Leaving God Out

We are working through James, and today we enter a new section of the book. But there is a common thread that James brought up last time, and we spent a good amount of time talking about it. And that is pride and arrogance, which turns out to be basically a stance against God. And for James, that's obviously a barrier to genuine faith. Remember what he said here, because it sort of governs the text or this next paragraph we're going into.

God gives grace, but he opposes the proud, and he gives grace to the humble. So that's sort of the overarching, I guess, a canopy over this section and now this new one that we're about to jump into. And a life of faith. Here's what we're learning. A life of faith, according to James, is impossible without humility.

It's impossible without humility. God opposes us if we're not humble, and he shuts off his resources to us.

And James has given us concrete examples just in case. We're struggling to know how pride works in our life. And I do think we struggle with that. We're not exactly sure when it's at work. And so James has given us a few illustrations, you know, that come in real life.

Like it's the ugly sin, James says, behind conflict in the community. When you're being selfish, usually even underneath that, there is pride. When you love the world more than you love God. James says when you slander your brother or your sister, you are being arrogant. Pride is at work.

And so those are all related to community. And we've talked a lot about that. I don't want to, you know, belabor it any, because we have done it a lot, but. You have. But it's.

But it bears repeating maybe every week. You have to be humble to be in community.

And if you choose not to be in community, then you can't learn humility and you can't function with humility because that sort of. It's a social skill at some level. And you've got to know how to give in to other people and interact with other people and serve other people and love other people beyond yourself. You can't do that alone. So you need community in order to learn humility.

And you've got to be humble to function well in community. And they. They just go together.

And otherwise you put yourself above God. That's what we've learned. That's arrogant. To have disharmony in community or to avoid community.

Put you up here. You just say, I don't need that. I don't need God. Because and that's what it means to be proud. You just put yourself above everything, including God.

James is going to tell us today that the ugly sin of pride also comes when we leave God out of our everyday life. Here's another way. We become very arrogant when we leave God out of our everyday plans and life. Now, this is a fascinating text that has really been useful to me as a melancholy person, as a person who tries to prepare for everything.

This has been really helpful to me. So I'm assuming it will be to you. There are a lot of implications for everyday life. This is sort of the Monday through Saturday life. You know, like right now you're sitting in here and you probably do.

You'll leave here and you go, that felt good to be in church. And I'm glad I was. And I know God wanted me to do that. And I did get something out of it. I was encouraged a little bit.

You know, there was a thought or there was a song or there was something. And you'll feel good about that. You go home and then Monday morning you'll wake up and you go, but I got things to do now. I got to get stuff done. That's us.

That's Monday through Saturday. Then the next Saturday, you'll say, okay, Lord, it's your day. It's your day, Lord.

That's what James is talking about. Monday to Saturday, this is our time. It's sort of the Goonies mentality. Remember, I rewatched that clip this morning. Up there, it's their time.

Down here, it's our time. You remember that. How many of you have not seen the movie the Goonies? Okay, you should leave right now. Honestly, you should leave.

So it turns out James is going to tell us. Turns out that how we go about daily life. How we go about daily life reveals kind of a worldview that includes how we see God and how we see reality. And either he's a big part of it or he's not. That's what James is telling us.

And it's very, very easy. That's what this text is about, to slip into a world where you're just running things and you don't factor him in. It's very easy to slip into that. And then you know what that ends up looking like? It ends up looking like this.

And we all have it to some degree. I don't need you to run my life, God. I need you to bless it. See, that? That literally is how we mostly operate.

And so we just live with a lot of disappointment that God doesn't always make our plans come to life. So this is very practical and very helpful. Now, let's be fair about something, because I struggled with this, and if I struggle with it, I want to make sure, you know, you at least recognize it. And that is, I struggle practically with how much God wants to be a part of my Monday. I don't know how much God wants to be a part of my Monday.

