Untitled Sermon (1)

Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

0 ratings

· 2 views

Notes

Transcript

Introduction

I want you to picture me about 7 years ago. Pretty much the same, with less chubs. 7 years ago I am about to graduate from college and I have a sweet plan for the future.

My wife can tell you, I am a bit of a dreamer. Not just a day-dreamer when she’s trying to talk to me, but I love to dream about the future, to plan it all out. I still do this now, but I did it a lot when I was younger, especially when we were dating and first married.

And I had a sweet plan. I was at UCI getting my BS in Computer Science. Step 1. I got married while a student there. That was Step Awesome. That’s a totally separate plan. I digress.

So Step 2, was Graduate School. I was going to get my PHD in Artificial Intelligence. Because I was really interested in the field and did some work in it in my undergrad, because there were great job opportunities in the field, especially in the gaming industry, and because it was just plain cool. Dr. AI, they could call me.

So Step 2, Grad school. Step 3, awesome job, probably developing AI for video games. Step 4, giant dream house, which I practically had blueprints for. Step 5-24 involved cars, more and more educational degrees, early retirement, 8 kids, and other cool stuff until I run out of steps.

I had some sweet plans for the future, and confidence (I know would say arrogance) that I could pull it all off.

So, anyways, I was on step 2. I was going to make this happen. And I wasn’t going to just any grad school. No, it had to be Stanford or MIT, the two top AI programs in the country. I had my BS from UCI. I hit up my favorite professors for their, hopefully, glowing reviews. I took all the tests I needed and I sat down to write my admission paper.

You guys know the kind of paper. They all basically ask: “Why do you want to attend here and why should we let you in?” You know that kind of paper, you had to write one when you applied here.

I sat down and wrote one of those papers. I had no idea that that paper would change the course of my whole future.

We will see why in today’s text. James 4:13-17.

We will see that James is not saying that planning for the future is wrong, but there is a right way and a wrong way: a right attitude and a wrong attitude. We will learn how Christians should plan for the future.

Text

James 4:13-17

4.13. Come now, those who say “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and work there for a year and we will do business and we will profit.” 14. You, who do not know about tomorrow, of what sort your life will be. Indeed, you are mist, appearing for a little while, and then disappearing. 15. Instead, you should say “If the Lord wills then we will both live and do this or that.” 16. But now you boast about your baseless pretensions. All such boasting is evil. 17. Therefore, after a person has known to do good and has not done it, this is then sin to that person.

Put no confidence in the future

Explain text

Come now those who say,

See, James is picking out a new audience here, and it is the ones who are saying this. Of course, James isn’t really concerned with the words they are speaking, as we will see later, but the attitude that their words are conveying.

“Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and work there for a year and we will do business and we will profit.”

It’s no spreadsheet, and there is no PowerPoint demonstration here, but it is pretty clear what this is. A business plan. We’re going to make a trip over here-abouts, set up shop, and make the sweet, sweet money! Very familiar. And these guys are confident. They’re not talking possibilities here. As you know, the Greek is great at picking out that sort of nuance. Instead, it is we will go here… we will set up do business… and we will profit. It’s a sure thing!

James is either annoyed or having a bit of fun with them. Continuing in verse 14,

You, who do not know about tomorrow, of what sort your life will be.

You can’t have that sort of confidence! You’ve got no clue! You don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, what your life will be like, if you’ll even be alive! You’ve got no idea! In fact…

you are mist, he continues, appearing for a little while, and then disappearing.

You are here today then (poof), you’re gone. Ooh, look at you with your fancy plans, your confidence in the future. Poof, you’re mist!

We see then, that it isn’t about the words but the attitude, skipping down to verse 16.

But now you boast about your baseless pretensions. All such boasting is evil.

What was behind those words? Arrogance. Not only boasting, but boasting about boasting. What are they boasting about? I think they’re proud of their plans; but even the plans themselves are a boast of sorts. What do we say of the person who says, “I will go and make 20% profit on my money in the stock market in 1 year!”

He’s a confident fella. That’s quite a boast, yes? Either that, or he’s a fool. Well, James is leaning more towards fool. You boast about baseless pretensions. Just as he said above, you can’t know the future, you can’t put confidence in the future, you have no clue! But you boast in your own self-assurance, self-confidence, you boast about your pretensions, and all such boasting is evil! Wicked! Useless!

Illustrate

We don’t have to look further than recent headlines to see this in action. Over the past year, the most brilliant business people in the world, people paid millions of dollars a year for their ability to predict the financial future, have lost millions even billions, cast our economy into the worst recession in decades, and, as far as I can tell, have no real clue what to do next.

