No Chance In Heaven

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I want you to take out your Bibles, turn with me to James chapter 4.
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Lord willing, tonight we are going to finish this chapter.
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So we're going to be in James chapter 4 and verse 13.
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I don't know how many of you were here on Sunday.
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I know that most of you are regular attenders on Sunday morning.
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But if you were not here on Sunday, I want to sort of just remind you of something that happened on Sunday.
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I preached my message on Acts 16.
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And it was specifically on the will of God and how the Apostle Paul, when he left Antioch, went up through Lystra and Derbe, he was going towards Asia Minor.
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And with all the intent of going into Asia Minor, to preach the Gospel and to plant churches.
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And yet, the Bible says the Holy Spirit of God forbade him to go there.
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In fact, it says the Spirit of Jesus commanded him not to preach in Asia Minor.
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So instead, he bypassed Asia Minor, took about a 200 mile journey, and went to a place called Troas.
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And it was at Troas that he received a vision from God, going to Macedonia.
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It was a man from Macedonia who says, come and help us.
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And that was, in Paul's understanding, God's way of saying, we need to go across the Aegean Sea, go into Macedonia, which was ancient Greece, and that area surrounding Greece, and to Europe.
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And you need to go there and preach the Gospel.
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Well, what I said during that sermon was that God has a will that is essentially greater than our will.
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And that His will is being worked out in the world around us.
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And He is governing this world through that will.
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And He doesn't have to make sense to us.
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Sometimes He can work contrary to the way we think it ought to be.
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But God is weaving together a tapestry of history whereby He will receive the greatest glory.
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In the salvation of His people, in the judgment of the wicked, and in the demonstration of His righteousness in the world.
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Now, I mentioned in that sermon that it was providential that I would preach on the will of God, because of where we are in James.
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Because these two sermons, it's almost like part two.
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Tonight is part two of what I started Sunday morning.
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So by way of reminder, I do want to mention a distinction that we made Sunday morning, because it's going to come up tonight.
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When we talk about the will of God, when we talk about the will of God, we speak in two different senses depending on the context when we refer to God's will.
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The first is what we call the revealed will of God.
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The second is what we call the hidden.
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The hidden will of God.
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The revealed will of God is that which He tells us in His word.
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God says, do not commit murder.
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He says, do not lie.
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He says, do not steal.
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He says, don't covet.
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And thus when a man comes to me and he says, hey, I think I want to steal something.
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I can say, that's not the will of God.
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Because God has revealed that that is not what He has commanded of us.
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In fact, He has commanded us not to do that.
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So when you speak in those terms about the will of God, you're talking about that which He has revealed.
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Now the hidden will of God is that which He has decreed to be so in any given situation.
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Because if we believe that God has a plan that He is working out, and if we believe that God is causing all things to work together for the good of those who love Him, that's what the Scripture says, and if we believe that nothing can thwart His purpose, then we ultimately have to believe that He's got a will that's going on in the world around us.
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And we call that the hidden will because we don't know that one.
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I don't know what God's will is for tomorrow.
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I may die tomorrow.
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And if that be God's will, guess what? I can't make it any day past it.
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As I've said, you know, I'm immortal until my last day.
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And past that, no doctor can save me.
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Alright? I mean, the Bible says God has fashioned our days, Psalm 139, when yet there was none of them.
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So, this one, I wanted to share this with you tonight because I didn't get to get into this on Sunday.
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God's revealed will is discerned from exegesis.
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Exegesis simply, in layman's terms, is proper interpretation of the Bible.
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To exegete means to pull out of the text.
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So, when you read the Bible, you pull out of the text what it says.
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There are a lot of people who don't do that.
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They read into the Bible what they want it to say.
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And that's called exegesis or isogesis, depending on how you pronounce it.
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And Richard and I always have a joke about how you're supposed to pronounce that one.
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But to exegete, just like the word exit, that prefix means to go out.
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And exegesis is pulling out of the text.
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That's how we know what God's revealed will is.
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Proper Bible study.
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Proper exegesis.
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That's how you know.
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But how do you know His hidden will? Experience.
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Because you don't know His hidden will until it's happened.
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We don't.
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We don't know what God's will is for tomorrow because we're not there yet.
