According to the poet Homer, the Trojan War started when someone forgot to invite one of the so-called goddesses to their wedding. Enraged at being ignored, she tossed a golden apple among a group of goddesses with the inscription, “To the Fairest.” It went downhill from there.
Is the true and living God like that? Is He vengeful and quick to create havoc when someone forgets the magic words, “Lord willing”? Some read this passage that way. They are careful to add “Lord willing” to every statement, fearful that God will otherwise wreck their plans or make them become missionaries just to prove that He shouldn’t be taken for granted. Is that James’s point?
Remember, James is the lead pastor of the church at Jerusalem, writing to primarily Jewish Christians, urging them to a life of wisdom that sees God’s universe the way God sees it. He’s called us to trust God in troubled times, to believe God in the face of temptation, to replace self-focused anger with trust in God’s goodness, and to obey God by living according to Christ’s perfect Law. He’s warned us of the dangers of gospel-denying partiality, of dead faith that says good things but doesn’t do anything, of teaching that isn’t lived out, and of tongues and quarrels that reveal hearts more in love with ourselves and the world than with Christ. And he’s called us to find safety by repenting and humbling ourselves, turning from self-serving fights to humility and grace-rooted love that come from seeing the way Christ has loved and rescued us at the cost of His own blood.
Now James calls us to be wise about the future: to acknowledge our own limitations, to entrust ourselves and our futures to the sovereign and wise Lord, and to faithfully live today without worrying about all that we don’t know about tomorrow.
He says:
I. You aren’t big enough to make the future (James 4:13-14).
II. Instead, humbly trust the Lord who is big enough to hold the future (v. 15-16).
III. In the meantime, we have plenty to do without knowing the future (v. 17).
This sermon was preached Sunday, January 18, 2015, at Grace Chapel Baptist Church, Kingwood, WV. Audio may be listened to below, or it may be downloaded by right-clicking and “Save Link As” here.
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