How many. Does he really care what I'm doing on Monday, what my plans are Tuesday morning? Does he care about any of those things, and to what degree do I include him, and how do I do that? Anybody else struggle with that? Yeah.

Thank you. Yes.

You know, what does it look like to include God in Monday to Saturday? And of course that means Sunday, too, but you know what I mean? How big of a deal is this? How big of a deal is it anyway? Well, this is just sort of the basic outline of this little simple text.

Come now, this is an Old Testament phrase which I'll explain in a minute. 4:16, evil. 4:17, sin. So whatever it is James is talking about, oh, it's pretty serious. It's a pretty big deal how you handle Monday through Saturday.

So come now is sort of an ancient tool. You've seen it in Old Testament prophecy. It's the language in the Old Testament which James is very familiar with, of like a prophetic oracle. When God says, woe, woe to you. So this would be similar to us looking at somebody and says, look you.

That's what come down me look you. Old Testament be. Whoa. In our day and age would be, yo, yo. If God were right in the Old Testament today, he'd be saying, yo, you.

That's the feel. So it's very strong. So that's the first clue that this text is really important. Then the next One is verse 16, where he says, you boast in your arrogance. You have to sort of understand what he means there, but your boasting is evil.

And then he says, you know the right thing to do and you don't do it. It's sin. So whatever this is, it's like you're kind of startled by the reality. I guess it's really important how I live my life from Monday to Saturday.

And the other thing is, if you look at this text, whoever knows to do right and fails to do it. So this isn't. This is not something you do that is necessarily wrong, is something you don't do that's important to sort of understand a little bit in this text. In other words, it will almost take no thought at all for you to screw this up. You won't have to put forth any effort or energy to fall into this trap.

You just, you just do life and, and you can fall into this trap and it's just you become independent, you're in control. You treat God like he isn't there. It's sort of a practical atheism.

Don't need you, God, I can pull this off. So obviously there are some significant things that have to be thought about in our daily routine that are very dangerous to leave out and that actually make us out of touch with reality.

Well, that would be very dangerous to do life like that. So what does James say? Let's start. 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. That's the basic plan.

He says. You who say, remember James, for James, your words say a lot about you. And so for James, this is just reminding that kind of what comes out of your mouth represents what's in your heart. And look at all the issues that James brings up about a daily life. And I guarantee you've thought about all of these for this next week coming up.

And I'll put them all up here because I want you to see every single part of them because this is how we live every day. What time do we need to be? Where? How are we going to get there? How long are we going to be there?

Where are we going? What's the plan when we get there? What are we hoping happens? Isn't that your life? That's my life.

That is my life. That is your life every single day. So James just said there's something about that routine that you might be doing very wrong. Turns out to be evil. Turns out to be a sin.

Okay, well, all this is, is basic mundane life. This is just necessary, normal stuff. You gotta do this. This is stuff you have to do.

We're trying to teach our kids to do it. Don't you wish your kids would do it? Hey, do you know what time you need to be there? I don't know. Hey, do you know what you're hoping to have?

I have no idea. You're killing me, kid. You're killing me. This is what we want people to do. This is mature living.

This is responsible living. And so it's how we exert some control over our lives and our circumstances. We have to be doing it. So, James, are you saying you want me to stop doing this? That's not What James is saying, not at all.

Oh, how easy that would be to just wake up and stay in your pajamas all day with nowhere to be, nothing to do, nowhere to go, no outcome to hope for. Ah, we dream of that life, don't we? Every one of us do. So James is saying, and basically what he's saying is there's this just this inner disposition that you know, when you verbalize your plans, those words, they tend to become reality. You verbalize your intentions.

This is why when we say to somebody, when they say something, we say, I hear you. Because when they speak it, you go, oh, I get a real window into your life. So I hear you. And what God is saying is I hear you say your plans. It's what I don't hear, it's what you're not saying.

I'm okay with you saying this. I mean, I got to get up tomorrow morning at 5:30. I'm going to be someone. I got to travel all the way to Dallas and I have to be there till about 2, maybe 2:30. There's some loose ends about how long I'm going to be there tomorrow.

