Plan for a better tomorrow, tomorrow

James 4:13-17

Big Idea:

Hold no trust in Tomorrow, only trust Who holds tomorrow.

Plan: but whole those plans loosely: our life and action are in His hands.

Exegetical idea

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

Foolproof plan for profit

I know why you are all here this morning. You want practical business advice. You want to know how to make a better tomorrow, tomorrow. I am going to give you a foolproof business plan. Well, I am going to give you 2/3rds of the plan, it just leaves a little room for creativity on your part. Sound good?

Give me all your moneys

???

Profit

You figure out step 2. With or without step 2, it’s a foolproof plan for me to profit.

We all want to be successful, we all want good things for ourselves, and we all plan to varying degrees to make that happen. It turns out God is interested in not only the things we end up doing, but in the things that we plan and the way that we plan for the future.

As we read James 4:13-17, some of you who have been here for a few years may hear some familiar notes. I preached on this very same passage 4 years ago. But it turns out Scripture always has new things to teach us...

James 4:13-17

13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

Entrepreneurial Spirit and functional atheism

Diving into verse 13:

13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”

James is changing audiences and now addressing some would-be entrepreneurs, some people planning on traveling and setting up a business. This is a very rough business plan.

Travel to this or that city for a year

carry on "business"

Profit

This sounds like our American Dream and, indeed, this kind of thing was breaking out all over in the Roman Empire as people had enough peace and security that they could start to think about prosperity. They could begin to plan and dream for tomorrow.

So far, nothing wrong. James is addressing people making a plan. But once again we see James picking up on speech that reveals the underlying condition of the heart. In this case they way that they are planning reveals a boastful arrogance:

Verse 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.

The kind of planning James is picking out, then, is an overconfident and arrogant planning. In fact, the Greek language is great at conveying nuances in how confident you are something in the future is going to happen. They are tenses for probably going to happen, unlikely possibility, none of those are you used here. It reads in Greek like accomplished fact, the same way you would speak about what happened yesterday.

Our giant blind-spot – anything after Now

Unfortunately it turns out human beings have a giant blind-spot. We are no better than a weatherman in Denver at predicting what is going to happen tomorrow. We don't truly know anything about what happens right past... Now.

Verse 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

You are like a mist "poof" that vanishes. This echoes the Teacher's words in Ecclesiastes "Meaningless, meaningless... some translations use this same Greek word that shows up here: "Mist, mist, everything is mist."

It turns out we are temporary, temporal, limited, finite creatures. I hope I am not shocking anyone with new information. We don't know what tomorrow really holds. To plan for tomorrow as if we can control every detail, as if we own tomorrow, is ludicrous arrogance.

And God cares about what we intend to do, not just what we actually do. He cares about the way we intend and plan for our future.

How we think about and plan for the future reveals the orientation of our heart to His Lordship.

Just think about this. What is it to say that my hopes and dreams are in tomorrow, and I am placing all of my confidence in Tomorrow? What is that? And what is it to say that Tomorrow is what I plan and what I make it to be no matter what anyone else may say?

It is functional atheism.

The way I plan for the future reveals the orientation of my heart to His Lordship. If I plan without consideration of God and His will, I have left Him out of my future.

The right stuff: If the Lord wills

The correct attitude is this:

Verse 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

The simple reality is captured at the end of verse 15. It is only by the Lord's will that we "do this or that."

Our every action and very life are contingent upon His will.

"If it is the Lord's will..." Now that isn't a magic phrase, is it? I can't just tack that on the front page of my business plan. This is again speech revealing the heart: I actually submit my will, plan, life to the Lord's will.

So we still make plans, but the way in which we make them, the confidence with which we hold them, changes. We hold those plans loosely because we know they depend upon the will of another.

Lunch... if Anna wills

Now I think we know what this feels like to make plans that are contingent. Many weeks, after church, we will make plans for lunch. Someone will ask me, "do you want to go to Chick Filet for lunch?" Now I look around. Why? Odds are good Anna already has some plan or is over there making plans with someone else, so whatever plan I make now will contingent. Subject to being overruled. So I make plans lightly... I say "If Anna wills, we go to such and such a place and eat and profit."

