Take your copy of the scriptures and turn with me if you would to look at James as we continue in James chapter four. James chapter four. And we’ll be finishing that chapter, we’ll be reading verses 13 to 17. James four, verse 13. So before we go to the Lord and hear from him, let’s go to him in prayer once more. Let’s pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we come again before you. We are caused to wonder what kind of worship service that would be were all the creatures below you to praise you. What a marvel that would be, Lord. We thank you that that day will dawn when the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ will cover all the earth and the multitude of men and women will sing His praises called from every tribe and tongue and nation in your will. will be done on earth as it is this morning in heaven. Father, so we come to you and we long for that day of the coming of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we thank you. that You give us tastes and hints of its splendor as we worship You together, even before that final time. And we pray, Lord, even now, that as we hear from You, that You would be to us as a tender Father, and that You would break the crust of bread and place it in our childlike mouths, the bread of life in Jesus Christ, that we may feel ourselves nourished by the Lord Jesus. and strengthened to live in this fallen, dead, and dying world until that darkness gives way to the dawning of that final day, and we see our Savior face-to-face. And so we pray, Lord, come to us and bless us through your Word. We pray this all through Jesus, our Savior’s name, and all God’s people said, Amen. Amen. James chapter 4, beginning of verse 13. Please give your full attention. This is the Word of our God. 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. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while 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. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” So for the reading of God’s Word, may He indeed add His blessing upon it. Well, we are a people in our culture especially that loves acronyms. Even our country, of course, is referred to as the USA. But this, of course, is not a new thing. People have always done this, shortening things for brevity’s sake, for the sake of ease. I remember when I went into the Master of Divinity program, MDiv, by the way, another acronym, I noticed that there were these two letters all over the materials, the syllabus and the instruction in the papers, and the letters were NB, NB, it was NB all over the place. And I had no idea what that meant. And it came to find out pretty soon, though, that NB stands for notabene, which means note well. It means pay attention to this. This is important. And historically, particularly the Puritans, would always add to their plans and correspondence another acronym, and that was DV, right, DV. DV, of course, stands for, you’ll remember, your Latin, Deo Volente, which means God-willing, God-willing. And this was a way of expression of submission to the sovereignty of God, right? It was a posture of acknowledgment that God is sovereign and I am not. So they would put DV, God-willing, if I do this or that. I’ll come to see you, Lord willing. And this idea, of course, is part of the fabric of scripture, right? Submitting to the sovereignty of God. But it’s specifically found here in our passage today in James 4, verses 13 to 17. I was talking to somebody this week about church today, if we’re going to hold church service or not. And I said, yes. And they said, Lord willing. And I said, yes, Lord willing. And I got to thinking about the life liturgy of who we are as the people of God and coming regularly to the Lord’s house for worship on the Lord’s day. And this life liturgy that he desires for us to have and the importance of corporate worship. to tether us in our lives, to give us some structure in our lives. As we seek to emulate his work week, we live out of the rest that he’s given for us. This rhythm of life, right? And so we have, as we structure our lives, our family or personal worship as the highlight of our days, and then corporate worship as the high point of our week. And it took me back, as I was thinking about this, and the rhythm of life, and the life liturgy, and the being in sync with what’s going on when I played sports when I was younger, and the rhythm that a team must share if they’re to perform well. Or perhaps music is the best and most obvious place where the people that are playing together must be in rhythm with one another. Because in those situations, when they are not in rhythm, when they’re not in sync, Right? Athletes lose or they get hurt. And bands, of course, produce awful music. Well, James here is telling us something similar as he continues this discussion in chapter 4, as he closes out chapter 4. And he’s been explaining how we grow to maturity through the way in which we respond to the temptations and trials of life. He’s been showing us the way in which we are to be doers of the Word, how we are to be doers of the Word, living for the Lord. It has been telling us how to build a regular pattern of living in the Spirit in our lives. And then our passage this morning, it might be the shortest one that I’ve preached since I’ve been here. It’s this closing passage of chapter 4. These five verses, James is telling us that in order to live a faithful, growing, mature Christian life, we must learn to be in sync with the rhythms of the Lord, with the Lord’s rhythm. We must be aware of and submit to God’s pace and providence in our lives. And that means not living by our own pace and pretended providence in our iron-tight schedules, but by God’s perfect, sovereign, good-for-you schedule, as he promises. And so James turns to likely, by