IF IT IS THE
LORD’S WILL…
Many grade 12 students are asked a similar question as
graduation approaches: What are your plans for after high school? Some say
“work;” some say “university” or “college.” Some even have a plan that is
worked out in detail – at least in their minds: Go to university, get a good
job, get married, buy a house, have four kids and…
Graduation
is a transitional moment for young people. Likewise, retirement is an equally
momentous transition for the agedly-challenged. What are you going to do after
retirement? That is the question facing the sixty-plus crowd. Some plan to
volunteer at ministries like the Thrift Store or at Resthaven; others plan to
tinker in their shops. Some plan to dote on their grandchildren or take
extended vacations in Arizona.
But let
me ask you this, both the high-school grad and the prospective retiree and
everyone in between, when you made your plans, did you commit those plans to
God? Have you wondered whether those plans are actually God’s will for your life?
My sense
is that when we were younger we thought much more about whether we were in
God’s will. We wondered if marrying that girl or guy was God’s will for us. We
wrestled with what God’s will was for our vocation. We really wanted to get it
right.
As I got
older my theology changed and I didn’t worry so much about decision-making and
the will of God. I realized that there wasn’t just one path for my life and if
I didn’t follow it I would be out of God’s will. But as we got older we got
used to making our plans without consideration of God’s will. We made plans and
they succeeded – it must be God’s will, we said.
How
about when plans failed? What did that mean? Life is unpredictable and plans
will fail. In our passage today (4:13-17), James wants us to know that
because life is unpredictable we ought to humbly submit ourselves to God’s
will. What that involves is our study this morning.
1. When our plans fail
It appears that in the
church James was addressing, perhaps the Jerusalem church he was the pastor of,
there were some businessmen who were planning out their lives. They had plans
to travel, to stay in a city, to set up a business and make money. But note the
tone of their plans:
“Today or tomorrow we
will go to such and such a city and we
will spend a year there and we will
do business and we will make a
profit.”
We can assume that these businessmen were strong
believers in the existence of God, but James implies that they lived as if God
did not exist. They did not consider his will for their daily decisions. They
lived as if their lives were in their own hands and made plans without the
thought of God. However, what we plan and what actually happens may be two
different things.
James responds to this attitude saying, “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,” (4:14).
This is the truth: we don’t know what will happen
tomorrow. We don’t even know what will happen when we walk out those doors
after the service. If we make our plans for today and tomorrow assuming all
will be as we imagine it, we are actually living in arrogance.
Here’s a humbling thought: your life is a mist. The word
“mist” can be translated “a puff of smoke.” Just as our homes give off a trail
of steam in the -30 weather and it is blown away by the wind and is gone, so is
your life. What James suggests with this imagery is threefold:
Life is frail
– As I watch what Leukemia does to my mother I have a clear picture of how weak
the body can grow.
Life is short
– In Psalm 90, Moses writes about the brevity of life. He compares life to the
grass of the field that grows in the morning, and by evening has faded in the
hot sun. Someone remarked that life is like a roll of toilet paper – the closer
you get to the end, the quicker it goes.
Death is certain – It is not probable, it is definite. This is not a pleasant thing to
say but it is undeniable.
You are a mist.
What happens when our plans fail? We might blame God for
abandoning us (yet again?). Or we might grow depressed wondering how to find
the elusive will of God for our lives.
I think what James is trying to tell us is simple: Our
lives do not always go according to our plans. And it is arrogant to think
that our plans should always succeed. To get mad at God or to be sick of life
because it is not going our way indicates that we have a problem.
2. Who is Lord in your
life?
That problem is summed up
in the question: Who is Lord in your life? If the answer is “you” then you are
at odds with the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe who sits upon the throne
of heaven and rules all things. God is sovereign. There is no other ruler. We
are not sovereign.
Elizabeth II is the sovereign of the Commonwealth,
including Britain, Canada, Australia and the rest. God is sovereign over all
creation. To be sovereign means to be the supreme ruler. God is God and thus he
is sovereign.
Now when you make plans and do not consider God in the
making of those plans we act defiantly. Not that we are outright rebelling but
we are ignoring the Lord who made us, cares for us, and is a tremendous
resource of wisdom and guidance.
Should we not make plans at all? If my life is a mist
should I bother even planning for the future? The point is that for James, and for God, it
matters whether a true view of life informs and shapes the way you think and
how you speak about your plans. It is your attitude that matters. You do not
have to dwell on the image of your life as mist and stop planning. What matters
is how you talk about your life, your plans, your future.
Why does this
matter? Because God created us not just to do things and go places with
our bodies, but to have certain attitudes and convictions and verbal
descriptions that reflect the truth - a true view of life and God. God means
for the truth about himself and about life to be known and felt and spoken as
part of our reason for being. You weren't just created to go to Denver and do
business; you were made to go to Denver with thoughts and attitudes and words
that reflect a right view of life and God.[i]
This is why James
says, “Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it
is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that,’” (4:15). We don’t
need to repeat this phrase mindlessly every time we decide to go to Steinbach.
