A Daily Walk

Narrator: Submission is a tough thing for many of us. We humans have a tough time when it comes to letting someone else steer the rudder of our ship. Welcome to A Daily Walk with Pastor John Randall. Today, Pastor John will again be teaching from the book of James, chapter four, and will again hear some sound advice about submitting to the will of God. Time is short, and Jesus is coming soon, so it's all the more important to be living for the Lord. Here is Pastor John.

John Randall: The Bible says God's not the author of confusion. In knowing Jesus and surrendering your life to Jesus, you discover what your purpose is, that there's more than just existing. But the man or woman who walks in presumption in their planning apart from God's will, they don't consider deity in the details. They leave God out. They don't consider the complexity of life, but also, this is something that they fail to recognize: the uncertainty of life. It says here, "Whereas you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow."

Anybody know what's going to happen tomorrow? How many of us in March thought, "I know what's going to happen tomorrow. We're going to show up here at church. It's going to be great. Happy New Year. 2020. Really?" What do we know? Here's what we know: we don't know. We don't know as much as we think we know, and we're not in control of what we thought we were. What I'm saying to you is there's a lot of uncertainty. I think more than any other time that I can remember, the uncertainty of life. Nothing is certain except certain things that the Bible refers to.

You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, next year, a five-year plan. We don't even know what the rest of this day holds. Life is uncertain. It's fragile. The writer of Proverbs said it this way in Proverbs 27:1: "Don't boast about tomorrow because you don't know what the day may bring forth." Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, was talking about those who were worried and troubled about tomorrow and He said, "Don't worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for today is its own trouble." Don't get caught up in tomorrow when this day is still going. We don't know what's going to happen.

Would you turn for a moment in your Bible? I want you to see somebody who lived this way. Luke chapter 12 in the New Testament. I want you to see a man that Jesus referred to. The Bible speaks of him as a rich fool. As Jesus is talking about this individual, this man was living for himself, doing his own thing. During this time, he had bought and sold and was making his plans.

You'll notice in verse 13 of chapter 12, "Then one from the crowd said, 'Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.' And He said to him, 'Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?' And He said to them, 'Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of things he possesses.'" Verse 16: "Then He spoke a parable and said to them, 'The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, "What shall I do since I have no room to store my crops?" So he said, "I will do this: I will pull down my barns and I'll build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.'"'"

What a good plan that is. "I'm going to tear down my little barns. I'm going to build bigger barns. Then I'm going to talk to my soul and say, 'Just relax, soul. Enjoy your life. Eat, drink, be merry. Woohoo!'" But notice what the Lord said to him. God always has the last word, by the way. God said to him, "Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?" So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

Here's a guy thinking, "My life is set. I've got it dialed in. I know where I'm going to be and what I'm going to do. I'm building stuff. This is going to be great. I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that." The Lord said, "You know what? You're not prepared. You're presuming. You're planning outside of God, and tonight your life is over. Now what?" It's just the uncertainty of life. Things can change in a second. You could just be going somewhere and then boom, on a dime, something changes. Something happens. We're not even aware of it. Life is uncertain. We don't know what the future holds. Things can change so quickly, things we never thought or even imagined, good or bad for that matter.

For some, that's a little frightening unless you know the Lord. I don't know what the future holds, but I praise God that Jesus holds my future. God doesn't want me or you to walk in fear. He wants us to walk in faith. But here we find those in James who were planning apart from God, leaving deity out of the details, forgetting about the complexities of life and the uncertainty of life.

It's very important to consider that if you're here tonight and you're putting off your salvation, don't, because you don't know how long you have. The uncertainty of life; it's a vapor. That's the next thing that James points out here in verse 14. The person who plans to do their own thing outside of God and Him in the picture, they fail to realize the brevity of life. There's the uncertainty; you don't know what today or tomorrow holds. But there's also the brevity of life. By that, it says here, "What is your life?" That's a good question. He says, "It's a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away."

James asks the rhetorical question, "What is your life?" and he answers the question that he asks, highlighting the brevity and the shortness of life. He said, "Life's like a vapor. It's like a puff of smoke. Here and gone." I remember many years ago, I was walking in a cemetery. I don't do that often, but I happened to be in another country. It was in England, in the United Kingdom, and I remember sometimes you read the epitaphs and you're like, "Wow, that was a long time ago." It's very interesting to read.

It dawned on me that particular day while I was walking through there, the line between the start date and the end date, the line in between. I was looking at that and the Lord ministered to my heart, or at least made me aware of it, that that's what your life is like. In reality, it's the dash between the two marks of when you started and when you ended. What you do with that makes all the difference. One life to live, soon be past, and only what you do for Jesus will last. The brevity of life, and the older you get, the more you realize it. There was a time when I thought I'd live forever. No, you're not. You're really not.