I know exactly where it is. It's in Addison and it's in an office building. And I know exactly what I got to do there. I got to shoot a video and I have a script that I've had to learn and I've got six other people that are involved in it and we've got to get that done. And it could take longer than two.

And I know what the outcome is. We need a really good video to promote whatever it is the thing we're promoting. And God is saying, I do not want you to not know that. I need you to know that that's okay. You can know that.

Is that all you got to say? This is what God was saying. Is that all you have to say? What else you want me to say? I'm already overwhelmed by that.

So it's not what you said that's bad. There's no spiritual principles violated here because you planned something out and hoped for something. In fact, you'd be violating good wisdom and even spiritual wisdom to not have plans. Read Proverbs 6 if you haven't read that lately. It's what you didn't say.

You just didn't factor me in. You're going about life as if I don't exist. It's sort of the fatal flaw of presumption. And there are two problems with that. James says, and I want to get right to them.

Here's what you have to keep in mind when you're doing all these things, 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. Wow, there's a lot there in that little verse. How does that fit in to my schedule?

Well, here's the thing. I simply don't know what the future holds. And I'm certainly not in control of the circumstances tomorrow. The people, the places, the circumstances, the outcomes, the strategies. We have something laid out, not one of them might work.

So you can't really depend on your own thinking. And this is what God wants to free us from a little bit. And there's a lot of stress involved, you know, with just this, just this picture stresses us out. There's a lot of stress to make life work. And you have to do it.

But is there a way to do it that can eliminate some of that stress? James says, or actually Proverbs 27, and he's alluding to it back here. Don't boast about tomorrow because you don't know what a day is going to bring forth.

So it's not just that I don't know my plan will work. It's that I don't even know if it's best.

I don't even know if it's the best thing.

I don't know if it should work the way I want it to work. That's a little scary.

And see, in this belief causes us a lot of pain because we think we know how life should go.

And what you end up happening is you start living in this little bubble of life the way you think it should go. And when it doesn't go that way, you're devastated. And by the way, this is how you know you've left God out of that plan. Your reaction when it doesn't go the way you want it to, okay, this is how you know. You say, well, I prayed.

Stop it. Your real truth is when it doesn't happen the way you want it to, and you realize you put way too much dependence on your plan, then on God, we do that. So that's the first thing. You don't know enough to be that confident. So the second thing that really bugs James and apparently God can't stomach, is forgetting not only that we're ignorant, but that we're frail.

You're a mistake.

Life is temporary. You don't know if you're even going to be here for the plan. Forget the plan for a minute. Not only do you not know if the plan is going to work or if it's best. You don't know if you're going to be here to pull it off.

It may have to. Things may have to happen without you. That's an overwhelming thought. But what does missed mean? It just means not really substantial.

I can't even rely on my existence, let alone my knowledge I'm not around that long. That's what a mist is. It's literally subject to anything. Just a slight breeze or heat from the sun. Anything can dissipate it or cause it to disappear.

Anything can whisk it away. Now, that knowledge alone is often more than we prefer to face. So we stay very busy moving and planning. And this is another thing you got to catch. And if you're a believer, you we shouldn't have to live like this.

Even though we tend to. When you're looking at life like this, a lot of times we do all these things and sometimes we overfill our lives with it so that we don't have to think about our frailty. Okay, that's Ernest Becker in his book the Denial of Death.

Very, very powerful work. But right from the beginning, he tells you why he's writing the book. And here's what it is. The idea of death, the fear of it haunts the human animal like nothing else. It is a mainspring of human activity.

A mainspring. It's why we stay active to avoid the idea death and try to overcome it to some degree by denying it in some way.

That's powerful.

If you think about it, it is really overwhelming. That's the point of the book. I don't know if you read the article this week about Nicole Kidman, who is who in a recent interview, very recent, because it happened. This was just this past week, she shared her thoughts about mortality. She says, you know, when you start to deal with it, it's really heavy.

