Proud Planning (II)
No doubt, every single one of us here have heard of Napoleon Bonaparte, the great conqueror, the great emperor. Well, many would say his downfall came when he decided to attack Russia. That happened to many world dictators. The choice to attack Russia really brought the end of their campaign throughout history. In fact, a friend of Napoleon's tried to dissuade him from attacking Russia, but he wouldn't change his mind. He was set on his plans, and he said, I'm going to do it. I'm going to attack.
The friend, though, gave up trying, and then as he left, he quoted the old proverb. He said to Napoleon, "Well, man proposes, but God disposes." To that statement, Napoleon angrily replied, "I dispose as well as I propose." One Christian who heard that remark said, "I set that down as the turning point of Napoleon Bonaparte's fortunes, for God will not allow a creature with impunity to usurp His prerogative." The moment that Napoleon turned around and usurped God's place, the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, his downfall began. When his plans were dipped in deep pride and arrogance, they became his undoing.
Of course, everybody here plans. No doubt, all of us. In fact, it's one of the marks of being a human being that you plan, that I plan. Only animals live completely in the present moment, and that's because they have no language, no ability to think about the present moment. You and I think in words, and animals don't have that kind of ability to think about the past moment, the present moment, or even a possible future moment. That's a unique ability given to human beings, mankind, you and I.
So as part of being made in the image of God, that we think in advance, we think not only about now. And now is already gone, it's just fleeting, but you think about the next moments, you plan what you will do in advance. But beloved, how you plan is one of the most revealing things about you and about me, because how you plan reveals volumes about your worldview. It reveals so much about what you think about God, what you think about who rules the world, and what you think about possibilities, and what you think about actions.
And so when we plan, we're making a statement about how much God's will matters to us, about what we believe concerning His sovereignty, how we discern God's will, or even if we care that He has a will in the first place. And here James turns his attention to the topic of planning.
You remember that we're in the place in the book where he's already hit the climax, and the climax was, live the Christian life the way you've got it. Live the Christian life the way you got it. And how did we get it? Humble yourself, right? He says live it the way you got it. Humble yourself, submit to God, repent, believe. Same way you came to Jesus Christ, you were humbled, you humbled yourself, you embraced Christ. He said live your Christian life that way, with humility, submission, repentance, faith.
And He said that's the way you overcome partiality. You remember we studied that together? That's the way you overcome the sinful tongue. That's the way you overcome worldly wisdom and sinful conflict. That's the way you overcome all of those things He's been dealing with, including the last couple of weeks—proud judging. Judging in a proud fashion. But He's not finished showing us the ways that worldly pride manifests itself. He's still got a few, and one of the clearest ways that our pride can manifest is in planning - the way we plan. And what you've got in front of you is James rebuking proud planning. The same pride that leads to conflict, the same pride that leads to an evil tongue and partiality and sanctimonious judging, evil judging, that same pride leads to a particular kind of planning in your life. He says a planning that dishonors God, a planning that is not fitting for a Christian.
So what you're going to see in front of you is that James is going to rebuke proud planning, and then he's going to ridicule that proud planning with some reality, and then he's going to replace it with what it ought to be. Human history and each of our lives are filled with wonderful plans and with certain predictions, but written over each of them in bold letters should be the following: "The Lord reigns." "The Lord reigns." But see, the problem is that we want to reign. We want to rule. We want to be in control—or at least believe that we are in control of our lives and our circumstances. We have a hard time giving that up. And it's that illusion that we're really in control that James excoriates here in this portion of the letter. As we discovered last time, the theme of this paragraph is acknowledging and submitting to God's control over our lives. Acknowledging and submitting. And that requires humility, meekness. Acknowledging and submitting to God's control over our lives. It is recognizing the supremacy of God in all of the details of life. All of them. All of them. Nothing is off the table.
You see, although I'm responsible for my decisions and I'm responsible for my sins, still there is a sovereign God who works out every detail of my life. And every aspect of life and eternity is under His control. It is under the control of an utterly sovereign God. To acknowledge and submit to God's rule is in fact a very basic, non-negotiable Christian duty. A duty which is a delight. Because obedience now is rendered what? From the heart, Romans 6. And this is the very response that James is calling us to here in this portion.
We saw last time, last week, that the philosophy that James is really particularly condemning is what we call self-determinism. This very popular worldview or philosophy, mindset of our day, our age. This is the spirit of the age that simply asserts that my life is solely the result of my own will and my own decisions. I'm in charge. I'm in control. I can be anything I want. I can do anything I want. I can achieve anything I want. If I can imagine it, then I can accomplish it. If I just believe enough in myself, if I have enough self-confidence, if I have a healthy sense of self-esteem, there's no limit to what I can be or to what I can accomplish.
That's the spirit of the age. And you see that being passed down to kids from their parents. Oh, you can be whatever you want to be. You recognize many of those phrases because they are constantly preached at us from the culture. And for decades, psychologists have been selling the self-determinism to our culture with tragic, tragic, devastating results. But this flawed philosophy of self-determinism isn't anything new or modern. It's actually been part of the human condition ever since Eve decided in the garden that she should be like God and she simply took matters into her own hands and trusted her judgment rather than trusting the judgment of God.
