HOFC Sermon Archive: Book of James Part 14: Our Plans & God’s Will

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SERMON TIMELINE

1. Introduction to the Book of James

2. Trials and Temptation

3. Gaining Wisdom

4. Poverty & Wealth

5. Dealing with Temptation

6. Slow to Anger

7. The Implanted Word

8. Pure & Undefiled Religion

9. Sin of Partiality

10. Three Kinds of Faith

11. A Warning about Teaching

12. Heavenly & Earthly Wisdom

13. How to End Wars

14. Our Plans & God’s Will

INTRODUCTION

Today is Sunday. August 18^th, 2024

Last week, we looked at how our relationships with others can have peace, and before that, James gave us another reminder about the difference between heavenly wisdom and earthly wisdom.

He refers to this often in his letter, because the wisdom of scripture is the foundation of all this letter teaches. I had stated before that there is not a lot of theology in this letter, rather it is full of instruction for godly living, and this instruction is founded and built upon the wisdom of God’s holy word.

After reading the book of James, one should easily know and understand how to deal with, resist and endure until the end all sorts of sin and temptations.

One should also be able to identify various sins by nature, understand their own faith, and be able to know how to live in a way that their actions are a true reflection of their faith.

It’s sad when I see how some who call themselves Christians talk, act, live. There are some who have claimed their faith for decades, but live like they just got saved with no understanding or wisdom at all.

I address this along with all of the various reasons, and solutions in my book Drowning in Milk: A Guide to Spiritual Maturity.

My son Eric was just hired a few months ago to become aa automotive service technician and mechanic for a big armored truck company. They knew he had no experience at all, and said they would train him, eventually becoming a licensed mechanic.

They started by having him learn to check tire pressure and change the oil in the trucks.

Let’s imagine 5, 10, 20 years from now, and all he can do is check tire pressure and change the oil. Would he be considered an automotive service technician? A licensed mechanic?

Yet, in our vain imaginations, our deceitful hearts tell us, you’re good. You don’t need to spend all that time reading and studying the word. You know what’s right and wrong. You got Jesus, your fine.

Are they fine? If a truck came in with a blown engine, would that 20 year veteran with tire pressure and oil changing experience be able to rebuild the engine?

If the 20 year “Christian” who never reads or studies and can barely iterate scripture be able live as a spiritually mature Christian, or will they fall and fail on so many levels they sometimes feel like giving up “religion” all together?

We NEED wisdom from God’s word to live in this world.

We God’s word to know His revealed will.

We need His will to make our plans, because within the will of God is true wisdom from above (we spoke about two weeks ago), and all knowledge.

Are our plans built upon God’s will, or our own?

SCRIPTURE REFERENCE

James 4:13-17

“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”

14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”

16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

17 Therefore, to one who knows to do the right thing and does not do it, to him it is sin.”

I. WE ALL MAKE PLANS, BUT DO WE CONSIDER GOD’S WILL

a. In our complicated lives we make lots of plans

i. College, jobs, marriage, family, vacations, retirement

b. Making plans, in itself, is not wrong or sinful

i. Paul made plans in regards to his travel

1. Acts 18:21 “but taking leave of them and saying, “I will return to you again if God wills,”

2. 1 Corinthians 16:7b “…I hope to remain with you for some time, if the Lord permits.”

c. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to make plans in life

i. Paul addresses both of these

II. WE CAN SUBMIT TO GOD’S WILL

a. Submit our plans to the will of God

i. It’s OK to make plans, but we should make them conditional to God’s approval.

1. “if the Lord wills it.” James 4:15

ii. That is what Paul did

1. “God willing” Acts 18:21

2. “if the Lord permits” 1 Corinthians 16:7

iii. Saying “if the Lord wills” is actually stating your faith

1. That God does have a will for us (even in small matters)

2. That God can intervene (via providence) to carry out His will

iv. The wisdom of making our plans conditional to God’s approval comes from reading the word of God and trusting in Him

1. This is made clear when we consider the wrong way to make plans

Let’s look at the right way to make our plans.

b. If we want our plans to succeed, we must first discern God’s will

i. James stated early in this letter we are to seek wisdom, and that wisdom comes from the word of God.

ii. God wants us to know (accept and acknowledge), understand and be filled with His Will.

1. God wants us to understand His will

a. Ephesians 5:15-17 “Therefore look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 17 On account of this, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”

2. God wants us to be filled with His will

a. Colossians 1:9b-10 “…we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the true knowledge of God”

3. God wants us to accept (acknowledge or know) His will

a. Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may accept what the will of God is, that which is good and pleasing and complete.”

iii. His revealed will

1. Which pertains to right and wrong

2. Which is found in scripture

3. We discover God’s revealed will from studying scripture, then we can act or plan accordingly.

4. Until then (study of God’s word for wisdom of His revealed will) the right way to plan is to submit to God

a. We do this by leaving our plans subject to His will

iv. There is also God’s permissive will

1. Which pertains not to right or wrong, but good and better

2. We should still show out trust in Him and commit all our plans to His will

Let’s look at the wrong way to make our plans.

III. WE CAN IGNORE GOD’S WILL

a. This is no plan at all, to plan this way is folly because;

i. To ignore God’s will is folly because life has become exponentially complex – James 4:13

1. There is the time factor

a. Decade, year, month, day, hour, minute, second

2. Actions to take

a. Buy, sell, trade, give, ask, make, break, throw away

3. Relational issues

a. Family, coworkers, friends, neighbors, strangers

4. The list is endless

a. Household, family, missions, work

5. So many decisions to be made

a. And with each, the opportunity to make the wrong decision

b. It is easy to make a mistake, especially if you are not grounded in the word of God and led by His Spirit

6. If you knew God’s will (revealed or permissive) on any matter, you would then make the right decision, and your plans would succeed.

ii. To ignore God’s will is folly because life is uncertain James 4:14a

1. No one has a guarantee of tomorrow

a. Whether there will even be one

b. Or what will happen

2. Only God can bring about what He wills for the future without fail

3. Since we know this to be true, it only makes sense we submit our plans to the will of God.

iii. To ignore God’s will is folly because life is frail James 4:14b

1. It is like a vapor

a. Psalm 39:4-6 “Yahweh, cause me to know my end

And what is the extent of my days;

Let me know how transient I am.

Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths (width of a hand),

And my lifetime as nothing before You;

Surely every man, even standing firm, is altogether vanity.

Surely every man walks about as a shadow;

Surely they make an uproar in vain;

He piles up riches and does not know who will gather them.”

2. How substantial is a vapor or shadow?

3. How quickly and easily can one succumb to sickness or an accident?

a. This shows how frail we truly are

4. It is foolish to believe we, being frail and finite, have the wisdom or foresight to make plans happen in our lives. In vain we boast and pile up riches.

a. James 1:10-11 “the rich man is to boast in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with a scorching heat and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.”

iv. To ignore God’s will is folly because life is brief James 4:14c

1. We “appear for a little time”

2. This is something Job realized

a. Job 9:25-26 “Now my days are swifter than a runner;

They flee away; they do not see good.

They sweep by like reed boats,

Like an eagle that swoops on its food.”

b. Job 14:1-4 “Man, who is born of woman,

Is short-lived and full of turmoil.

Like a flower he comes forth and withers.

He also flees like a shadow and does not stand.

You also open Your eyes on him

And bring me into judgment with Yourself.

Who can make the clean out of the unclean?”

3. Who, indeed? The answer to Job’s question is found in Acts 10

a. Peter had a vision of a great sheet covered in all sorts of animals, creatures and birds for food.

b. Acts 10:13-15 “And a voice came to him, “Rise up, Peter, slaughter and eat!” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything defiled and unclean.” 15 Again a voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider defiled.”

4. Because our time is short, it is important we do God’s will and not our own

a. 1 John 2:17 “And the world is passing away, and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God abides forever.”

v. To ignore God’s will is folly

1. If you do not know God’s revealed or permissive will on a matter it is likely because you spend little or no time studying the word of God.

2. You will either not know God’s will (because you lack wisdom which only comes from the word of God), or “think…believe” you know God’s will (because you deceive yourself into thinking you have wisdom ro knowledge) when you have neither.

a. This mistake is often made by the prideful, self-centered or as James put it, arrogant people

b. They say, “I know it’s God’s will because it is what I want, and I it’s a good thing.”

b. To act this way is boastful arrogance

i. To make plans without taking God’s will into consideration is to set yourself above God

ii. There is no arrogance higher than that

Just because you want something, does not make it God’s will.

Just because you think it’s a good thing (even if it seems so by God’s standards) does not mean it is God’s will for you, or at all.

A missionary in 2018 wanted to share Jesus with a tribe of cannibals. Sharing Jesus, that’s a good thing. That’s what we Christians are supposed to do.

He went to the island and they ate him.

Is it God’s will that a man who was on fire to share Jesus Christ be eaten? Or, was it this man wasted his life, and could have shared Jesus Christ with thousands who were ready to receive rather than go where he was not called, just because he thought it would be a good thing.

Only God knows the right time, place, people, who are ready to receive.

Paul says in Acts that he was told by many believers, including the other disciples, the Spirit says not to set foot in Jerusalem. But Paul went anyway, and ended up in prison.

We, in our mortal minds and deceitful hearts cannot in ourselves determine the right, good and spiritual way in matters without knowing the revealed will of God from scripture. We must weigh our plans against the Wisdom of God’s word.

Luke 9:5 “And if a town refuses to welcome you, shake its dust from your feet as you leave to show that you have abandoned those people to their fate.”

Jesus says in Matthew 10:23 “But whenever they persecute you in this city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes.”

What good is a dead apostle to the Kingdom of God?

Jesus also said in John 4:35 “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.”

God’s will knows where it is time to harvest. If He calls you there, there will be a harvest, and you will succeed.

Isaiah 55:11 “My word be which goes forth from My mouth;

It will not return to Me empty,

Without accomplishing what pleases Me,

And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”

It does not say, “When you decide to do something, even in my name, your will becomes mine, and I will do whatever pleases you.”

If God does not send you, you are not doing it in His name, but your own.

Just because we say we do something in the name of the Lord, does not mean we truly are. We know this, because Jesus tells us so in Matthew 7 where all sorts of “good things” were done in the name of Jesus, yet He said, “I never knew you; depart from me.”

c. To act this way is sin James 4:16-17

i. It is sin because it equates arrogance and boasting which is evil

ii. It is sin because Christians should know better James 4:17

1. We know we must plan with God’s will in mind

2. To do otherwise is sin

CONCLUSION

· SO HOW DO WE MAKE OUR PLANS?

o According to James if we do not seek God’s will in making plans we are foolish, arrogant and sinful

o If we make our plans conditional on God’s approval, we are wise, submissive and righteous in God’s sight.

o If we strive for God’s will in our plans, we will increase the likelihood of our success

· WHAT ABOUT OUR PLANS FOR ETERNITY?

o The Lord’s will is clear on this subject

§ Matthew 28:19-20

§ Mark 16:15-16

§ Acts 2:38

§ Romans 10:9-10

§ 2 Peter 1:5-11

§ Revelation 2:10

o We can be certain of “success” in our plans for eternity if we submit to God’s revealed will in scripture in the matters of FAITH, REPENTANCE, CONFESSION, BAPTISM, and living a faithful Christian life.

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