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And so, we learn God's revealed will through exegesis.
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We learn God's hidden will through experience.
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Okay? So, having said that, in our text for tonight, James is going to address both of these.
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He's going to address the revealed will of God and the hidden will of God.
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And he's going to call us to obedience to this and submission to this.
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Obedience to God's revealed will and submission to His hidden will.
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Understand? That's my introduction.
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So, now we can open the text and we're going to read verses 13 to the end.
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James tells us, 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.
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Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
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What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
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Instead, you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.
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As it is, you boast in your arrogance and all such boasting is evil.
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So, whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
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So ends the reading of God's holy word.
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If you look at your notes I gave you tonight, you'll see that I've given it to you in three different translations, as well as the original language.
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I do that for your benefit just so you can see it.
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And there are certain times where I'm going to point out certain words to you.
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Now, I usually also give you points of application to fill in.
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I didn't do that tonight.
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I just gave you places to write notes because I'm going to make application as we go.
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Rather than giving you a long list of application at the end, I'm just going to make application as we go.
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Because this is so meaty.
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There's so much in this that I just wanted to be able to stop and say, Okay, here's how we would apply this.
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Rather than trying to rush that at the end.
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We are blessed in that we live in a world which is not governed by chance.
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We live in a world that is not governed by chance.
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Some years ago, a publisher brought out a book with an interesting title.
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The title of the book was The Chance World.
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It described a world in which everything happened by chance.
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One day the sun would rise and another day it wouldn't.
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It might appear for an hour, or the moon might appear at any hour, or the moon might show itself instead of the sun.
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The book described children born with one head and another born with twelve heads.
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Some had their heads on their shoulders, others did not.
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Some didn't even have shoulders.
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If a child jumped up in the air, it wasn't certain whether or not they would come down.
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And one day he might come down, another day he might stay up.
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One day a man couldn't get off of his chair, and another day he would go right through the floor down to the basement because the gravity would be too strong.
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What an amazingly terrible place that would be.
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Can you imagine if the world didn't have anything you could predict? It didn't have anything you could look forward to? Every day was just a mass of nonsense? You couldn't do anything.
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You couldn't count on anything.
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If we didn't have any confidence the sun would rise in the morning, if we didn't have any confidence gravity would remain our sure footing, if we didn't have any confidence that water would freeze at 32 degrees or boil at 212 degrees, this world would be difficult, more difficult than it is.
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It's already difficult.
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Imagine how difficult it would be if there was no constants, if there was nothing we could count on.
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The problem is this.
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Because there are things which we can predict, we begin to see the world as if it were mechanical and totally predictable.
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We start to think, well, as long as we do this, that's going to happen.
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And we begin to kind of govern our lives by that principle.
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All the while forgetting that the world is not really governed by the law of nature.
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The world is governed by the will of God.
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And that's the thing that people really forget.
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Because we see the world as so mechanical.
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Water doesn't boil at 212 degrees because that's what nature says.
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Water boils at 212 degrees because that's what God says.
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I don't know if that sounds kind of a simplistic way of looking at it, but it's the truth.
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And if you think of it this way, it's the way that God made it to be, but it is that way because that's the way God made it to be.
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And that's different than the way the naturalist looks at the world.
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The naturalist looks at the world as God is somehow subservient to nature, if God exists at all.
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But the Bible teaches that God is over everything, and everything is that it is because this is the way God designed it to be.
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God is not bound by nature.
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Things are natural because God determines them.
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The very definition of a miracle is what? The suspension of the natural.
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That's what a miracle is.
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And why can God do miracles? Because He's not bound by the natural.
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We can't do miracles.
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We can't do anything that's not bound by the natural.
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But God can because He's not bound by that.
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God has created a world, and He's designed the world in such a way where some things are basically predictable.
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But man in his pride, man in his hubris, takes that general predictability for granted, and he begins to think that he can predict and plan for everything.
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And through that, he can become prideful in his planning to the point that he considers himself the master of his own destiny and without the need of God.
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Well, if I know how it's going to happen, and what's going to happen, and I can make it happen, why do I need God? And this is the issue that James is dealing with in James 4.13 and following.
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He's dealing with a guy, the person, in this case the businessman, but it can be applied to several things.