But in a sense, it even goes back further than that. It goes back to the heart of the first of God's creation, Lucifer himself, who decided that with his beauty and with his abilities, he had every single right to be like God, in fact, to be in the place of God. Now, we know how that ended up.
You see, man's problem is not that he esteems himself too little. Man's problem is that he esteems himself too much. A. W. Tozer, in his excellent book, “The Knowledge of the Holy”, writes this. Listen to what he said: “Because man is born a rebel, he's unaware that he is one. His constant assertion of self, as far as he thinks of it at all, appears to him a perfectly normal thing. He is willing to share himself, sometimes even to sacrifice himself for a desired end, but never to dethrone himself. No matter how far down the scale of social acceptance he may slide, he is still in his own eyes a king on a throne, and no one, not even God, can take that throne from him. Sin has many manifestations, but its essence is one. A moral being, created to worship before the throne of God, sits on the throne of his own selfhood, and from that elevated position declares, "I am." The clearest sign of this problem, the problem of independence, the problem of a spirit of arrogance, arrogant independence from God, is a desire to exercise the prerogatives that belong alone to God in our lives.”
You see, the issue is this, beloved. When we begin to assert ourselves, we don't merely assert ourselves with the human beings around us, others around us, but we assert our wills against God's will, and we exercise a spirit of independence. We think this way: I am able, I am perfectly capable of being who I want to be, and I will be that person, I will do what I choose to do. That is the mindset and philosophy, this whole mindset of self-determinism that James seeks to confront and demolish in these verses.
Last week, to help us understand the key issues and respond appropriately, we began to lay the ground, we laid the ground, I trust, to this text before us. James' exhortation here in this verse, and our approach was to look at it into three components, to see it made up of three components, three parts. And we looked at the first component last Lord's Day, that underlying truth of God's sovereign reign. You see, behind this paragraph, you have this huge body of Old Testament teaching, and James here doesn't directly teach it because he served as their pastor, the pastor of these people, for more than 10 years. He already taught them those truths, and now he's simply making the application of the truth that they've already been taught.
Now, let us not be misled here. You see those words, "you who say," and we've come across James' admonitions about speech so often, you might at first think that this has to do with what comes out of our mouth - how we speak, how we talk. But that's not the heart of the passage. He's simply putting words in the mouths of the people that clearly reflect what's going on in their hearts here. You see, out of the abundance or the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So by telling us what they're saying, we can know what they're thinking - what's going on in their minds, what's going on in their hearts. In other words, behavior always betrays belief. If I really want to know what you believe, I don't listen to your words in and of themselves when you're telling me what you think I want to hear. I listen to your words and watch your actions when you don't know I'm looking, and when you don't know I'm listening. That tells me really what's going on, and that's the essence, in essence, what James is doing here.
What we say and how we think when we're not thinking or speaking theologically betrays our true theology. What James is condemning here is a boastful, arrogant, God-denying planning. Look closely at this verse, and you will see how atheistic this planning is. Look at the thoughts and the words that James condemns here in this example: "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."
Now, in essence, that is nothing more than a simple business plan. A successful merchant has a plan to expand his business to a nearby city. He's considered every detail and equation. Look at the text and put, really, your finger on that text, more specifically verse 13, and you will see clearly five areas of proud planning in this verse. This merchant, this entrepreneur, first planned when, when he's going to do something. He says, "today or tomorrow." He's got his own calendar. He's got his own schedule. God doesn't feature. Secondly, he's planned where he's going to do something. He says, "we will go to such and such a city." He's decided where he's going to go, the geography and all of that. He's got no sense of God's calling, no sense of God limiting the bounds of our habitations, calling us to particular places at particular times. None of that. Third, what does it say? It says, "we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business." This word translated "business" is an interesting word, from which we get the English word emporium, literally, to travel into an area for trade, to do business, buying and selling. So he's planned what he's going to do. We're going to engage in business. He's determined the actions, and God doesn't seem to have been consulted. Fourth, he's planned the duration. He says, "we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there." Apparently, he knows the future, and he can decide independently exactly how long he's going to be in this place. And fifthly, he's even planned the outcome. He says, "we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, engage in business, and" - here it is - "make a profit." From *kerthos* - gain, win, profit.
So here's a man who's a strategic planner. He's very deliberate, very confident. Now the question is, what's wrong with that? What's wrong with that? I mean, what's wrong with what this man says, with what these people that James is describing are thinking and speaking? We do exactly the same thing all the time, don't we? We do that in our own work, in our own school, in our families, even in ministry as well as in every other area of our lives. There's nothing wrong with planning or with having a strategy.
The problem here, beloved, isn't so much with what these people say and think as with what they don't say or think. The problem here, mark it down, is the profound independence. The profound independence. Proud independence. What, where, when, how long, the outcome, all without reference to God. If you make this kind of plan, it's something that only the proud do because you are assuming something that only the proud assumes. Life is promised to me. I can control where I end up. I can plan the exact timing. I can plan and predict the result. This, beloved, is proud planning.
The bottom line is the posture of the heart, the attitude of the heart. This takes us right back to the Tower of Babel, right? Genesis 11. What happened there? Remember? Was there a problem with building a tower? Are towers innately offensive to a holy God? No. It's the fact that mankind got together and said to one another, "Come." Similar language, right? "’Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had bricks for stone and they had tar for mortar. And they said, ‘Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name.’" There was the offense. Independent, arrogant planning. Usurping God's place.
