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James 4:13-17
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.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you would turn to James chapter 4. It's also in your, bulletin or your worship guide. We'll begin reading in verse 13. Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow, we will go into such a such a town and spend a year there and trade and make profit. Yet, you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
Joel Brooks:What is your life? For for you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
Joel Brooks:So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him, it is sin. Pray with me. Oh, Jesus, we ask that you would come. You would speak. We we've we've made our best attempts at planning a service, and that doesn't really mean that much, holy spirit, unless you show up.
Joel Brooks:And you write your words on our hearts, and you bring real change. Lord, my my heart would be grieved if we all just came into this place, and we just kinda, you know, heard a few nuggets of truth, and we we left without ever having encountered you, ever having been changed. God, we need you. Speak to us. In this moment, may my words fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Well, I did something that, I have not done in 15 years of preaching, and that is I deleted my entire message accidentally. I've never never once done that. And I was I was going to print off my message, and, and Lord willing, print it off.
Joel Brooks:And he was not willing. And it just it didn't print off. And not only that, but I deleted everything and it was could not be retrieved. And, I didn't have time to redo things because I I I'd had to fill in playing drums tonight and stuff. But that doesn't mean that the Lord doesn't have something for us.
Joel Brooks:It just means it might not be as polished. It might not be as manicured. I scribbled, a few things down on some sticky notes up here. Some points I kinda try to remember. And so we're gonna we're gonna walk through this.
Joel Brooks:Hopefully, you'll give me grace, as we do so. When I hear James 4, one of the first things that I think of is the movie Chariots of Fire, which to me is the greatest movie of all time. I I I love Chariots of Fire. And for those of you who don't know the story, it's about a man named Eric Liddell who was the fastest runner in Scotland, fastest runner in the UK. He specialized in a 100 meters, and he was going to the Olympics, and he was widely accepted as the fastest man in the world.
Joel Brooks:He he was also a born again believer. His parents were missionaries. He delayed going on the mission field just so he could train and to run-in the Olympics. And the movie chronicles this pretty accurately if you read his biography. Well, the, the qualifying day for the 100 meter ran on a Sunday, and Eric Little refused to run on a Sunday.
Joel Brooks:He said, I will not do it. He said, I I'll observe the Sabbath. I will keep it holy, and I won't run. Well, that's that's a pretty huge problem because you're the best runner, and you need to win the 100 meters. This this is your event, and he refused.
Joel Brooks:And the prince of Wales actually came and talked to him, and all of his pomp and circumstance came before him and, and really tried to pressure him into running And said, you owe it to your king, you owe it to your country. Don't you know the powers that you've upset? You you you need to run. And Eric Liddell basically responded, I know who my king is, and I'm not gonna run because I am gonna give him honor. And so he refused.
Joel Brooks:And and one of the greatest, the greatest places in this movie is when, they show all of these athletes qualifying on that Sunday, and then they the camera goes to him preaching at a church. And then it goes to to them qualifying, and then it goes back to him. It goes back and forth. And what he reads is Isaiah 40 from the pulpit. And let me just, read to you some of these words from Isaiah 40.
Joel Brooks:He says, a voice says cry. And and I said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely, the people are grass.
Joel Brooks:The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are accounted as the dust on the scales. Behold, he he takes up the coast lands like fine dust. All the nations are as nothing before him. They are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
Joel Brooks:Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers who who stretches out the heaven like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in, who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
Joel Brooks:Scarcely are they planted. Scarcely sown. Scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth when he blows on them and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom will you compare me that I should be like him? Says the holy one.
Joel Brooks:That is exactly what James is addressing here. One sticky note. He's he's talking about the sovereignty of God, and how that affects every decision we make. It affects how we pursue things, what we do, how we go about doing it. That that we are to always keep in mind and everything, God.
Joel Brooks:The question, do you not know or have you not heard is appropriate for James's audience. Now, James starts the conversation by saying this, 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. Now, James could have just as easily said this, Come on now, you who say, I'm going to go off to college, spend 4 years there, get a degree, and then go and get a job and make some money. Or, Come now you who say, I'm gonna get married, wait a few years to have kids so I can, so I could travel around with my wife, and then we'll settle down and we will get our home. It's no different.
