Living Intentionally Under God’s Will
Notes
Transcript
Subject: Intentionality
Theme: Intentional Living
Thesis: Intentional living submits our plans to God’s will and faithfully does the good we know to do with the time we have.
Principle: God has not called us to control tomorrow. He has called us to trust Him with tomorrow and be faithful today.
As we have wrapped up summer we have been working through this series I have called Following God in Everyday Life.
The idea has been wisdom is not knowing the right answers, it is learning to live under God’s word and follow God’s king with every part of our lives.
We looked at a few proverbs that read as a father giving advice to his son.
Proverbs 3 showed us what it looks like to trust God with the path.
Proverbs 4 challenged us to pay attention to what is shaping our hearts and directing our steps.
Proverbs 6 pushed us to think carefully about how we steward what God has entrusted to us. Not just possessions but every part of and including our very lives.
A couple of weeks ago we looked at the first part of James 4 which took us to relationships and showed us that conflict often reveals something much deeper is going on in the heart.
Those are but a few passages that scratch the surface of this topic.
The whole Bible teaches us about walking with the Lord every day in a relationship with Him.
Those passages though specifically help us to see and remember though that God is God, and we are not.
We need His wisdom, direction, and grace.
This morning I want to wrap up this series with a passage that reminds us our God is sovereign over all things.
Lord willing (after this passage I am reminded of the necessity of that) we will begin in the book of Philippians.
But today James gives us a fitting place to end this series as we think about the way we live today and think about tomorrow.
Some of us are planners and have our whole year planned out.
Some of us don’t know what this afternoon will bring.
Most of us are probably somewhere in between.
James will help us to see today that intentional living does not mean becoming better at controlling our future, but rather living faithfully when we do not control it.
Intentional living submits our plans to God’s will and faithfully does the good we know to do with the time we have.
Because -
God has not called us to control tomorrow. He has called us to trust Him with tomorrow and be faithful today.
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.
1. Remember How Little You Control — vv. 13–14
1. Remember How Little You Control — vv. 13–14
James picks up and seems to almost change subjects.
While it seem very different, there is a common theme running through these verses and into chapter 5.
That theme is humility.
Humility in relationships in verses 1-12, humility regarding the future in these verses, and humility in waiting for God’s judgment in chapter 5.
These verses seek to apply the same principle as the previous section -humility and submission to God - now to what we are doing with today and what we are looking forward to.
James picks up with some ordinary thinking.
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”—
As we read these words we find confidence in a plan.
Someone who has mapped out for themselves the next year.
In reading these words we should see in the person that James is describing, and assumption that everything will go according to their plans.
This person is making a lot of presumptions.
We will go here, spend a year, trade, and make a profit.
There is a problem here.
These people are presuming that they are in charge.
Today or tomorrow - in control of time
We will go - in control of their movements
In to such and such a town - in control of their destinations
And spend a year there - in control of the duration of their work
and trade - in control of what they will do
and make a profit - in control of how successful they will be.
They think they are in control.
There is nothing wrong with having a plan.
The problem is the attitude behind the plan.
We will - we will - we will -
There's a certainty in those words.
There's an assumption that everything will go according to schedule.
The city will be there.
The opportunity will be there.
The profit will come.
And there's no room in that plan for interruption, for detour, for the unexpected hand of God.
“And James responds to this
14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
If we look a little bit ahead we can see what James calls this way of thinking -
Boasting in arrogance.
Proverbs makes the same point.
1 Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.
The truth is, we can pout something on the calendar, but we cannot guarantee that we will be there when the day arrives.
James immediately exposes the problem with this way of thinking.
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.
What is your life?
A mist.
That word mist is like your breath that you can see on a cool morning.
You exhale and it is gone.
That is a picture we all understand here.
James says though - that is your life.
The nature of life is that it is short, fragile, and not in our control.
Can you make that single breath last indefinitely on a cool morning?
No
Not that it is worthless, but James is pointing out the brevity of life in the grand scheme of eternity.
As the Psalms remind us - Ps 90:12
12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
A big part of our walking wisely in everyday life is remember that our days are numbered, and that we don’t know the number of our days.
And that should change how we plan.
We live in a culture that celebrates self-determination.
We're told to set goals, visualize success, and go after it.
And again, there's nothing wrong with planning.
But the moment we start believing that our plans are guaranteed—that we know what tomorrow holds—that's when we've crossed a line.
We can plan for retirement.
We can make plans for our children.
