God's Will and Man's Presumption | Sermon 06/26/2022

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James chapter 4, church. This is the last sermon of James chapter 4.

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It's going to be a glorious sermon by God's grace. We're going to be in verses 13 through 17 of James chapter 4.

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The title of this sermon is, God's Will and Man's Presumption. God's Will and Man's Presumption.

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Here now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true God. Come now you who say today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.

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Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

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Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.

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But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

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Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him, it is sin.

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Thus ending the reading of God's holy inspired word, let's pray quickly church. Father, would you please speak through me today?

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Would you teach your body today, Lord? God, do a mighty work here among your people.

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Help us to be focused on your word. Help us, Lord, to not just let it go in one ear and out the other.

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But God, just as the same for me, please let this penetrate my heart. Please let this penetrate our thinking and how we live as Christians.

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Please, Lord, help me to speak in a way that is helpful and clear and let it always be true. In Jesus' name

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I pray, amen. We are a society that likes to be in control.

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We are. We are a society that teaches our children from early on in their lives to even plan ahead.

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In many ways, this is a good thing. We should plan. Some plan for their goals while others make goals for their plans.

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Some of us even have our whole day down to the very hour, maybe even down to the minute mapped out.

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This is how I will structure my day. This is it. We're planners. I had a professor in college that had a strict schedule for each day of the week.

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I mean, this guy would plan down his meals, his leisure time, how much time he would play piano to the point he said he had only a certain amount of time that he'd spend with his wife.

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And then how much time that he would give to sleeping. He just hated spontaneity.

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I would daydream in his mathematics class about something coming and changing up his schedule, thinking about how maybe

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I could usher that in. We plan things out.

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In 2019, people had plans for 2020. Plans to get married, to give birth to their first child, to travel, to see their loved ones across the country.

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But of course, the bioweapon changed many of those plans. In fact, sadly, many faced death and despair in ways that they had never encountered before.

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And we hide death in this society. We no longer put cemeteries next to churches.

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We put it behind trees. We put it behind big block walls, and we don't want to see death anymore in our culture.

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But it's good. It's good for us to see things like that. It's good to see a cemetery next to a church.

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Why? Because we can see the saints who have gone before, and we can look ahead to what's coming for us, and then cause us to think about the eternal state that we have with Christ.

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And for the first time for many in this nation, they came face to face with death.

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It consumed their media intake and personal lives, as leaders tried to dehumanize us and things like that.

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And yet as society moves forward from this, we see people planning like tomorrow will never end.

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It's back to normal in many ways. We forget so quickly that death was just at the doorstep.

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And for some reason, while I was preparing this sermon, I couldn't help but think about life during the world wars.

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It may have been difficult, very difficult, to look past today, let alone consider tomorrow.

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And I'm sure many of you have heard of the well -known Lutheran German pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

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Let me say a few words about him. After Hitler was elected chancellor in Germany, things started changing rapidly in Europe.

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Through the 1930s, Bonhoeffer fought against ideologies like Aryan supremacy.

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He saw political agendas infiltrating the church, so Bonhoeffer created what was called the

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Anti -Nazi Confessing Church. But on June 2nd, 1939, just before the start of World War II, Bonhoeffer left

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Germany being a committed pacifist and opposed to the Nazi party and he was fearing enlistment.

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He didn't wanna have to fight for the Nazis and he made plans to acquire safety in the

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United States away from the ensuing war. However, it was not even two months from the point that he was in the

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United States that he realized he didn't think his plan through. A change of plans had come to him.

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He knew he made a grave error and despite the pressure that friends put on him to stay put in the

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US, he said these words right here. I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America.

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I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share with the people in the trials of this time.

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Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or they have to be willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying

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Christianity in Germany. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security.

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So Bonhoeffer at that moment took the last scheduled steamer across the

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Atlantic and came right back to Germany. He went right back in the midst of war. Not long after being back in Germany, Dietrich was arrested.

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He was put in Tegel prison and he used this year and a half to share the gospel to other inmates.

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Just kept sharing it with everyone. Later he was transferred to a Nazi concentration camp and was eventually sadly executed by hanging on April 9th, 1945 after being charged with an assassination plot of Hitler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

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And unfortunately it was only a few days. His death was just a few days before the

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American liberation and freedom of that camp he was in. He was a 20th century martyr.

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A small Protestant Christian movement against Nazi Germany. It doesn't matter how big you are, you gotta stand for what's right.

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There are two things very much related to our passage that I wanna point out from Dietrich's story.

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First, this brother made plans. The United States was in his sights and that was his reality, at least for the foreseeable future.

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It was no small thing to make a trip across the Atlantic at that time. That was a big deal.

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But God showed him that he had other plans in mind.

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Excuse me. God's will prevailed over his. And the second thing is, at the young age of 39 years old, it was

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Bonhoeffer's time to face death and in turn go to be with his savior.

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And this man had plans just like all of us. He had plans for his life. He had plans for his family, his children, plans for the kingdom of God.