When you're younger, and I'll just say before 30, when I hit 30, I thought 30 was so far out there. I was like, "I'm not going to be 30 until forever." That's so old. Sometimes I hear my kids say, "So old," and I'm like, "That's not that old." But when you got to 30, you were like, "Oh my goodness, I just hit 30." You make the best of it. Have a good birthday. Then you're 40. "I still got it." Maybe. Not really. You don't have it as much as you had. You feel things deeper now.

Now, almost 50. I'm like, "Wow, this is real. This is no joke." I'm talking to friends who are a little bit down the road for me and I'm like, "So this is what we can expect? What happens next? When do you have to have that appointment? I am not doing that. You have to do that? They make you? Do they put you out? Because I don't want to be awake for that." All the 30-year-olds are like, "Haha." Oh, you'll get there. Maybe. Life is short. You don't know. Very brief. I'm praying Jesus comes before that appointment. Hallelujah. Let's go, Lord.

The brevity of life. The Bible consistently points to this fact. A man in the Bible by the name of Job, he went through an extremely hard time in life, and this is what Job said in Job 7: "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle." If you don't know what that is, it just means that it goes fast. A weaver's shuttle; I don't even know what it is, but it's quick. I've got one of those in the back of the car. Honey, go get it. He went on to say, and this one I can relate to, "A cloud vanishes and is gone, so is he who goes down to the grave; he does not return." It's like a cloud that vanishes. Job 9: "My days are swifter than a runner."

Psalm 102, verse 11, says, "My days are like an evening shadow." That's quick. Moses, who penned the 90th Psalm, said this: "The days of our lives are 70 years; and if by reason of strength they are 80, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." He's basically saying there's a good chance you're going to make it to 70, maybe 80, maybe beyond that. But at some point, you're going to fly away. The question is, where are you going to fly? That is really important. You want the one-way ticket up, not down.

So it's in light of the fact that life is short and time is passing us by and Jesus is coming soon that there are so many exhortations in the Bible concerning this. Psalm 90, verse 12: "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Help us to realize this brevity of life. Again, the psalmist says in Psalm 39, "Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am." Help me to see that.

Ephesians, in chapter five, the Apostle Paul writes, "See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time," that is, buying it back, "because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit." Time is short, redeem that time.

First Peter chapter four says it this way: "You've spent enough time of our past lifetime doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries." He's saying you've wasted enough time already. Don't waste any more time. You don't have any time to waste because the end of all things is at hand, and be serious and watchful in your prayers.

There was that missionary, Amy Carmichael, and she said, "We will have eternity to celebrate the victories, but only a few hours before sunset to win them." We have to redeem the time. Jesus said in John chapter nine, verse four, "I must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day, because night is coming when no man can work." There's daylight, but night is coming.

The person who plans presumptuously without God takes deity out of the details. They don't consider the complexities of life, the uncertainty of life, or the brevity of life. Nor does that person consider humility within their life. Because if you look at verse 16, this is where this "I'm going to do my thing and I don't need God, I don't really care, this is what I'm going to do" is all about. It's arrogance. It's pride, really, at the heart of it. Because here it says in verse 16, "But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil."

Pride, we've seen it throughout James' epistle. This letter has been one of the things that he continually highlights that is directly connected to the majority of the problems that the church was suffering with at this time: a lack of humility. What James is saying here is that those who are boasting, know that they're boasting about making their plans apart from God and they're proud of it. I mean, that's just the height of arrogance. "I'm not counting on God. God's not involved in this, and I don't really care. I'm doing what I'm going to do." For man to boast in this way is to make himself God. This is the worst demonstration of all demonstrations of pride, straight from the playbook of the devil who said, "I will be like the Most High. I'm going to sit on God's throne. I'm going to do this." That's exactly what the devil said.

Someone was saying, I think it was Spurgeon, he wrote and he said, "Dear friend, you may say you don't need a God to direct you in life, but I assure you, when you are dying and about to pass from this life to the next, you will want a God to lead you. While you are healthy, while you are in the prime of your youth, or while you prosper, while you have the world at your fingertips, while you have a profit, while you have your strength; but one day when all those things will vanish, one day all those things will be gone, all will slip through your fingers like sand through a sieve, and then what will you have?" Our pride will be the ultimate demise.

I was asked to visit a man who was dying. I did not know who he was. A friend of mine who lived in another state said, "Would you please go and visit my friend? He lives in Laguna Beach. He's very wealthy." I didn't recognize the name. He was famous in his field. But he had recently, when he found out he had contracted terminal cancer, decided to become a Christian, decided that he should probably think about eternity because eternity was staring him in the face.

I remember driving up the hills of Laguna, and I'm driving and I go to this beautiful home. I walked in and met the wife, who was a believer, and then I sat and spent time with the man who had just recently, in the last year, decided to come to Christ. This man had been everywhere you would want to go. Every surf spot you'd want to surf, he'd been there. And he would tell me about it. Wow, everywhere. All of it. Seen it all, been there, done it. Had everything you could want.