So she's gotten a little bit older. Her mom recently passed away. She has kids, like many of us do. She has people in her life that she loves and are very important. And she literally says, and it hits you.

And I wake up at 3am crying and gasping because you're in it and you're not numbing yourself to it. You're fully in it. When you get fully in it, it could devastate you to realize how brief life is when you love the way you love, when you care about things, the way you care about them, when you don't want them to end. And yet it's just a mist and, you know, anything can take it out. That's a lot.

So we get very, very focused here and we want God to just bless everything we're doing. So that's the first reason. The first reason is you're ignorant. The second one is you're frail.

We just don't factor God in. That's the next piece that James is going to say. That's where it gets to right here, actually, right here instead. So here's what we're supposed to do. You ought to say, remember what the word say means.

It just reveals what's in your heart. It's an inner disposition underneath. Underneath all this activity here, there is a heart that looks at life beyond the schedule, its hopes and dreams. Because this represents our whole world, what we want to accomplish, where we need to be, all of it. And God is saying there's something underneath that even if the Lord wills, we will live and we will do.

Now, this is so very practical and I love that we get to talk about this. So there's this inward recognition. So this is how God wants you to live. Monday through Saturday, you still have to live. And do.

See, James is not telling you, well, hey, you may be alive in the morning. You better have a plan. Okay, so it's okay to have the plan. It's okay if you're alive. In fact, the first thing that ought to happen to you when you wake, when you open your eyes in the morning, oh, my gosh, I'm still here.

That should be your first thought. It ought to overwhelm your little misty behind, that you are still here. And then, okay, we got a plan. I have a plan. Do you have one?

Because I'll tell you what, the people in your life need you to have one. You're driving people nuts if you don't. So you got things to do. First of all, very happy to be here. I got something to do.

That's good news. James is not saying to stop doing those things. He just wants you to remember something about God's will.

Now, there's a better way to live than to just wake up and get on with your plan. That's the first thing you have to believe that there's a better way to live than just to open your eyes and get on with your day. With my day. To be aware, to be open, to be accepting and ready for whatever God wants and what he wills. That's the better way to do your plan.

I have a plan. I'm going to do it. I don't know if it's Going to work for sure. But what I want more than anything, what I want more than all of this, for God to have his way and his will. That's what sits above all of my.

All of my plans. And I don't care if they're short term plans, just what you got to do Tuesday. And if you could get Tuesday done, the rest of your week will be great. Or if you could just get through this year or the next decade or hit your 70s.

Some of you are already thinking about. I'm thinking about my 70s.

You better. You better be ready. But here's the thing.

God may will that this plan does not work. And he may will that you or someone you love won't be here to be a part of it.

That's what James just told us.

And you have to be willing to say, God, I want what you want and I want it your way.

That's a lot.

And you got to realize. And here's the reason you have to realize that. And here's what, bottom line, what it takes to realize it. What it takes to realize that if there's. There's.

There's no plan and there's no person that I need in my life more than God. Can you say that? So, God, if my plans don't come together and the people in my life that I want in my life aren't here, I still have you. That's what James is getting to here. And most of us, to be honest, you know that's a hard place to live.

So you're seeing why James is pushing on this.

That means God in your daily routine has to be functioning, has to be connected to you vitally at feelings, thinking, planning, strategizing, longings, expectations. What you want out of a day, a week, a year, a life.

Now, James isn't telling you that you have to say this every time, but I do. What I've been monitoring over the last few weeks as I've been meditating on this text for a while, is that I do say if God wills a few times. Every once in a while, maybe you do too. Every once in a while you'll say if God wills. You don't have to say it, but it has to be your inner disposition.

Okay? You're not spiritual and it's not true just because you said it. So don't play that game with yourself. You'll know if you really hoped in God's will instead of yours. When your plan doesn't work, that's when you'll really know.