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But the fall of man, along with its effects, including war and death, quickened the pace of the brevity of life.

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Now I share this with you not to discourage you, but to do as James seeks to do in this text, to admonish us to remember the sovereignty of God in all affairs.

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To abandon the presumptuous thinking of a faux self -confidence and self -determination.

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And simultaneously, we must recall the hope that we have in all that the

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Lord wills. That our God decreeing all things, moving all things to its predestined places is working out to the salvation of sinners and the glory of our

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Lord. So with that, let's begin in verse 13. Verse 13 says,

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Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.

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James is asking them, come along with me. Bring yourself into my words, into this scenario.

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Entertain your thoughts with this forthcoming sentence. It's like saying, listen up, listen up, come now.

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It's possible this is something James heard before amongst Christian merchants in the church communities that he's been writing to.

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Not only do they plan where they will go, when they will go and how long they will stay, they are also certain of the outcome.

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They are certain we will make a profit. We will make a profit. They think success is sure.

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They will make money. Many Jews during this time in the first century, they would leave

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Judea and they would move throughout the Roman Empire, the Mediterranean, and they would. They would start new business ventures.

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They would try to make money. That is not uncommon. There may even be a hint of mocking in James's tone here as he imitates these

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Christians. Today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a city.

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It just sounds so dreamy. We're gonna do all this. We're gonna make this money. It's gonna be fantastic.

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They seem to be so very confident at the results of their planning. And this is honestly a common offense amongst brothers and sisters in the church today.

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We can act like we are the masters of today. We are the masters of today.

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We've been told you can control your destiny. You hold your destiny in your hand, young man.

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You can change it however you will, right? That's what they tell us. How many times do you recognize that we need the

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Lord for even our very next breath? We need the Lord for our very next breath.

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What about how many times that you plan the day and something changes those plans?

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Does that happen to you? You're like, okay, tomorrow we're gonna do this, at this time, this time, this time, we're gonna do this, and it's gonna be good, and then tomorrow happens and something occurs and it messes with your plans.

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That probably happens to you every week. Happens to me every week, just about. And there are two things that we do when that happens.

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For some reason, even though it's happened time and time again, we first act surprised. How could this be?

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I planned it so well this time. There's no way it could have gone wrong. What is going on here?

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We're surprised. Why isn't this going my way? Then the other thing we can do when this happens is we can immediately get into discontentment and grumbling mode.

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We feel like we've just entered the wilderness in our planning, and so we grumble like Israelites.

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But the thing is, the complaining can keep us in the wilderness. It does.

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Finding contentment in the Lord, submitting to His will, and accepting the providential alteration to our plans is the only way to get out of the wilderness and into the promised land.

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These Christian merchants are foolish if they think all is at their disposal. All that they desire to do, they will do it.

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And even then, all their desires will fall into place. They're foolish if they think that. It's self -confidence.

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It's self -faith. I will not let myself down this time.

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Are we kidding ourselves? Are we kidding? We are historically always letting ourselves down.

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Right? Always. We, our faculties, our heart, our thinking, all these things can let us down.

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This type of thinking disregards our utter dependence upon our Creator.

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We have utter dependence upon our Creator. We can get comfortable in our walk, comfortable during times of peace and no persecution.

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We can forget God. We can act on self -reliance. Honestly, when

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COVID was going on, the church had to stick together. We saw churches stick together in ways that we had never seen before.

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We didn't know what would come our way next. We didn't know if maybe the government would do something to turn against us.

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We still don't know how corrupt leaders may try to negatively impact Christ's church in America, but we know it's futile.

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We know it's vain. They could try whatever they want. But when we were at risk of losing liberties or losing our jobs, we knew we had to be in Christ and in the church and together.

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We knew we had to be careful in our planning. We knew we had to go before the

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Lord and that He would have to pave a way forward. God, I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't know what's gonna happen in just a couple months.

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I may lose my job, but I need you to pave the way for me. The American dream is always fighting

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Christ and His gospel for the throne of our hearts for Christians in this country.

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This American dream, this false gospel wants all of you, right?

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And look, there's nothing wrong with taking dominion, owning land, buying a house, putting down roots.

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It's what you put your hope in. It's if you think that that home, that American dream will provide you the salvation that you've always been looking for.

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That is fleeting. That's gonna turn to dust, but Christ remains.

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So look, planning isn't bad. Planning is good.

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James takes no issue with them planning. James takes no issue with them going to another city and doing business.

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That's not what this is. It's the aspect of not considering what

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God would want and what He commands in respect to their plans is what

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James is taking issue with. Not considering the Lord, not seeking God's will in all that they do.

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And that's really what's missing here. When we plan, we are asking ourselves, is this something that would honor

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God? Whatever it is you guys are planning for next year or the rest of the year, you gotta ask yourself this.

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Is this something that would honor God? Is this something that would bring Him glory? That's number one.

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Is this something that would be in line with His revealed will? That is scripture.