Joel Brooks:It's making plans. It's it's what we do as as humans. We we make plans and those sound like good plans. The problem is that we might make those and never see God as central to it. We might never actually consult Him and say, Lord, is this your will that I do these things?
Joel Brooks:As you know, I forgot to bring my, my prop here. I pretty much forgot everything. The paper, the newspaper, from Wednesday after the election was like this thick. I'm not kidding. And so you you just had a ruler being established and the greatest nation in the world.
Joel Brooks:Right? So rulers established. And I read the entire paper and not one reference to god. Not one. James and Isaiah would say, how how is that possible that that all the world events that are being written about, all the local events being written about, the the establishment of of a of a ruler in the greatest nation, and you can't even mention God.
Joel Brooks:You don't you don't even seem as part of that? And we as Christians should be shocked that the central player, and it all is not seen as the central player, but that he has forgotten. Forgetting God is the ultimate insult. If if you are to hear what what I say here and how I preach, and then you were to to go out and you're to be very critical of me. Maybe email me some critical things or call me up or whatever.
Joel Brooks:I'm fine with that, but if you go out and forget, like, you can't even remember what I preach. There's there's no greater insults. Like, all this time in preparation, there's there's like I wasn't even here. And we forget about God, and it doesn't bother us. You you know, you leave some place and forget your phone.
Joel Brooks:Okay? What happens? Some of you have a anxiety panic attack. If you forget your phone, like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? I mean, nobody could get in touch with me.
Joel Brooks:How am I gonna find my way around? How am I, you know, I need my phone for everything. You forget God in a situation. What happens? You don't even notice.
Joel Brooks:The reality is is, our phones have more of a power and an influence in our life than God. That is just a reality in which we live, and we are deceived when we believe that. We forget him. We forget the fact that he controls all of our lives. To me, the the image that I kinda had in my head was it's like wanting to go sailing.
Joel Brooks:And so we're gonna go sailing, and so we're gonna get our bathing suits, we're gonna get our sunscreen, we're gonna maybe get some navigation maps, wanna get all this stuff to go sailing, and we go, yet we never check the weather during hurricane season. And if you did that, you'd be a fool because the greatest power and the greatest variable out there is the one thing you don't take into account. You're like, But I've made my plans. I'll be fine. Like, you fool the weather.
Joel Brooks:That's the dominant force, and that's how we go about making our decisions. We get all of our little things together, and we don't consult the almighty God. James calls it evil, arrogant. Look at verse 14. Yet, you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
Joel Brooks:What is your life for you are a mist that appears in a little time and then vanishes. That is a fantastic image. You can see it now in the morning when it gets cool and you go outside and you breathe and there's that vapor for just a second and disappears. It's gone like that. God says, that's who you are.
Joel Brooks:You're you're just you're just a vapor. You you vanish. A couple of weeks ago, one of my friends died. Lauren and I, we were actually, taking a hike at Red Mountain, Park. We'd gotten to the scenic overlook of the city, and I got a phone call right there, saying one of my friends, he was a former boss of mine.
Joel Brooks:He paid a lot of my way to go through seminary and things like that. He loved the Lord. He lived a remarkable life in the military. He started his own business. He was supporting his not only his immediate family, but all of his extended family as well.
Joel Brooks:The man just left what I would see as a huge footprint. And yet, after I got the call, and then I told Morin, and we're looking out, I'm like, nothing changed. It's like, nothing changed. Life is just it's continuing to go on. I remember that my dad died when I was in college, and the week after he died, I was back at the University of Georgia in class, and I remember looking around at people ticked off because they were just going through life.
Joel Brooks:Don't don't you understand my dad died? The world should stop, but the world doesn't stop. It never stops. We are just a vapor. All of us have a very short limited time in this world, and it's gone.
Joel Brooks:And the reality is, the most important great kings, they die. Kingdoms perish. Shoot. Mountains over 1000 of years erode and turn to nothing. Stars are born fizzle out.
