Called . . . GO!
James 4:13-17
July 12, 2020
Have you ever been involved in a scavenger hunt? You know, it’s when you have clues, and each clue that you solve, leads you to the next clue and so on. It could be really extravagant or pretty simple. It could take a few minutes to taking hours. Whether you like the scavenger hunts really depends on your personality. I have not been gifted with an extreme amount of patience, so scavenger hunts can lose their luster after a few minutes. For some, they are met with lots of excitement and enthusiasm.
Now that I said I am not a fan of scavenger hunts, I don’t want you to surprise me with one. But I will tell you as I was preparing for this message, it struck me that if we are willing, life is like one cosmic God ordained divine scavenger hunt! And this type of scavenger hunt is really cool if we are willing to move along with God in the process.
But sometimes we get in the way and we change the rules or try to make the game go in a different direction. It’s kind of like this - - the clue is - what are you supposed to read everyday for spiritual enrichment. And your answer is “oh, that’s easy, the comic page!” And now you’re moving in the wrong direction.
There’s a passage, a really, really popular passage which helps us. It’s found in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet while the Jewish people were in exile. It was somewhere around 580 BC. He was writing to the people to give them hope. In that message of hope, he passed on a message from God - -
11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
I believe that’s meant for us individually and for us corporately. I believe when we believe this and trust in the fact that God has a plan for us, we will trust Him for all of our needs - which includes our future. We will trust that God’s plans are good and are meant to bring us good and never evil.
Why do I say it that way? Because of what Jeremiah said next - in verses 12-14 --
12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.
13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
14 I will be found by you, declares the Lord.
Notice how verse 12 starts - - THEN YOU WILL CALL ON ME and COME and PRAY to ME. That’s really important! It’s crucial. Think of it this way - - If we don’t believe what God is offering us, then to be really honest, we’re not going to gravitate towards God. We’re not going to believe Him. We’re going to be leery in trusting God.
That’s what I’m reading here. When God says I have plans for you. Those plans are for good, it’s not for evil. It’s to bring you a hope and a future. Those are great plans! Aren’t they?!
But - if I don’t believe God really cares. Or if I don’t believe God can really make it happen, then I’m going to take matters into my own hands. I believe I can control my future better than God can. Even if that doesn’t make sense, it’s how our thought process moves. So, we take hold of what we can to make life happen.
When you look at those next verses, God is telling us, once we really believe and trust in His promises, then . . .
We will come to Him and pray to Him AND we will seek Him with our whole heart THEN God says I will hear you AND you will find me. It’s the image of being in a relationship with God. It’s something for us to strive after and cultivate.
We need to really take a look at how often we are called to come to God. He gives us promises, but we have to trust in those very promises by God. That’s another sermon series. Because it’s really cool how God works on that.
I think we’ve learned life doesn’t always make sense . . . does it? There’s a lot about 2020 that isn’t really making sense right now! Consider this passage from the brother of Jesus in James 4 --
13 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” -
14 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.
15 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.
17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. - James 4:13-17
Don’t we make our own plans a lot? How often do we ask God about our plans and dreams? We just assume that whatever we do is good with God. I guess one way to look at it would be to think of this scenario -
Imagine I want Debbie and I to take a vacation. I check the calendar and find days which will work for a great vacation. I plan a cruise in the middle of winter in the southern Caribbean. We’re going first class all the way, so I spend lots of money.
Then when that day comes . . . I wake up early and I start to pack my speedos and the rest of my clothes in a suitcase.
Debbie rolls over in bed and asks me “What’s going on?”
I tell her, “I made reservations for this amazing cruise. You need to pack . . . NOW!! It’s a surprise that I planned in July. The limo will be here in 1 hour.”
She looks at me . . . incredulous! And I ask her, “are you angry? Don’t you want to come on this great vacation that I planned for us?”
Debbie says, “you never told me about it, I’m not prepared. I’m not ready to go! You didn’t ask me about it . . . I can’t go right now!”
So, I say, “You’re ruining my plans. You just need to come along with me.”
We do that with God all the time. We make our plans, then expect God to tag along - to be a passenger on our journey — — AND we expect God to bless us and our decision along the way.