The fatal flaw in this plan is ignoring the sovereignty of God in their lives. They don't in any way recognize or express their utter dependence on God in whom they live and move and have their being. One commentator put it this way, and I quote, "The language reflects assurance and self-confidence. They assume that the execution of their plan is entirely in their control. No thought is given to their dependence on God." This is an arrogant attitude of self-sufficiency.
Paul says, who is sufficient? As these merchants plan their daily activities, they do so with total disregard to God. Total disregard of God. How do we know that? How do we know that this was the case? That there's total disregard of God? Well, look down at verse 16. Just for us to see the connection, here's the issue. "But as it is." You see that? "As it is." James says, Here's the circumstance. "As it is." As it is now. If you don't do what I've told you to do, you are, he says, "as it is." "As it is now." Boasting in your what? Arrogance. You see? That's the attitude of the heart.
They were taking confidence in their self-confidence. What a horrible place. To take confidence in your self-confidence. They were confident of their own abilities, of their own plan, of their own control, of their own life and circumstances to make things happen. And to make this thing, particularly that they planned, happen. I'm the captain of my own ship. I get things done. I'm clever. I'm smart. I win. I make profit.
You know, as these merchants planned their daily activities, they simply ignored God. They were practical atheists. You see, it is possible to come on Sunday, just like we are here today, worshipping God, acknowledging your dependence on God, and then leave this place and ignore Him in the daily routines of life, or especially when things get really tough. That's the very spirit and attitude of pride that James is attacking here.
John Blanchard writes in his commentary, and I quote, "James was not condemning their business, but their boasting. Not their industry, but their independence. Not their acumen, but their arrogance." Here's a worldview that leaves God completely out. That's marked instead by a kind of arrogant self-reliance. Planning for the future that assumes I am in control and I can make this happen, and this is utterly irrational, beloved. In fact, it's insane. It is irrational to live daily life today or to plan for the future without a conscious, constant inner recognition that we are not in control, but God is. Like the words that we sing, "You are God and we're not." I am not.
Unfortunately, because it's so much part of the culture around us, it really permeates our lives and hearts. I mean, we begin to think and act like unbelievers because it's the air we breathe, and we have to, if we're not careful, insulate ourselves against this. We begin to think this way, and we're impacted by it. We begin to think and act like unbelievers. It becomes such a pervasive part of the culture that even Christians begin to make decisions and think this way.
We begin to choose a church to attend, to marry, to choose our occupations, career paths, to have children, to buy and sell homes and real estate, to extend our portfolios, to ride the currents of culture without any reference to the will of God.
Permit me to ask you, by way of application, do you freely and gladly acknowledge God's sovereignty over all of those daily decisions of life? Do you ask, as our Lord taught us, for God's will to be done in your life? I had to ask these questions to my own heart in preparation. So if I say you, I'm including myself.
As Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Not My will but Yours be done"? Or do you live independent of God? You sing the words, but you live like a practical atheist when it comes to planning and decision-making. Showing up on Sunday, essentially ignoring Him in all of our plans, in all of your decisions through the week.
Now why is this spirit of independence a problem? Well, as I said, it is irrational. And in verse 14, James tells us why it's irrational. He gives us two reasons why it is utterly irrational. It's utterly irrational not to acknowledge the sovereignty of God. Not only because we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but secondly, because we can't be certain about life itself. We can't be certain about life itself.
Look back at verse 14. Psalm 39:5 describes our day as handbreadths, handbreadths. It's like the distance across your palm. Psalm 102:11 says it's like an outstretched shadow. Psalm 144:4 "Man is like a breath, his days are like a passing shadow." And in 1 Peter 1:24 says, he says, all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls off.
The picture of that climate in Israel, that arid climate, what happens? The spring rain comes and with the spring rain all of the hillsides begin to sprout this beautiful green grass and flowers and it just covers the hills. And if you visit that time of the year you're left with this perception that it will look like this all year long. It's just beautiful and lush. But in fact what happens is in late spring, early summer, it only takes a couple of days of hot, dry desert wind to blow, and the scorching sun and all of that beautiful grass on the hillside that looked so nice turns brown, withers, dies. And Peter says our lives are like that grass that springs up on the hillside with the spring rains and by summer it's gone. This is the reality. Life is brief.
And here's James' point. The fact that we don't even know whether we will live tomorrow, we will be alive tomorrow, should remind us that we are not in charge, we're not in control. And then you add to that the fact that if we do live, we have no idea what tomorrow will bring, what will happen tomorrow. That too should remind us that we are not sovereign over our lives but God is. God is. On the other hand, we don't know - God knows. God not only knows but decides what will happen tomorrow and how long we will live. Psalm 139, He planned all the days that are allotted to us, every single one of them. And we read in Deuteronomy 32:39, "See now that I, I am He, and there is no God besides Me; it is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, and there is no one who can deliver from My hand." That's the prerogative of God. He does as He pleases. He has life and death in His hand.
