The Crisis of Sovereignty

James 4:13-17

     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.

1.  Misplaced Sovereignty (4:13 & 14)

This group has misplaced trust.  They are placing trust in themselves rather than in God.  These are those who have had financial success in the past and believe they know exactly how to do it again.  They are arrogant in making their plans.  James tells them that they make so many plans for the next year but in reality they don’t even know what will happen tomorrow.  (Philip. 3:19)

They claim for themselves a whole year, though they had not a single moment in their power…We are sure of, no not even one moment. –John Calvin

Carnal hearts are all for carnal projects.  Thoughts are the purest offspring of the soul. –Thomas Manton

Jesus tells us a story concerning this very attitude.  He also shows us the great danger of such presumption. (Luke 12:16-21)

A fool in the sight of God is one who thinks there will always be more time.  More time to accumulate wealth and goods and more time to repent. 

The Scriptures are full of similes regarding the brevity of our lives.

(Psalm 102:11; Job 7:7; Job 7:9)

We need to step back for a moment and understand what James is getting at.  He is not saying that making future plans is a bad thing.

(Proverbs 6:6-8; 30:25)    

The issue isn’t whether to plan for the future, the issue is have these plans for the future overtaken you. 

We see the rebuke James is giving those who believe they are masters of their earthly destiny. 

Wouldn’t it be even more arrogant to think that we have sovereign control over our eternal destinies? 

2.  Properly Placed Sovereignty (15)  

James gives us the God honoring view of sovereignty.  He says we should say we’ll do this or that if the Lord wills.

We know a couple of things so far based on this passage.

-          Life is short

-          God is sovereign

With this knowledge, comes responsibility. 

Again, we see James telling us to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. 

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

According to God’s Word, it’s not enough to know the right thing.  It’s not enough to even agree with God’s Word.  It’s not enough to say Amen during the sermon.  It’s not enough to say I believe that passage with every fiber of my being.

The reality is that if we do whole heartedly agree and believe we will do it.

The extreme danger is when someone knows something is sin and goes ahead with their plans to commit the sin and then even goes a step further and boasts about it knowing the whole time they are sinning. (Romans 1:18-25)

James is causing us to look inwardly.  Are we trying to get the glory or are we seeing the glory of Christ.

The glory of Christ is what we are missing in our lives.  Are we in fact radiating the glory of Christ or are we trying to steal it for ourselves?

We are to be about reflecting God’s glory so people see Him not showing off our glory. 

(Exodus 34:29-30)

Are people seeing God’s glory by the way we live?

As we become more and more doers of the Word the world will see more and more the glory of Christ.