James 4:11-5:6
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Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
What is self-sufficiency?
1. Self-sufficiency is planning without God.
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”—
There is nothing wrong with making plans.
Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.
But planning without God is not wise. Most people feel that their destiny lies in their own hands, that they control their own future.
Self-sufficiency causes little trust in God. The great error: man acts as the supreme and ultimate end of life.
Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.
Questions:
What kind of plans do we tend to make without consulting God? What important truths does an attitude of self-sufficiency ignore?
2. Self-sufficiency is failure to recognize the uncertainty of life.
yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
Why is tomorrow uncertain?
Our minds and nature are limited.
Our lives are a vapor that only appears for a brief time and then vanishes.
What can one plan for?Eternity.
For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
When will you die?
Questions:
Why is it tempting to make our plans without God? How does the uncertainty of the future help you to see your need for God?
3. Self-sufficiency is failure to acknowledge God.
Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
What two things is man dependent upon God for?
Life - whether one lives and how one lives in the hand of God.
All that one does - man is not able to do what one plans unless God wills it. True of False?
In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
Questions:
Why are we truly dependent upon God for everything in life? How does this fact affect your life? How should it affect your life?
4. Self-sufficiency is boasting, bragging, & showing arrogance.
As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
What is boasting?
BŌASTING, ppr. Talking ostentatiously; glorying; vaunting.
BŌASTING, n. Ostentatious display of personal worth, or actions; a glorying or vaunting.
Someone talking ostentatiously about something he/she thinks they have, but does not really have.
Most boasting is not done by word of mouth but by the way we live, flaunting our abilities and successes through our possessions and activities. True or False?
Do I have a tendency to boast and to be seen and recognized as better or more successful than others?
Why is pride and arrogance evil?
Because man’s ability and life are due to God and rest in God’s hands.
Aesop’s Fables - The Fox and the Crow
One day a fox was walking through the woods when he spied a crow with a piece of cheese in its beak. The fox desperately wanted the cheese, so he began to try to irritate the crow saying, “What an ugly bird you are.” The fox thought to himself, “If the crow responds to me with an insult, she will drop the cheese and I will have it for my supper.” But the crow was intent on saving the cheese for her young and paid no attention whatever to the fox. Then the fox tried a different approach. He said to the crow, “Oh, but what a beautiful singing voice you have. Of all the birds I have ever heard, truly you are the greatest. If only I could hear one beautiful note.” As the fox continued, the crow swelled with pride. Quickly, the crow opened her mouth, let out a squawk, dropping the cheese to the hungry fox below.
Questions:
What situations tempt you to speak boastfully? How can you steer away from these situations? How does acknowledging one’s dependence upon God keep one from prideful boasting?
5. Self-sufficiency is sin.
So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
What is the sin above?
Omission - when we know the good one should do and refuse to do it.
And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
This is the whole philosophy of humanism, the boast that man is the ultimate being in control of his life and fate.
Questions:
What happens when we hear the Word of God but do not do it? Why is not doing something a sin? How can one become more aware of the sin of omission?