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Are we going to God in prayer to then ask Him if this is something that is in line with His hidden will, that is

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His decreed will? God, is this your will? For these early Christians, it seems odd too that they are not considering the current economic, political, and religious climate.

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Is it not? We studied in our first sermon that how this letter was not written long after Stephen's martyrdom and the large -scale persecution set upon the saints that made them disperse, right?

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That's how James addresses them. He says the dispersed ones in James 1.

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Are they not considering how it may be difficult to maintain a Christian witness while going to another city and setting up shop?

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That's important. I don't wanna start a business that would make me compromise my

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Christian witness. Are they considering that? What is the priority here?

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This is obviously before 70 AD, before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

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This was right before the Lord would come in judgment upon the covenant breakers of Judea. We see in the book of Acts that they were selling possessions and land and helping one another in the church, knowing that judgment was coming, as Jesus mentioned in Matthew 24.

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It was soon to be upon them. War, pestilence, famine, death, persecution was already or soon to be upon them.

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So are they considering these things? The Proverbs would warn these

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Christian merchants like this. The Proverbs says, do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.

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And that's really what's happening here. What's happening here is there is a boastful attitude with this.

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James gets into that in a little bit. Because again, planning is good.

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Planning is good. God is not against planning. In fact, He commends it.

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Jesus is talking about the cost of discipleship here, but there is a principle we can glean from it in Luke 14, 28 through 32.

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He says this, Christ says, for which one of you, when he has to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?

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Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying this man began to build and was not able to finish.

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So Jesus commends planning there. Then He commends it again. He says, or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10 ,000 men to encounter the one coming against him who has 20 ,000?

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You've got to plan ahead when building things. Dusty had to plan ahead when he built his chicken coops and runs.

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He couldn't just go out there with wood and we would have been there a lot longer, right? You got to plan.

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King David, King David knew that, but even then he always sought the

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Lord's will in his battles. King David always did that. What did he do? Even if the enemy was on the run, get this,

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King David would stop and pray and go, no, we don't know if the battle is ours. Let's pray. God, do you want us to pursue the enemy?

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And then God would give them the victory. He would not presume upon God's grace in the battles that God would give them the victory.

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He knew he had to go to God first. If we want blessing in our planning, we must go to the only one who can give that blessing.

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When you first open your eyes, when you wake up, I challenge you, I've been doing this this week, and I really want to stay with this practice.

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When I first wake up, when I first open my eyes, before you grab a baby, a phone, or a toothbrush, when you're still laying in your bed and you open your eyes, say a quick prayer of dedication for the day.

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Say something like, God, this day is for you. I submit it to you.

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All that happens today, Lord, is for you. And the way that it goes,

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God, I will not kick against. I will not go against. I will glorify you and how you've desired to change my day.

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But God, help me though, help me to be content in whatever way you change my day today.

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And I'll give you the glory. And Lord, would you give blessing upon all my endeavors today?

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Do that. Open your eyes tomorrow, before you get out of bed, before you do anything, say, you don't even need to say all that I said.

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Say, Lord, today is yours. Show me where you want me to be. Show me where you want me to go and what you want me to do.

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Go to verse 14. James gives his readers a reality check.

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Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

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Now, we can almost pass by in the English. But in the Greek, the beginning of this verse says, hoitines.

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Hoitines, it's sometimes not even put into English translations. It's like saying people such as you.

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So James could be asking, how would you, people like you, how would people like you, mere creatures, know what the future will hold?

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How do you presume to know the way it will go as you have planned it? That's what it would be saying.

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Also remember how I've told you times before that the Greek doesn't have punctuation.

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The Greek doesn't have punctuations, commas, periods. It's just a big train of words.

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And they can be out of order. You can put this word here. You can put that word here. And the only way you know the correct order of the way it's translated is by the word endings.

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The way the Greek word endings are determines the object, the subject, the clause. That's how you know.

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It's not like English where we need to kind of have them in order, some sort of order. So with that,

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I would not so much agree with the New American Standard, which I have in white. I think that in the yellow,

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I think this translation is better. It would be posing a question. It would say this, yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

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What is your life? And then he expounds on that. For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

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Subtle difference, but I think it's an important difference. And as you can see, after he poses this question, there is no leading into the answer, right?

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He says, what is your life? And he doesn't lead up to it. He says, for your life is a mist. It is a vapor.

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It is abrupt. He goes right into it. And that's how we should take it. That's what he means by that.

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The facts of our human finite capabilities of knowledge and foresight are brought to the attention.

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We are finite people. We ultimately do not know what tomorrow holds.

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I've been studying Ecclesiastes in my devotional time every morning. And so much of Ecclesiastes has that theme that goes along with this verse.

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Ecclesiastes 11, verses five through six says, just as you do not know the path of the wind, and you do not know how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things.

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Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle in the evening, for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good.

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Go to work. Sow seed. Continue with your plans.

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But recognize, as he said, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things, but be faithful.

