Planning without Presuming

James 4:13-17

We all make plans… if we’re smart. Planning is considered a hallmark of wisdom. We’ve all heard the bromide that… “He who fails to plan – plans to fail.” And the Bible never condemns diligent or faithful planning. Christians should make plans and count the cost.

But at the same time, Christians are sustained and driven by another major premise. It’s the premise that God is sovereign over all things. He has a will and a purpose in all things. This truth runs through the whole Bible – like a golden thread connecting every event back to the hand of God. This thought strikes terror in the hearts of those who hate God; but it comforts and delights those who know and love God through faith in Jesus Christ.

The kind of planning that Scripture forbids is that which ignores the purpose of God in your life. In fact, anything you do that ignores God or cuts Him out of the picture is misconceived at best… and practical atheism at worst. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says “Whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” So whatever you do is to be done with God in mind. In the fourth chapter of James, this is especially true of planning for the daily details of life. Let’s look at the last five verses of James chapter four, beginning with verse 13. In honor of God and His Word, let’s stand for the reading of these verses.

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow, we shall 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 shall live and also do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17 Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin. [NASB]

[Prayer] I can almost hear two unspoken objections arising from our misunderstanding of this passage. The first objection is that the point is already too obvious to merit a thirty-five minute exposition that inevitably says: “remember God’s purpose in your planning”. This is bigger than that. We’ll defuse that argument up front in just a minute.

The second objection is that James appears to be urging us to micro-analyze our plans; that he would have us pray over seemingly inconsequential trivia in our daily plans (“Is it God’s will for me to go to the gas station before I go to the dry cleaners or vice-versa?”). But this is also a misunderstanding of the point. At stake is a less-than-obvious truth which is anything but trivial. In verses 13-14 James states the test of faith many believers are failing unaware…

I.          When you plan as if God doesn’t exist, you’re forgetting the sovereignty of God and the brevity of life (13-14).

The stinging relevance of these words becomes the more obvious when we realize that James is not addressing a gathering of atheistic businessmen! These words were written to professing Christians who worked the commercial trade routes. These were typically Jewish believers who traveled in order to do business. They attended the Christian gathering on Sunday but it was business as usual on Monday morning. They thought: “Church is church and business is business and never the twain shall meet.” To them, James says: “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.”

Nothing these men said was wrong. It was perfectly legitimate for them to plan for today or tomorrow. It was perfectly legitimate for them to plan to go to such and such a city. And there was nothing wrong with them setting a year aside to engage in business to make a profit. None of those things are wrong, in and of themselves. The sin in their thinking is in what they didn’t say. They left God out of the picture – as if He didn’t exist. And this has very little to do with using the phrase “If the Lord wills”. James is certainly not suggesting that if we’ll just remember to tack that little phrase onto the end of our itineraries, everything will be honoring to God. The fact is, if God is enthroned on your heart, He will be in your thoughts; and if He’s in your thoughts, He will be honored in your plans.

The businessmen in verses 13-14 allowed for no contingencies in their plans. They acted as if they were omniscient, omnipotent, and invulnerable. “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.” And James says, “You don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”

What a humbling thought for someone who plans as if he’s invincible. We may think we know what life will be like tomorrow, but we really don’t. Yet God knows exactly what will happen tomorrow – and He already has a purpose for it. This is another way of saying that God is sovereign. But the next phrase reminds these forgetful planners about the brevity of life: “You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then [puff] vanishes away.” This is a reference to the kind of vapor that appears from your breath on a cold winter morning. You see it for a second or two… and then it dissipates into the air. In the scope of eternity, that’s how long your life will be. It stresses the brevity of even the longest life. King David wrote in Psalm 39:5 – “Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing in Thy sight; Surely, every man at his best is a mere breath.”

