Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Amen. But you know, we have a lot of celebratory moments in our church family, but we also have moments where we need to be interceding and praying. You know, when we come to church every Sunday, there are people that hearts are filled with joy. They've had a wonderful week. They're here to celebrate. But then also the scripture says if there any be in trouble, let them pray.
[00:00:20] And so this past week we had a beautiful sister in Christ, Grace Martin, slip into eternity.
[00:00:27] She had been ill for a while. I was talking to Mike here just briefly with Abby, but it was really unexpected. So why don't we stand this morning And I know that we want to wish our condolences to you, Mike and Abby and your family. And we're going to pray for you. And I want to pray for many others in our church family. You know, my heart is. Many times in the evening, Patty and I are praying and we're praying for those. We've had wonderful people here lose a loved one of late. It's amazing how many losses that we've experienced. But we've also seen many people come to faith in Christ. So we have on one side tears and on the other side, great joy. And so let's pray for one another. Maybe if you have a need today, why don't you just lift up your hands and lift them up before God and just say, God, this is what's troubling my heart today. Maybe I'm anxious in heart. Someone shared that with me this morning. Let's pray for one another. Lord, we just thank you that you are present with us.
[00:01:23] And there are challenges in all of our lives. And we recognize though apart from you, we would be overwhelmed. We would be beyond ourselves. We would. As Paul says, I've. Even as a believer, we've had moments where we felt we were beyond the capacity to even endure what we were experiencing. But these things occurred in our lives so that we might not rely on ourselves, but rely upon you. And so today we come to you, Father. We. We ask that you would embrace us with comfort, with love, with hope, with joy, with healing, with understanding. Father, we lift our heavy hearts. We lift our anxious hearts. We lift our troubled hearts. We lift our perplexed hearts, Lord, to you today.
[00:02:04] And we ask you that you would speak into our hearts, that you would speak words of reassurance, you would speak words of instruction, you would speak words of challenge, you would speak words of correction and ultimately words of hope. And we thank you for that. In Jesus name and God's people Said Amen. Amen. You may be seated.
[00:02:25] You know, I'm going to just mention one little thing. We got the cafeteria opening up again, and what a delightful thing. And I know that we have amazing children in our church because I performed a wedding ceremony here. I officiated at one yesterday. We had eight children in the wedding service, five flower girls and three ring bearers. And I was a little nervous, I have to be honest. You know, when you have eight kids, how are they going to do? And I want to just say to you, they were amazing. They were well behaved. They just. You know, I could say they went through their paces beautifully. But before they got started, it got a little rambunctious.
[00:03:01] We had to kind of rein them in. But by the time that the whole thing was over, I was giving them high fives, and I was just telling them how proud I was of them. So I want to just say this to us in our cafeteria. Mom and dad, our security people are no longer there.
[00:03:16] You are their primary caregivers. Sometimes we find them all over the building.
[00:03:21] I just want you to know that that would never happen if you were at a restaurant. You'd be a little bit more apprehensive than that. I know you feel a sense of safety here, but I'm a little concerned when I find 15 of them like I did last Sunday in the nursery. I had to pull them all out of there. You know, the other thing is, as the weather gets colder, we lock our doors, you know, so you're in the cafeteria. I don't want a little person pushing the panic hardware that lets you go out but doesn't let you back in. And it's cold outside.
[00:03:52] I would not like to see anything bad happen to any one of our little ones. So, mom and dad, if you're going to the cafeteria, would you please pay attention to where your kids are at? And if you haven't seen them for a little bit, I would encourage you to go down the hallways and go find them. All right?
[00:04:08] Is that. Is that fair? How many think that's a fair thing to say? Oh, all right. Okay.
[00:04:13] Yeah, that's good.
[00:04:15] Amen.
[00:04:17] I like little people. I just don't want them to get hurt. Okay, so we're going to turn in our Bibles to the book of James. We're going to continue the series of messages that I've been preaching from that book. And we're in chapter four. We're going to only look at 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, five verses.
[00:04:34] So the question is, why am I Here.
[00:04:38] And maybe you're saying, I don't know why I'm here. Now, hopefully you do know why you're here. But why am I here? Not just in church this morning, but why am I here on this planet? What's the purpose of my life?
[00:04:51] And for most people moving through North America, I think it's just getting a snatch, a little moment of pleasure, maybe trying to find happiness, maybe trying to find meaning in the various relationships that we're relating to.
[00:05:04] And yet there's a longing in the human heart to be understood, to be loved, and also to find meaning and purpose in life. And if we're simply a cosmic accident, then life is simply reduced to surviving and trying to make the most out of our lives. But what if it's a big if? What if we were actually designed by a loving God?
[00:05:30] I actually believe that.
[00:05:32] Designed by a loving God who had a plan that would not only shape who we are and would become, but also to live a life of significance and meaning. I think that's what God has in mind.
[00:05:47] And so the question I'm raising today is, what is that for my life?
[00:05:54] And I want to focus in on that. Adam Schwartz, in dealing with G.K. chesterton's journey to Faith, says Gilbert Chesterton. Chesterton described the cultural atmosphere of his youth as distinctly post Christian.