Joel Brooks:Galaxies pull together and then dissolve. Everything fades away except for the Lord. And if you don't want to fade away, what James is saying is you better hold on to that. The one eternal thing. Whenever I'm starting to feel really proud of my accomplishments, like, I'm actually really doing something or, or the opposite, when I feel like everything's just about to fall apart, I meditate on this one thing.
Joel Brooks:God has been around forever, and I and I let it be just more than an idea. I just think, you know what? A 100 years ago, there was God. A 1000 years ago, there was God. A 1000000 years ago, there was God.
Joel Brooks:A 1000000000 years ago, there was God. And and you just and they're like, that's not the tip of the iceberg. It just it's endless, and when you start thinking about it, I am nothing. Why am I worried when that God is for me? Why am I worried?
Joel Brooks:Or why am I so arrogant? Verse 15, James says, Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. We like to think that it's by our great efforts, that we're a self made man. I I I fall into that trap all the time. I am who I am because I enjoy all the things I enjoy because I worked really hard for it, and that is an absolute fallacy.
Joel Brooks:The reality is this, the things that made you most who you are, you had nothing to do with. Nothing. Your gender. You didn't really have anything to do with your gender. When you were born.
Joel Brooks:You weren't born in the dark ages, you were born in the 21st century with all the opportunities here. Where you were born? You weren't born in a hut in Haiti. Alright? With with maybe sick parents who are going to die.
Joel Brooks:Alright? You you were born here in the US with with opportunity. You weren't born into whatever social status you were in that that was given to you by the Lord. You didn't develop, you know, your mental capacity was given to you as well. All of these things, your health, the things that have shaped you more than anything else come from God, and yet we deceive ourselves and we think, I am who I am because I have worked hard for it.
Joel Brooks:And we're gonna look at that some next week when it comes to wealth. The reason we can be so generous with our wealth is because we did nothing to earn it. None of those big things that we always think about. Nothing. Everything that happens to us happens to us through the sovereign grace of God.
Joel Brooks:And that's what James is reminding us about, and to think otherwise is arrogant. I think one of the places that illustrates this well in scripture is Matthew chapter 3 when Jesus is tempted. Most people kinda, I think, misunderstand some of those temptations, but we'll look at this the first one. Jesus is fasting 40 days 40 nights. Alright?
Joel Brooks:Supernatural fast. Don't try it. And he's in the desert, and it's hot, and he is hungry as as only you can imagine. And so Satan comes to him and says, hey, turn these stones into bread. And Jesus says, man shall not live by bread alone, but from every word that proceeds from the mouth of god.
Joel Brooks:And most of us, we we kind of look at that in a general sense of we're not so much to be hungry for bread, we're to be hungry for the word. That that is a interpretation of that. That is, that's you would get a a c minus. Okay? If if you held on to that, it could it's partially correct, but it's certainly not the full thing.
Joel Brooks:What Jesus is doing is declaring an absolute trust and dependence in the sovereignty of God here. He's saying, Satan, you are trying to deceive me and think that if I eat bread, it is due to the bread that makes me live. That that's how I'm surviving. That's how I'm breathing is because of food. But let me tell you, it's not by bread alone.
Joel Brooks:It's by every by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. I'm alive when God says, live. For no other reason. And as long as God keeps saying, live, you will live, then I'll have to depend on anything else. So don't don't try to take my trust into something material when my trust rest, needs to rest completely in the sovereignty of God.
Joel Brooks:You would get an a, a plus. Alright? If if if that was your answer. That's what he's declaring as a total trust in Jesus. And let me tell you, all scripture, all throughout the Bible just points to the Lord's sovereignty.
Joel Brooks:First Chronicles 29, you rule overall. Job 2313 says, whatever the lord desires that he does. Job 42 says, I know that you could do all things that no plan of yours can be thwarted. Psalm 115 says, our God is in heaven. He does whatever he pleases.
Joel Brooks:Psalm 135 says, the Lord does whatever he pleases, both in the heavens and on the earth, the sea and in their depths. Yet the Jeremiah 32 says, ah, Sovereign Lord, you created the heavens and the earth by your outstretched arm and by your mighty power. Nothing is too difficult for you. Proverbs 16:4 is like there that, you work out all things for your own end. 16:8, the mind of man plans his way, but the lord directs his steps.