way of example, wealthy men or merchants that he addresses and that he uses as an illustration, and he points out the sinfulness of a lifestyle that is deaf and disinterested to the Lord’s rhythms, that is out of sync and out of touch with the Lord’s will. And so in these brief five verses, James exposes and instructs them about these dangerous lifestyles and these foolish assumptions by way that they are living. And these key foundational problems, they’re contrary for living according to God’s will and way. And there are basic principles that they are violating and living in denial of. And James tells them and he tells us about these problems. And what are these problems? What are they? How are they acting? How are they living? Well, first their behavior shows that they are unsovereign. They are unsovereign in verses 13 and 14. James says this, once again, come now you who say today, tomorrow we will go to such and such a place, a town, and spend a year there and trade and make a profit. This is a rebuke to those who think arrogantly that they are self-sovereign, right? They are self-sovereign. But they are un-sovereign, they are not sovereign. And that word trade there, you see, spend a year there and trade. That’s the word that we get in English, the word emporium. It means to buy and to sell. And you can feel the arrogance here, right? We can feel it. They say, this we will do. We’ll go buy and sell and rake in the cash. And James certainly isn’t restricting his rebuke, we must acknowledge, just to merchants, just to businessmen. This principle that we are unsovereign applies to all of us. Whether we’re rich or poor, satisfied or struggling, it’s the danger and folly of taking no concern at all of God’s plans and purposes and providence in our lives. And of course, planning isn’t a bad thing, right? Some of us obsess over planning. In and of itself, it’s not a bad thing. It isn’t the problem in and of itself. The problem is making plans without acknowledging the reality of life’s unpredictability. Right? Without reference to the absolute sovereignty of our sovereign Lord. Right? We’ll go to this or that city. We’ll stay a year. We’ll profit, right? Matter of factly. But what? He says. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. You don’t know what tomorrow will bring. And that’s it, right? Living life knowing for certain that the thing you can certainly know, that God alone is sovereign. And there’s some freedom in that, if you think about it, right? There’s freedom in that. Planning, of course, is necessary. And that old saying is true, if not overused, that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail, right? That’s true. We can’t really accomplish anything of lasting value or impact of the world if we make no plans at all. And when we’re charting the course of our lives, right, the near and the distant, the macro and the micro, you see that the most important thing is, as we do so, that it’s not your plan, ultimately. You’re ultimately not in control of these things. It’s God’s plan. And so when we do our planning, we do so knowing that we are unsovereign ourselves. We don’t know what today or tomorrow will bring. And even our best contingencies can get blown out and blown apart and shattered. We are to be wise, Scripture tells us, all throughout. But being wise includes holding our plans with a loose grip, so that if the Lord takes them or changes them, we can let them go with joy and confidence, that by taking them, He wills to what? To bless us by them. Or He wills a greater blessing on us for our good. Proverbs 16 is Perhaps one of the most well-known passages that speak to this reality of the sovereignty of God and the non-sovereignty, the un-sovereignty of man. Proverbs 16 says, There is joy and freedom and confidence, even some excitement, knowing for certain that you certainly don’t know all that God has for you, that your plans might and probably will be changed by our great God. And isn’t that wonderful? It’s kind of awesome if you think about it. Do you delight in the uncertainty of your plans? Of his plan, rather. I know all too well that I can plan and project and hold those plans with an iron grip and then be unsettled and even in despair when the Lord tells me, now son, you’re not sovereign. I have something else planned for you, something better. And we remember Romans 8, the Apostle Paul, and we can rejoice knowing for certain that for his children, God works with all things for our good. And we can rejoice in that. We are unsovereign, but He is sovereign, and He is good, and He’s merciful, and He loves His children. And He works all things for their good. And I pray that that’s where we come to when we hear our Heavenly Father give us a change of schedule, right? we can rejoice in those things. And I pray that we all would be aware of the need to live our life for His glory and seeking to be flexible and to move in rhythm with His plans for us. So James is making the point that we are unsovereign, right? We are not sovereign. And then secondly, he’s saying that their behavior shows that they are uncertain, right? About their lives, they are uncertain, right? And he says in verse 14, what is your life for your midst that appears for a little time and then vanishes? I remember when I was younger going to a lake, and going fishing. And for night owls, fishing early can be painful, right? I don’t know if any of you can share that experience, but you can’t just wake up at night, eight or nine, if you expect to catch any fish, right? It’s not gonna work. Fishing early also depends on the distance you have to travel to get to the fish, right? And it can be like five or four in the morning you have to get up. In those early hours, what happens? You get to the water and it’s still very dark. And the sun