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But it starts out with a businessman whose planning does not include God.
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So let's look again at verse 13.
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He says, Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we'll go to such and such a town, we'll spend a year there, and we'll trade, and make a profit.
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Now, the text that preceded this one, if you're looking at James 4, the text that preceded this one is addressing the use of the tongue.
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And those of you who were here last week, we talked about how misusing the tongue, talking about people, judging people incorrectly, this was the way James is dealing with.
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And now he comes to this.
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And I think that this is just a continuation because he's talking about the misuse of the tongue.
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Well, this is a guy who's misusing his tongue by announcing what he's going to do outside of any inclusion of God.
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The person here is a typical businessman.
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He's planning for success in his business.
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And he's setting the plans in four areas.
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The time, he says, today or tomorrow.
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The place, we're going to go to such and such a town.
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I love the fact that it's not specific.
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Because a businessman would have had a specific plan.
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But James is kind of making it general.
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He said, this guy's got a time and a place.
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Today or tomorrow, we're going to such and such a town.
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And the duration, we're going to spend a year there.
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And the goal, we're going to make a profit.
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That sounds like a business plan.
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That's exactly what it is.
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None of these things, and you might even want to make a little note in your Bible.
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Or make a little note on your thing.
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None of these things are inherently bad.
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Planning, and careful planning, is necessary in any business or in any venture.
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The Bible encourages us to plan.
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In fact, if you want to put a couple Bible verses down.
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Proverbs 21 and verse 5.
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The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.
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Now that's a proverbial truth.
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A person who plans and makes wise decisions is the person who's going to prosper.
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The person who makes quick, snappy decisions without any planning or any forethought, he's the guy who's going to fail.
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And that's a proverbial truth.
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It's not always true.
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Proverbs are designed that way, to be proverbial in nature, to be general.
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That's what that means.
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And the general truth is, the guy who plans is the guy who's going to succeed.
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And the guy who doesn't plan, but flies off the seat of his pants, is the guy who's going to fail.
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In general.
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Proverbs 6, verses 6-11.
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The writer of Proverbs looks at the ant.
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Listen to this.
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Just listen.
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He says, Go to the ant, O sluggard.
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Consider her ways, and be wise.
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Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer, and gathers her food in harvest.
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How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, and a little slumber, and a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.
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So what's he saying? He's saying, look at the ant.
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The ant goes about storing up what is needed for when the weather comes.
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The bad weather.
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And he says, but you lazy person, you're not thinking about the future, you're not thinking about what you're going to need, and what's going to happen when you don't plan, but you just stay there on your couch, and you stay lazy, what's going to happen? Your need is going to come on you like a robber, and it's going to attack you like an armed man, and you're not going to be ready for it, because you didn't make any plans.
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Right? So that's what the Proverbs writer is telling us.
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There's good in making plans.
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Jesus even talks about plan making as good.
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Luke 14.
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Jesus is comparing this to salvation, by the way.
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He's talking about coming to Him, and He says this, He says, for which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he's laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it will mock him, and say, this man began to build, and was not able to finish.
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You all know what he's talking about.
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I just happened to be going through a building project at home.
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Closing in my garage.
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I'm really excited about it.
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We've wanted to do this for years.
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We finally saved up the money to do it.
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And the weather's bad this week, so my mason can't come.
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I'm so disappointed, because I was like, oh, we're going to have the walls up, and now the weather's bad.
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But the point is, before we could do it, you had to figure out how much money you were going to spend.
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You had to make sure that you had enough, because you don't want to get halfway through, and the mason come up and say, hey, I need more blocks.
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I need more concrete.
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And you'd be like, well, I'm out of money.
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Well, you got half a wall.
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Congratulations.
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And Mr.
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Mike helped me with the plans.
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We had to make plans, right? We had to draw out the plans to present to the city, so that the city would say yes, and then you had to pay them a lot of money for them to say okay.
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But the point is, if I didn't have any plans, if I just walked outside and looked and said, hey, I want a wall.
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I'm going to go buy some concrete and throw up some mud against it.
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Number one, I don't know how to do that.
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And number two, I wouldn't know if I had the money to complete it, and I wouldn't have the permission of the local authorities to do it.
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So there is necessity in planning.
