Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
There is this movie on Amazon Prime called the “Tomorrow War.”
In this movie Dan Forester (Chris Pratt) is a former special forces soldier who is a biology teacher now.
He is struggling in his career and just in a difficult situation.
He is watching tv with his family when there is a portal opened up on the soccer field.
This is people from the future, year 2051, coming back for help in this war they are fighting.
They have been engrossed in this war since 2048, when the aliens arrived, and the earth’s population is nearly depleted.
They came back for soldiers to help fight this war.
Pratt is drafted and taken to the future to fight this war.
Most everyone who goes for their seven-day tour of duty do not return.
The movie goes through many twists and turns as the story develops.
It is interesting and quite good really if you are into action movies that are pretty clean from sex and language.
But with the future travel and everything the people finally figure out the solution is in the present not the future.
These people had an advantage we do not, they had the future come tell them what was to be expected.
They were warned of exactly what the future held for them.
They knew what was in store, where we do not.
We have no idea what the future holds.
Even though this is true, we still try and live our lives like we know exactly what it holds.
James states that this is the ultimate form of arrogance and pride.
It is because when we say what our future holds, we have taken God out and placed ourselves in His place.
That is why he begins this section with an emphatic “Come now...”
He is saying in effect, ‘you all who think you can do this here, listen closely because you cannot because you have no control.”
But we want to have control.
We want to do what we want.
We want our lives to be exactly what we want them to be.
Yet, we have no idea what the next second holds much less the next year.
We do not have people from the future to come back and tell us what happens.
We can only trust God and lean on Him to carry us along every day.
And this is what we see in James 4:13-17
This section is so practical and so easily fits us today.
It does because many are…
Trying to Control Life(13)
We all desire to control what happens in our lives.
We do this in the schools we attend, the jobs we apply to, the person we date or marry, the food we eat, the vehicle we drive, and many other things.
We want to control all aspects of our lives all the while not knowing what is coming down the road to us.
James was dealing with this same thing with the early believers.
He is telling them that trying to say emphatically what you will do in the future is wrong and foolish.
It is because we have no control of what today will even bring.
This section has a strong connection to Jas. 1:9-11 , In that section James wrote of the rich man and his pursuits.
He wrote of how it will all fade and disappear even the rich man.
Basically James is saying we have no control even though we try to control everything in our lives.
The first way we do this is we try
Making Plans Without God
In verse 13 James is dressing them down for saying “Today and/or tomorrow we will go and do such and such.”
They did not say we maybe will, we will try and do, we are planning if all is right, but “we will.”
There is no acknowledgement to God or anything, just a sure fired self-sufficiency.
They are so certain they will go and do they disregard God completely.
How often do we do this exact thing?
We may not be seeking material wealth like the recipients of this letter, but I am certain many are.
But we are saying in a year I am going to have this horse ready for that big sale.
I am going to have myself ready for that marathon.
I am going to have myself in a position where I can do more traveling.
There is one common theme in that, “I am” not God willing or by God’s grace I will, just “I am.”
This is what James is saying.
Come now you who say.
Come now stop that.
Who are you to say you will do such and such.
It is not God glorifying but self-glorifying and self-seeking when we say these things.
It is us
Seeking Material Over God
The recipients were set to go and make profit.
James is not saying that we should not have wise business plans for the future.
No, we are to do so.
Proverbs 6:6-11 tells us to look to the ant and prepare in times of plenty for times of less.
Yet, in Luke 12:16-21 the rich fool had plenty and decided to tear down his barns and build bigger barns to store all his grain in so he could have ample for years to come and do nothing but enjoy that.
Yet, God said his soul was required of him that night.
He died in his illustrious plans.
We need to be prepared for bad situations in life but not plan to be extravagant.
In Proverbs the author is telling the reader to work and plan for the future because you do not know what the future brings.
This man from the parable in Luke was planning His future he was laying out exactly what his future would bring.
That is what James is telling these people not to do.
It is not wrong to make plans for your business.
That is good and proper.
It is not wrong to plan to make money in business.
That is good and proper.
What is wrong is not what was said, but what was not said.
There is no though for God.
He does not even get an acknowledgement.
This is the height of arrogance to plan and design your future without acknowledging God.
This is the case because of…
The Uncertainty of Life (14)
James delivers the reason here.
“You do not know what tomorrow brings.”
We have no idea what tomorrow will bring.
We do not know what the next second will bring.
Yes, we may have an idea because of what has happened before many different times, but we do not know with certainty.
James tells us that our life is a vapor.
It is brief like the breath that exits your mouth on a cold morning.
Here a second and gone the next.
Life is just like that mist or vapor.
It is brief.
Some breath vapors hang around longer than others, and others are shorter.
We do not know.
What we do know is…
Life is Unpredictable
This word vapor we have addressed already carries the meaning of meaningless and nothingness.
This means that life is only meaningful with God.
If we seek to do it without Him, we are living a vain and meaningless life.
Just like Ecclesiastes tells us, Vanity of vanities, life is vanity.
He is saying that life is a vapor it is useless without God.
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