Understand this - God is not against our making plans. But why should we expect God to bless our plans when they may not be God’s plans? Why would God bless plans He was not involved in making? That sounds kind of brutal, but think about how many major plans we make without consulting God in prayer!
I’m not talking about what socks you should wear or what color shirt. I’m not even talking about what you’re buying at the store . . . but it’s those daily decisions where we act like the people in James 4 - assuming we have all kinds of time to do whatever we want. James tells us again - -
15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
I read a story about a Scottish man named Duncan Bannatyne. He starred on England’s version of the program “Shark Tank.” At the age of 30 he was broke, and now is worth around $250 million. In his autobiography Anyone Can Do It, he wrote about a time when he was appalled by the plight of abandoned children he saw in Romania. One night, he found himself weeping about it. He wrote -
I began to get the feeling that I wasn’t alone. It was there and then that God said, “Hello.”
I felt that I had been consumed by His presence. I knew who had come and I also knew why. It wasn’t a spiritual thing, it was a Christian thing, and I felt I was being told, “You’ve arrived, join the faith, be a Christian, this is it. It was profound, and I stood there stunned, considering the offer and thinking about what it would mean.
I knew I wanted to keep on building up my businesses and I wanted to keep on making money and I knew that I also wanted to carry on all the things I wasn’t proud of — I was never going to be this totally Christian guy going to church on Sundays.
So I said, “No, I’m not ready.” And God said, “Ok” and disappeared.
Is that not amazing?! Honestly, when I read that I was shocked. I couldn’t imagine that encounter and he said no . . . and more than that . . . God said OK.
Imagine doing that? God shows up with His plan for your life, and you respond, No, I’ve got my own plans, I’m going to put my plans into action. Thanks but no thanks.
And God says, “OK! That’s fine! No problem,” and then He leaves you be!
Think about our lives . . . I think about mine. I know I’m stubborn, I know I’m not patient, I know I have my plans. I get it! Yet, how often since I accepted Jesus 35 or so years ago, has God invited me to join Him . . . and instead I’ve said NO! God why don’t you follow my plan instead.
So, James gives us this great wisdom in verse 15 - basically - if the Lord wills it, if the Lord is calling you to do something . . . then it’s your time to go and do it.
Yet, this is what we live by, again, James 4:13 tells us - -
13 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”
God’s problem with that scenario is that we don’t seek Him in our plans. We don’t get that God wants to bless us more than we can bless ourselves. He wants us to grow with Him as we have an intimate and passionate relationship with Him. God wants you to understand the plans He has for you.
The Bible clearly says God has His plans — not that He will bless mine. What I believe we need to understand about this passage is the fact that God does want you to plan. This isn’t about whether you plan or not. Whether your Type A or B. It’s whether or not you consult. How much you get God involved in the day to day and week to week decisions which make up our lives?
James pictures this person making all these plans, “I’ll do this in July, then in August I’ll do this, so that now in October I can make my final year end plans and then take December off. I can take a 2 month vacation.
We can make so many plans, that there’s no room for God to be involved except to catch up and bless them. There’s no room in the day or on the calendar for God’s plans. If prayer gets squeezed in it’s a breathless: “God I’m so busy — give me strength to through it all, thanks.”
When people have had busy seasons in their lives, they tend to shorten prayers. Some of the protestant reformers, like Martin Luther, would add an extra hour of prayer! Can you imagine adding an extra hour of prayer when your day is already filling up. Not only that, imagine trying to talk to God and listen to God for 1 hour!! Sometimes 10 minutes feels like an hour.
If this pandemic has taught us anything, it should be that I don’t know what’s going to happen six days, weeks, or months from now. It’s like James is saying we should add the phrase, “God willing.” Years ago, you’d see the letters DV at the end of letters. It was short for the Latin phrase, Deo Volente. What if we started not just writing that, but really thinking that way because our prayer life was based on God’s plans and not ours.
“God willing …” Just to signify, this is what we think right now, but we don’t know. We’ve prayed, we made these plans, but we don’t depend on the plan. We depend on God, because He’s in charge. “We think we’ll do this; God willing.” That’s the attitude James is saying we should have. Because the one thing we know for sure is we don’t know for sure.