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Just keep sowing seed. You do not know, but sow seed. You do not know whether the seed you sowed in the morning or the seed you sowed in the evening will be successful, but keep working.

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You don't know the activity of God, but he does. Humble yourself.

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That's really what it is. Recognize your finitude. Recognize your creaturely dependence.

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That it makes you unable to will things into existence or to move things how you wish.

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God is the one who clefts a channel for rain torrents. You couldn't keep a scoop of water in your hand very long.

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You could pour some water in your hand, but God will make it rain, and off the mountain, he'll direct the waters in the way that he wants them to go down into the canyons.

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He controls the water, but you can't even keep it contained in your own hand. It makes sense why

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Jesus wouldn't tell us not to worry about tomorrow, because we don't know what tomorrow will bring.

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We can know about today and what we have in front of us, and we should be faithful with that.

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And the only day that we really know about well was yesterday. Who knows about yesterday pretty well?

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Well, now that we're getting older, I'm kind of like, what happened yesterday? We're even like, what did we eat? But know this, for some of us, actually probably for many of us, we go beyond planning, and we worry too much about tomorrow.

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We worry too much about tomorrow. In fact, our plans for tomorrow are being paid for by the worries of today.

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Our plans for tomorrow are being paid for by the worries of today. You're just putting it down.

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You're putting bills of worry down to make payment for tomorrow. But you don't know what tomorrow's gonna bring.

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You can plan, but you don't know what tomorrow's gonna bring. Why worry about it, Jesus said. Your concern for the future is robbing you of your joy today.

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James expounds on not knowing about tomorrow. He says, we are just a vapor, a mist.

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It appears for a short while, and then it disappears in a moment. I was talking with actually my brother

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Don and his wife Desi this weekend. We were talking about California, Southern California.

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I grew up there until I was just 12. Spent the majority of my life in Phoenix, but they're from San Diego.

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They now live in Phoenix as well. But during different parts of the year, especially in the spring and summer months, living right near the coast, you would wake up some days and there'd just be like a thick fog everywhere.

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Oh, you guys know too. San Diego's right there. And there'd be this thick fog everywhere.

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And you might then go brush your teeth, take a quick shower, read your Bible, have breakfast.

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And by the time you briefly got ready, you'd go out and the mist and the fog would be gone.

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It'd just be over. And that happens throughout the year from the ocean there. And that's kind of the image we have here, right?

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So quick, so quickly it's gone, the brevity of life on earth. This is honestly a huge theme for Scripture.

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Job 7 ,7 says our lives are like a quick breath. Psalm 39 ,5 says our lives are a mere breath.

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Psalm 102 ,3 says our days are burning away like smoke.

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Like you light a fire and you think you built a really big one. And then boom, it's already burned away.

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Psalm 144, which Dusty read says, man's days are like a passing shadow.

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Right? Ecclesiastes 3 .19 -20, all men and beasts share the same fate.

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All men and beasts will die one day. Ecclesiastes 5 .15,

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naked from our mother's womb we came and without anything shall we return. Ecclesiastes 5 .18,

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God has given man but a few years upon this earth. Ecclesiastes 8 .8,

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no man has the authority over the day of his death. Ecclesiastes 9 .12, man does not know the time of his departure.

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That's true. Now after the fall, every single human being has to deal with that.

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10 out of 10 people die. They have yet to find a recipe for immortality.

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They will all face it. We will all face it. Psalm 90 starts out with this beautiful statement about God.

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It's really a contrast between God's eternality and man's finitude. It says, before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you formed the earth and the world, from everlasting into everlasting, you are

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God. But then it goes into man and it says this. It says, man has but maybe 70 to 80 years, then we fly away.

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It reminds me of that hymn. All fly away, oh glory, all fly away.

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Maybe we'll do that one time. That's an old one. You probably only catch it on Little House on the Prairie or something.

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But he says it's 70 to 80 years, then we fly away. But then the psalmist says this.

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He says, teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom.

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Teach us to number our days, oh God, that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. These Christian merchants didn't number their days.

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They didn't consider the Lord in their planning. And there are people all around us living with no thoughts of eternity.

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No, it's true that God has indeed put eternity in the hearts of men and women. It says that in his word.

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But these people, they suppress it. They put eternity out of their minds. All around us, people don't take seriously what the meaning of life is and what will come.

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Right, we do that in evangelism sometimes. Well, do you know where you're gonna go when you die?

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I don't really think about it. By the way, I'm gonna go hang out with my buddies. We're gonna go to the bar. You know, like that's really how, by provost, sometimes it goes, right?

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They don't take it seriously. And as Christians, we shouldn't act this way either.

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And if only I could articulate it any stronger, do not put your trust upon the future.

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Young people, don't discount the words of the older. Don't count on distant years

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Don't count on what you have seen in this life to be how it will be later. Don't count on a hundred year legacy, but plan like you have a hundred year legacy, okay?