We can schedule trips, start projects, build businesses, and make ministry plans.
All wise things to do.
But we should hold all of them with an awareness that we are not sovereign over a single one of them.
Psalm 103 reminds us that
15 As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; 16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
There's a consistency across Scripture on this point: human life is brief, and the sooner we accept that, the wiser we live.
We don't stop planning because life is short.
We plan with open hands because life is short.
We hold our plans loosely because we know the One who holds our life.
Something practical we might do is to take a look at our calendars.
What do you have planned for the next week month, year.
Remember that these are plans and not promises.
Thank God for the ability to plan and ask Him for wisdom as you plan because every day written on our calendars belongs to Him before it ever belongs to us.
9 The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
Intentional living begins by remembering that making a plan is our responsibility; controlling tomorrow is not.
James expands on that contrast in the next verses.
2. Submit Your Plans to God’s Will — vv. 15–16
2. Submit Your Plans to God’s Will — vv. 15–16
15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
Do you see the contrast there between what was said and what ought to be said?
If we can’t control tomorrow, what do we do?
The phrase “if the Lord wills” is not meant to be a religious slogan that we tack onto every sentence.
James is describing a posture.
If the Lord wills, we will live.
James is addressing a central reality in this verse.
If the Lord wills.
Looking back to the earlier statement - if the Lord wills we will go, but what if the Lord wills that as you go, it is your time to go.
Some may think, well that sounds a little morbid - if you are thinking in our terms yes, but what is God’s plan and purpose.
Again, life is short, fragile, and we are not in control.
But life is totally in God’s control.
Every beat of our heart, every breath we take the Lord decides.
We are not our own, we are owned by the Lord.
He created you, he sustains you, He decided the day you were born and knows the day you will die or go to be with Him.
We ought to say that as a testimony to our lives.
If the Lord wills we will also do this or do that.
We may spend a year in a place, we may trade, we may make a profit or not.
God’s will will decide.
It’s not only our life that is in the hands of the Lord, it is our doings.
If you do this or that, God has willed it.
This is a powerful statement of God’s sovereignty.
To quote again
9 The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
That verse holds both truths together. We plan. God directs.
Paul uses the phrase if the Lord wills throughout the NT.
Paul uses it in 1 Corinthians 4:19
19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power.
He uses it again in 1 Corinthians 16:7
7 For I do not want to see you now just in passing. I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits.
When we read Paul’s letters we can see that he was a planner.
He had strategy.
He had vision.
But he held it all under the sovereignty of God.
He planned as if everything depended on him, and he prayed as if everything depended on God—because it does.
I know that is hard, especially with our rugged rural individualism.
We like to be in charge.
We like to feel like we're steering the ship.
But James is saying, "No, you're not the captain. God is. And intentional living means planning seriously while remaining genuinely submitted to Him."
If you don’t believe that and talk that way -
James says in verse 16 that you boast.
And boast in your arrogance.
Look what the people are saying again in verse 13.
There is nothing of submission to the Lord’s will in it.
It doesn’t take into account that life is a gift that doing this or that is a gift of God.
God governs life.
It is boasting in arrogance to believe other wise.
That word James uses for arrogance only occurs twice in the NT.
Here and John uses this word
16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and —is not from the Father but is from the world.
That word pride of life is the same word.
What is the pride of life?
I have my life, and I will do exactly with it as I please.
Nobody else decided what I will do with it, it is mine.
I decided by my will whether I live or what I do.
James recognizes this pride and what does he call it - read the end of verse 16 again.
16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
It can show up in subtle ways.
Saying, this is how my life is going to be -
This is what my kids will do -
This is how my career will progress -
This is what the next 5 years will look like.
Sometimes God says no.
But if we are going do do as verse 15 says, what does that look like?
It looks like planning your week and then praying over it.
It looks like setting goals and then saying, "God, if this is Your will, let it succeed.
And if it's not, give me the grace to accept that Your plan is better than mine."
It looks like holding your career, your finances, your relationships, and your future with open hands.
We don't always understand why God closes a door we were sure was supposed to open.
We don't always understand why a plan we thought was wise falls apart.
But faith accepts that without treating God as though He interrupted "our" life.
Because it was never our life to begin with.
It's His.
When it comes to God’s will we need to understand it in two ways.
James is expressing God’s sovereign will but that is the only way God’s will is expressed.
Look to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He had a plan.
He came to seek and save the lost.
He came to do the Father's will.
And in that garden, He prayed, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done."
Jesus submitted to the absolute sovereign will of God.
