"Thy will be done..."

“Thy Will be done…”

James 4:13-17

Introduction:  As Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount He taught his hearers what Kingdom life in a fallen world would look like.  In that sermon He taught His followers about prayer in Matthew 6:9-13.  The Lord’s prayer (or perhaps more accurately, “the disciples’ prayer,” since it was a model prayer for his followers), given by Jesus to his disciples to show them (and us!) how we should pray, begins, “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven…”  Most of us have memorized that prayer and in one form or another, many have prayed that prayer, but how long has it been since you really thought about those opening words of the Lord’s Prayer? That God would be approached as our heavenly Father, and regarded as holy, that His Kingdom should be established, that His will should be done, willingly, joyfully, on earth as in heaven. His will. If we are praying that prayer, are we merely saying the words, or is that what we really desire? His will? James says that is the attitude of normal, healthy, Christianity.

Remember that James, in his letter, is telling us the kinds of things that accompany authentic faith in Christ.  As a Christ follower walks with the Lord, and matures in his faith, more and more the attitudes and actions that we see described in this epistle are apparent in our lives.  Genuine faith will spawn the works that accompany salvation. The implication also is that we need to guard our hearts, because any one of us can, for a time, fall into patterns that look like the world if we are not careful.  Chapter 4 has had a theme that has carried throughout the section: if we know God, if we see Him as He is, we will have a proper humility, and we must choose to be humble, willingly submitting our life to Him.  V.12 asked, “Who are you to judge another?”  The first part of that question undergirds the imperatives and instruction that we see throughout this section, “…Who are you…” James is asking his readers, and us, “What are you doing? Who do you think you are? Do you realize you are acting like the World, that you are living in ways that make you look like the enemies of God?” The short paragraph we come to today addresses the question of how we plan for the future, and ultimately, asks if we are willing to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ, and subject our will to God’s will and our plans to His plans for our lives.

The Big Idea: As Christ followers we should plan for the future recognizing that God is sovereign: Our will should be to discover and follow His will and purpose for our lives.

I. We should seek His will because that is the only thing that is sure about the future (13,14).  Whether it is natural disasters or the acts of humans, we simply cannot predict what will happen five minutes from now, much less on the coming days, weeks, or years.

            Verse thirteen begins, “Come now, you who say…” This phrase only occurs twice in the entire New Testament, here and in 5:1. It is not a friendly greeting, rather it is calling attention to the wrong thinking of a segment of the professing church to which James is writing. James is talking like an Old Testament prophet and saying, “LISTEN! HEAR THIS!”  “You who say…” shows that it is the actual speech of the group he is speaking to that is being presented as evidence against them.  They are using language and making claims that are inconsistent with their profession of faith in Christ.  Once again the tongue is a barometer, a gauge, that reveals what is at its core a heart matter. As we’ll see their speech indicates that they are guilty of planning their lives, their futures, without thought of God and his plans or sovereignty.

            Notice that specific statements that they are making: “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’…"  These people are confidently planning their future without considering God and His will. Notice the verbs are all future indicative, statements about what is going to happen: “We will go… we will spend… we will do business… we will profit…” Greek has a subjunctive mood that allows for doubt or uncertainty about exactly how future events will unfold. The indicative mood used here indicates absolute certainty, confidence about something that is being affirmed. They are planning confidently about what they are going to do for the next year, yet they don’t even know what tomorrow holds for them.  There is no doubt or uncertainty expressed, there is no provision for readjustment of their plans by God, they are saying this is it, this is what we will do. This is so easy to fall into. It is reasonable and right to plan, but we have to recognize only God knows the future.  Do you remember the financial crisis in 2008? Many people had their plans for the future laid out. The stock market always goes up, home values are higher every year. We had a reminder that the future is not so easy to predict as we thought. 

            “…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.” James says, for all of their arrogance, they don’t even know what tomorrow will bring (v.14). This is almost a citation of Proverbs 27:1, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth…” The point is, planning ahead without allowing room for God to redirect is arrogant. We are acting as if we can control our future, as if we are the master of our fate.  We are essentially acting as if we think we are omniscient and omnipotent.  You might say, “Wait a minute, those are attributes only of God.” James (and Proverbs) says we don’t even know what tomorrow will bring, much less a series of 365 tomorrows over the next year.  That’s his point. As Christ followers we should plan for the future recognizing that God is sovereign: Our will should be to discover and follow His will and purpose for our lives.

