“13 Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’ 16 As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift; that’s why they call it the present,” said Eleanor Roosevelt. How very hard it is to open that present.
You make all sorts of plans about the future—some of these plans are attempts to prevent what you fear and some of these plans are attempts to seize what you want. You find it very hard to live in the present. You find it very difficult to live in the moment.
I dare say that you want to live in the moment. You recognize that, “yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift; that’s why they call it the present.” You want to live in the now, but how do you do it? Everyone in the world wants to live in the now, but how do we do it?
It may help you to know that God calls you to live in the present. It may help you know that God commands you to live in the now. He tells you to live in the moment by doing the good you can do today.
We humans are so busy making assumptions about the future that we fail to live in the present. We fail to do good today. Don’t make assumptions about tomorrow. Do good today. That is the claim of this sermon: don’t make assumptions about tomorrow; do good today.
We will see this in two points. First: arrogant assumptions. Second: do good now. First, in verses 13-16, we see arrogant assumptions. Second, in verse 17, we see the call to do good now.
First: arrogant assumptions. We humans make some remarkably arrogant assumptions about the future. In fact, all of our assumptions about the future – other than what God has promised – are quite arrogant because we have no idea what will happen tomorrow, and yet we act is if we do. You find yourself frustrated when the future fails to work out the way you planned, and you seem to think you have some control over the future.
You see this foolishness in verse 13, ‘Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.’
Some people read those verses and think that the desire for profit is evil. That is not the case. There is nothing wrong with financial planning or making a schedule. Proverbs 21:5 makes that clear, “the plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.” There is nothing wrong with planning for the future.
There is something evil, however, about assuming that you can control the future. The way those merchants were speaking revealed their arrogant hearts. They thought that they could determine what would happen over the course of the next year. They thought that they could determine whether or not they would make money. They thought that they were in control of tomorrow and that is arrogant.
It is arrogant because it is a way of playing God. God determines what will happen to you over the next year. God determines whether or not you will make money. God’s will determines the future; your will does not.
Assuming that you can and must control your future is incredibly common in our day. The following quotations seem self-evident, don’t they? “If you want a solid future, you need to create it.” “Only you control your future.” “Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.” Making assumptions like these is incredibly common in our day and it is evil. It is evil because you are setting yourself up as God. “As it is, you boast and brag,” says James. “All such boasting is evil.”
Assuming that you can control tomorrow is arrogant in the extreme. James reminds you of who you are, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
You didn’t create time; why do you think you can control it? You can’t think that projection screen green no matter how badly you want it to turn green; go ahead and try. Why do you think that you can make tomorrow turn out the way that you want?
Any assumption that tomorrow will go the way that you want or the way that you fear is arrogant because tomorrow isn’t about you. It is about God. Those merchants who said, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money,” assumed that life was about them; it wasn’t, and it isn’t about you. Your own life isn’t about you. It is about God.
You might need to humble yourself. That would be completely appropriate given that you, according to James, “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” God is God and you are not. Stop making your life about yourself with all of your assumptions about how tomorrow must go for your own good. Make your life about God.
Failing to do so is evil and evil always leads to all kinds of trouble. People who arrogantly assume that they must control their own future live very anxious lives. Here’s one example—in my first semester of college, I took an acting class as an elective –Acting One with Martin Page. I dropped that class halfway through the semester because I was getting a B minus. To my mind a B minus would drag down my GPA, which would prevent me from getting into a top shelf graduate school, which would prevent me from the career of my choice, which would mean my whole life was a waste. I had my life all planned out and it was up to me to secure my future; therefore, I needed to control everything to make my future happen and that B minus stood in the way of my future. My whole way of thinking was full of arrogance that my future was under my own control. Everything was a puzzle piece that I needed to place perfectly for the proper outcome. Such thoughts are sadly common among young people and such thoughts are quite evil because they assume power that belongs to God alone.
You have your own stories. You, like those merchants, have assumed that you control your future. You have found yourself reminded that, “you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.”
Tonight, you are either arrogantly assuming that you control your future, or you are humbly submitting to the God who controls the future. Which is it?
You need to take control of your mind. You might need to change the way that you think about the future. James tells you how to think about the future. ‘Instead,’ he says, ‘you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”’
Your will does not determine the future. It is not as you will, but as He wills. Make your plans because you must but make them humbly. Hold them loosely. Don’t try to control what was never yours to control.
Saying, “if it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that,” is a humble recognition that, “you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Such humility reminds you that you are not in control of the future, but that you must rather live in the present.
You can live no other time than now. You can’t control what happens in the future, but you can control what you do and think now. You can’t control what someone else might say or do in the future and you can’t even control what you will say or do in the future today. You can only control what you do and think in this moment. You must live now. Trying to do otherwise is to arrogantly assume power that belongs to God alone.
James reminds you that your plans are contingent upon God’s plans. He reminds you to humble you. The humility of “if the Lord wills,” is more important than the words themselves. Now some of us use the phrase, “if the Lord will,” quite regularly. “We are going to have a birthday party for grandma, Lord willing, on Friday.” There is something helpful about that.
Church bulletins used to regularly use the phrase, “Lord willing.” They often used the letters, “D.V.” which is short for the Latin phrase, “Deo Volente”, “God willing.” ‘The council will meet this Monday at 8:00, D.V.” Growing up my dad thought that D.V. stood for DeVries because his minister’s last name was DeVries; he thought this announcement must have had the DeVries stamp of approval, but no, D.V. stands for, “Lord willing.”