Let me ask tonight, let me ask you, do you truly affirm God's sovereignty? Do you believe what the Scripture teaches on the subject? You're sitting maybe and you say, well we just sang the songs, of course I do, wholeheartedly I affirm. I embrace that doctrine, I embrace the Scripture, I rejoice in that. Praise God, praise God, that's wonderful.
So then in light of that, let me ask you, are you like the Christians James is addressing here, who perhaps would have said too that they embrace God's sovereignty and yet as they lived out their lives through the week, they refused in very practical ways to acknowledge it? For all intents and purposes, they subtly denied God's sovereignty in how they lived and the decisions that they made. Look again at verse 13. Let's take a little quiz, because in verse 13 there are several different categories in which we are tempted to deny the sovereignty of God in our lives as well as in theirs.
Do you deny God's sovereignty in your decisions and your plans? Notice the one saying, we will go. Do you make your decisions and plans like that? Without any acknowledgement of God's control, His sovereign purpose, that this may or may not be His plan, or do you think that you have it within your power to make it happen?
What about your daily schedule? Verse 13, today or tomorrow we will go. Do you acknowledge God's sovereignty in your daily schedule? Both in what you plan and those things that come into your life that you didn't plan. You wake up in the morning and you have your schedule lined up—people you meet, places to go, errands to run, certain things you have to do. How do you face that? How do you handle that? Do you acknowledge God's sovereignty in your daily schedule, both in what you plan and those things that come into your life that you didn't plan as well?
Do you acknowledge that God is sovereign and in control and that those things are no accidents, and that whatever degree your plans worked out, that's because of God's providence enabling you to get things done?
What about your future? These people here, James, they said, we will be there a year, we've laid out our plan for a year. When you look at your future—and some here are young people looking at planning your futures in terms of school and marriage and career and all of that—do you acknowledge God at all in that? Do you seek His will? Do you reflect on the reality that He has a plan and purpose, and do you humble yourself before Him and acknowledge that He is in control and ask His direction and His will to be done?
What about the rest of us as we contemplate the future? Do we embrace the sovereignty of God, the control of God over all of those facets of life?
How about major changes? Major changes. Here's an entrepreneur making a major change. In fact, he's changing cities. He's moving to a different place. He's starting a new business. He's going to move somewhere else for a year.
As you look at major changes in your life, whether they're changes you plan or changes God sovereignly brings into your life, do you acknowledge the sovereignty of God in those things? Do you humbly submit yourself to that? Whatever my God ordains is right. What about your location? Locality. Whether it's the home in which you live, whether it's the city in which you live, or even the nation in which you live, notice these people said, "We're going to go to such and such a city." Do you freely acknowledge and submit to God's sovereign purpose and will in that part of your life as well?
Your occupation. These Christians said, "We're going to go and engage in emporium, business, buying and selling." They had a particular business in mind. We need to acknowledge God in our occupation, both in the career path we're on, as well as the place in which we fulfill that career and the plans we make to change it. And the results of your decisions and plans and activities— all of it. And notice they had results in mind. "We're going to be there a year, and at that time we're going to start turning a profit. We're going to make money."
Listen, do you understand that to whatever degree your plans are successful— and you should plan, and we all should plan— but to whatever degree your plans are successful, do you understand, beloved, that the results of that, good or bad, will be the outworking of the plan and the purpose of a sovereign God? Because He is sovereign over our success and what? And failure.
Now why is all this important? Why is it so important that you and I acknowledge and submit to God's sovereign providence in our lives? Well, remember the context? Back earlier in chapter 4, James has told us that the one thing that we most need is what? Remember that? What's the one thing that we most need desperately? Let me remind us. *Charis.* Grace. Grace. Grace for forgiveness. Grace for power to live in a way that honors God. Grace to walk worthy of our calling.
And God gives that grace to whom? Oh, the humble. Right? The humble. And He opposes the proud. He withholds grace from the proud. And guess what, beloved? Here's one way that we can assert our pride and forfeit the grace of God in our lives to be operative. It's by living with a spirit of arrogant independence and self-sufficiency as opposed to a constant, moment-by-moment humbling ourselves before the sovereign God, humbling to the sovereign will and purpose of God, and lay low and say, "Lord, not my will, but Yours be done."
Next week, Lord willing, we'll learn what the biblical response to God's rule is. Let us bow our heads and pray together.
Oh, Father, we confess tonight to our shame. We confess to You that we are so proud because we often exercise an independent spirit. We often make our decisions and our plans about various things in life without any eye to You, to who You are, Your sovereign plan and purpose.
Father, please forgive us. Forgive us. We want to keep control. We want to be in control. Give us fresh insight. Give us fresh perspective, view that You are in control and that we are not, that You are God and we are not. And help us to live moment by moment and day by day and week by week with that awareness ever before our eyes, ever in our minds, so that we would humble ourselves before You so that we could experience abundance of grace, Your grace, and not Your opposition.
And I pray for the person here this evening who has lived in an arrogant spirit of self-sufficiency and independence, who has assumed that he or she is the master of their own destiny, the captain of their own fate, who has completely bought into self-determinism. O Lord, I pray that You would strip away all of that self-confidence, all of that self-esteem, all of that arrogance that sets them against You, the sovereign Lord, and produce in them true humility, the humility of repentance, the humility of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. O that You would work in someone's heart tonight, Lord God, sitting here perhaps, that You would do it, not for our sakes, or for that matter, even for the sake of the person, but Lord, ultimately, we pray that You would do it for Your own great glory.