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So what is James here decrying? What is he attacking? It's very simple, and it's in the context of the passage.
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He is denouncing, not the making of plans, he is denouncing the one who plans in pride without the consideration of the will of God.
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He has said all of these things, but he has not considered God's will, and that's why he says in verse 14, to follow this up, he says, yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
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So again, listen to it.
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He says, come now you who say, today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a place, and we will spend a year there, and we will make a profit, and you don't know what tomorrow will bring.
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What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time, and then vanishes.
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Who do you think you are? Now I'm adding a little to the table.
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This is what James said.
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Who do you think you are to announce your plans outside of the will of God? A man can make all the plans in the world.
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He cannot control the future.
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You do not know for sure that tomorrow will go as planned.
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You cannot even say for certain that you're going to survive until tomorrow.
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You assume you will, and you may be correct, but the only certainty in the entire universe belongs to God.
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Hear that again.
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The only certainty in the universe belongs to God.
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And that's James' point.
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And he reminds us about the brevity of life.
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He says, we're like a mist.
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We appear and we disappear in a relatively short amount of time.
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If you compare the length of your life, even if you're an older person, if you compare the length of your life to the length of time that the world has been here, you are a blip on a very large radar screen.
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And that's not to be offensive.
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That's what he's saying.
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You blow into the world, you blow out just as quickly.
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It's like the world didn't even know you were there sometimes.
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If the world is 7,000 years old, let's just say, I know they say it's 5.4 billion years.
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Let's just say we've been here for 7,000 years.
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Biblical analysis would say, you know, human beings, as we are, 7,000 years.
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If that's the case, and you live to 70, and I'm only using these numbers because they're round and easier for me to figure out.
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If the earth is 7,000 years and you live to 70, that means for every one year you have lived, the earth has lived an entire lifetime.
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It's lived 70 to year one, every time.
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Yeah, there was all these people that came before you, and unless the Lord returns, there'll be more that come after us.
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And that's what James is saying.
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He said we're like a vapor.
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Why is he saying this? Because vapors shouldn't be prideful.
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That's why he's saying that.
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He's saying you're speaking in pride, and you're forgetting who you are.
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You're speaking in pride, and you're forgetting what you are.
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Who do you think you are? You're a mist, man.
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I'm going to make a shirt that says that.
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I'm a mist, man.
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You're just a mist.
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The word here is atmos.
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You're just air.
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It's like where we get the word atmosphere.
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You're just air.
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You're here for a bit, you're gone.
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Now your soul lasts forever, but your time on this earth is limited.
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And when compared to the earth itself, it's not even to be compared.
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So verse 15.
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He says instead, instead of saying, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do that, and I'm going to go here, and I'm going to get this.
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Instead of that, you ought to say this.
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If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.
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You see, this is really the heart of James' concern here.
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He's not telling us not to make plans.
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He is telling us always, always consider God as sovereign over your plans.
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Always remember that nothing is going to happen outside of His divine decree.
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And we should always have an eye on that fact that our plans are subservient to God.
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Now, I want to make two comments on that.
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As I was writing my notes, I thought, you know what? There's two questions that pop into my mind, and I often write based on the questions that I have because I think if I had that question, maybe somebody else did.
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My first question as I was writing this, I said, you know what I wonder? Do we always have to verbalize it? Because I know oftentimes we do.
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And some of you guys are always saying it, and I think it's great.
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If I say, hey, I'll see you Sunday, and they'll say, Lord willing, I'll see you Sunday.
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Or we'll say, you know, if the Lord so wills, we'll go and do this or that.
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Now, I don't think verbalizing it is bad.
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I think verbalizing it is good because it's a good reminder.
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However, I don't think that that's the heart of what James is saying here.
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I don't think that it's necessary that we always verbalize it.
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I think the point is that the attitude of all of our planning should always be with the understanding that God is the Sovereign One and not us.
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The attitude that is being decried in this passage is the attitude of personal self-reliance.
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The attitude of pride.
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And the person who says, yep, that's what tomorrow's going to be for me, without consideration for the will of God, is the person who is living in foolish pride.
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So should we say, Lord willing, I'll see you Sunday? There's nothing wrong with that.
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And I say it all the time.
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But I think the attitude, more important than the vocalization of it, is what James is dealing with.
