Living A Life After God Series

11 Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?

13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

15 Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that." 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.

17 Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.

George Barna has broken down the American population into five existing generationsf:

Seniors: those that were born in 1926 and earlier

Builders: those that were born between 1927 and 1945

Boomers: those that were born between 1946 and 1964

Busters: those born between 1965 and 1983

Those that were born after 1984 to the present are yet to be named

When we talk about Baby Boomers we are talking about the 76 million children who were born in the years after World War 2 and the Korean War. They are called Baby Boomers because there was such a hug boom in births beginning in 1946 compared to the birth figures prior to that time.

Esquire, written by Robert George, editorial page writer of the New York Post, entitled, “The Worst Generation.” George wrote: “The Baby Boomers are the most self-centered, self-seeking, self-interested, self absorbed, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing generation in American history.

”When you read James 3:13-17, you would think that some of the characteristics of Baby Boomers are true of every generation, even those of James’ day.

A LIFE THAT FORGETS GOD! 13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit."

James uses as an illustration the attitudes, aspirations and actions of certain merchants in his

day.

A. What Are The Goals Of My Life "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city,

and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit."

1. Merchants making their plans and setting goals for the coming year. They are planners,

ambitious and have specific objectives in their life.

They know what they are doing; know where they are going, and what they want.

B. Where Is God In My Life

1. Is James disapproving the setting of goals or planning in our life or the desire to make money?

What he is disapproving is that God is nowhere in their plans. James is reminding us of the folly

of leaving God out of our plans.

The first Russian Cosmonauts went into space and returned. One of them said when he returned from his journey in outer space, "Some people say there is a God out there, but in my travels around earth all day long I looked around and I didn’t see him. I saw no God, nor angels, I don’t believe in God."

If he’d stepped out of that capsule he’d have seen God within five seconds and he would have known that there was a God! But, he was an intellectual atheist, he said, "I do not believe that there is a God."

2. If there is any characteristic of the Baby Boomer generation it is this one thing.

The Baby Boomer thinks in terms of, “What I am going to do.” “What I am going to be”

“What I am going to have.” It is, “I,I,I,” and “me, me, me”.

3. It is not wrong to plan, but it is wrong to plan without God and considering His plans.

4. James is saying that God is not to be left out of our today or tomorrow. God is not to be left out

of whatever city we go into, the year ahead, our buying, selling, and getting gain.

A LIFE THAT FACES GOD!

1. While we often think of today and tomorrow, James thinks even further ahead. He thinks of the

life that is to come. He evaluates life in the light of eternity and what follows once this life is over.

A. This Life Is Not Predictable 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.