[00:06:09] There was nothing new or odd about not having a religion in Chesterton's mind. We might almost say that agnosticism was an established church.
[00:06:18] Oh, by the way, did I tell you this was in the 19th century. What's new, right? We act like, oh, this is all new that we're experiencing? Well, it may be more intense today, but it was happening even back then.
[00:06:31] In his youth, Chesterton expressed some curiosity about orthodox Christianity. He had some twinges of anxiety about liberalism. These explorations soon stalled. His earliest writings extolled the French Revolution, condemned dogma, and he preached the exaltation of humanity.
[00:06:50] And all of this changed, however, at the Slade School of Arts, in which he enrolled in late 1982.
[00:06:57] Over the next year, he went through a nihilistic phase. I wanted to define that term for you. It just is the rejection of all religious and moral principles and the belief that life is meaningless. That's where he got to okay.
[00:07:12] In philosophy, it's the extreme skepticism that nothing in the world actually is real or does exist.
[00:07:23] He called this episode my period of madness, and friends feared for his sanity. The fashion of the day in painting was Impressionism, which celebrated the artist's perspective while downplaying physical reality. Its principle, Chesterton wrote, was that if all that could be seen of a cow was a white line and a purple shadow, we should only render the line and shadow. In a sense, he was saying, we should only believe in the line and the shadow rather than the fact that there's a cow.
[00:07:51] Seized by this mentality, he began to doubt the world around him. It was as if I had myself projected the universe from within with its trees and stars, that it's so near to the notion that I was being God, that it is manifestly even near to going mad. Yet I was not mad in any medical or physical sense. I was simply carrying skepticism of my time as far as it would go. And yet, taking a first step in the direction of faith, he began to realize the gift of life for which he had grown so grateful for and must have been given by someone, and came to the conclusion there must be someone greater than himself. And he began to believe that there must be a God.
[00:08:33] Chesterton was helped in taking the second step towards faith in 1896, when he met and became enamored with Frances Blogg, an officer of a London debating salon. And he admired her confidence and discovered that it was rooted in her devout faith. Her religion, he said, was the unique quality that cut her off from the current culture and saved her from it.
[00:08:56] Oh, there's a powerful statement. How can we be saved from this crazy culture in which we're living in? I think we have to have a genuine faith and a knowledge of who God really is. Chesterton credited Francis with leading him from his vestigial universalism to her faith, which she was in the Anglican Church at the time. But even though he was moving towards high Anglicanism at the time of their 1901 marriage, he still had a clearer sense of what he was rejecting rather than what he was embracing or believing in.
[00:09:30] And so his criticism of modern theology and philosophy was laid out in his book Heretics in 1905, which left his affirmation of orthodox Christianity largely implied. In other words, you could see that he's moving in this direction. By 1908, though, he asserted his faith in his book Orthodoxy, and he defines orthodox Christianity as the philosophy of sanity and shows how Christian beliefs answer deep modern problems. And I would even say deep modern postmodern problems. How's that? Or deep postmodern problems, for example, because Christians believed in the Incarnation, they believed in matter, spirit and interaction between the two worlds. This gives Christians respect both for the rational and mystical aspects of life. It also saves them from the radical doubts that Nearly drove him mad in art school.
[00:10:27] So once we embrace that we're designed by God, how many think that's a big step for most people in our culture? Because educationally today, we're taught that, you know, we're, you know, we just crawled out of some slime pit or something. I don't know. You know, however you think about it.
[00:10:44] But I look at it really simply, we were made in the image of an invisible God. And so that image is not necessarily material as much as it is moral.
[00:10:57] And that image of God is that we're made like God to know right from wrong. We have a conscience.
[00:11:04] We have rationality. You know, animals can do things instinctually, but not necessarily high degrees of rationality. They might have a low level, but not high degrees of rationality. You and I are unique in our whole creation. We're made in the very image of God. That's a very powerful statement.
[00:11:24] Now this.
[00:11:27] Basically, the question then comes, if God created me, let me go back here. I jumped ahead.
[00:11:34] If God created me, what does he have in mind for me? That's a great thought. And it brings us to the third question. If God created me and he had something in mind for me, am I accountable to someone other than myself? Because in this culture today, we just think that we're only accountable to ourselves, but in reality, we're actually accountable to the one who created us and has a design for us and a purpose and a meaning for our lives. And once we understand that, it begins to take shape in our minds that maybe there is meaning and purpose beyond what I think this is very liberating.
[00:12:11] So what we're about to hear from James is that God will shape the course of our lives. When we discover him and walk in obedience to his will, we begin to embark on a journey of faith that's both challenging and rewarding in a way that none of us could have ever imagined. And I can say that for myself.
[00:12:30] Over 50 years as a believer.
[00:12:34] Last week, I focused on addressing the issue of pride in developing and maintaining healthy relationships. I said it was one of the root problems and that when we can humble ourselves, stop taking ourselves so seriously, begin to understand that we're not always right.
[00:12:52] There's a problem in our culture today. Everybody's right. I'm going, no, you're not.