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If you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, that is the only planning that you ought to consider today.

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To live now for Christ. That today is the day of salvation.

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That tomorrow isn't owed to us. That some of us may leave here and we could take our very last breath today as we leave here.

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So we are to live for God now, to trust Him now, to serve Him now.

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This is it. Because very soon, ask anyone in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, life on earth will soon be over for us.

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It's a blink of the eye. And the older you get, the faster it appears to go.

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A mist or a vapor demonstrates a transitory and frail life.

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We are here one minute and gone the next. Anywhere from 150 ,000 to 180 ,000 people will die today.

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They've already died. And that'll happen again tomorrow and the next day and the next. 150 ,000 to 180 ,000 every day.

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Undoubtedly, many of them woke up not knowing today would be their last. That's true.

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Illness, accident, you don't know. Christ may return at any moment.

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These are ideas that we typically push far from our thinking, but we aren't like the world. We can look forward, although not knowing what life holds here on earth, we do know what life holds in eternity in heaven.

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We do know that. We do know that. We don't know what tomorrow holds, but we know what eternity holds.

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Amen. And Charles Spurgeon says of this passage, why then is it that we are always counting upon what we are going to do?

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How is it that instead of living in the eternal future where we might deal with certainties, we continue to live in the more immediate future where there can be nothing but uncertainties?

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Why do we choose to build upon clouds and pile our palaces on vapor to see them melt away as a four time they have often melted before instead of by faith getting where there is no failure, where God is all in all and His sure promises make the foundations of eternal mansions?

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That's a beautiful quote. And that's it. This may be true that this life is a vapor, but we have a hope that goes beyond this life.

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We have a hope that goes beyond the grave. And that's true for us as Christians. I was studying in the

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Greek for this verse, phenomene means appear, means visible.

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That word appears, that it can be seen by others. Aphenosomene means vanish, disappear, to become not visible.

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And it's even sometimes used as the word destroy, especially in Matthew 6, 19 through 20.

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And Jesus says there, on earth treasures and things here can be aphenosomene.

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On earth, things can be destroyed. On earth, things can vanish.

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That's true. But Jesus says in heaven, nothing will be aphenosomene.

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Nothing will disappear. Nothing in heaven will be destroyed. Nothing in heaven will vanish.

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Everything will be steadfast in heaven. Everything will be firm in heaven and remain.

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We will no longer be a vapor in heaven that appears one moment and is gone the next.

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We have hope beyond the grave. John says in his first epistle, the world is passing away in all of its lusts.

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The world's passing away. It's like a vapor as well. The world's like a vapor, but he says this, but the one who does the will of God will live forever.

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You, my friends, will not be a vapor or live in a vapor -filled world if you are in Christ.

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For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

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We'll have eternal life. It's eternal. It's forever without end.

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Romans 6 .23, for the wages of sin and its death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our

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Lord. Sin has been forgiven. It has been done away with.

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It will be done away with in this world ultimately. Death is defeated. Death will be sent to the lake of fire.

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But eternal life, a life that cannot be destroyed or disappeared is guaranteed for us for the next generation.

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Those in Christ is guaranteed. So we may not know what tomorrow will bring, but we know what the

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Lord will bring. We know what eternity holds. He's told us.

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And our God doesn't lie. And our God keeps his promises. And the day you take your last breath upon this earth is the day that you will see

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God. That's for sure. You have a lot of uncertainty.

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We have a lot of uncertainty in this world, but that's the most certain thing is those in Christ will see their

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Redeemer one day. That is sure as sure. So James brings us back to his scenario, verse 15.

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He says, Instead, you ought to say if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.

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Instead here in the Greek is literally just the word anti. A -N -T -I. Anti, instead.

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Instead of, in place of. Instead of what was said in verse 13, say this.

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That's what he's saying. And we see a similar formula like this in the

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Lord's prayer. Jesus says, Your will be done. That's in Matthew 6.

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He says it again in Matthew 26 in the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

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He says, Not what I will, but what you will in the Garden of Gethsemane. Paul tells the brethren in Ephesus, he will return to them if the

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Lord wills it in Acts 18, 21. It's also in Acts 21, 14.

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Romans 1, 10. Romans 15, 32. 1 Corinthians 4, 19. Paul wants to see the church at Corinth and he says,

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If the Lord wills it. And it's also in 1 Peter 3. So we have

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Jesus saying it. Luke records it in Acts. Paul says it in his letters. James prescribes it in his epistle.

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And Peter states it as well, Lord willing, in his letter. This has become to be known as the

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Conditio Jacobia. Conditio Jacobia, that's in the Latin. It means the

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Jacobean condition. This is the Jacobean condition. And you might go,

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Jacob, I thought this is the book of James. If you can remember back, I talked about remembering yesterday, right?

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If you can remember back in January, the very first sermon on the book of James in chapter one,

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I talked about how James's name in the Greek is literally Jacobas.