(In all other aspects of life and marriage, my will reigns supreme).

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

That's a mouthful, so perhaps we can remember this:

Hold no trust in Tomorrow, only trust Who holds tomorrow.

Letting go of tomorrow: for profit or loss

This is one lesson I believe God has really walked me through in my adult life.

PHD California AI Game Developer vs. Pastor Dusty

When I graduated with my bachelor's in Computer Science I had a plan all laid out. I had a list of grad-schools I was applying to and applications on the way. From a PHD program, I then wanted to program do AI programming for video games.

In one dangerous moment, writing application essays, I asked this dangerous question: "Does the Lord will this?" and everything changed.

I loved this phrase from our study in Experiencing God: “If you have bigger/better plans than what I am asking for, please consider my request canceled.”

God called me to seminary, God called me to Colorado, God called me to serve Next Step Christian Church… and I would sacrifice the dream I dreamed, the Tomorrow I had planned, for the reality I am now living 1000 times over.

As an extra goody, for those who have heard that story before, you might not know this part. In the last year, my other job as a Software Engineer, I have been developing video game AI (and other stuff) to teach Decision Making to Marines. We call that: Living the dream.

Ironman vs. Quasimodo

Now that isn’t always to say the unexpected tomorrow is better than what you have planned. In the long run, maybe the eternal long run, it absolutely is; in the short term it can just feel like life falling apart. Like the death of a dream.

But it is all the more shocking, it is all the more destructive, it is shattering when you have bet all on your Plan for Tomorrow. You held onto it so tightly, that when it was pulled out of your fingers, you feel like you lost your hand.

It doesn’t mean that tomorrow is always fun. I will tell you about my plans for tomorrow for the last several months. Many of you know and have seen me limping around like Quasimodo, that I have a massively herniated disc that causes shooting pain down my left leg: mostly all the time. My “plan for tomorrow” has been that it would go away. God would heal it, it would turn out to be nothing, some trick or stretch or exercise would solve the problem. I have been through plans upon plans, some of them helping a little or for awhile, but no final solution yet. I am so hopeful in this cortisone shot thing, but afraid to be too hopeful, you know?

So my plan is to be healed and so profit. I continue to hope for and expect for and plan for healing. But I will tell you, I do so loosely. I am not wholly trusting in my plans or the Doctors’ or a cortisone shot or a surgery. I am trusting in the God who holds my Tomorrow. It has occurred to me, as I lie awake in pain at night, that perhaps God is teaching me something through chronic pain: and that that lesson needs to last years rather than months or weeks.

Yet I hold no faith in tomorrow, only in He who holds my tomorrow.

Plan for tomorrow, sure. Dream for tomorrow. Hope for tomorrow.

But don’t trust in tomorrow. Don’t hold so tightly to your plan that you can’t receive something better from God. Don’t hold on so tightly that you’re wounded when your plans prove empty arrogance.

What are your plans for the future you are holding on to too tightly?

Where are you trusting in tomorrow?

A Sin Issue

Finally: is this all a big deal? Apparently so. Apparently it is a sin issue, which means we step outside the will of God when we fall into this boastful arrogance.

16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

We could call it idol worship, perhaps, putting our faith and confidence in ourselves or in Tomorrow… there is no such security outside of God who holds Tomorrow.

Tomorrow can be a religion. Tomorrow, technology will solve all our ills. Tomorrow, science will answer all our questions. Tomorrow I will have more money and that will fix everything!

“Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya’, tomorrow: you’re always a day away!” –Annie Warbucks

You know who is not a day away? Him who is the first and the last, the Alpha and Omega. Who spoke Creation into being and sees the end of all things. He Created us, He has a purpose for us, He has a will and plan and purpose for our tomorrow. So we plan, and we lift that plan up to Him: If You will, whatever You will, as You will.

Hold no trust in Tomorrow, only trust Who holds tomorrow.