[00:12:56] I would even argue that as Christians, we got a lot to learn, too. I don't think we have all the answers. I think God has all the answers.
[00:13:03] This arrogance or pride does not just find its way into our relationships, but Also into our work world in which we lose sight of something very profound and that's it. The transitory nature of life. What do I mean by that?
[00:13:17] Life is a gift and we can't just assume we have tomorrow.
[00:13:23] That's a very sobering thought that you and I are living in a moment. This is the only moment God's given us. This is the gift he's given us right now. It's very powerful and we're going to see. Once we understand that we have no lease on tomorrow, we can't just say, you know God, I can live this many years. We don't know how long each one of our lives will be. We're going to find that out. James is going to address this and he's going to diminish us very quickly because so often we think of ourselves as controlling our own destiny or whatever is going to happen in our life. But the reality is that's not true.
[00:13:58] We often act as if we have all the time in the world when in reality we do not know what tomorrow holds.
[00:14:07] We have no idea what Monday will turn out to be like. We have no idea. You know, things could change so rapidly. It could change in the blink of an eye.
[00:14:16] What would happen if Jesus came back tonight? Don't you think the world on Monday would be so different?
[00:14:22] I'm just pointing something out to us. You know, we just assume that we have Monday.
[00:14:27] We should never make that assumption. We don't know how many know. That kind of diminishes our pride in a hurry. We're not in control of anything. That's what I'm trying to tell us.
[00:14:38] It's the difference between a, you know, a self directed life or one that's not directed by ourselves.
[00:14:45] I must have skipped over just a second. Oh, I think the issue then for all of us would simply be to do God's will.
[00:14:53] However we struggle with. What does that really mean? What is God's will? And we're going to find out. There's a general will and there's a specific will.
[00:15:03] What happens when I ignore it?
[00:15:05] What happens when I simply disobey what God's telling me to do in his word?
[00:15:09] What are the outcomes then?
[00:15:16] Okay, I did jump over.
[00:15:20] Yeah, I want to go back because this statement is so often important.
[00:15:32] Yeah, here it is.
[00:15:36] I'm getting there, guys.
[00:15:39] So what happens when I exert my own sinful desires as the catalyst for living my life?
[00:15:47] I think in these few verses that James is going to give us. We're going to discover Something of the critical nature of embracing God's will for our lives.
[00:15:56] I think there's three things that we can discover regarding God's will and purpose for our lives. First of all, the difficulties when we ignore God and we ignore God's will.
[00:16:05] We're going to run into them in the last few verses of James, chapter four. We're going to be challenged on this transitory nature of our earthly life. We have no control over the future. We're entirely on the mercy of God. Yet many live without any regard for God and therefore fall into some very real dangers. And the first one is the presumption of life. And what I mean by that is we just presume that we have life. We presume that we can do what we want. You know, when we're young, the first thing we feel is we have a lot of time on our hands. You know, we got.
[00:16:39] We have. And I don't. We're going to. I'm going to tell you it's not necessarily wrong to plan. It's not necessarily wrong to, you know, dream. It's not necessarily wrong to desire a preferred future. I'm not against that. I think you need to understand that what I'm trying to get across to us is just simply this. When we plan without God in the plan, we're going to plan wrongly and we're going to totally miss what God has intended for us. And that's a concern. So we don't want to do that. We want God in the plan that's so important.
[00:17:12] As a matter of fact, it says here in Proverbs and remember, James is wisdom literature and Proverbs is wisdom literature. And I think James is shaped by Proverbs and some other writers like Ecclesiastes and the Psalms. And he says, the proverb writer says, in their hearts, human plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. So it says, plan all you want to, but God's going to determine the outcome. That's what we need to know. What happens when we plan and our plans don't turn out, how many here get frustrated?
[00:17:42] Let's be honest. Doesn't that bug you? Doesn't bother you guys?
[00:17:48] But maybe we need to say this. If my plan isn't working out the way I think it should, maybe it's because God's plan is overriding it. And I need to not be uptight about it, but begin to readjust and flow with what God is doing, because obviously God has something else in mind.
[00:18:06] How many. You know, we have to have a little Flexibility.
[00:18:09] We need to learn how to walk with God and allow him. I mean, the disciples, they had a plan. They thought Jesus was going to come and rule on earth at that moment. How many know Jesus had a different plan? He was going to die for our sins and rise and let them be in charge of the church. How many know it was a totally different game plan.
[00:18:26] But how many know God's plan is always better than our plans, but they had a hard time? How many know when you have your plan and you're locked in and all of a sudden God goes, that's not the plan.
[00:18:35] You're going to have to adjust.
[00:18:37] Big adjustment came up there for those guys, right?
[00:18:40] But it was God's plan.
[00:18:42] What the writer is saying, God determines. And so how do we go about planning for the future? Because I don't think planning is wrong here. It says in verse 16, verse three, commit to the Lord whatever you do or plan.
