Sermon Tone Analysis

James Video

Slide 1: Title

Welcome | Pray

There is a common phrase around here I’ve heard all my life.

You’ll recognize it: “If the good Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise.”

My parents say it, my grandparents say it, your family probably says it, you probably say it, and I find myself saying it now and again.

Oftentimes I say it a bit jokingly, or with a smirk on my face, and twist it around.

There are a lot of old sayings we hear and use all the time without having any idea where they come from.

This is a common phrase in our lives because the very fabric and foundations of our country and our culture are built on the Lord’s Word, and as you’ll see today in our passage, this phrase we hear most commonly from elderly saints, is more than just an old saying, it’s a biblical and humble outlook on life.

As we get to the back half of James 4, he pivots away from wisdom and godliness to write about the sins of the wealthy, the first of which concludes that God is sovereign, and he achieves this by showing us that making plans without first consulting God is both presumptuous and arrogant.

Please follow along with me in your Bibles or on the screen.

Slides 2, 3, 4, 5, 6: James 4:13-17

James 4:13–17 ESV

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

What is your life?

For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

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

As it is, you boast in your arrogance.

All such boasting is evil.

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Slide 7: Title

All throughout this letter, James likes to get our attention with his new thoughts in different ways:

· Sometimes he asks a pointed question that catches us off guard like, “Whoa, did he really just ask that...”

· Sometimes he uses titles to draw us in remind us he’s on our side such as, “My brothers and sisters, or friends,”

· but here he says, “Come now!”

“Come now.”

Like, “C’mon man, I have a word for you, listen up, men.”

It’s aimed at getting the audience’s attention heading into a serious discussion.

James isn’t playing games, he sees a problem in the attitude of the believers and he’s here, as all good Christian teachers are, to correct with truth, yet lovingly guide with grace in wisdom.

Apparently this is very important.

Some people in this congregation, probably wealthy merchants, have been making plans in their business that don’t appear to be evil or bad in anyway, in fact it appears to make business sense.

They’re planning and strategizing.

On the surface we see good business sense.

You may not know this about me, but business is in my blood.

My father is the owner-operator of his business.

Both my grandfather’s owned and operated businesses.

In fact, one of my grandpas was self-employed his entire life.

He never once took home a paycheck from someone else.

My bachelor’s degree is in Marketing.

That’s the business degree I got from a small Christian university.

I don’t come from a long line of pastors, I come from a long line of Christian business owners.

Selling candy in H.S. study hall as fundraiser.

Strategy is an important component of running a business.

The first step of any new business venture is to write a business plan.

That’s doing the homework of analyzing the market before investing much time or money.

What do I want to sell?

How does that product or service fill a need in the marketplace?

Basically, what is the mission of my business, what needs to be in place to pull it off, and what are my goals and expectations for the business?

It’s good to have goals.

Our economy was built and is sustained by ambitious business owners and entrepreneurs.

None of these things are bad.

I love it, some days I miss it, so I incorporate some of it into my role at the church.

Let’s look again at what they’re doing to understand what the problem is and look for parallels for us today:

Slide 8: James 4:13

James 4:13 ESV

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—Again, these are wealthy, ambitious merchants, nothing wrong with that.

Where James takes issue is they’re making some assumptions.

They are assuming:

• They’ll be alive when they head out tomorrow

• They’ll be survive the journey and be alive to arrive in such and such a town

• They’ll be welcomed by the locals for a year (alive for a year)

• The locals will trade with them, that they’re goods are needed there

• They’ll make a profit

For those of you who run businesses or go on sales routes, wouldn’t it be awesome if business actually worked this way?

This easy?

“Tomorrow morning I’m going to drive down to Pittsburgh, put a sign out on the street, sell a thousand candy bars and drive home with a $1,000 profit in my pocket.”

These businessmen have decided when they’re leaving, where they’re going, how long they’ll be there, what they’ll do there, and even what the outcome will be - and to boot they’ve decided they’ll survive the journey.

James condemns planning our future in that way.

Why?

Because when we do that we’re acting as though we alone determine the course of our lives, apart from God.

It is an arrogant self-confidence that elevates us above God.

Proverbs 27:1 says it like this:

Slide 9: Proverbs 27:1

Proverbs 27:1 ESV

Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.

James takes it one step further:

Slide 10: James 4:14

James 4:14 ESV

yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

What is your life?

For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

Once again, I love how James is quick to humble us as he looks at us, like, “Hey, you up there!

You think you’re the man?

You think you’re the focal point of life, huh?

You think you’re cat’s meow and we’re all orbiting around you and even God’s supposed to bow down to you? Think again buddy.

Let me show you what you are: Mist.”

This is one of the harsh realities of our lives we don’t like to talk about.

How encouraging is this?

What is your life?

A mist.

It’s here and it’s gone.

I can’t grab it.

I can’t hold it in my hand and save it for later.

I see it for a second and it’s gone.

Our life is like a breath.

Here for a moment and gone.

Life is short no matter how many years we live, and we’ve got to recognize that not only do we not have control over tomorrow, but we don’t have the promise of tomorrow.

We’re promised today, so wake up and say, “Thank you, Lord, for today, I will live it serving you.”

And the whole days not even a guarantee.

And yet we live and plan without consulting God, as if we have complete say in how many days we have.