“A Faith That Works: One Day at a Time”
James 4:13-17
Charles Schultz has Linus say, “I guess it’s wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think only about today.” Charlie Brown responds, “No, that’s giving up. I’m still hoping that yesterday will get better.” As Bill Gaither put it, “Yesterday’s gone and tomorrow may never come, but we have this moment today.”
Perhaps this is a rather morbid way to start a sermon. But then again, the reality is that time comes and goes. Things happen and don’t happen which we cannot control. While we seem to go merrily along in life, making all kinds of plans which we just naturally assume will come to be, there is no guarantee. James therefore reminds us to keep a proper perspective on life, to remember that time is not in our hands.
First of all, there is an UNDUE SECURITY. Vs. 13-14: “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.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.” James is pointing to a dangerous ATTITUDE OF UNREALITY. In Greek the words in these verses are what we call emphatic. The people he is addressing honestly believe that whatever they plan will happen; there’s no question whatsoever. They never doubt it will not come to pass. They have a smug assurance that they are in control of life. It’s beyond positive thinking – it’s ABSOLUTE, BLIND ASSURANCE.
Picture it. There sit the merchants, looking at a map of the territory before them; they calculate where they’re going to be, and for how long, and what their profit will be. After all, they’re on the top of the business world; they have their act together. It won’t be long and their names will be in the Wall street Journal. They have no doubt.
But James points to AN ATTITUDE OF CLARITY. Vs. 16: “As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.” He pops their balloon by stating that it’s all pride. To talk so blindly about the future is to imply we are masters of our own destiny. But WE CANNOT LIVE WELL WITHOUT AN AWARENESS OF GOD ALONE WHO CONTROLS TIME. James is saying, “Come one now. Be reasonable. Stop and think a moment – don’t kid yourselves. You really have no idea about tomorrow. There is no one so rich and powerful that he can promise himself tomorrow.”
James is merely building on what the Old Testament Scriptures teach. He knew the wise preacher was right. In Proverbs 27:1 he wrote: “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.” And in Ecclesiastes 6:12 he painted a picture: “For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow?” What security is there in a shadow? Can you hold it? Control it? Determine its size? Can you always count on it being there? So it is with life. Can you hold life in your hands? Control it? Determine its length? Can you always count on it turning out the way you want or plan? A shadow – and life – are too elusive and unpredictable. They are not secure.
Or consider Isaiah’s picture (38:12): “Like a weaver I have rolled up my life, and he has cut me off from the loom…” Who knows when the weaver will cut the threads? Since our lives are being woven by another, we do not determine when the threads of life will be cut. Life is not all that secure.
Isaiah points to still another picture (41:6-7): “All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass.” Grass and flowers bloom only for a season. When the Creator breathes on them, it is over. Life is not all that secure.
All of these pictures lift up an ATTITUDE OF REALITY. After all, we grow up looking to the future. We buoy ourselves with expectations for the future. Kids plan on being adults, adults plan on retirement, and we all look ahead to the great American dream of success. We’ve all said it – “Tomorrow!” Yet how many of us accurately predicted everything that has happened to us in the past year. One year ago – what were you planning and expecting? What were your expectations? Did you count on everything that happened to you? DID YOUR PROJECTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS MEET THE REALITY OF YOUR LIFE?
Let us never forget the undue security of life and assume we have time on our hands. That’s nothing but pride. We cannot live well without an awareness of God alone who controls time. Indeed, “Yesterday’s gone and tomorrow may never come…”
Another facet of James’ perspective on life is to recognize its UNBELIEVABLE SPEED. James might well have coined the phrase, “Here today – gone tomorrow.” He again reflects the rest of Scripture as he paints one of the PICTURES OF THIS SPEED. (14) “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Have you ever seen the mist over a lake on a hazy morning? So thick, yet it’s quickly burned away by the sun! It’s like blowing bubbles - they can be so big and beautiful; yet they burst suddenly, without warning, and are gone.
Let’s look at some other Biblical pictures of the unbelievable speed of life. Job 9:25-26: “My days are swifter than a runner; they fly away without a glimpse of joy. They skim past like boats of papyrus, like eagles swooping down on their prey.” What poignant pictures! Swifter than a runner! Have you ever tried to keep up with a sprinter? Our days move by faster than that.
Job also said life is like fast boats skimming over the water. Literally it says “ships of desire”, ships heading home at full speed, leaving a wake behind them. Life is swifter. The winds of time blow by us; they never stop. All we can do is ride the wake and try to keep up.
Then there’s Job’s eagle after its prey. An Eagle has the capacity to carry its prey high above the earth and drop it, and still be able to catch it again before it hits the earth below! It takes incalculable speed. Yet, says Job, such is life – it flies and swoops swiftly towards its end.