Joel Brooks:Proverbs 21, it says that the king's heart is like, channels of water in the lord's hands. He directs it wherever he wishes. Proverbs 21 30, it says that there is no plan, there is no wisdom, there is no insight then that can succeed against the Lord. Daniel 4, it says that, your dominion or your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. Your dominion, is from generation to generation.
Joel Brooks:All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing before you. You do what you will with the powers of heaven and the peoples on earth. Nobody can hold back your hand and say, What have you done? You know, Jesus says in Matthew 10, he says, Are not 2 sparrows sold for a penny? Yet I tell you, not one of them falls to the ground apart from, my father's will.
Joel Brooks:Even the very hairs on your head are numbered. Matthew 19, God says or Jesus says, all things are possible with God. Romans 11, for from him and through him and to him are all things. Nothing is apart from God. Ephesians 111, he works all things together in conformity with the counsel of his will.
Joel Brooks:320, He could do more, exceedingly more than we can ask or even imagine. One of my favorites, Hebrews 1 3, which is what Jesus, was thinking here is that, oh gosh, he sustains all things according to the power of his word. And then he come here to James 4. He's like, don't say I'm gonna do such and such. Say, if the lord wills, you will live.
Joel Brooks:Your every breath is dependent upon the will of your Lord Jesus. Every breath and live your life accordingly. He says, if you don't do that, it's arrogance. It's evil. How much time we have?
Joel Brooks:Are you all good? I don't I I have no clue where we are. Alright. This kinda poses an interesting problem. Afterwards, you can ask some more questions about it.
Joel Brooks:Maybe we'll have a q and a time. I can do whatever I want. Alright. That's right. Lord Lord willing,
Caleb Chancey:I can do whatever I want.
Joel Brooks:That just was the exact opposite of everything I'm preaching.
Caleb Chancey:I can do what ever I want up here.
Joel Brooks:There's an interesting, you know, thought and just thinking, the Lord wills, and we have to always say the Lord wills. Well, can we ever make plans? If everything's completely dependent on the sovereignty of God, there's this temptation for us to be like, well, why do anything? Why make plans? Should we just, you know, just sit and let the Lord do his will?
Joel Brooks:And the Bible's answer to that is absolutely not. It says that, yes, God's will is absolutely sovereign. Also, yes, that you are free to make choices. It's it's both there. The biblical view of what I would see is the sovereignty of God and predestination is so much more, deep and nuanced than, than any other religion or any other philosophy out there because it's not determininist deterministic or fatalistic in which would just keep you from ever getting out of bed.
Joel Brooks:If you're like every decision I make, it all depends on me. It all depends on me. I've got to get it just right or my life is doomed. Alright. Your life would be doomed.
Joel Brooks:Alright? You have messed up so many times. And if if the outcome of your life was dependent upon your decisions, you're messed up. But if you flip that the other way and think, well, nothing is based on my decisions because the Lord's will is gonna be established. And you're like, well, why should I get out of bed too?
Joel Brooks:His will is just going to be done. And the Bible has this very nuanced view. And, yes, Proverbs 16:8 is the mind of man plans his ways. The Lord directs his steps. The mind of man plans his ways.
Joel Brooks:The decisions are yours. They're absolutely yours, and you're free to make them. And yet, the outcome of it is absolutely the will of God. Something he has ordained. You are free to make decisions, but you know what?
Joel Brooks:The outcome is absolutely in the Lord's hands. And you see this at play over and over again throughout the bible. Let me give you just 2 places. One, you see it with Noah, Genesis chapter 9. After the flood, the lord told Noah, I'm not gonna do this anymore.
Joel Brooks:And just so you know, there will always be a springtime, and there will always be a harvest. So Noah gets promised there will always be food on the table. There will always be a harvest. Do you know what the first thing Noah did after he heard that? He got a plow, and he started gardening.
Joel Brooks:He started planting seed for food. It was not I hear the promise of God and I hear his sovereign declaration, and now I just get to sit and just watch whatever grows up grows up. Since I have heard God's sovereign declaration, and now I'm gonna joyfully work to make it happen. You see that over and over again in the Bible. We, when we were going through our series in acts, I, maybe I stopped a chapter before I should have, but in acts 27, Paul is on a ship, and, there's a horrible storm that hits the ship.
