13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. – James 4
Our reading plan for today is the entire book of James! I love the book of James. James was written to the early Christian church to help them understand how to live out their life. James is perhaps the most easily accessible book as it is easy to read and applicable to every day life. With many passages to choose from, a short one from Chapter four stuck out the most.
This passage warns the early Christians to not boast about tomorrow. I have been a part of many mission trips as well as church staff. The temptation to speak with a boasting tone about tomorrow is real. Even church leaders will sometimes say “we expect to have X amount of people at this event” or “on Friday we will serve X amount of dinners to people in need.” Now, this passage isn’t asking us to be lazy in our preparation. If the church has an event scheduled then planning for the largest turnout is the wise, faithful thing to do.
But covid-19 taught us all the same lesson. We can not boast about tomorrow because we have no idea what will happen tomorrow. When we hear this we think about catastrophe, but life in ancient times was tumultuous every day. Are the Romans going to allow us to preach tomorrow? Will the temple courts even be available tomorrow? Remember, there was no Doppler radar 2,000 years ago. Each day was a new adventure. Many days were scratched because of various situations out of their control. Sometimes we take this for granted because today we do have ways of predicting tomorrow. We have religious freedom to worship. We do not need to worry about the cops stopping our worship. We have advanced weather systems. We can plan to avoid major weather events.
James was teaching the early Christians how to speak about tomorrow. This may be more difficult for us because of our modern technology, but I believe it is important that we also add this type of language into our vocabulary. Verse 15 gives us an example of how to speak about tomorrow, “Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.'”
Speaking like this acknowledges two important things. Firstly, this acknowledges that God is in control. Praise be to God that He is in control. Can you imagine how difficult our task as a church or even individual would be if He wasn’t? Speaking in this way will remind us of this peaceful fact. Secondly, this passage reminds us that our lives are directed by God. It is comforting to know God is control. It is even more comforting to know that our intimate personal life and details are directed by God. Your life is in God’s hands. Let this bring you peace in this unknown time. Last Tuesday we did not expect the next week to be full of protests, but it did. God will use these protests for His will. Let this past three months be a reminder that God in control and we cannot control tomorrow.
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