You guys probably remember the Bear Sterns Companies, Incorporated. One of the largest, most-admired investment banks in the world, around for almost one-hundred years. Employing more than 15,000 people worldwide, some of them brilliant, gifted, cream-of-the-crop business people. Brilliant minds. Collapsed last month under the sudden weight of its bad-predictions-of-the-future, it’s bad debts and bad investments, and was sold for pennies on the dollar. They made their confident plans for the future, but were shown to be fools. They put their confidence in the future, though they were but mist.

Apply

Yet I do this constantly. Continually. I make plans for the future with the same arrogant confidence. Honestly, I put a lot of confidence in the future. I will work at this software startup, I will profit, make tons of money, and retire at 35! Nice plan, yeah?

I told you my story earlier, my plan for success. I will graduate from UCI, go get my PHD from Stanford or MIT in Artificial Intelligence. I will build the house, have the family, have the life. I will go to such and such a city, I’ll stay there a year, I will do business, and I will profit!

Yes sir, James is talking to me. Perhaps he’s speaking to you as well. You’ve got plans for the future, I know. You’ve got dreams, you have got visions of what tomorrow looks like.

Put your confidence in the Father

Let me be clear. James is not saying that planning is wrong. I will say it again. James is not saying that making plans for the future is wrong, evil, or useless. What is he saying, then? That there is a wrong attitude: that of arrogant self-dependence, putting confidence in the future.

But there is also a right attitude: that of submission to the Lord’s will, confidence in the Father. So what is the right attitude? Verse 15:

Instead, you should say “If the Lord wills then we will both live and do this or that.”

Explain text

That’s it. All we have to do is say that right before making our plans and all is well. Right?

Not so much. Just as before, it is not the words but the attitude James is after. When making plans we are to have an attitude that says “If God wills.” This is an attitude that submits every plan, every hope, every dream to the will of the Lord. It puts no confidence in the future, it puts all confidence in the Father.

Look what is submitted to the will of the Lord. The plan for the future, yes. And this “we will do this or that” is a pretty clear reference to the plans of verse 1. More than just the plan, life itself is conditional upon the will of God. If God wills, we will live!

It’s true right. We know that. But we don’t usually live that. We count on tomorrow. We make our social, school, church and work plans, always assuming we’ll be alive tomorrow. Of course, it’s been true every other time.

But we are mist! Appearing for a little while then, poof, disappearing.

Therefore, we are to have an attitude that submits every plan and life itself to the will of the Lord. Putting no confidence in the future, but every confidence in the Father.

Illustrate

Allow me to illustrate. :D

We had a company meeting last week. We are laying out all the details for a particular software project. What features it needs to have, what the customer wants, what priority we will assign all the different aspects of the project, how long each piece is going to take, how long then before we have the software ready for testing, and eventual delivery to the client. We have a lot of decisions to make.

The thing is, the big boss, my CEO, Barrington, wasn’t there. We pressed on, making our plans, but our plans were contingent, conditional upon the will of the big boss. Throughout the meeting, our notes all looked something like:

Ask Barrington if he wants to redo the user-interface…Check with Barrington on delivery datesFinal feature set awaiting Barrington’s approval

I think you see where I’m going here. If Barrington wills, we will do this or that. Fortunately, it wasn’t: “If Barrington wills, we will live…” He doesn’t have that kind of power. But in our company, he is the final word on what is going to happen.

And how did we know what he wanted? Well, in many cases, in most cases, there was standard policy. What could be called the standard policy of the company, the written Word of Barrington, if you will. We could consult that and know the general guidelines of what he wanted.

In many cases, we had gotten perhaps more specific than the standard guidelines really laid out. So we did something crazy. We asked him. We sent him an email, left a message on his phone, and waited for his reply.

If we don’t hear from him before we have to get started, we use our best judgment within the guidelines he’s given us. But we are aware at all times, listening if he tells us to do something different, to change directions.

In the same way, we seek out God’s will. We look in His word, making sure our plans line up. We ask Him what His will is, waiting and expecting a real answer. And we press forward with our plans, but ready, at any instant, if we hear different from Him, to change our direction.

Apply

James tells us, put no confidence in the future, put your confidence in the Father.

Let me say it again. Christians should not plan for the future with arrogant self-dependence, as if God did not exist, or as if they knew the future, instead, they should plan in submission to His will, depending upon Him for life and action.

Let me say it yet again. Put no confidence in the future. Put your confidence in the Father.

So I am to say, if God wills, I will live and do.