We ask all of this in the magnanimous name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Will you please stand with me and let us lift our voices and worship God together.
The friend, though, gave up trying, and then as he left, he quoted the old proverb. He said to Napoleon, "Well, man proposes, but God disposes." To that statement, Napoleon angrily replied, "I dispose as well as I propose." One Christian who heard that remark said, "I set that down as the turning point of Napoleon Bonaparte's fortunes, for God will not allow a creature with impunity to usurp His prerogative." The moment that Napoleon turned around and usurped God's place, the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, his downfall began. When his plans were dipped in deep pride and arrogance, they became his undoing.
Of course, everybody here plans. No doubt, all of us. In fact, it's one of the marks of being a human being that you plan, that I plan. Only animals live completely in the present moment, and that's because they have no language, no ability to think about the present moment. You and I think in words, and animals don't have that kind of ability to think about the past moment, the present moment, or even a possible future moment. That's a unique ability given to human beings, mankind, you and I.
So as part of being made in the image of God, that we think in advance, we think not only about now. And now is already gone, it's just fleeting, but you think about the next moments, you plan what you will do in advance. But beloved, how you plan is one of the most revealing things about you and about me, because how you plan reveals volumes about your worldview. It reveals so much about what you think about God, what you think about who rules the world, and what you think about possibilities, and what you think about actions.
And so when we plan, we're making a statement about how much God's will matters to us, about what we believe concerning His sovereignty, how we discern God's will, or even if we care that He has a will in the first place. And here James turns his attention to the topic of planning.
You remember that we're in the place in the book where he's already hit the climax, and the climax was, live the Christian life the way you've got it. Live the Christian life the way you got it. And how did we get it? Humble yourself, right? He says live it the way you got it. Humble yourself, submit to God, repent, believe. Same way you came to Jesus Christ, you were humbled, you humbled yourself, you embraced Christ. He said live your Christian life that way, with humility, submission, repentance, faith.
And He said that's the way you overcome partiality. You remember we studied that together? That's the way you overcome the sinful tongue. That's the way you overcome worldly wisdom and sinful conflict. That's the way you overcome all of those things He's been dealing with, including the last couple of weeks—proud judging. Judging in a proud fashion. But He's not finished showing us the ways that worldly pride manifests itself. He's still got a few, and one of the clearest ways that our pride can manifest is in planning - the way we plan. And what you've got in front of you is James rebuking proud planning. The same pride that leads to conflict, the same pride that leads to an evil tongue and partiality and sanctimonious judging, evil judging, that same pride leads to a particular kind of planning in your life. He says a planning that dishonors God, a planning that is not fitting for a Christian.
So what you're going to see in front of you is that James is going to rebuke proud planning, and then he's going to ridicule that proud planning with some reality, and then he's going to replace it with what it ought to be. Human history and each of our lives are filled with wonderful plans and with certain predictions, but written over each of them in bold letters should be the following: "The Lord reigns." "The Lord reigns." But see, the problem is that we want to reign. We want to rule. We want to be in control—or at least believe that we are in control of our lives and our circumstances. We have a hard time giving that up. And it's that illusion that we're really in control that James excoriates here in this portion of the letter. As we discovered last time, the theme of this paragraph is acknowledging and submitting to God's control over our lives. Acknowledging and submitting. And that requires humility, meekness. Acknowledging and submitting to God's control over our lives. It is recognizing the supremacy of God in all of the details of life. All of them. All of them. Nothing is off the table.
You see, although I'm responsible for my decisions and I'm responsible for my sins, still there is a sovereign God who works out every detail of my life. And every aspect of life and eternity is under His control. It is under the control of an utterly sovereign God. To acknowledge and submit to God's rule is in fact a very basic, non-negotiable Christian duty. A duty which is a delight. Because obedience now is rendered what? From the heart, Romans 6. And this is the very response that James is calling us to here in this portion.
We saw last time, last week, that the philosophy that James is really particularly condemning is what we call self-determinism. This very popular worldview or philosophy, mindset of our day, our age. This is the spirit of the age that simply asserts that my life is solely the result of my own will and my own decisions. I'm in charge. I'm in control. I can be anything I want. I can do anything I want. I can achieve anything I want. If I can imagine it, then I can accomplish it. If I just believe enough in myself, if I have enough self-confidence, if I have a healthy sense of self-esteem, there's no limit to what I can be or to what I can accomplish.
That's the spirit of the age. And you see that being passed down to kids from their parents. Oh, you can be whatever you want to be. You recognize many of those phrases because they are constantly preached at us from the culture. And for decades, psychologists have been selling the self-determinism to our culture with tragic, tragic, devastating results. But this flawed philosophy of self-determinism isn't anything new or modern. It's actually been part of the human condition ever since Eve decided in the garden that she should be like God and she simply took matters into her own hands and trusted her judgment rather than trusting the judgment of God.
But in a sense, it even goes back further than that. It goes back to the heart of the first of God's creation, Lucifer himself, who decided that with his beauty and with his abilities, he had every single right to be like God, in fact, to be in the place of God. Now, we know how that ended up.