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It is Jacob. His name is Jacob. And we talked about how there's all these theories about how in English we came to the name

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James, but no one changes it. It's just, it should be the book of Jacob. It's the book of James though.

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His name is Jacob. So it's called the Jacobean condition. Many people use the

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Latin phrase to express this as well. You might've seen this. It is Deo Valente. Deo Valente.

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People in fact will write at the bottom of their letters, they'll put DV, Lord willing,

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Deo Valente. And we shouldn't simply recognize that our lives are like a vapor.

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James is saying we should also acknowledge the Lord in all our planning. These merchants and all of us need to reckon with the fact that our lives are in the hands of God.

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What we see, what we hear, what we touch by our senses is not the entirety of all existence.

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This, all this, what you're touching, all that you see, all that you hear now, this isn't all to your existence.

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There is more to this. What our senses can immediately experience is only part of all that God occupies and operates with.

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Douglas Moos says this life cannot properly be understood without considering the spiritual realm, a realm that impinges upon and ultimately determines the material realm in which we live day by day.

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In other words, what you see outside today, what you see on the news, what you have done in your own home is not independent of God.

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And it has been determined by God long before the material world was. So when making plans as creatures in a creaturely material world, don't forget that it interacts with and is in many ways dependent upon what is done in the spiritual realm as God reigns from His throne.

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And even non -Christians will use this phrase, believe it or not. And they did in the first century, except you know what they said?

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Those in Athens and those in Rome would say, if the God's will, if the God's will it, in the plural, if the

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God's will. And maybe that's why James uses kurios here, he uses

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Lord instead. It's far more personal. He just doesn't say theos, he doesn't just say God.

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He says kurios, possibly pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ or Lord being used in the

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Septuagint for Yahweh, if the Lord wills. So James shows it's not the

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God's or some false God, but the personal one true

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Lord and God of the Bible who wills all things as He pleases. And essentially the continuation of our lives is dependent upon the will of the

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Lord as well as our plans. So is this something that we should be ever so careful to always say, should you now be obsessed about saying

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Lord willing? Everyone's walking out of here, so what are you doing tomorrow? I'm going to work, Lord willing. Everyone starts saying it.

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Now that wouldn't be a bad thing. That wouldn't be bad, it just depends if you're being genuine with it.

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Should we be obsessed about saying this perfectly? No, no, you shouldn't. Lord willing can and has been used as a meaningless phrase.

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This shouldn't become something we do robotically or as if we are sinning if we don't say Lord willing. We don't want to make

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Lord willing, that phrase, a vain thing. And don't get me wrong, use it absolutely.

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If you are convicted today, use this word absolutely, use this phrase, use it freely. Say it all that you want, but it is the attitude behind it that we are to have.

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It is the attitude that we are to have, always. A submission to God's freedom, a submission to God's sovereignty and His superior plan.

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One commentator states, what James is encouraging is not the constant verbalization of a formula, if the

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Lord wills, which can easily become a glib and meaningless statement, but a sincere appreciation for God's control of affairs and for His specific will for us.

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It's recognizing God in your plans. It's recognizing God tomorrow.

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It's submitting to God on Thursday. It's submitting to God when you plan for the vacation next.

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Do you consider Him? The lessee is will, want, wish, desire, delight.

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We must always be open to what the Lord wills and wishes. How can we make better plans or decisions?

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We need to learn what the curios the lessee. We need to learn what the Lord wills. How do you learn, church, what the

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Lord wills? How? Exactly, exactly. To learn what the

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Lord wills, you gotta go to His revealed will, which is the

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Word of God. That's where you go. It is safe to say, how could you ever know how to properly plan or make decisions in your life if you don't know the will of God is revealed in the

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Word of God? How could you properly make decisions or plans in this life if you don't go to the

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Word of God? It's like going through life partially blind. We read the

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Word to see properly. And we recognize our God is an all -powerful and all -sovereign

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God. Ephesians 1 says, He works all things after the counsel of His will.

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Romans 8 says, He works all things according to His purpose. Matthew 10, 29 says,

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Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from the Father. Not one sparrow.

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Colossians 1 says, He holds all things together. Isaiah 45, 7 through 9 says, God makes well -being and He makes calamity upon the earth.

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Proverbs 16, 33 says, The law is cast, but every decision is from the

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Lord. Therefore, we plan accordingly. We plan knowing the sovereignty of God.

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Like my daughter who wakes up every morning and asks me and my wife,

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Mom, Dad, what are we doing today? What's happening today? Mom, Dad, what are we doing today?

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What are we doing tomorrow? And we come to our God with the same childlike dependence and submission to His plans.

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We go to our father, Father, what do you have for us today? Father, what will you have for us tomorrow?

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That is the attitude we ought to have. Anything else would be boasting.

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And that's what James says in our next verse. Verse 16, But as it is, you boast in your arrogance.

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All such boasting is evil. This verse helps us to properly understand verse 13.