Joel Brooks:They all think they're about to die. So an angel appears to Paul and says, hey, you're not gonna die. This is from the Lord. You're gonna be saved. Everybody on this ship is gonna be saved, and you're gonna appear before the emperor.
Joel Brooks:So, I mean, he gets he knows the will of God. It has just been revealed to him, but he doesn't just sit after that. Up to that point, Paul hasn't been really doing anything, but now he hears the sovereign will of god that you will be saved. Now he starts giving orders. It's like, hey.
Joel Brooks:Hey, everybody. God has declared we're gonna be saved, and what you need to do is you need to cut off the anchor. We're gonna we're gonna drift. We're going to run this ship into the ground and to the beach. It's going to be bad, but we're going to be alive.
Joel Brooks:Hey, sailors, prisoners, what you need to do is you've been rationing And this is what the sovereignty of God does to us. When when we know his will, and when we know he is in absolute control, it doesn't cripple us in not making any decision. It gives us freedom to joyfully run with it. Joyfully go. Knowing even if we screw up, you know what?
Joel Brooks:It's not gonna affect god's plan. It won't affect what he has declared. Alright. We're good. The question that I had when I was reading through this As I fail at this, so what happens?
Joel Brooks:I think everybody here fails at this. We don't make God central in everything. There's some things that we do make central. Usually, instead of us seeing ourselves as a vapor in a mist, we usually see God as a vapor in mist. He's real here for a second, we leave, and then he vanishes.
Joel Brooks:A lot of times, we're convicted about some things, how to make him central, but then he vanishes. So what happens when we forget? Does God forget about us in return? And the answer is no. Look at 2 places in scripture.
Joel Brooks:Look at Isaiah 44, if you would. I spent almost 10 years of my life reading a little bit from Isaiah 40 to 49 every day. I would highly recommend that and understanding the the sovereignty of God and how that impacts our lives. And watch me probably get the verse wrong after saying that. No.
Joel Brooks:It's it's Isaiah 44 21. 1st, we are commanded to remember these things, oh Jacob and Israel, for you are my servant. I formed you. You are my servant, oh Israel. You will not be forgotten by me.
Joel Brooks:I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like a mist. Return to me for I have redeemed you. You notice what the cloud and the mist is now? The vapor? God says it's not us.
Joel Brooks:Says, nope. I've I've made it your sins. Your sins were once before me, and now they've dissolved. I remember those no more, but I remember you. Go to Isaiah 48.
Joel Brooks:I wonder if you're 49. They all blend together. Yeah. Much better. Sing for joy oh, sorry.
Joel Brooks:Verse 13. Sing for joy, oh, heavens, and exalt, oh, earth. Break forth, oh, mountains into sinking. For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted. But Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me.
Joel Brooks:My Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her nursing child That she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. What a verse.
Joel Brooks:Isaiah puts a situation that we would just say would never ever happen, like a mom forgetting about their child that's nursing. You're you're not gonna forget that. Okay? No no mother is going to do that, but he says, even these may forget. It's like it is these that's a possibility.
Joel Brooks:We're like, it's not really a possibility. It might be this much of a possibility, but he says it's a possibility. You know what is absolutely not a possibility that I could ever forget you. Why? Because I have engraved you on the palms of my hand.
Joel Brooks:All I have to do is look at my son. All I have to do is look at his nail pierced hands, and I see you. And I see how you I've he has been forsaken that that you might never be. All you have to do is look to the cross and the love of Jesus, and we will remember the love of God towards us, and that he will never leave us. And when we think about those things, it affects every little thing in life.
Joel Brooks:And that's what James is saying here. Like, the lord hasn't forgotten about you. Don't forget about him in every little decision you make. Seek to honor him. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Lord, once again, I do pray that my words will fall and drift away and your words would remain. Lord, thank you for the truths that we have looked at. Lord, there is a heavy joy in contemplating your sovereignty. God, right now through your spirit, I pray that you would press that in. We wanna delight in you in all things.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.