This changes both the way in which we plan and the content of the plans. It changes are attitudes and, we may often find, it changes what we have planned, as we seek and discover what the will of God really is.

This is what changed my direction, those many years ago. I sat down to write that paper and I knocked it out. I wrote a great paper, I don’t mind telling you. Then, something, someone (wink, wink) nudged me, go back and read it again. So I did.

The paper said all the reasons why I could and would excel in their program.

The paper said all the reasons why I wanted to be in their program, why I was excited and motivated.

The paper said all the reasons why I would be such a great asset for their school, why they would want me to be a student there.

The paper did not say that I felt this was where God wanted me to be.

Now I thought, well, it doesn’t really belong in an admission paper to a secular school, now does it? But that wasn’t what bothered me. The paper didn’t say it, because I wasn’t sure I could write it. I wasn’t really sure that this was God’s will for me. And after weeks, months, of prayerful consideration, talking with my wife and family, I came to the conclusion that it really wasn’t where God wanted me.

Those applications never went out. I still have all those recommendations from professors and test results in a box at home. Instead, I found myself applying to seminary, still resistant to the idea of being a pastor, but ready and willing to follow where God was leading me.

If God wills, I said, I will live and I will do this or that. In that instance, I turned, I stopped putting confidence in the future and put my confidence in the Father.

This is no minor thing, really. James makes that clear at the end of our passage. Verse 17:

Therefore, after a person has known to do good and has not done it, this is then sin to that person.

This is not optional. This is a matter of sin, which means, as James says earlier in chapter 1, it is a matter of life and death. Sin gives birth to death. This reads as a general proverb, but James is clearly using it as a summation of his argument here. The good we are to do is to put our confidence in the Father, to submit our lives and actions to His will.

So now you know! You are now, if you weren’t before, the person who has known to do good. You now know to put your confidence in the Father, not in the future. To do less is sin. This is serious.

Conclusion

Every one of us has put our confidence in the future, I know. We are human beings, and human beings want to feel secure. They want to know that tomorrow is going to be better than today. They want to make tomorrow better than today.

And we want to stand proud and say that “I did it!” Especially in the West where we put great emphasis on individualism, independence, we want to say “I will do it, and I will do it alone!” We want the American Dream: we will go to Denver, Colorado, we will stay there for awhile, we will do business and we will profit. We will make a better tomorrow. But we can put no confidence in the future. We are mist, vapor. We “poof” disappear.

But we have a God who cares, a Father who cares more about our future than we do. And our future is safe in His hands. We put no trust in the future, we trust in the Father who has and holds the future.

He is a God who longs to bless His people. He is a Father who has the wisdom to know what His children really need.

He is a God who has a more preferable future in store for us. Though the road may be rocky, though it dip through valleys, though it be unpaved and windy, though it be difficult… we follow Him, we follow the will of the Lord.

We look to Him, we submit to Him, our very life and our every action.

We put no confidence in the future, we put our confidence in the Father.

I think sometimes we do really well at this. We are used to it. We say, if God wills, we will be in a new church building next year. If God wills we will grow as a church, each of us will grow as Christians.

As we move out of the church-sphere, out of what we think of as religious life, that gets harder.

Is my confidence in the financial future confidence in the Lord, or is it confidence in my plans, my emergency savings fund, my retirement investments? Am I secure in tomorrow because I trust in the Lord, or because I have good job-security, good insurance, because I’ve made good plans.

Those things are all fine, those plans can be great, good stewardship… but our trust is only in the Lord. Our plans are dependent, contingent upon His will.

We’ve been talking about contentment for the last few weeks. I think there’s a connection here. We plan for the future, we desire for the future, and that is part of our discontent. We do not have what we wish for, what we plan towards. In submitting those plans to the will of God, in ceasing to trust in those plans, to trust in the future, in the future that we have pictured and desired, we can find contentment. We trust. We trust in the Father who is faithful. We are content to live and do as He wills. We are content because we know that the path He is for us is filled with blessing and so much more rewarding.

Just think, I could have my degree from Stanford and be living on pizza and soda working 80-90 hours a week making video games to rot the minds of the young. Instead, I am here, surrounded by a family and a church family that I love and that love me, and I get the incredible privilege of serving in a way that enriches hearts, minds and souls.

I am more than content. I am humbled and incredibly blessed by that to be here.

Let’s pray. If you will, Lord, we will live and do. Help us Lord, to put no confidence in the future, to put all of our confidence in You, our Father. Let it be more than a saying. More than lip-service, more than a nod towards heaven as we go about our day. Let it be true submission to Your will. True expectation that You will guide us. Let us put no confidence in the future, let our confidence be in the Father.