[00:18:59] And what, whatever you do, he will establish your plans. So we now have to bring God into the planning stages of every part of our lives to boast of what we are to accomplish in the future. What a deep awareness of God's sovereignty is arrogance and folly. And James is going to challenge the people who are the most culpable in this area, especially the people who have the resources that God has blessed them with and the health and energy to do great things. And many of them just take God out of the equations completely. And it also happens to us as believers. We just do our own thing. And he says in verse 13, now listen, you who say today or tomorrow, we're going to go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.
[00:19:46] Well, James is really reflecting what the proverb says in verse 27 and verse 1, don't boast about tomorrow. You don't know what a day may bring. In other words, there's a sense of uncertainty about tomorrow.
[00:20:01] Now, Douglas Mu. It kind of explains the cultural context of this text. And he says the first century was a period of great commercial activity. And especially the Hellenistic cities of Palestine, the Decapolis, for example, were heavily involved in commerce of various kinds.
[00:20:19] Many Jews were active in these business comings and goings, large numbers that settled in cities throughout the Mediterranean world for commercial reasons.
[00:20:29] He goes on to say here, yeah, it hardly needs to be said that the people James pictures are easily recognized also by the modern reader. The distance between cities may be greater like today, the means of transportation quicker, and the business activities different. But in James day and hours, the Bottom line was the same. It's profit. And as the following verses demonstrate, it's not the desire to make a profit that James is criticizing.
[00:20:56] He's concerned rather about the exclusivity, this worldly context in which the plans are made. He considers that a danger, it must be said, to which business people are particularly susceptible to. But it applies to all of us. We make our plans. Is God in this plan or is it just my plan?
[00:21:17] Good question.
[00:21:18] George Stulack explains how this touches not only the business community, but I think it really applies to us in a very unique way today. And what way is that, Pastor? Because many of us don't know the limits of our humanity and what I mean by that, and I'm as guilty as most people. It's just that there's so much demand on our time.
[00:21:38] By the way, the most important resource you have is not money. It's time.
[00:21:44] You can always get more money. You just can't get more time.
[00:21:47] Time is the most precious commodity we all have. I think we need to understand that. And how many know. It takes time to build meaningful relationships. It takes time to work on our marriages. It takes time to. To cultivate healthy relationships with our children and with other people. We need to learn that time is our pressure point, and it's really seen today.
[00:22:12] James has touched on what has become a major pathology in our society. Pathology means an illness or something that's sick, not healthy. It's alarmingly commonplace, even among Christians, to be overextended in commitments, to be stressed because of time pressures, and finally to become dissatisfied and compulsive people.
[00:22:35] Observing the sickness of contemporary family life, James Dobson has warned that if the devil can't make you sin, he'll make you too busy. That's just about as bad because then we become driven people. So, you know, I'm a high achiever. I think everybody in this room knows that.
[00:22:52] And you have to sometimes put the brakes on and say, this is all I can do. I have to live within the parameter of this time.
[00:23:00] How do you deal with this? I'm going to use the word priority.
[00:23:05] You have to sit down and say to yourself, what is my priority?
[00:23:11] Okay, and what we should be sitting down saying, number one priority is I need to cultivate my relationship with God. Because if I don't have that going right, every other thing's going to fall apart, the wheels are going to come off. So I need to figure out a way in my day to start talking to God. And I preached it last Sunday, you know, how can we say that we really know God if we're not spending time with them daily in His Word, reading the scriptures, meditating upon them, and then considering what they're saying and then acting on what it said?
[00:23:40] I have to become a doer. As James reminds us. Don't just be a hearer. You have to be a doer.
[00:23:45] Because if you're just thinking, learning, hearing, studying, but not doing, you're deceiving yourself.
[00:23:53] Because a lot of people think they're doing stuff that they're not even doing at all because all they're doing is thinking. And thinking is different than doing.
[00:24:01] What I mean by doing is doing what God's telling you to do, doing His Word. That's the general will of God. How many know every Christian has the same general will?
[00:24:10] We all have that same thing said, you know, like, how about in everything, give thanks. So we need to be a thankful people. We need to be a praying people. Says, pray without ceasing. I was sharing that with the men this morning. What does that really mean? It means that I'm God is in the foremost of my thoughts. And as I'm moving through my day, I recognize my need for God. And I find myself saying these little quick prayers through the day to get me through each situation that I am encountering.
[00:24:41] Well, so God wants us to be obedient people, not driven, compulsive and obsessive. The Jesus way is one of quiet confidence that not everything depends on you and me, that we've learned to trust God, we do our best, and we leave the outcomes to God. Isn't this great?
[00:25:01] I do what I can and I leave the outcomes to God. I don't get anxious about it. I can't change anybody. I can't do a lot of different things, but I can only do my little part. I need to see where I fit in God's bigger plan. It's not all depending on me, thank God. That takes a lot of pressure off. If it all depends on you, you're under a lot of pressure. If it doesn't depend on you and it depends on God, and you're looking to God, you'll be a lot more at peace, less uptight. Okay? Now the second thing is this uncertainty of life.