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Do we plan our lives with the mindset that God is the ultimate author of our destiny? Or do we still believe it's us? That's the first thing.
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The second thing that came to my mind as I was looking at verse 15, because verse 15 is really the key.
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Is the Lord speaking here of the revealed will or the hidden will? And I think, and I'm going to say I think, and you can say, well, I don't care what you think, but I'm still going to tell you.
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I think that He's talking about the hidden will.
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And here's why.
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When He says, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.
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Well, the only way that He would say, if the Lord wills, is if He doesn't know what the Lord's will is going to be.
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As a result, James is reminding us that God does have a will which we do not know.
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And the biggest thing, if you look back at verse 15, He says, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.
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So what's the first thing that the Lord wills every day? Whether we're going to live or we're going to die.
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And that's the thing that James is pointing out because he just talked about us being a vapor.
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He said, you don't even know how long you have.
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You don't even know how long your life's going to be.
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We ought to say every day, if the Lord wills, I will live and then I'll do this or that.
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It starts out with living.
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So I think ultimately it's dealing with the hidden will of God because God knows when I'm going to die, but I don't.
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God knows when I'm going to leave this earth, and I don't.
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I'm glad I don't.
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Could you imagine if He did? If you imagine if He said, August 2nd, 20-whatever, and you knew.
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Boy, that would drive you crazy, wouldn't it? I can't imagine somebody on death row.
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They know it's coming.
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Yeah, maybe.
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With our current court system, it's not as reliable as it used to be.
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But at least they know it's coming.
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The point being, I think it's dealing with the hidden will.
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But I do think this.
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I think indirectly, verse 15 can be applied to the revealed will of God.
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Because if I say this, if I say I'm going to do X, whatever X is, I'm going to do X, and I know X is a sin, then I'm exercising even greater pride and hubris than ever before.
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Because I should never plan to sin.
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Think of it like this.
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Verse 15.
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Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will do this or do that.
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Could you imagine getting up in the morning and saying, yeah, I know the Lord doesn't want me to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway.
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I know this is not the revealed will of God, but I'm going to do it anyway.
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How many people live like that? How many people live their lives? Every day they wake up next to somebody.
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They're not married, and they don't care.
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And they say, you know what? I don't care what the Lord's will is.
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I'm doing it.
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That's worse.
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That's worse.
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Because you know what the revealed will is.
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You know you shouldn't, and yet you do.
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And it's not just living in sin.
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It can be any type of thing.
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But that was just a thought that came to mind.
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Yes, sir.
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Well, to Asia, it had to be revealed.
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We're there in the Macedonian man colony.
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The south there is revealed and hidden.
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We don't tie exactly, but it just sounds almost like the same thing.
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Well, he's got the revealed will of God telling him not to go and to go.
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And he's still got to obey that.
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Absolutely.
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And like I said, he went 200 miles with it being hidden.
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He went 200 miles without knowing it.
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It wasn't until he got to Troas that he was given that vision.
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It is.
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It's all interwoven for sure.
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Absolutely.
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So again, I think that when we look at verse 15, I think the primary is the hidden will.
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You do not know whether you're going to live or die tomorrow, so you should always plan understanding that God's plans are the ones that ultimately.
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Many are the plans of a man's heart, but the Lord directs the steps.
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You've got to keep that in mind when you're planning something.
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But secondarily, the revealed will is also there.
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If you know God doesn't want you to do something, yet you're planning to do it, that is doubly bad.
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Because now you're planning to sin.
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And certainly we should not do that.
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And that's why verse 16 goes on to say, as it is, meaning as it is in the sense of the person who is saying, I'm going to do this or do that.
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As it is, you boast in your arrogance, and all such boasting is evil.
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When you speak in pride, without considering the will of God, you are exercising practical atheism.
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Remember a few weeks ago I preached on that? Practical atheism.
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It was our Resurrection Sunday message.
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Practical atheism.
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And what did I say? The practical atheist lives his life every day as if God doesn't exist.
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That's who James is talking about here.
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He's talking about the person who gets up in the morning with no consideration for God.
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He goes through his day without any consideration for God.
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He goes to bed at night without any consideration for God.
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God is not on his plate.
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God is not in his heart.
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God is not in his mind.