begins to come up, and you see a mist on the water. And sometimes it’s hard to see in the water the things that are in there, and the mist can be very thick. It’s hard to see. But then the sun, what happens? The sun grows brighter, and it grows hotter, and the mist vanishes. It goes away. It’s gone. And James says, your life is just like that. That’s your life. It’s like a mist. Psalm 102 says, for my days pass away like smoke. Similarly, Ecclesiastes is full of this. Solomon over and over talks about, goes through all the things of this life, that they are vanity of vanity, mist, vapor, but a breath. He says, I’ve seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after the wind. Life is a vapor. But the reality is most of us don’t really think that way. We don’t think like that, like our lives are brief and short and a mist, a vapor. We mostly just think without reference to our end, without reference to the shortness of time that we are here, like we have all the time in the world. But we don’t, brothers and sisters, we don’t have all the time in the world. James says that our lives are like a mist that is burned away at the dawning of the sun. Brothers and sisters, we must never corrupt our perception, thinking that this life here is long and goes on and on and on. Ultimately, there is a life that is long and unending, and that life is the life to come, right? We of all people, we’re commanded to live in light of eternity, to live with reference to our final state that will be for eternity. When we do so, it’ll make this life seem like a flash in the pan. And you who’ve had some years, you know the brevity of life. The very thing that they’re discarding, the James says, they’re paying no attention to. The brevity of life. And sometimes comically, we see people who are in such denial of the decades that they’ve gone through and passed them by, that they still in their minds are young, right? And it can be kind of humorous at times, if not embarrassing. And if we don’t embrace this fact, we’ll be far more than a funny old man or woman wearing too young of clothes for them, or doing this or that thing that they shouldn’t be doing. We can end up shattered at the reality of the dignity that the years steal from us, take from us, moment by moment in this fallen world as we age. And we can end up waking up one day and realizing that all the physical and material things that I idolize and all the freedom that I treasure is gone. It’s gone. Life is short, brothers and sisters. It is a mist, but eternity is long. That eternity is long. The years you have in this life are uncertain to us. The years you have in glory never end. How often do you think about that? How often do you consider eternity, right? Are you living purposefully in light of eternity? You’re never too young to do so, you younger people. You need to think about these things and posture your life in this way in service to the Lord. Live life with an open hand on your plans. Live life for the one who lived life and gave that life for you, the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t believe that lie, right, that common axiom we hear in culture. I’m sure you’ve all heard it, that if you’re too heavenly-minded, you’ll be no earthly good. We’ve heard that canard rallied against faithful Christian people, but the reality of it is, that’s a lie. And the reality is, if you’re not heavenly-minded, you’ll be no earthly good. You’ll be no earthly good. And when you live for Jesus, heavenly-minded, conscious of the brevity of life, you’ll be free of the chains of this world. You’ll be released and liberated to live this short life in glory and in the might of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is a wonderful thing. And then next, James points out, he offers this rebuke and he shows that they are unsurrendered, right? They’re not surrendered. And this is James 4.15, of course, and this is what I referenced earlier. He says, instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. If the Lord wills. He says, instead of your arrogances, of the certainty of your plans, I’ll do this, that, and tomorrow, go, stay, buy and sell, profit. He says, no, you ought to instead say, if the Lord wills, we will do this or that. And he calls them out for this self-sovereign attitude and this idea that they have all the time in the world without regard to the Lord’s possible changing of their plans. If the Lord wills, Deo Volente, DV. And this can be difficult. It can be a difficult test on our trust in the Lord, right? It can be hard for us. Do we truly want God’s will to be done in our life here on earth as it is in heaven? Because that’s a call to his blessing for his people, but also a call to judgment on his enemies. And that can terrify us. It can terrify us. It’s so easy for us not to think of the reality of the wrath of God on the unbelieving, on the wicked. It can terrify us. It should terrify us. The wrath of God is terrifying. And that terror should push us along and should push us in telling others of the man from Galilee who lived and died and rose again to set sinners free from that wrath and terror. And if that frightens you, Pray for the courage to offer a simple invitation, that they come to the house of the Lord and that they hear from Jesus and they feel his love through his people. And how different would our lives be? How different would your life be if you were beginning to live in a manner that grabbed hold of God’s will, that surrendered and bowed the knee to his will? What would that look like, right? What would change in your life? Would it be radical? Dare say it would. We could say much about God’s will of our life and what the Lord wills from Scripture, but I think our lives, for one thing, would change and we would know that we are truly embracing God’s