What are We Planning

Introduction

Good evening and welcome to the stream tonight.

Instead of doing just a livestream, I wanted to do this in zoom so that we can see each other and interact with each other in real time and not through just a chat.

Of course if you want to interact through chat that is fine but feel free to unmute and speak up at any time.

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Over the course of the last several weeks the Adult Bible Study has been focused on 1 Chronicles and the Youth Bible Study has been focused on Revelation and learning about Cults.

And because we are so far in both of those studies I didn’t want to just push forward with one or the other because 1 Chronicles involves a lot of reading and we use a lot of video resources in the Cults class.

If you want to get in on those though feel free to join us any Wednesday night.

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However the Lord did move me in the direction of planning and how we are always planning, particularly now in the new year with all of our resolutions and such.

And He led me to James 4, toward the end of the chapter.

And if you are familiar with the Book of James, up to this point, James has been talking a great deal about the spiritual aspects of our life in Christ and has been challenging us to rise above our natural affections and natural ways and to “put on Christ” as Paul would say.

And while every aspect of our life in Christ does or at least SHOULD HAVE the spiritual foundation in the Holy Spirit, there is also a very practical way in which we should be applying all of the spiritual principals that we talk about week in and week out.

And honestly, it is readily manifest in how we carry out our everyday lives and how we interact with one another and with society around us as a whole.

And this is what James is going to get to with our passage this this evening, our daily interactions, and more specifically, our daily plans that we carry out in our everyday lives.

So, without spending too much more time, let’s get right into it.

Starting in James 4:13, he writes this . . .

Scripture Focus

James 4:13–17 NRSV

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.

Today or Tomorrow (vs 13-17)

So, right off the bat we see here that James is getting into the nitty gritty of our everyday lives.

But before we get into it, I do want to back up really quickly to verse 12 in which he says ....

James 4:12 NRSV

There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?

And the key point here was the question, who are you to judge your neighbor?

So, why do you think that James gets into this idea of it not being our place to pass judgement on others before he starts talking about our daily plans?

And I know without reading the whole thing, it can be tricky but it boils down to two things:

#1, we have no idea what others are going through.

#2, we probably ought to mind our own business sometimes.

And I mean that with all love in sincerity, but instead of comparing and contrasting our own sin to others and trying to lift ourselves up by pointing out what others are doing (or not doing) we should be more concerned with the health of our own relationship with God.

We should be listening to what the Holy Spirit is putting on our hearts and telling us that we need to be changing.

And then we can serve as an example to others and help them along their path.

And I point that out because that is one thing that Satan uses to routinely drag us away from God.

And another, and even more subtle thing that Satan uses is our unsatisfied need for busyness.

We are a people who have to stay busy and who have to be doing something all the time.

That is our nature and how society has conditioned us to be.

And I know I have talked and joked about our attitudes in the drive thru or Walmart checkout, but the reality is we adopt those bad attitudes for one reason—we are busy.

We are busy and we want to move on to the next task, to get as much done as we can.

And that person or that slow down that “holds us up” annoys us and we don’t like it.

We want things “our way, right away” and when that doesn’t happen we become annoyed.

And one of the reasons we become annoyed is because we have planned our day and sometimes our week out and things that get in the way of our plans really get on our nerves.

And I will readily admit and confessed, I am probably one of the worlds worst at this.

I am the type of person that I like to make lists and plan things out.

I am not a very spontaneous person.

I want to weigh the pros and cons of everything and find the most efficient path.

Which sometimes is a good thing, but sometimes is not.

And here we find that James has something to say to us about that.

And he is leading into our passage by reminding us that we need to chill out.

We don’t know what others are going through and why they do the things they do sometimes.

And we don’t know what has just happened in their lives that is “slowing us down.”

And our need for busyness and need to move forward, causes us to miss how many opportunities to share Christ with others?

So, this is where he starts to get into our passage.

Again, starting in verse 13, he writes this . . .

James 4:13 NRSV

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.”

Now, is there anything wrong with planning for our future?

No, but when that planning rules our lives, it tends to drive our decisions, rather than our decisions being driven by the Holy Spirit.

We get stuck in how we think things should go in our lives and not slow down and hear the Holy Spirit.

And this is important, because I have learned that sometimes what the Holy Spirit is saying doesn’t make the most “financial” or “logical sense” in our minds.

It goes against what the world says we should be doing, and we are confronted with a choice, either listen to God or listen to the world.

But our nature tells us to plan, plan, and plan some more.

Go here and go there.

Enter into this business arrangement or that business arrangement.

Work at this job or that job.

Do this, do that.

And it goes on and on and on.

And sometimes the draw is so great that we ignore what God is actually telling us and advising us that we should be doing.

We get so busy making so many plans for next week, next month, next year, 20 years from now that we forget to look at today and what our plans should be for today.

When was the last time we woke up and said, “Lord what are we doing today,” with no agenda?

What would it be like if we did that every once in a while?

But honestly, why don’t we?