[00:25:32] He goes on to say, why do you not even. Why? You do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What's your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. How many know? We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
[00:25:46] How many Said, yeah, I could foresee. COVID 19 I knew it was coming, Pastor, and I knew that how we were going to respond to it. And I knew we were all going to be shut up and locked away and wear masks and had to have spaced about 6ft apart. How many you really saw that coming?
[00:26:04] Most of us, right, we could say I didn't see that coming. Okay, so neither should we presume upon the time that we have and what we will or will not accomplish. Kirk Richardson says James struck at this presumption by showing their view of time and human life within it, having spoken as though they had control over their own destinies and knew the outcomes. A year of days.
[00:26:27] This was interesting. As I was reading and thinking about this, James reminds them of their ignorant even of tomorrow. So how many of us, how do we usually measure our life by years?
[00:26:38] Isn't that true? If you ask somebody, how old are you? They're going to tell you, you know, I'm how many years old? We measure our life in years.
[00:26:46] We're making an assumption in one way. You know, what we need to do is start measuring our days.
[00:26:52] I'm going to get to that because the Bible's going to say that teach us to number our days, not our years.
[00:26:58] Interesting thought, isn't it? Shift our thinking there a little bit.
[00:27:03] He goes. The irony, the boast serves for James as another example of self deception to be replaced by knowledge according to God's standards. Their ignorance, of course, was rooted not only in their immature faith, but in their very nature as human creatures.
[00:27:21] So we need to learn that we're walking by faith. How many know that's true? That's how we're all living now. I think some of us want to walk by security.
[00:27:29] You know, if I have a big bank account, I have, you know, money in the bank. I know what tomorrow's I'm planning this. We want to control it. And I'm going to just say to you already, we don't have any control, guys.
[00:27:42] You know, you can get news tomorrow, something bad happened or something good happened. You just don't have control over some of these things. We need to understand that.
[00:27:51] We see the presumptiveness of these merchants as they boast about their plans. The assumption is they're going to go live for a determinate amount of time in this city and make so much profit. They spoke as if it's a done deal yet considering all the things that could go wrong, illness, market change, robbery, natural disasters could easily destroy their game plan. How many Know that's true.
[00:28:12] They have no control over those things.
[00:28:14] James is challenging all of us regarding the uncertainty of tomorrow. He's warning us of this kind of presumption. And Jesus brings it out in another parable when he talks about the fool.
[00:28:26] Remember the rich fool.
[00:28:28] He said, the ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, what shall I do?
[00:28:35] What shall I do? He didn't say, God, what shall we do?
[00:28:40] How many already? See, there's got to be a shift here. See, is it self directed or God led living?
[00:28:46] Self directed says, what should I do?
[00:28:49] A God directed life is what shall we do, Lord?
[00:28:54] We get a big bonus. What should I do, Lord? Or it's not what should I do? He says, what should I do? I know I don't have any place to store my crops. I know what I'll do.
[00:29:05] I'm going to build bigger barns.
[00:29:08] I'm going to store up the surplus. Sounds like good economy, doesn't it?
[00:29:13] I'll say to myself, you have plenty of grain leaned up for many years. I've got a big portfolio in my retirement fund now laid up for me for many years. Oh, now I know what I'm going to do. I'm in retirement mode. Take it easy. Eat, drink and be merry.
[00:29:30] God said to him, you fool.
[00:29:33] No, he's not saying, he's stupid.
[00:29:35] What is he telling him? Remember I've been preaching through proverbs.
[00:29:39] Wise person, foolish person. Wise person fears God. Foolish person has no fear of God. You see, in the whole story, he's not even brought God into the equation.
[00:29:48] What does God say? Hey, you don't know what's about to happen. Look what I'm going to have. This is what he says to him. He said this very night, your life will be demanded from you. In other words, God says, you're going to die tonight.
[00:30:02] Then who's going to get all of your portfolio?
[00:30:06] This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich towards God. So he's not saying not store up things. He's just saying, and not rich towards God. That's the part we have to understand. We have to be rich towards God.
[00:30:19] In other words, it's about priority. Again, it's not about, I'm against the material things in this world. I just need to recognize that everything I see, everything material, is all temporal. And the only things that are eternal are that which we do not see. And they are spiritual and they are God directed. And so why in the world do we Spend so much time focusing on that which we're going to lose anyways and lose what we could have for all of eternity.
[00:30:50] That's the question.
[00:30:52] What is life all about?
[00:30:56] Charles Erdman said, not that it's wrong to make plans, not that it's wrong to be engaged in business, not that it's wrong to expect gains. He's not saying it's wrong. But the uncertain tenor of life, the mystery of the future, the knowledge that God has for us a purpose and a plan should make us conscious of our dependence upon him, eager to know and do his will.
[00:31:21] Look at the brevity of life.
[00:31:23] How many know life goes by quickly?
[00:31:25] When you're young, you think, oh, I got all the time in the world. Listen, it's flying by.
[00:31:30] And I can say that I'm a little older now. It's really moving at a high clip. Okay. James raises the question, what is your life?
[00:31:39] You're a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. You know, in Ecclesiastes, he says everything's vanity. You know, Remember that term?
