James 4:13-17

Intro

Hey y’all, how is everyone?

Good good.

Quick question did anyone take me up on my homework challenge? to pray and read scripture for 2 mins every morning?

cool

let’s get in to it.

So question for you?

I want you to think back and tell me what you were doing on March 13th, 2020. It was a friday. where were you?

Okay, here is where I was.

I was living at 185 Atlanta Road, just around the corner here.

Standing in my living room, getting ready for DNow, we had Dnow that weekend.

And I remember getting a call from another youth pastor in town, hey DNow host church pulled out.

Covid happened.

And it was a wild day, we basically had made all these plan for the weekend, and the year really.

But we had to cancel DNow, I want to say Seniors y’all were 8th graders at the time, maybe? I’m not sure, but we had to cancel Dnow.

Eventually, it wasn’t just Dnow, it was church went online, we didn’t meet back in person on a Sunday until June which is crazy.

It was a wild time that really struck us off guard.

We had all these plans for the year, and we just didn’t get to do it.

And during that time, I gain a ton of on the job training on how to be a pastor in a crisis. Cause it was a crisis in the beginning and all of 202 was just wild.

But I think about that time when I read this passage.

So tonight we are going to be in James 4, still, there is just so much in James 4, but

we gonna be in just 4 verses, 13-17. if you need a bible there are some on the sides right here, if you’ll throw a hand up will y’all pass them one?

again if you need a bible, take this one home with you.

So james 4:13-17 is where we are gonna be,

And I want us to wrestle with a question that the text in explicitly asking,

What is your life?

Really what James is asking, have you ever given thought to the idea that your time on this earth is limited?

That you don’t actually know what tomorrow is going to bring.

On March 13th, i promise you I had no idea that I would be canceling a DNow, and stepping into a different world. None of us did.

So James 4:13-17, let read this passage and talk about it, but before we do that, let’s pray for our time in the word.

pray

Read this with me

James 4:13–17 ESV

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 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. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Context

Okay so,

Let remember where we have been,

james is a wisdom epistle.

it is giving wisdom advice.

It reads like proverbs.

Last week was about how do you grow spiritually

What does it look like in action to be spiritually formed

SO this theme kind of continues,

And what James is hitting on here is two things, Posture and Priorities.

The Priorities of your life matter but what matters even more is the Posture of your life.

So let’s go back to the question, what is your life?

What are the Priorities of your life and what is the posture of your life?

James here starts with a story,

Two buinessmen want to go make some money,

they’re going to go to this town for a year, invest, sell some stuff, do something, and then make some money.

Sounds like a plan.

But James calls them out on this, you want to go and do these things.

in verse 14 he says

James 4:14 ESV

14 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.

And this is some top tier imagery.

SO where are my hunters at,

What time do you get up to go shoot a deer? I know deer season is coming up. What time do you want to be in the woods?

early, full disclosure, i’ve never been hunting, if i’m getting up that early, I hope we are hunting waffle house waffles.

But, its before sun rise right?

SO you get to see the sun come up, and when the you’re in the weird sun is coming up but it’s still dark you can sometimes see the mist on the ground, it’s not quite dew, maybe not straight up fog, but its mist.

and it’s peaceful, and by the time you start to notice it. what happens to it?

it goes away, you don’t even really notice its gone till you feel the sun warm you up.

This is what James compares life to. It is short. It doesn’t last long compared to the rest of time, compared to eternity.

So here is the main thing I want you to take away.

This the main point,

Our lives are short, but have eternal significance.

So three things this I want you to think about.

All of us are gonna die one day.

God is sovereign over all things.

The Gospel demands urgency.

P1 - Memento Mori - How you spend your days is how you spend your life. Life is vapor

So the first, one All of us are gonna die one day.

I know all of us in here are young, even the adults,

So we may not think about this, when you are young, you think you are gonna live forever.

One of my favorite bands in one of there songs have this line,

we are only immortal, for a limited time.

There will come a time when you start to think about the fact that you are gonna die one day, and that’s okay,

But the sooner you start to realize this fact it changes your perspective of life.

One the things that Monks in the middle ages would do is they would have a skull on their desk,

On what that purpose was was to remind them that they were going to die one day.

They called it memento mori, remember death.

Remember that you are mortal.

James calls life a vapor.

So what is your life, in the grand scheme of things?

What James is doing when he speaks about the guy who wants to go and make some money, is saying, your life will mean nothing of eternal significance if that is the Priority of your life.

If your priority is to go and make the best way for yourself, then your life will ultimately not matter.

And we struggle at times for this, our whole society is set up to go and make something of yourself.

Like this is the american dream, go and make your way in this world, have a family, make as much money as you can, go and be comfortable, go and do these things.

And I’m not saying that you can’t go and try to do well in your life, and neither is James,

James is saying, Priorities matter, priorities set the tone of you life.

What you value day to day is what your life adds up to value.

SO remember that you are mortal.

Cause here is the tragedy,

The tragedy is being remembered here, but forgotten in eternity.

In Mark 10 we see this scene played out.