You see, man's problem is not that he esteems himself too little. Man's problem is that he esteems himself too much. A. W. Tozer, in his excellent book, “The Knowledge of the Holy”, writes this. Listen to what he said: “Because man is born a rebel, he's unaware that he is one. His constant assertion of self, as far as he thinks of it at all, appears to him a perfectly normal thing. He is willing to share himself, sometimes even to sacrifice himself for a desired end, but never to dethrone himself. No matter how far down the scale of social acceptance he may slide, he is still in his own eyes a king on a throne, and no one, not even God, can take that throne from him. Sin has many manifestations, but its essence is one. A moral being, created to worship before the throne of God, sits on the throne of his own selfhood, and from that elevated position declares, "I am." The clearest sign of this problem, the problem of independence, the problem of a spirit of arrogance, arrogant independence from God, is a desire to exercise the prerogatives that belong alone to God in our lives.”
You see, the issue is this, beloved. When we begin to assert ourselves, we don't merely assert ourselves with the human beings around us, others around us, but we assert our wills against God's will, and we exercise a spirit of independence. We think this way: I am able, I am perfectly capable of being who I want to be, and I will be that person, I will do what I choose to do. That is the mindset and philosophy, this whole mindset of self-determinism that James seeks to confront and demolish in these verses.
Last week, to help us understand the key issues and respond appropriately, we began to lay the ground, we laid the ground, I trust, to this text before us. James' exhortation here in this verse, and our approach was to look at it into three components, to see it made up of three components, three parts. And we looked at the first component last Lord's Day, that underlying truth of God's sovereign reign. You see, behind this paragraph, you have this huge body of Old Testament teaching, and James here doesn't directly teach it because he served as their pastor, the pastor of these people, for more than 10 years. He already taught them those truths, and now he's simply making the application of the truth that they've already been taught.
Now, let us not be misled here. You see those words, "you who say," and we've come across James' admonitions about speech so often, you might at first think that this has to do with what comes out of our mouth - how we speak, how we talk. But that's not the heart of the passage. He's simply putting words in the mouths of the people that clearly reflect what's going on in their hearts here. You see, out of the abundance or the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So by telling us what they're saying, we can know what they're thinking - what's going on in their minds, what's going on in their hearts. In other words, behavior always betrays belief. If I really want to know what you believe, I don't listen to your words in and of themselves when you're telling me what you think I want to hear. I listen to your words and watch your actions when you don't know I'm looking, and when you don't know I'm listening. That tells me really what's going on, and that's the essence, in essence, what James is doing here.
What we say and how we think when we're not thinking or speaking theologically betrays our true theology. What James is condemning here is a boastful, arrogant, God-denying planning. Look closely at this verse, and you will see how atheistic this planning is. Look at the thoughts and the words that James condemns here in this example: "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."
Now, in essence, that is nothing more than a simple business plan. A successful merchant has a plan to expand his business to a nearby city. He's considered every detail and equation. Look at the text and put, really, your finger on that text, more specifically verse 13, and you will see clearly five areas of proud planning in this verse. This merchant, this entrepreneur, first planned when, when he's going to do something. He says, "today or tomorrow." He's got his own calendar. He's got his own schedule. God doesn't feature. Secondly, he's planned where he's going to do something. He says, "we will go to such and such a city." He's decided where he's going to go, the geography and all of that. He's got no sense of God's calling, no sense of God limiting the bounds of our habitations, calling us to particular places at particular times. None of that. Third, what does it say? It says, "we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business." This word translated "business" is an interesting word, from which we get the English word emporium, literally, to travel into an area for trade, to do business, buying and selling. So he's planned what he's going to do. We're going to engage in business. He's determined the actions, and God doesn't seem to have been consulted. Fourth, he's planned the duration. He says, "we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there." Apparently, he knows the future, and he can decide independently exactly how long he's going to be in this place. And fifthly, he's even planned the outcome. He says, "we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, engage in business, and" - here it is - "make a profit." From *kerthos* - gain, win, profit.
So here's a man who's a strategic planner. He's very deliberate, very confident. Now the question is, what's wrong with that? What's wrong with that? I mean, what's wrong with what this man says, with what these people that James is describing are thinking and speaking? We do exactly the same thing all the time, don't we? We do that in our own work, in our own school, in our families, even in ministry as well as in every other area of our lives. There's nothing wrong with planning or with having a strategy.
The problem here, beloved, isn't so much with what these people say and think as with what they don't say or think. The problem here, mark it down, is the profound independence. The profound independence. Proud independence. What, where, when, how long, the outcome, all without reference to God. If you make this kind of plan, it's something that only the proud do because you are assuming something that only the proud assumes. Life is promised to me. I can control where I end up. I can plan the exact timing. I can plan and predict the result. This, beloved, is proud planning.
The bottom line is the posture of the heart, the attitude of the heart. This takes us right back to the Tower of Babel, right? Genesis 11. What happened there? Remember? Was there a problem with building a tower? Are towers innately offensive to a holy God? No. It's the fact that mankind got together and said to one another, "Come." Similar language, right? "’Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had bricks for stone and they had tar for mortar. And they said, ‘Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name.’" There was the offense. Independent, arrogant planning. Usurping God's place.