27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
Everything Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, the people of Israel did was to kill Jesus, and God willed it.
17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.
Sometimes God wills that His children suffer, and it is better to suffer if God happens to will it.
11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,
He works ALL thing is accordance with the counsel of His will.
35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”
Ok, but what about the things that God commands but people disobey?
These are God’s will of command.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Some people do the will of God and some don’t.
18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Do you give thanks in ALL circumstances?
It is the will of God for you after all.
No, we don’t.
God’s will of decree: shows God’s decision that something will certainly take place.
Jesus was murdered by crucifixion.
God’s will of command: is God’s expression to His creatures of what they ought to do.
This is the 10 commandments - thou shalt not murder.
God can will that a sin come to pass without Himself sinning.
He can command that people not murder and ordain that His son be murdered.
God is managing sin.
The Bible assumes that murders are responsible and that God is just in all His decisions.
This what we need to believe.
Suppose someone was abused as a child - someone might ask do you think that was the will of God.
We have to answer in two ways.
No - God commands love and hates abuse, especially of the helpless and weak.
God cares for the victim and there is justice to be exacted from the perpetrator.
But also yes.
There are countless ways he could have stopped it.
The abuser could have had a heart attack, or however many ways.
We might say, God decreed not to stop it.
That it happened in that sense, it was God’s will, but God has the omnipotent power to override all pain and sorrow and turn it to Good.
God decreed that His sone would be murdered, that we might have life.
How many people go through impossible situations and are able to help and even prevent it for others all as part of God’s will.
All are plans, all that has happened and all that happens in our lives ultimately must be humbly submitted before the Lord.
Intentional living means living faithfully under the sovereign will of God.
3. Be Faithful with What You Know Today — v. 17
3. Be Faithful with What You Know Today — v. 17
James ends this section by telling his readers that if you know what faithfulness requires, you are responsible to act on it.
17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
This fits the greater theme of the book.
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
James does not allow us to separate knowing from doing.
t is not enough to say, “I know God is sovereign.” “I know life is short.”
It is not enough to say, “I know I should forgive,” or “I know I should make that right,” or “I know I need to obey.”
Knowledge creates responsibility.
There is a very practical danger here.
How often do we use uncertainty as an excuse?
Perhaps saying, I don’t know what God wants me to do.
When in reality, we know exactly what He is asking us to do, but we haven’t done it yet.
It can be so easy to get caught up thinking about tomorrow and neglecting what is right in front of us today.
Worrying about what might happen next week, month, or year while ignoring a conversation we ought to have this afternoon.
If you know the right thing to do, and fail to do it, for him it is sin.
Jesus gives a similar picture in Luke 12 with the rich fool. The man is busy making bigger plans for the future, but he never reckons with God. His life ends that very night.
The point is not that planning was wrong.
The tragedy is that he planned for a future he did not own and failed to live rightly before God in the present.
It is like walking through your house carrying a clipboard full of remodeling plans while stepping around a broken pipe flooding the floor.
Knowledge without obedience is not humility.
It's rebellion wearing a spiritual mask.
Maybe someone here needs to apologize.
You know the relationship is strained, and you know the first step is yours.
Maybe someone needs to forgive.
You've been holding onto that hurt, and God has been nudging you to let it go.
Maybe someone needs to make the phone call they've been avoiding.
Maybe someone needs to begin the responsibility they have delayed.
Maybe someone needs to stop a known sin that they've been tolerating.
Maybe someone needs to serve the person God has put in front of them.
Maybe someone needs to obey something God has already made clear.
The future may be uncertain.
But present obedience often is not.
This is where the gospel comes in.
Because the truth is, we don't always do the good we know to do.
We fail. We hesitate.
We choose comfort over faithfulness.
But the good news is that Jesus Christ, who perfectly obeyed the Father's will in every moment, has given us His Spirit to empower us for obedience.
We don't obey to earn God's love.
We obey because we already have it.
Conclusion
Conclusion
James tells us three things in this short passage.
First, remember how little you control.
WE can make plans, but WE don't know tomorrow and our life is brief.
Hold your plans with open hands.
Second, make your plans under God's will.
Intentional living plans seriously while remaining genuinely submitted to the One who holds your life.
Third, do the good you know to do today.
Uncertainty about tomorrow is never an excuse for unfaithfulness today.
God has not called us to control tomorrow.
He has called us to trust Him with tomorrow and be faithful today.
That's intentional living.
That's what it looks like to walk with Him.