A rich young man comes to Jesus, and says I have kept the commandments, i’ve followed the law, how do i get eternal life?

and jesus replies with this,

Mark 10:21 ESV

21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

and the next verse is the reaction.

Mark 10:22 ESV

22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

What was the rich young rulers priorities?

Ultimately, it was his stuff, it was his possessions.

We remember the rich young ruler, but he is not known in eternity.

Our Priorities in life matter. James is calling this out,

saying watch yourself, you are all susceptible to this

P2 - What does it mean for God to be sovereign? Practically. The Lord Wills

Then in James verse 15 says this,

James 4:15 ESV

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

So this is where we get in to this idea of posture.

SO what do we mean by that?

Sometimes when we hear the word posture, we think how we are sitting, or standing, our what ever.

But when we say posture we mean like an attitude towards life,

a disposition towards how life works.

and notice here what James says, what should our posture be?

He says, If the Lord wills, we will live

Think about that. This means that God is in control

God is sovereign. Sovereign over all things.

So what does that mean practically? I’m not gonna deep dive the theological implications of it God’s sovereignty

but what does it mean for our life day to day?

It means the posture of our life needs to be one where we are submissive to the will of God first.

Last week, Submit to God, resist the devil.

This is the submit part, submit to God.

Submit to the reality that Christ is ruling and reigning on the throne.

SO what this should give us is a sense of rest, that thank goodness I’m not in control of everything.

If the Lord is going to will things, we need to seek what the Lord’s will is.

So how do we do that?

We do that though prayer through walking with Christ.

But we also do that through our posture.

Look at verse 18, James 4:16

James 4:16 ESV

16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

What is the posture of the business man?

Arrogance.

James is saying it is arrogant to assume that you get to do anything with your life that you want to merely because you want to.

So this gives us some insight on how we should live,

with a posture of humility before who God is.

Because remember, what is the question,

what is your life?

is your life marked with arrogance or humility?

P3 - Urgency with the gospel - Do what is right.

Then, last thing this text should give us it some urgency with the gospel.

We live in a broken world. That needs the good news.

Look at this last verse.

James 4:17 ESV

17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

What is the right thing to do?

easy, what has Christ called all of us to do?

What should be the priority and posture of our life?

To make disciples.

Matthew 28:19 ESV

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

To go and teach them to do all that christ commanded them, and to make disciples.

So what is your life?

your life should be to be a disciples who makes disciples.

That is it, if that is the priority of your life, if your posture in this life is that of humility, is that of a disciple.

Your life will matter in eternity.

This text is telling us, to go.

Come now, and go then.

Timeless Truth: Leverage your life to make disciples

Take the gospel in to a lost and dying culture.

When we talk about culture

A lot of the time we hear people talking about culture wars,

and that we need to fight culture wars, and that we need to win the culture back.

and all of that is all well and good,

but if you look around, you’ll see that the culture is lost.

We aren’t really fighting the culture war any more, we lost.

There was a time in Christian life where it was a beneficial thing to be a christian, not so much anymore, it usually doesn’t help to label yourself a christian in the broader world we live in.

SO what should we do?

WE shouldn’t set out to reclaim the culture,

but we should set out to create a new one.

Look at what the church does after the New Testament, or look at how Paul established new churches.

Roman Culture was not at all friendly to christianity, all of the disciples died awful deaths, except for john he died of old age, on an island after a fail execution, where they boiled him in oil, so like still not great.

But what did they do?

The early church lived counter culturally.

The Early church conquered the Roman Empire not by Christianizing Roman culture.

They did it through growing a completely different culture.

I heard a pastor recently say that the early church conquered Rome through their table, their bed, and their money.

Their tables were open to any and everyone, their beds were closed to everyone but the marriage union, and their money was spent on helping the most outcast and poor.

How to do we live where that is the posture, where our communities look different because we are all walking together following Jesus.

It starts right now by leveraging your live to make disciples.

This is what I want you to see, the church is a family, and it is made up though deep connections made through walking together following Jesus.

How can you take your calling, your talents, your passions, and leverage them to make disciples?

I think a lot of the time when we hear make disciples, we think, make converts.

but it’s more than that, disciples follow, disciples become.

So think through, what can I do in my life, that maximizes my ability to make disciples?

Truth for our context: Who is in your context that you know is gonna bust Hell wide open if they don’t hear the gospel. How will they hear if no one tel,s them?

Thats a long range plan, here is the short range, who are you around that you know needs to hear the gospel?

I know you have someone like that, I know you are probably friends with someone who need to hear the good news.

Start there, tell them about jesus and what he has done. Tell them who Jesus is.

P2Christ - Count the Cost

And for those of you in here who don’t know Jesus,

this text is asking you as well, what is your life?

What are your priorities?

What is the ultimate goal of your life? If it’s not following Jesus then you have nothing, everything in this life will fade away.

Here is the Gospel, Christ in your place. Took your sin, died and rose again.

The invite is to join the family, to come into the kingdom.

If you have an questions about what it means to follow jesus, come talk to me.

OCMe see Christ as Lord, come see christ as king. Y’all pray with me.