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.
James is saying in reality, we don’t what tomorrow holds or what can happen in the future.
1899, Charles H. Duell, Commissioner in the U.S. Office of Patents said, "Everything that can be invented has been invented." Since then, airplanes, automobiles, manned space travel, plastics, computers, cell phones, and literally millions of other devices and products that we use and take for granted every day.
In 1988, a book was distributed to nearly every pastor in America. “88 Reasons Why Christ Will Return In 1988.” Edgar Whisnant, predicted that the rapture would take place on Sept. 11, 12, or 13th of 1988.
Many people believed the prediction. Trinity Broadcasting Network even went so far as to change their regular schedule and broadcasted selected videotapes telling non-believers what they should do if their loved ones suddenly disappeared. Over 3,000,000 million copies of that book were distributed, millions more believed it, yet it never came to pass.
2. There is nothing wrong with planning and preparing for tomorrow yet we never know what curve
life may throw us, or what things will happen, or how things may turn out.
A person can be sailing calm seas today, but stormy seas tomorrow.
There could be not a cloud in the sky today, but tomorrow skies could be dark.
Tomorrow is not predictable. Life is not predictable.
Some time ago, a Senate Sub-committee made the following predictions: Men will be working 22 hour weeks, 27 weeks per year and will retire by age 38. This was predicted in 1967, for the future. The year all this was to happen? 1985!
B. Life Is Not Permanent You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
1. James not only speaks of the uncertainty of life, but also of its brevity.
The word “vapour” is description of a mist. It is translated “smoke” in Acts 2:19.
Like steam coming out of a teakettle on the stove, life at its longest is very brief.
Tony Campolo, that remarkable Christian communicator, tells about the Baptist Church of which he is the associate pastor in Philadelphia. It celebrates Student Recognition Day once a year.
In one of those services, after a few students had spoken, the Pastor began his sermon in a shocking manner. He said, "Young people, you may not think you are going to die, but you are. One of these days, they’ll take you to the cemetery, drop you in a hole, throw some dirt on your face, and go back to the church and eat potato salad."
2. We do not know what tomorrow holds and furthermore, we don’t even know if we will be here tomorrow. That’s why Solomon said in Proverbs 27:1, “Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” I plan on being around here tomorrow. I am sure that each of you has no plans to check out of life today. Yet, we have no guarantee that we have a tomorrow.
Peter Marshall told the Arabic fable of a merchant in Baghdad that sent his servant to the market. When he returned it was obvious that he was deeply disturbed. He said to his master, “Down in the marketplace I was jostled by someone in the crowd. When I turned I saw that it was Death that jostled me. He looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Please lend me a horse that I might hasten to Samarra and hide there so Death cannot find me.” The merchant loaned him a horse and the servant galloped away as fast as he could.
Later the merchant went to the marketplace and saw Death standing there in the crowd. He walked over to him and said, “Why did you frighten my servant this morning? Why did you make a threatening gesture?” Death replied, “That was not a threatening gesture. I was only startled and surprised. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”
Death has an appointment with each of us and we know not when.
We do not know what tomorrow holds and we don’t even know if we have a tomorrow.
It is folly to leave God out of our life and one day we will have to face God. There is more to life than this life. There is the life to come and in that life we have an appointment to meet God.
A LIFE THAT FOLLOWS GOD! 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.
A. Life That Is According To God’s Will
1. What tomorrow holds is all up to God. He is the one in charge of our tomorrows.
B. Life That Is Acceptant Of God’s Will
1. Our attitude ought to be, “If the Lord will.”
2. Describing these merchants James describes them as boasters of what they were going to do.
17 Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.
A king has a hole dug in the middle of a road and puts a pot of gold in the hole. When someone exclaims that the stone is in the way, the king replies that the stone will help him to find someone.
The King states that he is worried about his people. They have forgotten how to help themselves and how to help one another. He hides.
Two shepherds pass by and see the stone in the middle of the road and are upset that it may be in the way of any sheep going down the path. “I hope someone tells the king about this.”,
Two women pass by and wonder what in the world is coming to, to allow a stone to lie in the middle of a road. They are afraid someone will get hurt. “Where is the king?”, they ask as they walk by.
Two men appear-merchants. The stone, they fear, may get in people’s way and hurt their business. How could the king slip up, to let a stone to stay in the middle of the road?
Then a little boy comes down the road. “Wow. Look at that stone. Lucky I saw it before it gets
dark. Someone might have been hurt. “He pushes on the stone until it is on the side of the road.
Then he sees the gold in the hole. He assumes it is the king’s gold, since no one else would have so much money. Because there was too much gold for a little boy to carry, he starts off to tell the king.”
That is when Lord Chamberlain and the king come out of hiding. “Wait, lad, I’ve been looking for you.” the king yells.
The boy tries to convince the king that he did not steal the gold. The king assures him that he knows he didn’t because he had seen and planned it all.” “I have been looking for someone in my land who thinks of others. I waited all day, lad. “
The boy couldn’t believe the king had waited all day. “Why, anyone could move that stone.” He exclaimed. “Anyone could do it, but only you did do it. Thank you, lad. The gold is yours.”
An intriguing encounter that took place in the main train station of inner Austria, back in the early 1930’s.
A well-dressed businessman got off the train and was walking through the lobby, when an alcoholic beggar stopped him and asked for just enough money for one more meal. The businessman said he usually did not respond to such requests, but he would this time on one condition.
He said, "Tell me, how has an intelligent-looking person, as you appear to be, allowed yourself to get into these straights?"
With that the beggar turned red in the face with anger and responded, "Listen, if you had happen to you what has happened to me, you wouldn’t be asking that question. You would be exactly where I am.... I was one of several children. My mother died when I was young. My father was an abusive and very cruel man. The state finally took my brothers and my sisters and me away from him and put us in an orphanage. During World War I a battle raged around the orphanage, the building caught fire, and I had to flee into the night. I have never seen any of my family since. I don’t know whether they are alive or they are dead. It’s been that way all my life. Every time I get on my feet, something knocks me down. If you had happen to you what’s happened to me, you would be standing in these very shoes."
The businessman said, "It’s interesting that you should say that, because as you tell your story, it does, in fact, parallel my own."
Shocked that their stories were so closely related, they began to talk more fully and discovered that they were in fact brothers, separated years before and now, mysteriously, their lives had intersected.
"Why is it that some humans respond so differently to the same circumstances?" Two individuals who had the same genetic background, who had much the same things happen to them, and yet, while one had allowed those circumstances to crush him to the ground, the other had somehow used events that went against him as energy to move forward.
George Buttrick gets at the same question with a different metaphor: "Why is it, do you suppose, that the same sun melts the wax and hardens the clay?" Two people look on exactly the same landscape; one pair of eyes gravitates to the lowest and grimiest; the other pair, for some reason, reaches up to the highest and the best. Why is it that we respond so differently to the same set of circumstances?