Most of us have plans for what we think life will look like. We have our dreams and hopes. I’m not saying don’t plan and dream. Those are our plans! They might not be God’s. I’ve said it before, this is not where I would have pictured myself at this point in life. I never thought I would live in Michigan or Indiana. But here we are. I especially didn’t expect to be a Christian, let alone a pastor.
I would think the same was true for James. He must have had plans, hopes, dreams. Maybe he’d be a carpenter like his dad and brother. Get married, have kids, make a good living, live to an old age, see his grandkids and die with a smile . . . knowing he lived a good life. All the while he would honor and worship God.
BUT James had an older brother who went around saying some crazy stuff. He said He was the Messiah, Son of God. Then He actually lived it out - and He healed people, raised the dead, loved the people in a way never experienced before. Then He suffered, died, then rose again. Then everything changed for James.
James did not plan to be a leader in the church. He also didn’t plan to suffer for what he believed, to be martyred for proclaiming Jesus. I’m sure it wasn’t his plan for his life to end when he was grabbed by his adversaries, dragged up to the top of the temple, and thrown down from it - - because he wouldn’t deny his Lord and Savior. Then he was clubbed to death because the fall didn’t quite do it.
But he had this perspective on this life didn’t he? This is not what it’s all about — it’s what he said in verse 14 -
14 What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
That’s kind of dramatic. But it’s real - - isn’t it? Life seems long, but it’s not. In some ways, James is asking us - - what difference is your life making? How are you making a difference? You see, if you are following God’s plans, you’ll make a difference. Even though life can be short, shorter than we might like, we can still make a huge impact because we are following God’s very plans in our lives.
That’s the key folks. It’s what I’ve been talking about for the past 3 weeks!
So, James concludes this section by really stepping on our toes. Doesn’t he? He’s stepping on mine! That’s for sure. Remember verse 17 - -
17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. - James 4:17
Here’s the thing that strikes me. And I know I’ve been this way. I said this 2 weeks ago as well. We think sin is doing things God doesn’t want me to do. When we think of sin, we believe we’ve been disobedient to God. We’ve broken His commandments – right? There are lists of commands where God says, “Don’t do this, don’t do that! We see that in both the Old and New Testaments.
But here God is looking at sin differently. God is telling us, “Sin is when you don’t do what I wanted you to do.” There were all these things God wanted for me in my life …. Have you ever thought about that? I was just too busy doing my own thing. Places to go, people to see.
We see a need, hear about an opportunity. God speaks to us - - it may be that still small voice - - - - “Hey. I was looking for someone to do a job for me. Just come! Show up and watch what I can do through you.”
And we say, “Well I know I ought to do it, but Lord … right now it’s not the right time. I’ve got things to do. Places to go and people to see. But by the way, while we’re talking, can you help sort a few problems out for me and bless me and my family?”
James tells us that’s sin! UGH! Not what we want to hear . . . is it? The NLT says it this way Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
The crazy thing is this - - - God is able to do abundantly more than I’ve ever thought or imagined. How much better would it be, to just do what He said when He asks. It still amazes me to think of those first followers, James and John; Peter and Andrew. Jesus simply said Follow me . . . and they did! WOW!!
Paul reminds us in Ephesians 2:10 --
10 We are God’s masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
We were created to do good. Not that we aren’t right now. But how much better could it get if we really were following God’s plan rather than ours.
What are God’s plans for you this week? When that whisper or knock comes --
Go help her, pray for him.
Right that wrong, fight that injustice. Give that money.
Change that job Say a kind word
Smile at someone Gently, tell someone about God
This world is full of need right now. What does God want us to do about it? In 2 Chronicles 16:9 - we read this about God - -
9 For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.
That means right now God is looking not for people to get Him into what they’re into; but for people to get into what He’s into.
God’s plans are already blessed. And He promises that He will be there for us and will strengthen us when we need His strength. He promises to give us all the power we need to fulfil His purposes.
That’s what He’s telling us! God will strengthen you, when you are fully committed to Him. It’s not always easy . . . but His blessings, as you know, are out of this world!
Would you make that decision today!