Those words are helpful, but I think Calvin is right, “no scruple ought to be entertained, as though it were a sin to omit them.” You don’t need to say, “Lord willing,” after every plan for the future; this is a matter of the heart. The concern in James’ mind was not that those merchants who were planning on going to this or that city, spending a year there, carrying on business and making money didn’t say, “Lord willing.” His concern was that they didn’t mean, “Lord willing.” They thought their will determined the future. They thought their lives were about themselves. The humility is more important than the words themselves.
You see this in Jesus. He didn’t always or regularly use the phrase, “Lord willing,” but he submitted himself to his Father’s control of the future. He asked for what he wanted but didn’t that his will determined the future. “Lord, if it is your will may this cup be removed from me, yet not my will but yours be done.”
Let this sink in: the Son of God didn’t assume power that didn’t belong to him but you, who are a mere mortal, regularly do. The Son of God doesn’t presume to know when he will return to judge the living and the dead; “about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” And yet, you, who are a mist that vanishes, regularly presume the ability to control what will occur. Humble yourself. Your boasting and bragging are evil.
You need to live in the present. You do that by obeying in the present. That is our second point: do good now.
Trying to control the future prevents you from living in the present. Rather than making arrogant assumptions about the future, you must live in the present and you do so by obeying today. Look at verse 17, “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”
Rather than focusing on what you will do in the future, which you can’t control, focus on your obedience today, which you do control. Living in the present is about obedience. You live in the now by obeying now.
Now this requires humility. It requires more humility to obey today than it takes to make assumptions about tomorrow. It requires more humility to obey today than it requires to boast and brag about what your life will look like one day. In other words, it requires more humility to submit to God than it does to play God.
Our culture believes that your life is about you; that isn’t the case; your life is about God; your life is simply your context for obedience to God. If a Christian man is married, his marriage isn’t about him; it is his context for obedience—“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” If a Christian man has children, his relationship with his children isn’t about him; it is his context for obedience—“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”
Now the man who is holds the arrogant assumptions of our first point isn’t focused on obedience in marriage and childrearing. He is focused on securing the future he desires. James is warning such a man that, “anyone, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” Any man who neglects to bring his children up in the training and instruction of the Lord because he is too busy trying to control the future sins. Any man who neglects to love his wife as Christ loves the church because he has a dream in his heart that calls for his full attention is sinning. How else can you interpret, “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins”?
Our culture tells you to organize your life around you. “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” James tells you to organize your life around obedience. “Anyone, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”
Consider the difference between them when it comes to the workplace for example. Our culture urges young people to expend extraordinary energy finding and then securing the job that fits best. The Bible tells them, “whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
The Bible focuses on your ability to obey in any job while the culture focuses on finding the job that fits you. One view is about God and the other is about you.
If you find yourself in a job that doesn’t fit you well, then ask yourself, ‘what good could I be doing in this job?’ Rather than trying to control your future and finding your best job, ask yourself, ‘what good am I commanded to do in this situation?’ Are there people with whom you work? You are commanded to be patient with them. You are commanded to be kind to them. Focus on that. Are there projects which you have been given? You are commanded to work at that project with all of your heart as if Jesus were your boss. Focus on that. Now a job that you might enjoy more might become available. Take it but know that your responsibility in that new job will be the same. You must still work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.
The real question for Christian young people is not, ‘what job do you want?’ but, ‘do you want to obey God at work?’ There is a much bigger difference between a doctor who does her work as for the Lord and a doctor who doesn’t than there is between a doctor and some job our culture devalues. We don’t tend to see that because we think life is about us. God sees it because He knows that life is about obedience to Him.
God is not all that interested in securing you the future that you want. He is interested in securing the future that He wants and as it pertains to you that includes doing good.
You know what God’s will for you is for the future and it rarely has much to do with the questions which you ask about the future. It has to do with verse 13, “Anyone… who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” His will for you tomorrow is obedience. His will for you in ten years is obedience.
Since you know His will for you in the future, do it today. Obey today. When you try to control the future, you are tempted to sin today. You will be tempted to lie if your goal is to receive particular treatment from someone in the future. You will be tempted to sleep with your boyfriend if you think that will keep his interest in the relationship. If you are trying to control the future, you will be tempted to sin to secure what you want. If, however, you know that your life is about obedience today, you can leave the future to God. If you take seriously that His will for you today is obedience, you can obey today and leave the future to Him. That, in part, is why Jesus said, “seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all that is necessary will be added on to you.”
Do you believe that you can leave your future to God or do you need to control it? If you believe that you can control it, you are already sinning; “As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.” If you believe the future is in God’s hands, then you are free to obey today.
Living in the now is about obeying now. Consider Jesus. He said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.” Jesus wanted to do what God wanted done.
Why should you expect that God’s plan for your life would be any different? Don’t try to get God to co-sign your dreams. Do the good that is in front of you. Obey in the situation in which He has placed you. Obey in the situations in which He will place you.
Stop trying to control the future. It is arrogant and it is fruitless. It is prideful and it is a waste of your time. Rather than trying to control the future, control yourself. You know the commandments that you are called to keep in the context of obedience that is your life. You know the good that you are called to do. Do it. Do it now, which is the only moment in time in which you can live. Amen.