here, chapter four, verse 13, through chapter five, verse six, there's not much resolution being given there. So it'd be easy to look at this section and go, boy, this is this is kind of depressing.
I mean, my life is just nothing but this and then it's gone. But we need to keep in mind things that we've read and things that we've talked about before. We are to give glory to God in all things. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. James 4, 8. So in all that we do, we are to give glory to God most high. If we are doing what we do on this earth for ourselves, it's nothing, man.
It is going to amount to nothing. It is going to bring you nothing. It has no lasting value whatsoever. And the cell phone that you have, you might even be listening to this podcast on the cell phone that you have went out of date the moment you bought it.
They were already coming out with a new model that was going to hit the shelves tomorrow. And the phone that you just bought is out of date. The stuff that you own is the stuff of tomorrow's garage sales, trash bins and garbage piles.
And this stuff just doesn't last. It might give us a little bit of pleasure, a little bit of temporary satisfaction for a time, but it is ultimately wasting away in our hands as we hold it, as we possess it.
Our very lives are but a breath and then that's it. So what are you doing with your life? It is these very passages that John Piper uses when he says, don't waste your life. You've got something in this life that you are to do to give glory to God in all that you do.
Like as you're listening to this and as I'm talking about these things, you might be sitting on the other side going, yeah, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do yet. I'm telling you what you're supposed to do right now is give glory to God in your circumstance.
You might think that there is something bigger and better coming down the road. Maybe God has that for you. I don't know. I don't know your situation, your circumstance, where you live, what your job is like.
I don't know any of these things. Maybe you think there's something bigger and better for you. Maybe you are sitting around pining for something that you think you deserve. I should have received this and I never did.
So, uh, so we, you know what my life is being wasted away because I never got what was coming to me. You're wasting your life. You need to take the opportunity that you have to give glory to God. Paul says to the Ephesians, Ephesians chapter five, make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.
There is evil all around you right now. There is evil enticing you and tempting you today. Make the most of the opportunities that are given to you to praise and glorify God abstaining from every kind of evil.
Remember James four seven, 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. Give glory to God in your circumstances. Knowing that your life on this earth is but a breath.
And we concern ourselves so much with the little tiny portion of our existence that we don't even think about the eternity that is to come. You're going to spend eternity in one of two places. You're either going to spend an eternity in heaven with your Lord God and his eternal kingdom, or you're going to spend an eternity in hell with the devil and his angels being tormented for all eternity.
If you are in Christ, your guarantee is the kingdom of God. If you are not in Christ, you stand condemned in judgment and your lot is hell. So I tell you to repent of your sins, to turn from worldliness, to turn away from the schemes of the devil, to draw near to God, to worship Christ as Lord, to repent of your sins.
And even though you've committed treason against the throne of the most high God, he will forgive you through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. And what you get is a share of that kingdom. You become a fellow heir of the kingdom of God from a treasonous criminal to a fellow heir of the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
That is the grace and love of our God. So make the most of every moment, giving glory to God for all things. Paul said to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 5, rejoice in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Often as a pastor, I am asked, pastor, what is God's will for me? And I will, I will tell them 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 3, for this is the will of God, your sanctification that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust of those that do not know God, that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.
So that's the will of God for you, your sanctification that you would abstain from sexual immorality and the passions of the flesh. And then we also have this given to us in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5, 18. And that's not what people want to hear. When people ask, what is God's will for me? Our desire is not to hear what we need to give up to glorify God. Our desire is to have our fortunes told when we ask, what is God's will for me?
We want to hear from the scriptures. Well, God wants you to live in this tax bracket. God wants you to live in this geographic location. God wants you to do this, that, or the other, but what God's for us is to abstain from sin and glorify him in all things.
That is God's will for you. And where you are and what you are doing in this situation and in this circumstance, you have this opportunity right now to glorify God and all things. For our days are but a vapor.
