“Fatal Miscalculations”
James 4:13-16
Introduction:
To miscalculate means to misjudge, to make a mistake, to calculate wrongly.
History is filled with miscalculations. Some miscalculations can be costly. Some miscalculations can be deadly.
Example # 1
The Mars Orbiter was the first interplanetary weather satellite, but was lost in 1999 when it came too close to Mars and crashed into the planet’s atmosphere. The problem was a fatal miscalculation by the Nasa team when converting English measurements into metric units. The miscalculation came at a cost of $125 million.
Example # 2
Robert Falcon Scott, the polar explorer, made a fatal miscalculation concerning the amount of food his men would need on his 1910 expedition to the South Pole. He allotted to few calories per day when hauling sledges at higher altitudes. All of the men died — not of extreme cold, but of starvation. A fatal miscalculation (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27509559).
There are miscalculations that are costly and there are miscalculations that are deadly, but the most fatal miscalculations are spiritual!
In this service tonight, you maybe one who has a disaster looming because of a miscalculation about life and death.
The letter of James was written by the half brother of Jesus and leader of the church in Jerusalem. James strikes at the heart of pride in chapter 5. He says, “God resists the proud” in verse 6. He urges his readers to submit to God in all things. One of the outcomes of pride is self-sufficiency, self-confidence, arrogance. A prideful heart lays its own plans and determines its own agenda in life. James is addressing traveling merchants of his day who went from city to city making as much money as they could. They were successful and puffed up as a result. God did not factor into the equation of their lives. They were getting along just fine without God. As a result of pride, some to whom he was writing were making some fatal miscalculations. These miscalculations, if left uncorrected, would lead to a wasted life.
Notice their three miscalculations.
First . . .
They made a Fatal Miscalculation about Tomorrow (v. 13-14a).
“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit’; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow” (vv. 13-14a).
They determined what they would do.
When? /“today or tomorrow”/They arrogantly thought they controlled events.
Who?/“we”
Where?/“to such and such a city”/They arrogantly thought
What?/“buy and sell”
Why?/“make a profit”
They gave no consideration to the will of God or the guidance of God in their lives.
They were guilty of the sin of presumption. They were totally dependent upon themselves to achieve their goals in life. They were arrogant, self-confident, and cocky. These were self-sufficient business men who had a laser like focus on their personal success. Seeking God’s help and direction were not a part of their vocabulary.
James was addressing a group of people who had one focus — the pursuit of more! Everything else, their treatment of others, their view of God — was secondary to their goal of gaining wealth.
They were focused entirely about making money. Their future plans and ambitions were about wealth. They gave no thought to God or their need for God. They were not asking, “Lord, what do You want me to do?”
But . . . they miscalculated. By their measurements they had many years to do as they pleased.
James rebukes them saying, “you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.” Tomorrow is in God’s hands.
Their view of themselves is best expressed in the poem Invictus by English poet William Ernest Henley.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
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.
Application
What is wrong with this attitude?
It is certainly not wrong to work and seek a living. Honest work is commended in the Bible.
It is certainly not wrong to be engaged in commerce, to buy and sell. What was wrong?
It is certainly not wrong to plan for the future.
First, they had the wrong focus. Their focus was the love of money. They lived for making money, not for serving the Lord.
Second, they had the wrong decision making process. They made decisions without seeking the Lord’s direction for their lives.
Third, they wrongly assumed they would have a tomorrow. They never stopped to think that tomorrow would one day not come.
Fourth, they were guilty of pride and presumption. They thought their life was in their hands.
However, they were making a fatal miscalculation!
Have you made a fatal miscalculation about tomorrow? Perhaps some of you have miscalculated about tomorrow. You’ve got a plan for your life. You are anticipating retirement or graduation or marriage and you have everything arranged in your mind the way you want it.
The devil convinces us to think about our plans and successes now and worry about eternity later.
Since we don’t know what will happen tomorrow, we must seek God’s direction for our life and our future.
How to avoid a miscalculation about tomorrow? 1) pray; 2) saturate yourself in God’s Word; 3) live for God’s glory.
Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring. - Proverbs 27:1
Not only did they miscalculate about Tomorrow, but . . .
There is a Miscalculation about Time (v. 14).