[00:31:49] It's a Hebrew word, Hebel. It just means a vapor. It means it doesn't have a lot of meaning. Life apart from God does not have a lot of meaning. We need to know that. He says our life can be here today, gone tomorrow.
[00:32:04] In the bigger scheme of the picture, how many here you could name off? Fifth generation. Your grandparents on your father's side? The fifth generation.
[00:32:14] I can't do it. I think I. Well, maybe Solomon, I think was his name, you know, I know nothing about him. You follow what I'm getting at? Our lives go by, people don't even remember us. How sad.
[00:32:29] Our descendants, you know, just go back 150 years. All of the people that you know that you're descendants from, you probably don't know what even went on in their lives. You don't even know their stories.
[00:32:42] That should tell you something about our lives.
[00:32:45] He says, in the bigger scheme of things, our life is really short. It's limited in scope. So how are we living our life? Warren Wirsby challenges us with the most important investment we can make with our time. He says since life is so brief, we cannot afford merely to spend our lives. And we certainly don't want to waste our lives.
[00:33:05] Rather, we need to invest our lives in things that are eternal. That's where investment of time should go. I'm investing it. I'm putting everything I can into making sure that it's going to have a long term eternal impact in Life, considering the folly of living simply for what will perish, that's not a wise investment. That's all I'm telling you. Okay, so my question is, so how are we living? Are we living a self directed, self sufficient life? Or are we living life to walk with God, being directed by him, living a life to please him, and ultimately bringing meaning and purpose to our lives for all of eternity? But let me move to the second thing.
[00:33:48] Disregarding God's will.
[00:33:50] It reveals the true condition of our heart. If we do not live with the understanding that God is in control and that we ought to align our lives around his will as revealed in His Word, what happens to our plans is more often than disaster.
[00:34:04] James calls these plans arrogant schemes.
[00:34:09] It's the ultimate way to express self sufficiency. Look at verse 15 instead. You ought to say, if it's the Lord's will, we will live and do this or we do that. Now Douglas Moose says something interesting and I agree. What James encourages is not the constant verbalization of the formula. If it is God's will, you know, he doesn't expect everyone to walk around going, if it's God's will, I'll do this. If it's God's will. We're just saying it as a little formula. No, no, it's not what he's talking about.
[00:34:34] It can become glib and meaningless, but it needs to be in our minds. The sincere appreciation of God's control over affairs and of a specific will for our lives. In other words, what we're saying to ourselves, if I plan to do this, it can only be done if God wills it.
[00:34:50] It's not, you know, like the fatalism of Islam, you know, if it be God's will. No, it's not that statement.
[00:34:59] It's an understanding. God's in control and we're going to do what God's going to have us do.
[00:35:04] He's the only one that can make us succeed in a plan because it has to really be his plan. When you and I align our lives with God and we start walking in obedience to God, what happens is his will becomes developed and fulfilled in our lives day by day. That's what we need to understand.
[00:35:20] Listen, you know, even the people that are rebellious are part of God's plan. You go, what?
[00:35:26] Well, listen to what Proverbs says. The Lord works out everything to its proper end, even the wicked for the day of disaster.
[00:35:33] So, you know, I don't want to be in that category, right? I don't want to be in disaster.
[00:35:38] James explains that such boasting of what we will do apart from God is actually a sin. He says, as it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.
[00:35:51] George Stulak makes this observation. This makes the arrogance not merely the manner of their boasting, but rather the object of their boasting. It's not just that, what they're saying, it's what they're actually getting across.
[00:36:06] The sin James is exposing is not merely a sin of omission, neglecting to recognize God's rule over their affairs. It's a sin of commission in that they even boast about their self sufficiency.
[00:36:17] Look what I can do, you know.
[00:36:19] Yeah, it's problematic.
[00:36:21] He goes on. Such boasting is therefore especially evil. Further, all such boasting is evil. It's a blasphemous denial of God's authority and grace to think that we instead of God control events.
[00:36:37] It's simply living life as if it's about us and denying God's rightful place in our lives as our maker and also eventually our judge.
[00:36:50] See, some people are going to go from maker to judge without finding that he is a redeemer and a deliverer and a forgiver. And that's tragic.
[00:37:04] That's what we want people to discover.
[00:37:07] And then we start realizing that as we live our lives and put God as the rightful person in charge of our lives, understanding he died for me.
[00:37:19] He died for you.
[00:37:20] He delivered us from sin. He's delivered us from death. Oh, you go, yeah, but people die physically, Pastor. Yeah, but they're eternal.
[00:37:28] They're eternal. Grace is with Jesus.
[00:37:30] She's better off now than you and I could ever imagine. You know, our loved ones, don't feel sorry for them. They've never had it so good.
[00:37:40] The people that sorrow are us because we feel that sense of loss. But they are. It's all gain. Paul says for me to live as Christ, to die is gain.
[00:37:49] But for your sake, I'd rather I stay to help you. But for me, I'd rather go.
[00:37:56] If we knew what heaven was like, we'd go. Why are we hanging around? You know what I'm saying?
[00:38:01] No kidding. Yeah, it's good.