The fatal flaw in this plan is ignoring the sovereignty of God in their lives. They don't in any way recognize or express their utter dependence on God in whom they live and move and have their being. One commentator put it this way, and I quote, "The language reflects assurance and self-confidence. They assume that the execution of their plan is entirely in their control. No thought is given to their dependence on God." This is an arrogant attitude of self-sufficiency.
Paul says, who is sufficient? As these merchants plan their daily activities, they do so with total disregard to God. Total disregard of God. How do we know that? How do we know that this was the case? That there's total disregard of God? Well, look down at verse 16. Just for us to see the connection, here's the issue. "But as it is." You see that? "As it is." James says, Here's the circumstance. "As it is." As it is now. If you don't do what I've told you to do, you are, he says, "as it is." "As it is now." Boasting in your what? Arrogance. You see? That's the attitude of the heart.
They were taking confidence in their self-confidence. What a horrible place. To take confidence in your self-confidence. They were confident of their own abilities, of their own plan, of their own control, of their own life and circumstances to make things happen. And to make this thing, particularly that they planned, happen. I'm the captain of my own ship. I get things done. I'm clever. I'm smart. I win. I make profit.
You know, as these merchants planned their daily activities, they simply ignored God. They were practical atheists. You see, it is possible to come on Sunday, just like we are here today, worshipping God, acknowledging your dependence on God, and then leave this place and ignore Him in the daily routines of life, or especially when things get really tough. That's the very spirit and attitude of pride that James is attacking here.
John Blanchard writes in his commentary, and I quote, "James was not condemning their business, but their boasting. Not their industry, but their independence. Not their acumen, but their arrogance." Here's a worldview that leaves God completely out. That's marked instead by a kind of arrogant self-reliance. Planning for the future that assumes I am in control and I can make this happen, and this is utterly irrational, beloved. In fact, it's insane. It is irrational to live daily life today or to plan for the future without a conscious, constant inner recognition that we are not in control, but God is. Like the words that we sing, "You are God and we're not." I am not.
Unfortunately, because it's so much part of the culture around us, it really permeates our lives and hearts. I mean, we begin to think and act like unbelievers because it's the air we breathe, and we have to, if we're not careful, insulate ourselves against this. We begin to think this way, and we're impacted by it. We begin to think and act like unbelievers. It becomes such a pervasive part of the culture that even Christians begin to make decisions and think this way.
We begin to choose a church to attend, to marry, to choose our occupations, career paths, to have children, to buy and sell homes and real estate, to extend our portfolios, to ride the currents of culture without any reference to the will of God.
Permit me to ask you, by way of application, do you freely and gladly acknowledge God's sovereignty over all of those daily decisions of life? Do you ask, as our Lord taught us, for God's will to be done in your life? I had to ask these questions to my own heart in preparation. So if I say you, I'm including myself.
As Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Not My will but Yours be done"? Or do you live independent of God? You sing the words, but you live like a practical atheist when it comes to planning and decision-making. Showing up on Sunday, essentially ignoring Him in all of our plans, in all of your decisions through the week.
Now why is this spirit of independence a problem? Well, as I said, it is irrational. And in verse 14, James tells us why it's irrational. He gives us two reasons why it is utterly irrational. It's utterly irrational not to acknowledge the sovereignty of God. Not only because we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but secondly, because we can't be certain about life itself. We can't be certain about life itself.
Look back at verse 14. Psalm 39:5 describes our day as handbreadths, handbreadths. It's like the distance across your palm. Psalm 102:11 says it's like an outstretched shadow. Psalm 144:4 "Man is like a breath, his days are like a passing shadow." And in 1 Peter 1:24 says, he says, all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls off.
The picture of that climate in Israel, that arid climate, what happens? The spring rain comes and with the spring rain all of the hillsides begin to sprout this beautiful green grass and flowers and it just covers the hills. And if you visit that time of the year you're left with this perception that it will look like this all year long. It's just beautiful and lush. But in fact what happens is in late spring, early summer, it only takes a couple of days of hot, dry desert wind to blow, and the scorching sun and all of that beautiful grass on the hillside that looked so nice turns brown, withers, dies. And Peter says our lives are like that grass that springs up on the hillside with the spring rains and by summer it's gone. This is the reality. Life is brief.
And here's James' point. The fact that we don't even know whether we will live tomorrow, we will be alive tomorrow, should remind us that we are not in charge, we're not in control. And then you add to that the fact that if we do live, we have no idea what tomorrow will bring, what will happen tomorrow. That too should remind us that we are not sovereign over our lives but God is. God is. On the other hand, we don't know - God knows. God not only knows but decides what will happen tomorrow and how long we will live. Psalm 139, He planned all the days that are allotted to us, every single one of them. And we read in Deuteronomy 32:39, "See now that I, I am He, and there is no God besides Me; it is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, and there is no one who can deliver from My hand." That's the prerogative of God. He does as He pleases. He has life and death in His hand.
Let me ask tonight, let me ask you, do you truly affirm God's sovereignty? Do you believe what the Scripture teaches on the subject? You're sitting maybe and you say, well we just sang the songs, of course I do, wholeheartedly I affirm. I embrace that doctrine, I embrace the Scripture, I rejoice in that. Praise God, praise God, that's wonderful.
