2020-08-19 What Do You Do When Your Plans Or Timing Are Not God’s?

What do you do when your plans or timing are not God’s?
James 4:13-17

What do you do when you are in a hurry, but it seems like God is not?
James 5:7-12

Lessons from James 4:13-17
Don’t plan the future without taking God into consideration.
Don’t presume on a future you have no control of.
Don’t postpone until the future what God has instructed you to do today.
While you cannot predict the future, you must learn to face it honestly before God.

What are the 3 common mistakes we make about our plans and the future?
Planning the future without God
Planning
Presuming to know the future.
Presuming
Postponing what should be done today.
Postponing

1 Planning the future without God.

The sin of failing to come to God in prayer is one of the most common offenses a Christian commits – you are calculating on time to come without reference to God’s providence, as if the future is your hands.
James is not condemning “wise planning” – but doing things without God.
Gen 11:3-9; Prov 27:1; Isaiah 56:12
Luke 12:13-21 – we all have plans, but do they align with God’s plan? If not, then we place ourselves at risk for disappointment.

2 Presuming to know the future

To presume is to “take God for granted” (arrogance towards God).
When you presume:

1 You fail to comprehend the complexity of life – life is so COMPLEX. Isaiah 56:12 – 57:1

You count on accomplishing so much – today, tomorrow, spend a year, buy and sell, make a profit etc. – setting yourself up for great disappointment because you never know what the next second may bring or what may happen next (see 2020)

2 Presuming to know the future

When you presume: James 4:14-16

2 You fail to comprehend the uncertainty of life Job 14:1-2; Psalm 39:5; Eccl 2:22-23

Life throws a lot of curves that we may never understand.
Someone once said, “When I was young, I was poor; when old, I became rich; but in each condition I found disappointment. When I had the faculties of enjoyment, I had not the means; when the means came, the faculties were gone.”

2 Presuming to know the future

When you presume:

3 You fail to comprehend the brevity of life.

James 4:14.. “what is your life?” (repeated 18 times in scripture)
1 Chron 29:15; Job 7:7, 9; 8:9; Ps 39:4-5; 103:15-16

3 Postponing what should be done today.

James 4:17 or procrastinating
Prov 3:27-28; 2 Cor 6:2; Luke 12:47-48
The time that God has given us is NOW – not tomorrow or next year. Today and NOW are the only cash we have to spend. Do not plan to do tomorrow what you know you ought to do today – you may not have a 2nd chance.
Knowledge and responsibility go hand in hand. If you know what to do (NOW), then do it – otherwise that is SIN. You don’t own tomorrow.

What makes us do these things?
PRIDE:
Pride of power – you believe that your power itself gives you the right to do anything with your power (and it gets into your head) – I can whatever I want.
Pride of knowledge – you believe you have the whole truth and nothing but the truth in your head and anything that contradicts you is a lie.
Pride of virtue – you believe that you are God’s model of virtue, and that anybody whose way of life does not match yours is a probably a sinner or not there yet… Jer 9:23-24

Finally
James 4:15
No matter what you do… remember to say DV (Deo Volente) or “if the Lord wills or God willing.”
2 Sam 15:25-26; Prov 19:21
Lam 3:37 “Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it?”
Acts 18:21; Rom 1:10; I Cor 4:19; 16:7; Phil 2:24; Heb 6:3

Summary
People wish they could know what the future holds! But God has not allowed us a clear view… “its amazing how God will not allow man to have the knowledge of things to come, for if he had vision of his prosperity, he would be careless; and understanding his adversity, he would be senseless.”
St Augustine