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Why? Because planning isn't bad. Planning isn't bad because there are many times in the

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Bible when a prophet or an apostle have stated their plans for something without the qualifier of if the

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Lord wills. We have to go to the Bible and reconcile with that. There are those in the

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Bible who have made plans and they've stated them and they haven't made that qualifier if the Lord wills. We know it's the attitude behind it.

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So he cuts to the core of what's happening from verse 13 of the merchants who said, tomorrow we will leave.

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We will go and spend a year. We will go to such and such a city and we will make a profit. He goes and he tells us why that is wrong planning.

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Cause he says it's boasting in arrogance, presumption, pride.

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Boast here is the word kakomai. It combines the words for confidence in and rejoice in into one word.

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And it's actually not always negative. It's not always negative. Paul tells us to boast in the

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Lord. What makes this bad is what James qualifies it with.

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It's in your allosenes, in your arrogance. And it's actually in the plural in the

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Greek. In you boast in your arrogances. You boast in your arrogances.

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It is a type of pride in oneself. Confidence in me, not a confidence in God, in planning for the future.

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He's literally saying you boast in your boastfulness. You are boasting in your desire to not understand

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God is God. And we are mere humans operating in a life that has been decreed from eternity past.

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In our world, people not only make plans without considering God, but they brag about it.

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They brag about it too. The text makes it clear. All boasting, it says such as this is evil.

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Boasting like this. But boast in the

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Lord. Boast in your weakness and therefore in Christ's strength, the Bible says.

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But don't boast like this where you think you control your fate and the future of others.

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We are to be dependent upon God. John the Baptist recognized this as well.

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He recognized where we get spiritual blessing and material blessing. John the

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Baptist said a man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven. A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.

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Your breath is from heaven. Your food tonight is from heaven. Your home is from heaven.

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All that you have, your salvation, your peace, your assurance in Christ is from heaven.

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All that you have is from heaven. Presumptuous planning is boasting in oneself is trying to rob the

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Lord of his glory. Now go to our final verse, verse 17. Therefore to the one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him, it is sin.

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This is James's conclusive exhortation after all that has been said, after all that he has just written.

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This, verse 17, is the capstone, right? It holds the archway in place.

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But it seems a bit out of nowhere, does it not? When you read them all together, it seems a bit out of nowhere.

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You wouldn't be alone in thinking that. It took me a long time to wrestle through this and what the meaning of this is in how it's connected to our previous verses, right?

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Many theologians agree this verse is a bit awkwardly placed. In fact, when I was looking at Calvin's commentaries,

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Calvin comments on verses 13, 14, 15, and 16. He skips 17 and he goes right to chapter five.

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So Calvin's like, no, I'm not touching that, right? Some say it's completely unrelated.

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Some say this was a saying that James knew of and he just threw it at the end. But it's hard to make that argument because why?

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What does he place there? He says, therefore, therefore. He puts therefore at the beginning.

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That is the connection point between the previous verses. Because of all that I just said, therefore, now this is what

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I say. This. So what does he mean? One scholar brings up a fairly convincing argument.

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This is something that I had not considered. I'm not gonna claim that I came up with this. James had already quoted

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Proverbs chapter three in verse six of chapter four, where he says,

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God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. That's in Proverbs chapter three. And so now this person argues that James is reiterating

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Proverbs 3, 27 through 28 when it says, do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to do it.

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Do not say to your neighbor, go and come back and tomorrow I will give it when you have it with you. That is, you don't know what tomorrow holds so give the good thing today.

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You don't know what's gonna happen. Give the good thing. Now as I was wrestling through this,

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I honestly just didn't think that that was the best fit, okay? I didn't think it really did the text justice.

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So I'm gonna tell you what I believe this to be right now. Looking at the original language,

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I had come to this conclusion that I think makes sense. I think that the right thing to do is considering God in all your plans.

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The right thing to do is considering the sovereignty of God in your life. So you could say it like this.

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Therefore, to the one who knows he ought to say and believe if the Lord wills and doesn't do that, to him it is sin, okay?

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To the one who knows he ought to believe and say that the

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Lord wills and does not do that, to him it is sin. That is the connection point.

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The sovereignty of God. Now that you know God's sovereignty in this world and in your life, you should humbly act in a way recognizing his will is supreme.

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That's what this is saying. But of course, immediately when you read this, what do we all go to?

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We think of the sin of commission and sin of omission. And that is a great principle that we can glean from this.

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I think we can do that. I think we can. Again, I was just trying to translate it. I'm sorry, interpret it in relation to the previous verses.

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So there are sins of commission, sins that we commit when we know not to do a thing, but we do the wrong thing anyway.

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That's sin of commission. Then there are sins of omission. This verse is evidence of that.

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That there are good and right things that we should do, and it is sin when we don't do them, right?

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It's like when people have watched a woman being assaulted on the road, and what do they do?

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This woman's being assaulted by men, and all these bystanders take out their phones and they just film and they just watch.