They are here for a moment, and then poof, they are gone. You have this opportunity now to rejoice in the Lord in all that you have. Rejoice in the salvation that has been given to you through Jesus Christ.
Psalm 102, hear my prayer, O Lord. Let my cry come to you. Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me. Answer me speedily in the day that I call, for my days pass away like smoke and my bones burn like a furnace.
My heart is struck down like grass and is withered. I forgot to eat my bread because of my loud groaning. My bones cling to my flesh. I am like a desert owl in the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places.
I lie awake. I'm like a lonely sparrow on the housetop. All the day my enemies taunt me, for those who deride me use my name for a curse. For I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink because of your indignation and anger.
For you have taken me up and thrown me down. My days are like an evening shadow. I wither away like grass. But listen to the resolution here. Psalm 102, beginning in verse 12. But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever.
You are remembered throughout all generations. We are like a vapor. He is forever. You will arise and have pity on Zion. It is the time to favor her. The appointed time has come. For your servants hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust.
Nations will fear the name of the Lord and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory. Boy, that's an assurance we need in today's political climate. Amen. For the Lord builds up Zion. He appears in his glory.
He regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer. Psalm 39, verse 4. O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days. Let me know how fleeting I am. Behold, you have made my days a few hand breaths and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath. Surely a man goes about as a shadow. Surely for nothing they are in turmoil. Man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather. And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you. Deliver me from all my transgressions. Do not make me scorn of the fool. I am mute. I do not open my mouth for it is you who have done it. Remove your stroke from me. I am spent by the hostility of your hand.
When you discipline a man with rebukes for sin, you consume like a moth what is dear to him. Surely all mankind is a mere breath. Not just my life, all mankind a mere breath. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry.
Hold not your peace at my tears, for I am a sojourner with you, a guest like all my fathers. Look away from me that I may smile again before I depart and I am no more. This is asking the Lord that he not look upon our sin but instead would give us forgiveness and grace.
We have this in Psalm 144. Blessed be the Lord my rock who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle. He is my steadfast love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge who subdues peoples under me.
O Lord, what is man that you regard him or the son of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath. His days are like a passing shadow. Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down. Touch the mountains so that they smoke.
Flash forth the lightning and scatter them. Send out your arrows and rout them. Stretch out your hand from on high. Rescue me and deliver me from the many waters from the hand of foreigners whose mouths speak lies and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.".
And so we have it said over and over again throughout the Psalms in the Old Testament, these reminders of our lives being but a breath. Here for a moment and then they are gone. In fact, all of mankind is like a breath.
So here we have the words again of James in James chapter 13 or I'm adding chapters to James now. James 4 verse 13, come now you who say today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.
Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Now, James is not saying that we shouldn't buy, sell and trade and participate in commerce and go about our jobs the way that we should, but rather we do not do these things hoarding up for ourselves treasures and wealth on this earth.
And that's the context of what it is that we are looking at. For he goes on to say, verse 15, instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. We can't do anything except by the will of the Lord.
As it says in the verse of Proverbs, the lot falls into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. So who are you to think that you make your decisions apart from the will of God? There is nothing that you can say or do that God has not preordained.
And so do not think in your heart and in your mind that you can do anything apart from what God wills or desires for you. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we'll do this or that. Which is why we get the phrase God willing.
I'll say that to my church. I'll see you next week when our sermon is going to be about this. God willing, we'll gather together as the saints. And that is right for us to think that way, that we have tomorrow by the will of God.
You are not guaranteed tomorrow. It is by God's sovereign hand that you have one more day. It is by his grace and his blessing that you were given another day on this earth. So make the most of it. Make the most of that opportunity, giving glory to God in all that you do.
Verse 16, as it is, you boast in your arrogance, all such boasting is evil. Thinking that you are making these decisions and it is by my choice that God gives me this or that. That's evil for you to think that way.
It is boasting. It is arrogant. You think it is by your will and not God's that you would be given any of these things. You know, Mike Tyson was kind of a goon. He did not live a life that anybody should exemplify.