So the phrase isn't important, but the disposition in the heart is.

It should be where my ultimate hope is.

And the bottom line is I'm not confident in plans or people. Now most of us are nuts because that's where we put most of our hope.

That's where we put most of our hope and that's why we're nuts.

And James is saying, you can rely on me. And that's. I think it's important to understand this phrase real quick here. How do you boast in arrogance? Because when we think of boast, we think of arrogance.

No, arrogance is the pride that James is describing. Boast. The way to understand. Boast is just the platform of your life. It's just the, it's just the way.

It's your approach to life. Your approach to life is actually in your own self reliance. That's what boasting means. And sometimes you'll verbalize that, sometimes you'll communicate that in different ways and things that you say. Mike Tyson did it recently.

Oh, I'm not going to lose his platform. He just, he's got it. He knows exactly what's going and he's boasting in his self reliance.

And he learned what James talks about in here. I can't trust my legs. I can't trust them. He learned that. So you have this position that you have in life.

It's just when you wake up Monday morning, you will have a bottom line where your feet are planted position and you can boast in what God is going to do today or what you are going to do today. That's how it, that's really how it goes. Now just some final practical thoughts that I want to give you that I found pretty comforting in here for somebody who operates the way I do, you know, or do I stress myself out more than I need to about things? Do you do that? I do that a lot.

And there's some helpful things here. What time? I got a couple minutes. Here's the first thing I want you to know about this text. First of all, let me just remind you if you do that, it's evil and, and it's a sin.

And what the sin is here is you just left God out. I didn't mind that you had a plan. I didn't mind you knew where you were going. I don't mind that you know how your week needs to shape up, but I do mind if you don't include me in that. Now what does that really mean and how do I get practical with that?

And here's just a couple Comforting thoughts that I found very comforting. And they really have comforted me. And I mean that. The first thing that the text assumes is that I don't know. I do not know here.

I do not know what is going to happen tomorrow. That's true. But I also. I also do not know what God's will is either. Do you understand that in this text?

Like, I made a plan. I don't know if God's going to let that happen or not. You do not know that. And so you know how sometimes you're desperate to know God's will?

Well, this text is saying you don't have to know it. I hope you see that in here. You don't have to know it. You got to get up and get on with your day. You have to make decisions.

You don't get to bail because you're not absolutely confident that you know exactly what God wants you to do. We're all operating without those details. It's not just you. So you don't have to know the outcomes and you don't have to know exactly what it is God wants you to do. You just have to know God can still get done what he needs to get done, no matter what your plan is.

Isn't that good news? Dang. Is that good news? Whoa, now that's better news than you're saying. I think we should clap over that dang principle because I'm telling you, sometimes I feel like the whole world rests on the decisions I have to make today.

And I'm telling you, frankly, sick of it. Sick of it. So I still have to operate. I still have to proceed. That's the beauty in this.

He expects me to do that. And he's not making me know everything in order to get on with life. You don't have to know everything. And I just love that principle. What he is saying is, I ultimately want Pete for you to let me handle all of it.

And it may not go your way today, but I got it. That's okay. It's okay if it doesn't go your way.

If you're alive. Okay? The live and dew God gives you. This is a beautiful gift from God that he gives you something bigger than your plans. Man, I hope you know that.

You need something bigger than your plans.

You're not smart enough and you're not going to be here long enough for your plans to matter that much.

I don't live like that enough.

And the other thing that's really comforting about this is God can see so much farther than I can. See, you know, I get to hear, you know, what I can see, and there's just so much more. I can't see it. And I can't see why the time didn't work out the way I wanted it to, or why the plans that I had to move didn't work or how long I needed to be there didn't seem to work out the way. And I thought it was going to be this place, and I'm not at this place.

How many of you are like this in your life? I didn't think I was going to be here at this time. I didn't know it was going to take that long for this to happen. I didn't know this was going to happen to me. I didn't know that this is the place God wanted me to be.

