Eternity--week 1

Intro:

WHat did you do on vacations

Trips in the car?

Trips on a plane?

Doesn’t it feel like forever?

Forever is coming

Forever is near

What are you doing to prepare for forever?

James 4:13–17 ESV

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.

In these verses, there are 3 mistakes that people are making.

WE STILL MAKE THESE MISTAKES TODAY

The question is, are you makin these mistake?

Mistake 1: Foolish Plans (v.13)

James 4:1-10 talks about indifference toward other believers. Now they are being indifferent towards God

B. Here is their plan! (Ill. “Come now!” - Implies a sense of urgency.)

1. The Plan Is Constructed - Today or Tomorrow.

2. The Place Is Chosen - He is going to go, get in on the ground floor and make his fortune.

3. The Period Is Calculated - They would need only a year to succeed.

4. Their Purpose Is Considered - “Buy and sell” They are going retail!

5. Their Profit Is Computed - “Get gain” This became their focus! Putting our treasure in the wrong world is a sure road to disaster. When we begin to love gold more than God, we are on shaky ground!

C. Their problem was two-fold:

1. They lived their lives with no regard for God’s will.

2. They planned their future with no regard for God’s will.

Simply stated, many people live their lives as if God did not even exist!

Mistake 2: Foolish Presuppositions (14-16)

Life is complex—Notice the “we will”

Life is filled with too many variables

How could they know what the future held?

They counted on things going the right way

Life is uncertain —(v.13 they seemed sure about the future)

Nobody knows what life will throw our way

Death illness, injury, accident, etc.

v.15-16 all of life is subject to God’s will, not mine or yours

People ignore God when they make plans because they think GOd will get in the way

DO you make plans without God because you think He will get in the way

I wanted to work with computers…NOT minsitry

Life is short—v.14 Life is a mist

Not fun to think about, but we have no idea if we will be alive tomorrow

1. 1 Chron. 29:15, “For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.”

2. Job 7:6, “My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.”

3. Job 8:9, “(For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:)”

4. Job 9:25-26, “Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good. They are passed away as the swift ships: as the eagle that hasteth to the prey.”

5. Job 14:1-2, “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.”

6. Psa. 39:4-5, “LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.”

7. Psa. 103:15-16, “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.”

(Ill. The Rich Farmer - Luke 12:19 - His mistake? He planned his future without God. He presumed on years that he had not seen!)

Mistake 3: Foolish Postponements (v.17)

A. It’s easy to be a procrastinator

b. If you know the end is coming you are foolish if you don’t prepare

salvation — Don’t wait for “I’ll do it later, let me enjoy life first”

Service—when we don’t do what is right it is sin.

Not following GOd’s commands

Not surrending to God’s will