I don’t think the Bible is criticizing anything inherent to good business conduct. In this instance, the businessman represents every Christian who lives by planning and earns by doing. Even Jesus told an ominous parable about a successful businessman in Luke 12:16…

Saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ 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. 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.”’ 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?’ So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

That’s a scary thought! There’s an old painting of this parable and in it, the artist shows a hooded specter overlooking the rich man and his table covered with gold coins. You can see the barn teeming with grain through the window in the background. The man is smiling in ignorance, but the specter (with scythe in hand) seems to have his lips pursed as if he’s saying the word “Fool!” The point in James is that when you plan as if God doesn’t exist, you’re forgetting the sovereignty of God and the brevity of life. Second…

II.        God’s will is more than just a caveat; it’s the underlying theme of a believer’s life (15).

Listen again to verse 15: “Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that.”

Before you can get to “doing this or that” tomorrow, first, you have to be able to live through the night! “If the Lord wills, we shall live…” That’s something the businessmen of vv. 13-14 omitted. Waking up tomorrow is not an absolute guarantee. Right now, there are about 410,000 people (out of more than 6-billion) alive on this planet who will not be alive by this time tomorrow! And most of them have no idea.

As I say that, my mind goes back to a Sunday school class where I was a guest teacher in about 1995. On the front row was a man, about 79 years old, in fairly good health by all appearances. The next day he went to work at the business he owned, he came home, and before he could get the key into his front door, he dropped dead on his front door step. His wife found him that way.

Another man, who was much younger and whose family was very close to mine, was the godly father of four, and the picture of health. He was playing basketball on the driveway with his youngest son one evening after work; he came inside afterward, dropped into his favorite chair, had a massive heart attack and died instantly. He was about 45 years old.

I don’t say these things to throw any of you into an emotional panic. My only intention is to remind you of the point that James is making in verse 15: “If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that.” We should prepare as if we might die today; and we should plan as if we might live for another 30 or 40 years. God’s will is more than just a caveat; it’s the underlying theme of a believer’s life. Third…

III.       Godless planning means arrogantly rejecting God’s will (16).

Verse 16 says, “But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.” This is spoken to those who have no thought of God from day to day. He has no place in all their plans. Although they know God exists and they know about God, this knowledge has no practical value to them. The word for boasting means “to be loud-mouthed” or “to speak loudly”. The word for arrogance comes from a word meaning “to wander about”. It once described charlatans who traveled around selling phony goods… like a side-show huckster. When taken together, these two words picture someone who brags pretentiously about something he doesn’t have and can’t obtain. It’s a picture of the arrogance of those who reject God’s revealed will.

One of the most wretched cases of domestic terrorism in recent American history was the, now infamous, Oklahoma City Bombing, carried out by Timothy McVey. McVey was convicted and executed for his crime. But before he was put to death, he quoted his godless creed of defiance, written by William Ernest Henley, entitled, “Invictus”, which most of us read in high school. It epitomizes the arrogance of those who know about God’s will only to reject it. It says:

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

To self-deceived boasters like Timothy McVey and all the rest, James says, “all such boasting is evil…” Evil is the same word often translated as “Satan”. To know of God’s will only to reject it, is to emulate Satan – and if such a heart is not transformed, they will likewise share in his fate. Verse 17 ends the chapter with a final sober warning… “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin.” Here’s the fourth and final point:

IV.       For believers, the most offensive sin is knowing God’s will only to disregard it (17).

To me, this seems to be the most perilous point in this passage. This speaks to people like us; people who have heard God’s Word and know what it means. We have a greater sense of right and wrong because our conscience has been informed by Scripture. When we know the right thing to do and choose not to do it… that is sin. The word translated “right” means good, morally excellent, honorable, and upright. To know with assurance the goodness and excellence of God’s will only to reject it is a frightening reality that undermines the strength and mission of the church. James says, don’t leave God’s sovereignty out of your thoughts and plans; and don’t disregard the good and perfect will of God. Then you can plan without presuming. Let’s pray…

(c) Charles Kevin Grant

May 19, 2006