Still alive, still can repent and come right before the Lord, though hasn't done that yet. But he made one of the most profound statements I think that I've heard in our modern era. He said, everybody's got a plan until they get hit in the face.
And I think that's about as true and as applicable to any person in any kind of situation that I can think of. Anybody, everybody's got a plan. Everybody thinks, hey, I've made the right kind of decision, so I know that I'm going to have tomorrow to be able to do this until they get hit in the face.
You have today only. So let us make every opportunity, let us take every opportunity to glorify God and worship him for every moment that we have been given is a gift from the Lord. Verse 17, so whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Very similar to something Paul says in Romans chapter 14, whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. And so we must submit ourselves fully unto the Lord, knowing what he has decreed. And if we know what is right and yet do the opposite, we have sinned against God.
James goes on in chapter five, come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. And this is very similar to something that James said previously in chapter four. Again, verse eight, we read, draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.
Don't exalt yourself in your sin and in your depravity. Instead, be wretched and weep. Mourn over your sin, beg God for forgiveness, and then the joy of the Lord will be your strength. Because we rejoice in something that doesn't come from us.
It comes from Christ. It is the salvation that has been given to us by Christ on the cross. So therefore, we must not be dependent upon the stuff that we have on this earth or anything that we can accomplish in this lifetime as though it gives us treasure on earth.
Instead, we need to weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon everything. All this world that will be laid to waste as Peter talks about in 2nd Peter chapter 3, the earth as it now exists is being stored up for fire.
So all the stuff that we own is going to be melted in that glorious cleansing fire from God which will come in judgment at the return of Christ. Your gold and silver have corroded. I'm sorry, I skipped verse 2.
Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded and their corrosion will be evidence against you and it will eat up your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days and specifically what James is talking about is you've laid up treasure on earth, not in heaven.
But we know the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but rather store up for yourselves treasures in heaven for where your treasure is there your heart will be also.
And that is how we cannot serve two masters as Jesus also says in the Sermon on the Mount. You will either love the one and hate the other so you cannot serve both God and money. Instead we need to have our treasures stored up in heaven looking to where Christ is seated.
Paul says this in Colossians chapter 3, if then you have been raised with Christ seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above not on things that are on earth for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ who is your life appears then you also will appear with him in glory. So that is where our eyes are to be fixed not on the things that we can accomplish in this world though whatever opportunity is before us we should do business honorably.
We should I mean climb the corporate ladder if you are able. I hope that the Lord does bless you in that way but that is not our hope and it is not in those things that we receive any kind of satisfaction.
It is only in the Lord Christ and worshiping him and giving glory to him in all things. So whether you are accomplished in this world or you are by the world standards a failure give glory to God in every opportunity that you are given.
Verse 4 behold the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields which you kept back by fraud are crying out against you and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. I kind of speak ahead of myself here because this goes with what I had just stated about doing business honorably doing so in a way that is integritous.
You are conducting business with others in a way that gives honor to the Lord so do not defraud your brother or your neighbor. Do what is honorable in the sight of God. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence.
You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you. So let us be mournful and weep for our sin and we know that God will exalt the humble and he will cleanse us from all unrighteousness by the cross of Christ.
Being reminded that our days are but a breath but also being reminded that the Lord God is merciful and he's given us eternal life through Jesus Christ. Our great God we thank you for this gift of eternal life we do not deserve in it and I pray that we remember that we do not deserve this gift of being fellow heirs with the kingdom of God fellow heirs in your kingdom yet this is the mercy and the love that you have extended to us for your glory.
So let us give glory and praise to you for all things not storing up for ourselves treasures on this earth for man's days are but a breath here for a moment and then they're gone. Teach us to exalt you and look to you in all things looking unto Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Our eyes fixed on.
Christ in his name we pray amen. You've been listening to when we understand the text with pastor Gabe Hughes. We hope you are a part of the church family committed to gospel teaching and we thank you for including us in your bible learning.
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