Fear of not being in control—that’s why.

James goes on and tells us . . .

James 4:14 NRSV

Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

And James is echoing the words of Jesus Christ here.

Remember Jesus tells us this in Matthew 6 . . .

Matthew 6:25–34 NRSV

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Think about that.

How much of our time is wasted worrying about things that we have no control over?

How much time do we spend worrying about this dollar or that dollar?

How much time do we spend thinking about tomorrow when today is laid right in front of us?

Instead, we should be . . .

Matthew 6:33 NRSV

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Seek God’s will and God’s way, and honestly the rest will work itself out.

We read it, but do we believe it?

And as James points out to us we don’t even know what will happen tomorrow.

I will venture a guess and say, we don’t even know what’s going to happen 1 hour from now, much less tomorrow.

I will give you an example.

The other day I was sitting on the couch when out of the blue one of my old co-workers texted me and told me that another one of our co-workers had died.

She was my age and had no known health issues, had not been sick, and just spent Christmas with her 18 year old daughter.

And they think she had a heart attack.

We never know when our end here will actually be.

And also, the entirety of our life here on earth, compared to eternity is nothing more than a mist, a vapor, a flash in the pan, passing by so quickly that what seems like a lifetime to us is a moment in God’s time.

So, the question begs, why are we spending this short, precious amount of time we have here worried about things that haven’t even happened yet?

Why are we so concerned about tomorrow, that we are completely ignoring the day and the opportunity that God has put right in front of us right now, right here today in this place?

Think about all the things you have been thinking about today. What are some of them?

One thing I bet has crossed all our minds is, “here is so much to do, so much on your plate, that it was debatable in your mind whether to come or not.

I’ll even admit it. I had a busy day and Ryan was asking me about the lesson and one of my responses was “I don’t want to spend two hours on zoom after spending all day on the computer.”

I didn’t mean anything by it but the Lord had to slow me down today.

And listen, I realize myself how busy life is and I realize that people have a lot going on, but that also serves as an excellent illustration of how Satan uses the busyness of the world to distract us and pull us away from God.

Because when we really break it down, how much time do we really give to God?

And some will say, “quite a bit of time,” but is it really?

Compared to the time we spend doing other things Monday-Saturday, is it really a lot of time?

But Satan will sure distract us and try to tell us it is.

And even when we are in the Church where we are away from the rest of the world and focused on God, we are completely distracted by the other things we think we should be doing.

And when we are so distracted, how much can we really concentrate on what God wants to tell us?

See how it all cascades?

James though, offers us an alternative.

He says this . . .

James 4:15 NRSV

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

Notice here James isn’t saying “don’t make any plans” or “don’t plan for the future.”

James is saying, “don’t write you plans in stone, so that they cannot be changed.”

He is saying, go ahead and make you plans, but be open to God changing them.

And when God changes them, listen to what God says and respond to what God says.

Instead of saying “Lord, these are my plans, let them happen,” say “Lord, this is what I think, tell me the direction you want me to go.”

And it really boils down to being flexible and open to God.

Being in tune with the Holy Spirit.

Allowing God to be the author and director of our lives.

And that all sounds great, but what stops us?

And lastly with this point, James says this . . .

James 4:16–17 NRSV

As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.

And we hear verse 17 all the time when we talk about the “sin of omission,” but I wan to know what that really means to you all.

In your life what does that mean?

Do we actually believe it?

If so, why do we still do it?

Also, what is he getting at with regard to our “boasting in our arrogance?”

For us I think it is that we make plans and do things apart from God, many times in attempts to make money so that we can acquire things that we think will make us happy.

But deep down, we do this so that we can brag about what we have.

To make ourselves “feel good” about having stuff that other’s can’t have.

To us it is a jewel in our crown that shows our achievements.

It could be houses, cars, boats, electronics, clothes, you name it.

There are a multitude of things that we will use to strut around like a proud rooster.

But James clearly tells us that this boasting is evil, or “sin.”

And many times it stands in the way of us actually doing to the good we are called to do.

We are supposed to be lifting each other up, and if we refuse to do it, or rather lift ourselves up, we are sinning.

And this also gets into what I call the “humble-brag.”

Who knows what I’m talking about?

It is when you say something or do something that you think sounds humble or selfless but in reality you are just trying to draw attention to how great or spiritual you are and how God is using you so much.

Anybody have any examples they can think of?

Here’s what the Word says about that behavior.

Matthew 6:1–4 NRSV

“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

And ....

Proverbs 6:16–19 NRSV

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family.

And I want to point out that the following has to do with a proud heart:

haughty eyes

heart that devises wicked plans

a lying witness

one who sows discord

And the others have an indirect link because of how they poison the heart and causes you to do and say things to “protect yourself,” in the eyes of others.

And I will say this—if you encounter a “Christian” and I’m using air quotes, that is arrogant (regardless of their role in the church)—RUN, because it is all about them and NONE about God.

Closing

Anything else we want to discuss before we dismiss?

Let’s pray .