So then in light of that, let me ask you, are you like the Christians James is addressing here, who perhaps would have said too that they embrace God's sovereignty and yet as they lived out their lives through the week, they refused in very practical ways to acknowledge it? For all intents and purposes, they subtly denied God's sovereignty in how they lived and the decisions that they made. Look again at verse 13. Let's take a little quiz, because in verse 13 there are several different categories in which we are tempted to deny the sovereignty of God in our lives as well as in theirs.
Do you deny God's sovereignty in your decisions and your plans? Notice the one saying, we will go. Do you make your decisions and plans like that? Without any acknowledgement of God's control, His sovereign purpose, that this may or may not be His plan, or do you think that you have it within your power to make it happen?
What about your daily schedule? Verse 13, today or tomorrow we will go. Do you acknowledge God's sovereignty in your daily schedule? Both in what you plan and those things that come into your life that you didn't plan. You wake up in the morning and you have your schedule lined up—people you meet, places to go, errands to run, certain things you have to do. How do you face that? How do you handle that? Do you acknowledge God's sovereignty in your daily schedule, both in what you plan and those things that come into your life that you didn't plan as well?
Do you acknowledge that God is sovereign and in control and that those things are no accidents, and that whatever degree your plans worked out, that's because of God's providence enabling you to get things done?
What about your future? These people here, James, they said, we will be there a year, we've laid out our plan for a year. When you look at your future—and some here are young people looking at planning your futures in terms of school and marriage and career and all of that—do you acknowledge God at all in that? Do you seek His will? Do you reflect on the reality that He has a plan and purpose, and do you humble yourself before Him and acknowledge that He is in control and ask His direction and His will to be done?
What about the rest of us as we contemplate the future? Do we embrace the sovereignty of God, the control of God over all of those facets of life?
How about major changes? Major changes. Here's an entrepreneur making a major change. In fact, he's changing cities. He's moving to a different place. He's starting a new business. He's going to move somewhere else for a year.
As you look at major changes in your life, whether they're changes you plan or changes God sovereignly brings into your life, do you acknowledge the sovereignty of God in those things? Do you humbly submit yourself to that? Whatever my God ordains is right. What about your location? Locality. Whether it's the home in which you live, whether it's the city in which you live, or even the nation in which you live, notice these people said, "We're going to go to such and such a city." Do you freely acknowledge and submit to God's sovereign purpose and will in that part of your life as well?
Your occupation. These Christians said, "We're going to go and engage in emporium, business, buying and selling." They had a particular business in mind. We need to acknowledge God in our occupation, both in the career path we're on, as well as the place in which we fulfill that career and the plans we make to change it. And the results of your decisions and plans and activities— all of it. And notice they had results in mind. "We're going to be there a year, and at that time we're going to start turning a profit. We're going to make money."
Listen, do you understand that to whatever degree your plans are successful— and you should plan, and we all should plan— but to whatever degree your plans are successful, do you understand, beloved, that the results of that, good or bad, will be the outworking of the plan and the purpose of a sovereign God? Because He is sovereign over our success and what? And failure.
Now why is all this important? Why is it so important that you and I acknowledge and submit to God's sovereign providence in our lives? Well, remember the context? Back earlier in chapter 4, James has told us that the one thing that we most need is what? Remember that? What's the one thing that we most need desperately? Let me remind us. *Charis.* Grace. Grace. Grace for forgiveness. Grace for power to live in a way that honors God. Grace to walk worthy of our calling.
And God gives that grace to whom? Oh, the humble. Right? The humble. And He opposes the proud. He withholds grace from the proud. And guess what, beloved? Here's one way that we can assert our pride and forfeit the grace of God in our lives to be operative. It's by living with a spirit of arrogant independence and self-sufficiency as opposed to a constant, moment-by-moment humbling ourselves before the sovereign God, humbling to the sovereign will and purpose of God, and lay low and say, "Lord, not my will, but Yours be done."
Next week, Lord willing, we'll learn what the biblical response to God's rule is. Let us bow our heads and pray together.
Oh, Father, we confess tonight to our shame. We confess to You that we are so proud because we often exercise an independent spirit. We often make our decisions and our plans about various things in life without any eye to You, to who You are, Your sovereign plan and purpose.
Father, please forgive us. Forgive us. We want to keep control. We want to be in control. Give us fresh insight. Give us fresh perspective, view that You are in control and that we are not, that You are God and we are not. And help us to live moment by moment and day by day and week by week with that awareness ever before our eyes, ever in our minds, so that we would humble ourselves before You so that we could experience abundance of grace, Your grace, and not Your opposition.
And I pray for the person here this evening who has lived in an arrogant spirit of self-sufficiency and independence, who has assumed that he or she is the master of their own destiny, the captain of their own fate, who has completely bought into self-determinism. O Lord, I pray that You would strip away all of that self-confidence, all of that self-esteem, all of that arrogance that sets them against You, the sovereign Lord, and produce in them true humility, the humility of repentance, the humility of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. O that You would work in someone's heart tonight, Lord God, sitting here perhaps, that You would do it, not for our sakes, or for that matter, even for the sake of the person, but Lord, ultimately, we pray that You would do it for Your own great glory.
We ask all of this in the magnanimous name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Will you please stand with me and let us lift our voices and worship God together.
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