What Is Your Life?

James 4:13–16 NASB95

13 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.” 14 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. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.

MEN today are just the same as when these words were first written. We still find people saying what they are going to do today, tomorrow, or in six months’ time, at the end of another year, and perhaps still farther. I have no doubt there are persons here who have their own career mapped out before them pretty distinctly, and they feel well-nigh certain that they will realize it all. We are like the men of the past, but this Book, though it has been written so long, might have been written yesterday, so exactly does it describe human nature as it is at the end of this nineteenth century.

But this passage really hits home, when we consider life itself. The question James forcefully poses is: “What is your life!” What is it! What is life!?

Do you have control over what happens today or tomorrow?

Do you have control over that car swerving into your lane?

Do you have control over the moon and the stars?

Or over whether or not you wake up the tomorrow morning?

What is your life!

James 4:14 “You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”

A vapor. A mist. A breath.

On a cold morning, you exhale, and there is is! It appears… “Yep, I see it!” … for a little time and then, VANISHES.

So what is the nature of this life?

#1 Short

#2 Fragile

What can be more fragile than a VAPOR thats in front of your face

#3 Not in your control

You have no control over making that breath that came out of your mouth, last!

The Problem:

The pride of man

“As it is, you boast in your arrogance.”

They said, “We will go, we will continue, we will buy, we will sell, we will get gain.

“Today or tomorrow” — They presume to be in charge of WHEN they will do things

“We will go” — They presume to be in control of their MOVEMENTS

“Into such and such a town” — They presume to be in control of their DESTINATIONS

“And spend a year there” — They presume to be in control of the DURATION of their work

“And trade” — They presume to be in control of WHAT they will do when they get there

“And make a profit” — They even presume to be in control of how SUCCESSFUL they will be

This entire way of talking is PRESUMPTION! They think they are in control. James calls that “boasting in your arrogance”

And the PROBLEM with presumption is written down in verse 4! “Yet you do not KNOW what tomorrow will bring!” We aren’t in control of what tomorrow brings, we do not KNOW what tomorrow brings!!

What did they say? Did they determine with each other, “We will today or tomorrow do such and such a thing for the glory of God, and for the extension of His kingdom”? Oh, no, there was not a word about God in it, from beginning to end!

From beginning to end it was earthly!

It is evident that to those men everything seemed certain. “We will go into such a city.” How did they know that they would ever get there? “We will buy and sell, and get gain.” Did they regulate the markets? Might there be no fall in prices? Oh, no! they looked upon the future as a dead certainty, and upon themselves as people who were sure to win, whatever might become of others. They also had the foolish idea that they were immortal. If they had been asked whether men might not die, they would have said, “Yes, of course all men must die some time or other,” for all men count all men mortal, but in their hearts they would have made an exception in their own case, if we may judge them by what we were apart from sovereign grace. “All men count all men mortal but themselves.” Without any saving clause, they said, “We will continue there a year.” How did they know that they would see a single quarter of that year through? But you must not press such men too closely with awkward questions. If you had done so, they would have said, “Do not talk about death, it makes one melancholy.”

#1 Life Is Short

Luke 12:16–21 (NASB95)

16 And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive.

17 “And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’

18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.

19 ‘And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.” ’

20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’

21 “So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

Psalm 90:10 “10 As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, Or if due to strength, eighty years, Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; For soon it is gone and we fly away.”

What has your life been?! Are you satisfied with it?

“God can have Sunday but the rest of the week is mine”

#2 Life is Fragile

Why, then, is it, that we are always counting upon what we are going to do? 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? Why do we choose to build upon clouds, and pile our palaces on vapor, to see them melt away, as aforetime they have often melted, 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?

#3 Life is Not in Your Control

James 4:15 “15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.””

How is it boasting?! Because its presumptuous! It has nothing of submission to the Lord’s will in it!

That greek word for boasting occurs one other time in the NT in 1 John 2:16 “16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.”

What is the PRIDE… of life?

Isn’t it? That I have my life? And I’ll do with it exactly as I please!

You and NOBODY else decides what I do with my life, it’s MY… LIFE!

You don’t decide whether i live Lord… I DECIDE.

You don’t decide whether I do this or that Lord… I DECIDE.

The Pride of Life. James sees it… and he calls it… “evil”

We are not God

We are not good. We are evil.

And we should therefore be, humble.

Humble… means I’m not God, Im not good, and I need a savior.

If God wills:

Acts 18:19–21 “19 They came to Ephesus, and he left them there. Now he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. 20 When they asked him to stay for a longer time, he did not consent, 21 but taking leave of them and saying, “I will return to you again if God wills,” he set sail from Ephesus.”

Finally:

Kill our pride! Put it to death. That we might be humble.

“But I know who holds tomorrow, and I know He holds my hand”

Oh that many would be lead to make that great preparation for the future that only Christians can enjoy.