It’s Not Your Party - James 4:13-17 Series

James 4:13 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 disappears. 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.

Introduction

It was an exciting day for Miss Kelly’s kindergarten class. It was little Katie’s birthday, and they were having a party for her in the class. When it was time for her to open presents, all the kids were seated around a table, and each one had a little bag of party favors. Two tootsie rolls, a piece of gum, a plastic whistle that probably wouldn’t make it home. Most of the kids were having a lot of fun, but Jeffrey wasn’t. He was sitting directly across from Katie, and he was making it very clear to everyone that he wasn’t one bit happy with the situation. He looked at his little bag of party favors, then he looked at her great big pile of gifts and frowned with a big “harrumph.” Then he did it again, squirming in his chair. He kept doing that until finally one of the adults had enough. She walked up to him, turned his chair to face her, and said, “Jeffrey, look at me. It’s not your party.” Insightful lady. She knew exactly what the problem was. Jeffrey’s behavior was unacceptable, but she understood that beneath that behavior was an attitude that was causing the behavior. How was it that all these little kids could be so happy and could be having such a good time at this party, and Jeffrey has exactly the same circumstances, and he is miserable? It’s because parties can be a blast if you understand that it’s not your party. But as soon as you start thinking you should be the birthday boy, you ruin the whole party – for yourself and for everyone else.

Every one of us is born into this life thinking it’s all about me. My life is for me. The main objective is my comfort, my happiness, my preferences, my plans – all of life revolves around that. We have been studying through the book of James, and we left off last time in chapter 4 verse 13, where James turns our little chair toward him and looks us in the face and tells us, it’s not your party. And James tells us this for the same reason that woman said that to little Jeffery. We will be a lot happier in life if we learn this. So James is for us – he is going to help us, but he starts with a rebuke.

Prideful Presumption

The Presumptive Plan

James 4:13 Now listen…

Typically James will address the readers is my brothers or my dear brothers. But in place of that, here he says now listen (or your Bible might say come now). That’s a little phrase that signals a rebuke. James is about to rebuke them for a sin.

James 4:13 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.”

What’s so bad about that? They were making plans. You can’t do anything in life without making some kind of plans. So why is this such a sinful thing for these people to say? We say things like that all the time, don’t we?

“I’m planning on moving out to California.”

“Oh really? When are you leaving?”

“I have a van rented for the twenty-third.”

This is an alarming passage, because if we fall into the wrong mentality and do what comes naturally, we will commit this sin every single day. We will wake up, and our very first act will be to commit this sin. And it will seem so innocent.

“Today I’m going to get up, have breakfast, leave for work at 6:30, then get this done and that done…”

“Tonight my wife and I will have our date night.”

“Next week we are driving down to Colorado Springs for this event…”

What’s so evil about that? The answer is down in verse 16.

16 As it is, you boast and brag.

Literally, it’s as it is, you boast in your arrogance. The sin that James is concerned about is prideful arrogance. It is not just that they said the wrong words. It is the prideful attitude behind those words.