But wait a minute! Isn’t life expectancy on the rise? Doesn’t new medicine and technology provide for longer lives? Perhaps. But statistics are only averages. They predict nothing about us as individuals. These pictures are really A PORTRAIT OF OUR LIVES. Who’s to say that the next tragic news headline won’t involve us? I still recall that one morning when I was in 3rd grade – my folks kissed my 15 year old sister good-bye as she left for school, never realizing it would be the last time they would do so. Who was to know that a driver late for work wouldn’t see her crossing the street and hit her? I still remember the day when, as a freshman at Central College, I went into the campus library for the very first time, heard a shrill yell, and saw a student athlete fall – an aneurism had burst and it took his life. You have your stories and reality checks as well. Our lives are not all that secure. “Yesterday’s gone and tomorrow may never come…”
But James doesn’t leave us pessimistic. His perspective is built on an UNALTERABLE STANCE. James understood that once we acknowledge the uncertainly and speed of life, we can learn to use them well and peacefully. As Elizabeth Kubler Ross wrote, “It’s only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth…and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up…that we will begin to live each day to the full, as if it were the only one we had.” “Yesterday’s gone and tomorrow may never come…” The Psalmist stated it like this (90:12): “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” WE STAND ON THE WISDOM OF GOD. Verse 15: “Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” Include God in your planning; be dependent on Him. As someone once wrote, “Every morning, lean your elbows awhile in the windowsill of heaven and gaze upon the Lord; then turn strong to meet your day.” Certainly we need to make plans, but be sure God is included. Paul, for example, often said he would go to a particular city, “the Lord willing.” If God made it possible it would happen. While in college I took Introductory Greek from a local pastor. Every week, as I left, he would say “See you next week, Lord willing.” It took me a long time to realize he wasn’t just uttering an habitual phrase nor simply acknowledging a truth we both knew; he was re-enforcing an attitude of the heart that between then and the next time we were to meet ALL OUR TIME BELONGS TO GOD. It’s an attitude of the heart which reminds us that since not a hair can fall from our heads and nothing can harm us nor happen to us without His permission, then nothing can proposer without His blessing. It’s an antidote that prevents us from wasting our time and our days.
And how desperately we need the antidote, since our human tendency is to spend each day as if we had plenty more days deposited in the bank of days. Therefore we must deal with and include God in everything. Deal with and include Him in our relationships, our marriages, our friendships, our businesses, summer plans, church life – everything.
CONSIDER THE TESTIMONY OF SCRIPTURE. Genesis 47:9 Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.” As we saw during Lent, life is a pilgrimage. Pilgrims set out on a journey of unknown duration and destination. They go from the heights of the mountains to the depths of the valleys, from peaceful rippling brooks to the heat and trials of deserts, from narrow gorges to open fields. Sound like your life? Fair and sunny today but tomorrow a thunderstorm. Today you may feel you lack nothing but tomorrow you may have no wear to lay your head. We don’t where the road leads, but when we include God we do know where it ends. It took Israel 40 years but they finally entered the Promised Land. WE DON’T KNOW HOW THE DURATION OF OUR LIVES BUT WE DO KNOW THE DESTINATION – the great metropolis of Heaven.
Isaiah also offers a similar picture. (38:12) “Like a shepherd’s tent my house has been pulled down and taken from me.” Shepherd’s tents were always temporary; they moved with the flock and changed places as the seasons changed. Most of us end up pitching our tents in a variety of places. Isaiah says to PITCH OUR TENTS WHERE GOD LEADS US. It means we should only start that business, enter that new school, move into that new home, or go into that avenue of ministry successfully if God leads us to do so. Sage advice often given to people expressing the desire to become ordained or commissioned pastors is that if you can find any way to avoid it, do so. Only pitch your tent there if God is driving in the tent stakes. “Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” “Yesterday’s gone and tomorrow may never come, but we have this moment today.”
James concludes his instruction on the proper perspective of life in verse 17: “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” ACT ON THE WILL OF GOD. God has given us this time. There are 86,400 seconds in each day. Unlike money in the bank, there’s no interest earned on what we do not use. In fact we start each day with a totally new account – there is no carry-over. What’s gone is gone; what’s there will be used – the only question is how.
Recall the parables of Jesus – the talents, the Good Samaritan, the Rich Man and Lazarus, the rich man who built bigger barns – all of them are about people who failed to use what God had given them – failed to grab hold of the opportunities God placed before them. The question is not so much what you are going to do tomorrow, but WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TODAY. James said that if you know what God expects, then you have no excuse. To know it and not do it is to tell God you really don’t care and that He really isn’t all that important for your life right now – that you can handle life all on your own. It’s to sell your birthright. And the selling price will be severe. If you were told that your car was unsafe for the trip you planned, what would you do? You’d get it fixed. James has told you about the time of your life; the truth is before you. Will the story of your life have a comma at the end of today, or a period? “Yesterday’s gone and tomorrow may never come, but we have this moment today.” What will you do?
Each of us will have different answers. But we all need to begin in the same place – this morning and every morning. HOW IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO JESUS CHRIST? 2 Samuel 14:14 drives it home: “Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But that is not what God desires; rather, he devises ways so that a banished person does not remain banished from him.” Life is like the big buckets at the water parks – tipping every day until suddenly it hits the tipping point and empties out all the water. The only difference between them and our lives is there is no warning bell that tolls when the water is about to be spilled out. “Yesterday’s gone
and tomorrow may never come, but we have this moment today.”
WE HAVE TODAY – WE HAVE THIS MOMENT. Every day, every moment is a message and gift from God. It’s all we have for certain. Because there is undue security in life, and life passes with unbelievable speed, our number one priority is to each day, each moment, adopt the unalterable stance of Jesus Christ. As Paul wrote (2 Cor. 6:2 NLT & 5:20) “Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation… We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”
As I typed this sermon, I placed my fingers over the keyboard and began to type. If my fingers had been over the wrong keys to start with, the whole sermon would have been off – nothing but an unintelligible jumble. You have this moment of time – it’s all that’s guaranteed. Where will you start with it? “Yesterday’s gone and tomorrow may never come, but we have this moment today.”
I invite, I urge you, to start it with Jesus Christ. The only way to a safe and secure tomorrow is through Jesus Christ today. Then, whatever tomorrow brings, you will spend it with Him. Let him who holds your tomorrow, hold your today. Let Him who holds your today, hold this moment. Yes – you can wait until tomorrow, but will tomorrow wait for you?