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He lives, as it were, as a practical atheist.
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And James tells us that's pure evil.
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In fact, the word here, paneros, is the word for evil.
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I'll never forget that word.
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The Greek word for evil.
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Because of the silliest reason.
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One of my professors in school said he had a dog that was really mean, and he named him paneros, the Greek word for evil.
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I'll never forget.
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Paneros, the evil dog.
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But as we say, he said, that type of thinking, that type of behavior is evil.
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Verse 17.
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Now comes in a specific reference to the revealed will of God.
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Verse 17, very specifically, because it says, So whoever knows the right thing to do, and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
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That's where the hidden will and the revealed will come together.
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We don't know what tomorrow will bring, but we know what God's commanded us to do.
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We don't know if we're going to live or die, or if our business ventures are going to be successful, or if they're going to fail, but we know God's called us to be honest in our dealings.
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We know He's called us to be faithful with our finances.
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We know that He has called us to be faithful with our lives, with every breath that He gives us, to focus them upon serving Him.
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And we know what the right thing to do is.
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And when we refuse to do it, it is sin.
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And that's how these things converge.
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And it really converges in a very simple way.
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Often this text is used to talk about the sin of omission.
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How many of you have ever heard that phrase? Sin of omission? They say there's two types of sin.
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There's the sin of commission.
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That's the one that you commit.
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That's the one you do.
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And there's the sin of omission.
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That's the sin that you were supposed to do something, and you didn't do it.
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You were supposed to do good, and you refused to do good.
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Well, this passage is basically there.
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It says if you know what's right, and you know the right thing to do, and you refuse to do it, that's sin.
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The goal of the believer should be obedience in all areas.
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To abandon what God forbids, and to seek after what He commands.
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That's the heart of submission to the will of God.
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I want to be obedient to His revealed will, and I want to submit to His hidden will.
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In the sense that, if something happens to me, and I don't like it, I submit and say, well, God has a purpose for that.
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It's hard, and sometimes it's really tough.
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And I've told this before, and I won't waste a lot of time on it.
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There are things in my life that happened 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
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You know, it's funny I say 10 years ago.
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I think it's the 90's.
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10 years ago was 2006.
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Ah, man, I'm getting older.
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10 years ago! 20 years ago there were things that happened to me.
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30 years ago there were things that happened to me.
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At the time, I hated it.
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But those things were used by God to bring me here, and to do this.
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And to teach me things whereby I could do this better.
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And so, that's the submission into the hidden will that we often forget.
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Because we're going through it, and we say God must be making a mistake.
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God must not be in control.
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He must not know what He's doing.
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And that's where we lose sight of who He is, and who we are in Him.
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I want to end with an illustration, and then we'll pray.
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And for the first time in a long time, we'll end on time.
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How do you like that? Don't get too excited.
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It's very rare.
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Suppose you take 10 pennies, and you mark on those pennies with a magic marker 1 through 10.
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So each penny has on it a number.
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Number 1, number 2, number 3, all the way down the line to 10.
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And you take those 10 pennies, and you put them into your pocket, and you shake your pocket up vigorously, and you reach in and grab a penny.
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What is the chance that you'll pull out the 1? The 1 in 10.
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What are the chances that you would pull out the 1 and then the 2 in succession? It's 1 in 100.
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That's right.
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What are the chances that you go in 1, 2, 3? It's the 1 in 1,000.
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That's right.
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Is that what you said? Yep, that's right.
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It goes 1 in 10, 1 in 100, 1 in 1,000.
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What's the chances that you go all 10, 10 for 10, 1, 2, 3, all the way down? It's 1 in a billion.
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1 in a billion chance that you will pull all 10 coins out one at a time.
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If you can't control 10 coins in your pocket, what makes you think you can control tomorrow? James is reminding us, we are not in control.
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God is in control.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You.
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I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the reminder that we ultimately, Lord, are absolutely subservient to the will of God.
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And Lord, that is tough at times for us to submit to, but we pray that You would help us to be humble, to submit, to look towards You in every venture of life that we would say, Lord, if it be Your will, we will do this, and we will live and do that.
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And never for a minute think that we are the captains of our own destiny, but to trust You wholly with everything.
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I thank You who directs our every step.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.