will when we started to live and feast on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord, as that shapes us and shapes our minds and it shapes our spirits and it shapes our actions and our attitudes. when our reactions and reflexes to every situation would be what? Not a self-centered reaction, but what would the Lord’s will be for me in this or that situation? What would bring Him glory in this situation? What would exalt His name and spread His fame through this? What am I to do? How can I make use of Him for His will and purpose in my life and in all of my life? And we follow James’ teaching here, brothers and sisters, and be aware not to live an unsurrendered life, rather a life surrendered and submitted to God and the Lord’s will for us. And then lastly, James tells them that they were insufficient. They were insufficient. James 4.16 says, as it is you boast in your arrogance, all such boasting is evil. That’s quite blunt, is it not? What it says here is you boast in your arrogances. It’s actually plural. You boast in your arrogances, all such boasting is evil. But what is it? What is that? What is the boasting? It’s all that he’s been talking about, all that he’s been rebuking them for, boasting of the self-made man or woman who thinks they don’t need God, and all that goes along with that. And of course, unbelievers do this, right? But that’s to be expected. That’s their job description. But we do this too. We do this too, and perhaps we don’t think enough about this, right? We live without acknowledging his sovereignty. We live without acknowledging the uncertainty of life, with disregarding his will. Practicals, like functional atheism. We sometimes live in concord with that old quote, that we’re the captain of our fate and the master of our soul. But no one is. No one is. There’s one captain and there’s one master and it’s not you. James is telling them, you must realize your insufficiency. You must find your sufficiency in the one that will truly satisfy and fulfill all that you need, in the one who will bless you and carry you into eternity. And then in James 4, 17, he says, so whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. As we listen to the words of James, the brother of Jesus, and we think about these things, I’m sure when you do, this will pierce your heart, right? Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. In your own heart, do you ever say and ask the question, is there any hope for me? Is there really any hope for me? Because I know me. I know my sins and my struggles and my failings. And I know my desire for Jesus and for holiness are challenged and assaulted all the time. And I know how often I give in to them. I fail my Lord in more ways than I can count. And my soul is crushed, but I seem more to remain chained and imprisoned by my own addiction, my previous addiction to this world. And I long for freedom. Who can rescue me? Right? Who can rescue and deliver me and free me? If that’s the sentiment of your heart at times, and I venture to guess it would be if you’re honest with yourself, you need to know, brothers and sisters, we all need to know that one has come, and for all who entrust themselves upon him, he has set you free. He has set you free. This is the testimony of scripture to you who trust in him. You must believe it, you must have faith, you must trust that it is true. We all still struggle and we will until we reach glory. But know for certain that you are free from the bondage of sin. Your failures don’t define you. You who are united to Jesus, he is your identity, hidden in Christ. And the shackles of sin have been shattered, the cell door is opened. And you need in faith and in trust to walk out. Can you imagine the silliness of that picture? Someone in a cell with an open door, unchained, and he is content to remain imprisoned. It’s crazy. It doesn’t make sense. But it’s true of us in so many ways. It’s true of us in so many ways. Dear Christian, do not despair. Do not despair. Trust in your Lord. Plead with Him to give you faith, to believe that it’s true. Believe His Word to you, that you belong to Him. And again, as we read earlier in the liturgy, Romans 8, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Oh, what a glorious, glorious passage. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free, Paul says, in Christ Jesus, from the law of sin and death. That is magnificent, that is awesome. Isn’t that glorious news? And that’s why we’re here this morning, right? To be reminded again that Jesus came and lived a life you couldn’t live, and he suffered a punishment that he didn’t deserve. Why? To set you free, to give you life. Brothers and sisters, how bound and chained by sin are you this morning? Because every one of us is either an addict to sin or a recovering addict. Sin lies, sin kills, sin stills. Are you chained in a way that only you know about? And you weep in your spirit and you cry out, can no one set me free? Rejoice, brothers and sisters. Rejoice and sing and praise. When Jesus comes into your life, he can set you free and make you new. May he indeed come into our lives again and again, even for the first time this morning. Amen. Let’s pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for the good news that you’ve given us in the gospel. Lord, we thank you that in the preaching of the gospel, we don’t just hear about Jesus, that we hear from Jesus, that it is his voice that is heard, and we thank you for that as we come to this table in a moment. We don’t just remember Jesus, but we feed on Jesus. We feed on him in body and blood to our spiritual nourishment. Lord God, we would see Jesus and we pray this morning, that as we break this bread, that he would be seen and known to this, his flock, whom he loves. We ask this all in Christ’s name. Amen.