[00:38:03] But listen, we're told in various biblical passages to number our days. Isn't that what it tells us? Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
[00:38:14] I want us to. You know, it's not wrong to plan for the future, but I think we need to take every day and say, God today I just want to honor you.
[00:38:22] How can I tell God I want to honor him today if I don't spend time with him?
[00:38:25] And I'm talking about Monday, not just Sunday.
[00:38:28] And I get up and I spend time with him and I listen to what his Word says and I say, lord, I'm learning beautiful thoughts here. I see what you're telling me to do. Help me to practice it. Help me to begin to exercise what you're telling me, showing me. And if you start doing that on a daily basis, how many think your life would maybe probably change? Your character would change, your response to people would change, your desires would change, your goals would change. Everything would start changing.
[00:38:54] That's how change happens in our lives. And you and I can cooperate with the spirit of God and allow him to change us so that we become the person that God ultimately desires to help us to become.
[00:39:07] It's not that God doesn't love us the way we are. He does love us the way we are, but he loves us too much to leave us where we're at and moves us to what we need to become.
[00:39:17] And then Paul picks up this very theme in Ephesians. He says, be very careful in how you live. Not as unwise, but as wise. Making the most of every opportunity. But why? Because the days are evil. You know, I always, you know, people are telling me how bad it is today. I'm going, well, they were always bad.
[00:39:35] Want me to help you out?
[00:39:36] There's places in time that were far worse than this time. You know, I wish I could operate a time capsule. I could just crank up the different times and send people off, you know, and have them come back, you know, in about three months. And they go, pastor, I am so happy for the time we're living in.
[00:39:54] I know. Isn't that amazing? Or I'm so happy I live in this country. You've just sent me off to this other place, and that's really difficult. There I go. Yeah, I know. Why don't we be grateful, you know, Okay.
[00:40:06] I have a vivid imagination.
[00:40:09] Be very careful in how you live. Not as unwise, but as wise. Making the most of every opportunity. The days are evil. Therefore, do not be fearful, foolish, but understand what the Lord's will.
[00:40:22] Let me move on then. How can I understand the Lord's will? Well, I think the third thing is the danger of disobeying God's will, you know, to disobey what we know is the right thing to do is the very nature not only of the sin of omission it's just another way of our saying, I'm going to live a self directed life.
[00:40:40] And James says, if anyone then knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it's sin for them.
[00:40:46] The reason it's so devastating is that we know that the outcome of our sin produces death rather than life, as expressed in our relationships both with God and with others.
[00:40:58] Unless we address the sin issue in our soul, our relationships are damaged to such a degree that we eventually are cut off, not only with people, but with God himself. We can cut ourselves off.
[00:41:14] God doesn't cut us off, we cut ourselves off. And we do this all the time. And that's what sin does. And how often do people who know what God's word has to say choose to ignore it to their own damnation?
[00:41:26] Peter warns against those who once knew Christ but chose their own way, even promoting their sinful choices to others. Listen what these texts say. They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of depravity. For. For people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.
[00:41:44] If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. Wow, that's strong.
[00:41:58] He says, it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then turned their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
[00:42:07] Of them, the proverbs are true. A dog returns to his vomit and a sow his wash returns to wallowing in the mud. Now, you could argue, oh, Pastor, I know this is the context. He's talking about false teachers. I go, yeah, I know he's talking about false teachers.
[00:42:22] You're right.
[00:42:24] We could even say that these are probably people just making a profession of faith and never really had experienced it. And their sin nature was never changed.
[00:42:33] Okay, give you that. But the point is these people had a knowledge about God and they turned away from it.
[00:42:42] And that's the point.
[00:42:45] Genuine repentance leads to a changed behavior.
[00:42:49] You know, I was reading the other day a definition of repentance that I really liked. The little boy was explaining it. He said, you can't just say you're sorry. You got to stop doing the bad things.
[00:43:00] That's a good way to define repentance.
[00:43:02] I can't just say I'm sorry. Or, you know, you can't just be sitting there pulling the cat's tail saying, I'm sorry, and Then pull it again.
[00:43:10] You can't just keep pulling its tail and saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. While the cat's screaming, how many are catching on? And a lot of times that's what we're doing. You know, I'm sorry, God, but I'm like pulling the cat's tail.
[00:43:23] God goes, no, you're not sorry.
[00:43:26] You know, repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change of behavior. Paul talks about it as turning from idols to serve the true and the living God.
[00:43:35] Okay, consider how amazing God's will is. I want to end on a positive note. Think about how amazing God's will really is. When we live in obedience to God's will, we'll experience his amazing blessing not only for ourselves, but those whom God directs into our lives. Warren Wirsbe says God's will for our lives is comparable to the laws he has built within the universe.
[00:43:57] With this exception, those laws are general, but the will he has planned for our lives is specifically designed for us. No two lives are planned according to the same pattern. To be sure that there are some things that must be true of all Christians, it's God's will that we yield ourselves to Him. It's God's will that we avoid sexual immorality. All Christians should rejoice, pray, and thank God. I mentioned that earlier.