We also don’t need to be fatalistic about it and ignore our responsibilities
(Katy – “I’ll take you to the concert…if the Lord wills”). Rather it is a
sincere appreciation for God’s control of affairs and for his will for us. We
need to acknowledge that God is the Lord of our lives.
Paul had this
attitude in his planning, and yes, he did use the expression. When Paul was at
Ephesus and was about to leave, he promised the believers there, “I will come back if it is God’s will,”
(Acts 18:21). And when he wrote to the Roman Christians he said, “I pray that now at last by God’s will the
way may be opened for me to come to you,” (Ro 1:10). That is the attitude
James is teaching: God permitting we will do such and such….
Even if we don’t
say it, we should think it. “If the Lord wills it.” This is a very basic
lesson: God is God; I am not God. He is sovereign; I am not sovereign. If we
confess that he is our Lord and God, he is also Lord and God of your family,
your business, and your recreational life.
3. Pride’s Blinding Effect
If, however, we confess that Jesus is Lord of our lives, but we
live as if we are our own lords, we fall into the same trap as these people to
whom James writes. These believers were not operating their lives and
businesses as James thinks they should. They were proud of their plans and
their prosperity, taking all the credit for their success.
Pride like
this can blind us to God’s sovereignty.
James is quite
harsh when he writes to them, “As it is,
you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil,” (4:16).
These people are bragging about their ability to plan their own lives
independently of any divine guidance. They didn’t commit their plans to God in
prayer. They are like, or are very possibly the same people, who “have not
because they ask not.” They would say, you pray while I get things done.
If we are in a
hurry to get things done so much so that we don’t have time to pray, you may
just fail in your plans. I am not saying “every time,” but I do believe more
and more that all things need to be committed to God in prayer.
Then we can boast
in what God has done. Boasting is evil when it is boasting in our own
achievements. But there is another kind of boasting. Paul wrote the Corinthians
saying, “If I must boast, I will boast of
the things that show my weakness…Therefore I will boast all the more gladly
about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me,” (2 Cor. 11:30;
12:9).
Pride will blind
us to the hand of God in our daily successes or achievements. But the person
who confesses his or her helplessness to God invites the Spirit of the Lord to
work in our lives and do more than we can imagine.
I experienced this
again last weekend at our Ministerial Retreat. Sunday morning I felt slightly
ill and mentally unprepared. I confessed my helplessness to God as I began to
lead the morning session. The result was so impactful that I knew the Lord had
done something that I could not take credit for in the least.
4. Living in the Will of God
We might think that v. 17 is a detour from the theme that James
has been writing about. He says, “If
anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them,”
(4:17).
However, since
James has urged us to take the Lord into consideration in all our planning, we
have no excuse in the matter – we know what we are to do. To fail to do it,
James says, is sin.
What is he
talking about? In all your planning acknowledge God; if you don’t you are
deliberately sinning. This is called the sin of omission. Jesus refers to this
in Luke 12:47 where he says that the servant who knows his master’s will and
does not do it will be punished.
Now the question
is: What is the Lord’s will? Many go down the wrong path with this question.
They think that God has someone specific for them to marry, a specific job or
ministry they should be in, or even a specific plan for each day. But the
mystery is not in finding God’s will for your life – the mystery is why we
ignore what God’s will so clearly is.
If we see God’s
will as a bull’s-eye and we are supposed to hit it dead center with our
decisions every time, we will be out of God’s will more times than not. God’s
will is not a bull’s-eye, though it may be a target.
Jesus said that, “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and
sister and mother,” (Mk 3:35). As Jesus taught his disciples and followers,
it became clear that “loving one another” was God’s will for us. John clearly taught
this when he wrote, “If anyone has
material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how
can the love of God be in him?” (1 Jn 2:17). Loving others is the prime
directive for being in the center of God’s will.
Paul also weighed
in on finding God’s will when he said, “Be
joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this
is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus,” (1 Thess 5:16-18).
Humble
obedience to God’s will is the only way to live as a believer in Christ.
And his will is not hard to figure out. There is no mystery to God’s will.
First he wants you to include him in the consideration of your plans. Then he
wants you to make his will a priority. The truth is, when measured against
God’s will for you, you may have to change your plans.
Show me your faith
We have to confess that we
plan a great many things as a church without pausing to include God. We assume
that some of these are amoral (not have a right or wrong to them) and so they
don’t matter to God. If we think that, we are wrong.
Perhaps you are sitting here today wondering what God’s
will is for your life after high school. Maybe you are wondering what God’s
will is for your retirement that is coming soon or you are already engaged in.
What does God want for you? Where does God want you to be? How can you serve
him? You may be frustrating yourself unnecessarily.
What God desires is for you to have an attitude like
James is prescribing, to say “if it is the Lord’s will I will…” Pray about it.
Make it a matter of prayer – no matter how trivial you think it might be.
And what God wants you to know is that his will is for
his Son, Jesus Christ, to be glorified in your life. How do we do that? By
looking into the gospels and obeying the commands Jesus gives us. Do that and
you will be dead center in the will of God. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of
heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven,” (Mt
7:21).
Life is unpredictable. We do not know what tomorrow holds
for us and so the best course of action is to humbly submit ourselves to God’s
will.
AMEN
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