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They don't call the police. They don't help this woman. They don't fight against the men. They just hold their phones and they watch this woman being assaulted in the street.

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And that's happened before, right? These people think they're innocent.

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They would say, ah, I didn't do any of the assaulting. I didn't hurt this woman. I didn't do anything wrong.

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But as they stand idly by, as they don't preserve life, they don't restrain evil.

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They don't restrain it from occurring. They don't come to the aid of a woman, like as the Old Testament says, a woman crying out.

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We are to come to the aid of a woman crying out. Or it is sin. And a great sin at that.

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This is sin by omitting themselves from helping. Jesus affirms this as well in Luke 12, 47.

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Jesus says, and that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in according with his master's will, he will receive many lashes and punishment.

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So he knew the right thing to do. This is an important reminder for us as believers.

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So often we come to God and we confess sin. We confess things that we shouldn't have done, that we are not commanded to do.

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And that's good, we should do that. But this takes it to the next level. It is also sin to not do good when the opportunity is presented to you.

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Well, I haven't hated my neighbor. I haven't spoken falsely of him.

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I've obeyed those commandments. I haven't coveted his wife. I haven't stolen from him. I haven't committed adultery from my neighbor or his wife.

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I haven't done any of those things. Well, good, good. That's good that you haven't done that. But have you missed opportunities to love him as yourself?

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When he was in need and your neighbor was destitute and lost his job, were you there for him?

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And one of the most substantial sins of omission among us as believers is failing to give a witness of Jesus Christ and His gospel to our coworkers, our relatives, our neighbors, and our friends.

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And we go, Lord, we pray like Paul did. Lord, I'm praying for an open door.

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And it's like, bro, you've been praying for an open door for 10 years. Open that door and share the gospel, right?

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That's the thing. That's the sin of omission. Get the gospel out.

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Life is a vapor. Get it to them. James is saying always do the right thing.

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So let's wrap this up, church. Let's put ourselves and our plans entirely at God's disposal.

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Let us hold not one bit back from surrendering all of our lives and each and every one of our days to Him.

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Retain no portion for yourself. May, if the

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Lord wills, be written across the whole of your life. Let the

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Lord wills be written across the whole of your life. Let it be the heart cry of your every day with your walk with Christ, if you will,

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Lord. My prayer is that the reality of God's sovereignty would be a relief to you today.

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You don't have to control all of this. You know that? You don't have to control it.

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I don't have to control it. But a perfectly righteous and benevolent and gracious God can and will control and uphold all of this.

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He will. And only He is equipped to do it. Only He can control this.

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My old pastor from Levine Baptist Church used to say that we are in God's hands and there we are preserved and He helps us persevere there and He protects us there.

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We are in God's hands. And he used to say, so that means that whenever God allows something to pass through those hands and touch you in His hands, that means that's the very best thing for you.

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That's His sovereignty in our lives. You are in His hands and what He allows to go through that hand to touch you is what

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He wants for you to bring you to completion in Christ. We must remember these truths in our short time here on earth before the resurrection.

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And Jesus, it reminds me, He gave the parable of the rich man in Luke 12. The rich man, his land was very productive.

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He tore down his barns and he built much larger ones to store all his grains from an abundant harvest.

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The rich man said to himself, soul, you have laid up many goods. You have laid up many goods for yourself and for many years to come.

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Therefore, soul, rest, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to that rich man,

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He said this, you fool, this very night your soul is required of you.

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Who now will own what you have prepared? Who will use what you've all stored away? This parable gets lived out day after day after day.

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It's good to work for retirement, but we never retire from the kingdom of God. There's many a men who store as much away as they can for their future.

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They finally retire at 65 and at 66, they're dead. The RV goes to the sun, it goes wherever.

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The vacation house goes to someone else. What are you doing with your time? What are you doing to serve the

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Lord? We don't retire from the Lord. The vapor is dissipating. The mist is evaporating.

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It's currently happening now. Hearing that, if you don't know Christ, the call of the gospel is to repent and believe.

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You are a mist, you will face your God one day. But if you do know

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Christ, take rest in that sovereignty and in His grace.

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Make your plans in such a way to honor your Lord. Do good when it is in your power to do it and boast in your weakness, not in any so -called strengths.

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Because like I said, when we close our eyes for the very last time upon this earth, it will be because of Christ that we can open them again in the presence of our

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God, amen? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the message.

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Please bless the message that went out. Again, Lord, I pray that it's something that resonates in us, that it transforms us.

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And your word is powerful to do that. Lord, let it be something that we remember.

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Your sovereignty, God, that this week, there will be many of us.

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We might get a flat tire. We might have something happen at home.

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We might get the call that we didn't wanna have. We might lose our jobs. We might have a situation happen with our children.

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We may get the call from our parents that someone is slowly passing away.

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Something always comes up. But God, help us to not be surprised. Help us to not be caught off guard.

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Help us, Lord, to give you the glory in our planning and to not be shocked, but to just trust you in what you're doing every single day.