[00:44:20] Every commandment in the Bible addressed to believers is the part of God's will must be obeyed. But God does not call each of us to the same work in life or to exercise the same gifts in ministry. The will of God is tailor made to each of us. How many go, that's amazing.
[00:44:37] Are you stunned that God can have a plan for all the people on the planet?
[00:44:43] I'm not.
[00:44:44] He's a big God.
[00:44:46] He's a big God and he's a caring God. And he cares for each of us individually.
[00:44:51] So let me close.
[00:44:53] In his letter, C.S. lewis addresses the state of our struggle to do what God requires of us and counsels us regarding God's power to help us to do his will. He said, my reason for thinking that a mere statement of even the highest ethical principles is not enough is precisely that to know that these things, it's not enough to just do them. And if Christianity brought no healing to the impotent will, Christ's teaching would not help us. So when people tell me, oh, I just love Jesus, I love his teachings, try keeping them.
[00:45:28] I'm going to tell you right now, if you try, you'll fail.
[00:45:31] Apart from God's power in your life, what we need is God's supernatural nature and power within us to do what's the will of God for each one of our lives.
[00:45:46] And there's a biblical text. I was reading this the other day and I went, wow, I just never thought of it this way. It's found in Psalm 143. 10. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God.
[00:45:59] Teach me to do your will. Help me to do your will. Lord, how many ever pray that God, I need your help to do the right thing. I need your help to do what you want me to do.
[00:46:10] May your good spirit lead me on level ground.
[00:46:14] Jesus made two incredible promises regarding his will. He said, my teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak of my own. What is Jesus saying? Just start doing what I say and you'll find out who I am.
[00:46:34] That's powerful.
[00:46:35] See, our society says, I'll believe it when I see it or I experience it. No. God says, no.
[00:46:43] Try it and you'll find out.
[00:46:47] Taste and see that the Lord is good. Try it. In the last verse, to the Jews who believed in him, Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
[00:46:59] So there's a level of perseverance that God calls us to in endurance.
[00:47:03] And he says, then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
[00:47:07] Why don't we stand this morning?
[00:47:09] My prayer is that we will experience freedom.
[00:47:13] But it's a freedom that's so greater than what our society is crying out for. You know, we're crying for all kinds of freedoms today.
[00:47:20] I'm telling you, there's a spiritual freedom, freedom that needs to happen inside of our souls. Amen. That's where it's got to happen, guys and gals. It's got to happen within us.
[00:47:30] God wants to do it.
[00:47:33] The freedom he's talking about here is the freedom to do God's will. The freedom that we can actually say no to sin and yes to God. Isn't that a beautiful freedom?
[00:47:44] I want to be free to do his will. I want to live every day doing his will.
[00:47:49] I don't want to miss one opportunity God wants to bring my way.
[00:47:54] I want to do what he wants me to do. And when you and I start living like that every single day, you know what you're doing week after week? You're building a bunch of good decisions. That eventually builds a beautiful life. And the results and consequences of that life are amazing. And you'll look back and say, I don't have a ton of regrets. I am so glad I just kept saying yes to God and no to sin in my life because I avoided a lot of dangers. I've been at this for over five decades now and I'm gonna tell you there's a lot of pitfalls and there's a. You know, I love that song by John Newton. You know how many dangers, toils and snares I have already come, they're still out there.
[00:48:36] But by God's grace, I'm gonna do his will. By God's power, I'm going to obey his word, I'm going to practice what he tells me to do. And you know what? You're going to build a meaningful life that at the end you won't live in regret. And not only will you be blessed, but everybody in your circle will be benefited by it and God will be exalted.
[00:48:58] But when you and I live a self directed, sin directed life, what happens is we destroy ourselves. We wound the people that we love and we alienate ourselves from God. We have a choice today.
[00:49:10] Will we choose to do God's will?
[00:49:14] And I say a resounding absolutely.
[00:49:18] And my prayer for you is that you're going to say, absolutely. I want to do your will. You know my.
[00:49:26] I'm not satisfied. I want to be like Jesus. You know what it said about Jesus?
[00:49:31] You've written about me Psalm 40 and that's quoted in Hebrews. He says, I've come to do your will. O God, I delight to do your will, Father. I pray this morning that you will bring us to that place in our lives where we could say, I delight to do your will. That's my longing, that's my cry. That's what I want to do every day. I just want to do your will, Father. I don't want to miss any opportunity, but I don't want to live in stress and anxiety. I'm just going to run, rest because you're going to direct me.
[00:50:01] And it doesn't all depend on me, Father.
[00:50:05] It depends on you.
[00:50:07] And I'm just part of the plan. I'm just one of the equations in your great big plan.
[00:50:14] So help me to do my part. That's all I need to do. I'm just going to do my part. I'm going to stay in my lane. I'm just going to do what you're asking me to do. And trust that you're going to work it all out and you're going to get other people to come along and do their parts, and together we become this amazing team.
[00:50:32] That's what it takes.
[00:50:34] Because I can't do it alone. None of us can do it alone. That's why we're gathered together here, Father, people who are saying yes to you to do your will. And we thank you for that. In Jesus name, amen. God bless you as you leave.