There are many piercing questions in the Bible: “Am I my brothers keeper?”; “Who is on the Lord’s side?”; “What is truth?”; “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?”
One of the most piercing is this question, “What is your life?”
What does your life equal? Some would answer that question by saying “my life is power”; “my life is pleasure”; “my life is money”; or even “my life is my family.”
James answers that question with one word: vapor (or it might be translated mist).
The answer is chilling: “a vapor that appears for a short while and vanishes away.” Life is short. It will be gone before you know it.
These traveling merchants to whom James was speaking had made a fatal miscalculation about Time. They thought they had their whole life ahead of them. They figured they had plenty of time to make money and retire in comfort.
Some of you here may have calculated things that way. You have calculated how much you’ll need for retirement so that you can retire and live a life of easy and comfort.
However, you may have miscalculated!
Consider a vapor for a moment:
First, from the moment a vapor appears it is in the process of evaporation. From the moment a person is born they are old enough to die. A vapor is always in the process of leaving.
Second, a vapor is short lived. The imagery James uses is meant to communicate the brevity of life. Life is short. Death is near. Consider that with God one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. If we live to the average age of 70, our life has been but a speck in time.
Since life is so short why waste it on the pursuit of those things that will not last.
The word “vapor” is used in Acts 2:19 to refer to smoke. Life will suddenly vanish.
Illustration: There is one thing all clocks have in common. They all go forward. Once time is spent, it can’t be regained.
Illustration: I was recently talking to someone who was dying of pancreatic cancer. He said he was ready for eternity, but, he said, “I wish I had more time.”
Illustration: People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy. - Seneca
Illustration: C. S. Lewis, “no hurry”
Psalm 39:5, “Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!”
Psalm 78:39, “He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again.”
Application
They suffered from an Optimism Bias (the feeling that it would not happen to them).
Very soon, your family will be gathered around your bed to say their goodbyes. Some have wasted their life. Some have wasted their lives seeking to accumulate wealth. Some trying to please men. Some seeking to recognition.
There is a Miscalculation about Trust (v. 15)
James points out the attitude we should have about the future. He says in verse 15, “Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’”
The implications of that statement:
The Lord is in control.
It shows trust and dependence on the Lord. Not trust in ourselves. A person who trusts in themselves has seriously miscalculated. A person who trusts in others has miscalculated. Our trust must be in the Lord of all creation.
The message is clear: Whatever plans you have, if it is the Lord’s will it will happen. If it is not the Lord’s will it will not happen. Our life is in the Lord’s hands and our trust should be in Him.
When we scheme and maneuver and plan without God, it shows we do not trust Him to direct our lives. However, when we trust the Lord, we will call on Him for help and direction rather than act as if He did not exist.
Proverbs 16:9, “A man's heart plans his way, but the LORD determines his steps.”
Proverbs 19:21, “Many plans are in a man's heart, but the LORD's decree will prevail.”
Proverbs 20:24, “A man's steps are determined by the LORD, so how can anyone understand his own way?”
In verse 15, James describes the attitude the believer should have. The right attitude is to trust in the Lord’s will for our lives.
Some Trust in themselves.
Some Trust in riches.
Some Trust in scheming.
Some Trust in people.
The Psalmist said, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God” (Psalm 20:7).
Illustration: Traveling with Bill Murray, the son of famous atheist Madylin Murry O’Hare. His mother he called a wicked woman. In his book about growing up in the home of an atheist, he tells the story of one stormy night when his mother
Transition: Many Christians live as practical atheists in that they do not Trust in God to direct their life.
Illustration: C. S. Lewis said, “To argue with God is to argue with the very power that makes it possible to argue at all” (Lewis, The Problem of Pain).
Isaiah 45:9-12, ““Woe to the one who argues with his Maker—
one clay pot among many.
Does clay say to the one forming it,‘What are you making?’
Or does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?
10 How absurd is the one who says to his father, ‘What are you fathering?’ or to his mother, ‘What are you giving birth to?’”
11 This is what the Lord, the Holy One of Israel and its Maker, says: “Ask Me what is to happen to My sons, and instruct Me about the work of My hands.
12 I made the earth, and created man on it. It was My hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.
Daniel 4:35, “all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?””