I didn't know that this plan I had, that there could be another plan. So arrogant. You see the arrogance, and then, you know, God, I can. I have a real clear vision about what ought to work out. You know, how our church should grow or how our company should grow or how our family should.

We are just overwhelmed by all the potential outcomes that we need to see happen. And God is like, I need you to know that I see way beyond those. And if you're right now at a place where you don't want to be, you can look at God and say, God, I don't know why I'm here, but if you want me here, I want to be here. If you want me here, I want to be here.

That's the beauty of that. You lost a loved one, and you got a hole in your heart and an emptiness and maybe even a loneliness.

God, this wasn't my plan. But if you want me to be here, I'll trust you. I won't let.

I don't have to be disappointed if this is what you want. I don't have to be disappointed if this is what you want. Just even as I say these things to you, Hillside, I'm overwhelmed by them because I don't live Monday through Saturday like this all the time.

So the good news is you don't have to wake up tomorrow and freeze because you don't know what God wants you to do. You don't have to freeze and go, I'm just going to let him handle everything. On the other hand, you don't have to wake up tomorrow and be frantic that it has to go your way. You see both of those. If God is in your life, you don't have to be either one of Those you don't freeze and you're not frenzied.

And I jotted down a couple of application pieces. I think they're obvious. But things are never out of control. God. And your life might look it because you had this beautiful plan and you wanted things to go a certain way.

And here's the truth. You got to let it go.

You got to let God have his way, and you got to be happy about it and think to yourself, golly, if my plan would have worked, who knows what mess that would have made.

Again, he thinks way beyond you. He's more precise, and he can. And the beautiful thing is, even if when plans don't go together and loved ones are lost or pain is caused, that doesn't wipe his plan out at all. He's going to bring things to the place that he wanted them to be. The end is always going to be where God wants it to be.

Golly, man, that's. That's good news, because I don't want it to be completely dependent on me, because that's not a good thing.

And the other thing that I liked about this, and you and I aren't sure about it every day, is, does God really care about the little things, or does he only care about the big things? Like, every once in a while, you just go through life, and then every once in a while, God just, you know, sort of intervenes and does something big. And we just live from one big thing thing God does to the next big thing, and that's our life. Or does God really care about what I'm doing tomorrow? I think James is saying, oh, God really does care, and he wants you to know he cares and include him so that your heart can have a normal beat so it's okay to interact with him about everything you have to get done tomorrow.

He's glad you have a plan, but he's up there smarter than you, and he knows that's a horrible plan. He knows it's horrible, and he still puts up with us and loves us. I wouldn't go that way at all. But if you want to go, go. At the end of the day, you're going to be right where I want you.

That's not the way I would have went. Don't you love that I'm gonna have you right where I want you. That's not the way I would've went. But, hey, you go, baby. You go.

That's such great news.

So I don't just.

What that really means is, and I don't want to Say this. You can live with disappointment that it didn't go your way, only. Only because you have a God that you know loves you and cares about you and will get you where he wants to get you his way. I don't know how to say it anymore, but this is what Isaiah says.

The children of Israel were saying, I think God has forgotten us. You might be there.

They say, my Lord has forgotten me. And this is Jeremiah's response. And it's God's words through him. Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the child of her womb? Even a mother might forget her child.

But I will never forget you.

I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

Your world is continually before me. I love knowing that God cares where I'm going to be tomorrow, what time I got to be there, how I'm going to get there and how long I'm going to be there, and what am I doing when I get there and what the outcome is. I love that he cares about that stuff. And I also love that it's not the most important thing, that it goes the way that I thought it ought to go. It relieves a lot of pressure.

All right, let's pray.

Impossible, Lord, to imagine what it would be like to not have that hope and that promise. I can't. I just don't want to do it.

Thank you for being in our lives. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for the cross. You said to God, your will, not mine. And you went to a cross for us.

And I guess I say, I pray that I hope no one in this room is living life without you because there's just not much to that.

Pray in Jesus name, Amen.