II. We should seek God’s will because to live otherwise is arrogant (15,16). “Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’  ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil…” 

            Notice here that James is not telling us to live in the moment and forget about the future. He is saying that we must deliberately submit our will and our plans to God, recognizing that we are always subject to His redirection. If we plan contingent upon what “the Lord wills” we are recognizing His Lordship, we are acknowledging that He is sovereign and that His will is best.  We are planning, and that’s fine, but we are consciously submitting our plans to God’s plans. We are praying “God, your will be done on earth, in my life…” Just as it would be arrogant to put ourselves in the place of God and judge our neighbor (v.12) it would be arrogant to think that we know better than God about tomorrow.

Making our plans for the future without including God in the conversation is foolish and arrogant. Remember the story of the Rich Fool…

“And he told them a parable, saying, ‘The land of a rich man produced plentifully,  ¹⁷ and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?'  ¹⁸ And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  ¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.'  ²⁰ But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'” (Luke 12:16-22).

             Notice what James said the believer should say as he plans the future: “Instead say, ‘if the Lord wills I will live and do this…”  We are dependent upon God for life, we don’t know how much time we have. God does. He numbers our days. He has a plan for us, and we need to recognize that even when we don’t understand, His timing is right, His plan is perfect.

So to plan our future without acknowledging God’s sovereignty is boasting, and “…all such boasting is evil…” James uses a strong word here, “evil” is the same word Jesus used in the disciples prayer when he told them to pray, “deliver us from the Evil One…”  The rich man’s attitude, an attitude that we are all susceptible to, is reflected in the famous poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley, “It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

That is the attitude of pride, arrogance, and that is sin: Humans thinking that they are in control, that they make the rules. It’s the arrogant rebellion of the nations that we see in Psalm 2:1-6,

“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?  ² The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his anointed, saying,  ³ "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us."  ⁴ He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.  ⁵ Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying,  ⁶ "As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill."  

God is sovereign, Jesus is Lord, and human rebellion is exceedingly arrogant. Ron Hodgecraft described sin as “…A tiny drop of protoplasm, floating on a little speck of dust in space, shaking its fist at the God who created a hundred million galaxies.”  As Christ followers we should plan for the future recognizing that God is sovereign: Our will should be to discover and follow His will and purpose for our lives.

III. We should seek His will because to know what He says and disobey is sin (17). ^“So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” 

             James here gives a principal that applies more widely than this context: If we hear the truth of God’s Word, if we know what God would have us to do as we are faced with a choice, a moment of decision in our life, and still we choose to go in another direction (our own!), that is sin.  When we know the truth, we are responsible to obey the truth. 

            More specifically, in this context, James is saying that if we choose to act presumptuously, to live as practical atheists going on in life planning our own future as if we thought we were masters of our fate without seeking God’s will and plan for our lives, that is SIN, because we know better.

What is God saying to me in this passage? As Christ followers we should plan for the future recognizing that God is sovereign: Our will should be to discover and follow His will and purpose for our lives. How do we discover His will? It starts with the Scripture. We need to hear and obey the Word of God. If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, there is no need to wonder if you should be baptized. There is no need, husbands, to wonder about loving your wife: God said it plainly, “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church.”  That is pretty clear. We know what God’s will is. James is not telling us to look ahead. He is not saying do not plan for the future. He is saying that as we plan ahead we need to include God in our planning. Our will must be to seek HIS will for our life.

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? Life is all about decisions, choices we make as individuals. I read in a devotional this week that C. S. Lewis wrote,

"Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of."

That is a great encouragement. But the writer of the devotional warned:

“But as with all non-negotiables, it works the other way, too. Even a trivial indulgence in lust or anger today represents the loss of territory in our hearts that the enemy can secure, giving him an inroad to launch an attack against you—an attack that otherwise would have been impossible. Each misstep offers him a stronger foothold for marshaling his counteroffensives against you, against your marriage, against your family—if not right now, then at a later time when he knows he can inflict the greatest amount of damage.”

We are responsible for our choices, and our choices have consequences. We don’t know anything about what will happen tomorrow, five minutes from now, or five years into the future. God knows. Nothing is a surprise to Him. Doesn’t it make sense to submit our will to His?  Another proverb gives the right perspective: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.” That sounds like a plan we can live by!       Think about that.   Amen.