But at the final end, the struggle was this: he was struggling with, "How could this happen to me?" You live your whole life without Christ, and now when you come to death, you're struggling. It was this battle, and I tried to lovingly reason with him. I realized it's better to walk with Jesus, because when you get to that point, it makes a whole lot more sense than not walking with Jesus your whole life and then getting there and going, "Why me?" Why not me?

Then I remember going back and receiving a call. I went back a few times and prayed with him, just to be available and to minister to him, to take communion with him, and try to share the Lord with him. But I remember when he passed and the wife calling me. I went to the home. He had just died and he was still in his bed. I remember going into the room and sitting there. There were people now in the house comforting the wife. She seemed at peace because her husband had committed his life to the Lord.

But I was so overcome with emotion. It was one of those moments when I just broke. Held his hand, prayed with the family. But those are the moments when you realize you can live your whole life and you can have the world and everything it has to offer, but at the end of your life, you're going to want God to guide you and direct you. To be without Him is to be without Him forever. The Bible says in 1 Timothy chapter six, verse seven, "We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we will carry nothing out." You can't take anything with you, but you can certainly send things ahead.

Here, James tells us, and we will conclude as he's talking about this and the will of God, he says, "You know what's better to say?" In verse 15, "Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills.'" But He's got to be Lord for you to say that, by the way. If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. That's what we should say. That is submitting. This is the alternative.

Here's somebody planning outside of having God in the mix and just "I'm going to do my thing" and proud of it and "I don't care." Okay. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. You're not calculating the brevity of life. You're not calculating eternity, where you're going to go. You're not thinking about any of that, you're just doing your thing. But it's either going to hit you before you're ready for it, or it's going to hit you and you're not prepared for it.

But then here's the alternative: how about, "Lord, let Your will be done in my life. If the Lord wills, that's what I'm going to do. I want Your will for my life." James pointed out there were those who were saying, "My will be done," and others that were saying, "If the Lord's will, let His will be done in my life."

There was a group that used to pray, they had a phrase that they would use in Latin, a Christian group. They would write letters to each other and when they would sign their letters, they would sign them in Latin: "Deo Volente." It means "God willing." That's how they would sign the letter. "Deo Volente." God willing, God's will be done. Maybe someone says, "Hey, are you going to come to church?" "Lord willing." What does that mean? I'm open to it, but I'm not sure what tomorrow holds. "Hey, are you going to come to the men's barbecue?" "Lord willing." You're saying, in a sense, Deo Volente. Possibly. I'm hoping. If God wants me to do it, I'm in it.

I want to be in tune with God's will. They would sign their letters that way, and in the close of a letter to another person, you'd often find they would just have the two initials: DV, which stood for Deo Volente, God willing. I believe as a Christian, to discover the will of God, I must be submitted to the will of God. I'm not going to discover the will of God if I'm telling Him what His will is for my life. "Lord, I just want to let You know what I think You should do, and when You should do it, and how You should. So, my will be done." It doesn't work that way. It's me saying, "You're the Lord. Lord willing." Until you submit to the Lord, you really don't know the Lord's will for your life.

When I submit to the loving will of God for my life, I then want to obey the will of God for my life. That is what verse 17 implies: "Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin." Often, we think of sin only looking at it as doing what you're not supposed to do. That is sin. Okay, right. I'm not supposed to do that. But did you know it's also a sin to know what you're supposed to do and not do it? I never thought of it that way. What has God shown you to do? Are you doing that? Do you want the Lord's will to be done, or are you just living your life for your own will? Again, that's a decision that only you can make.

Living for the will of God and knowing that He wants to guide my life, it makes me thankful. I'm thankful that God holds my breath in His hands, that every day is a gift from Him, and I am thankful. Thank You, God. It also makes me determined, determined to take advantage of the time that I have and redeem it. And it also keeps me humble. It also provides me with peace. Lord, You're in control. Your will is good. You know what's best for me. I trust You. I'm at peace with it. And it also keeps me dependent, looking to the Lord to see what He has yet in the future. Whose will are you living for tonight? Yours or God's? Are you resisting the will of God for your life, or have you responded to it and received it? I'll tell you, I know what God's will for your life is. You do? That you would be saved. God desires you to be saved, to be born again, to have the hope of heaven, to have salvation. I can 100% know that's God's will for your life because the Bible tells me that.

Narrator: This is A Daily Walk with Pastor John Randall, who today continued our study of James. Would you like to hear the message again? Just go to adailywalk.org or look for us wherever you get your podcasts. Another convenient way to listen to Pastor John is through our mobile app. Be among the thousands that are being encouraged in their daily walk by downloading that today. Find our app by searching for Calvary South OC.

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