Disregarding God

From the time I was eight years old until my sophomore year of college, I planned to be a corporate lawyer. I didn’t have a particular love for law. I was enamored with the idea of a prestigious job, power suits, briefcase, and a BMW. I even pictured myself in a suit, sliding out of my BMW, heels clicking on the pavement, briefcase swinging as I entered a beautiful high-rise building with a corner office waiting for me.

My senior year, I took the SAT and filled out college applications. I chose San Diego State where I could get a business degree in pursuit of corporate law. It was also where both my parents and my grandma graduated. I even talked with a corporate lawyer from my church to get a better idea of what was ahead. My childhood plan moved forward as I began classes my freshman year.

But there was something missing from my planning: God. I don’t remember if I ever prayed about my choice. I don’t remember asking others to pray for my future. I don’t remember seeking God’s Word for commands or general principles to guide my choice. I didn’t consider whether or not my plan would glorify God. I didn’t consider God at all.

In our verses today, James speaks of this disregard of God in our planning.

13 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”— 14 yet 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. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.[1]

James 4:13-16

Before we get into the specifics of the text, how do today’s verses fit in with other sections in James? Some see verses 13-17 as a mark of pride that connects it to the preceding verses 6-10. Others view it as more closely tied to the issues of wealth in verses 5:1-6 especially as both sections begin with, “Come now.” There is evidence for both views as well as the larger context of the contrast with genuine, living faith. Whether we connect today’s verses to the preceding verses or the following verses, there is much we can learn.

The historical context is helpful to our understanding as we work through James’ teaching. Hellenistic cities in the first century engaged heavily in commerce. Jews were a part of the bustling business. Making money and getting ahead were common aspirations much like today, much like my thinking in becoming a corporate lawyer. James understood temptations in conducting business.

Now let’s get into the text. In English, we would read “come now” as a command, but in Greek society, it was a popular way of addressing others. James’ use of “Come now, you who say” has a brusque tone.  He is concerned with a certain sinful behavior.

“Come now, you who say” – As we’ve seen previously, James knows our words are important. They can be evidence of genuine or worthless faith (vs 3:1-12). Our words reveal our hearts. The words spoken here reveal a disregard for God specifically in our planning.

“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” (vs 13, emphasis added). Those who say this disregard God. They leave God out of the equation as if He was non-existent. This mindset is inconsistent with submitting to God (vs 6-10). It is worldly wisdom.

Daniel Doriani in his commentary listed three presumptions of those who speak and think this way and three things they ignore. First, their mindset presumes that they determine the length of their life, but David wrote, “The Lord knows the days of the blameless” (Psalm 37:18a). They presume that their plans are their own, but Solomon taught, “The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). They presume that they determine the outcome of the choices they are making, but God alone is sovereign. “He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding” (Daniel 2:21).

Second, the mindset of James’ readers ignores man’s ignorance. God alone is omniscient. Their mindset ignores man’s weakness and deficiency (vs 14 – man is a mist). God alone is omnipotent. Whatever He purposes, He can do. He is eternal and immutable. He doesn’t change with time or cease to be. Finally, their mindset ignores man’s dependence on God. He is our provider (Philippians 4:19). Jesus holds all things together (Colossians 1:17), and “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). Even the sun is dependent on God’s command to rise (Job 9:7).

I am a planner, and thankfully, James is not saying that all planning is bad. In fact, in verse 15, we will see how wise, godly planning is characterized. James is concerned about worldly planning that disregards God. Business is one arena where people may be vulnerable to the temptation to disregard God in their plans because of a love for money and worldly success.

James continues: “yet 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” (vs 14).[2] James reminds us that we are not omniscient. We do not know what tomorrow will bring, only God does. To emphasize his point, James asks, “What is your life?” and answers that we are a mist – a puff of smoke – that vanishes. When we began our study of James, we noted that James alluded to many Old Testament wisdom sayings. We see evidence here.

“Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Proverbs 27:1).

“Remember that my life is a breath … As the cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up” (Job 7:7a, 9).

“Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah. Surely a man goes about as a shadow!” (Psalm 39:5-6a).

James may also have had Jesus’ teaching in mind: “13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” 16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”[3]

Next, James contrasts worldly planning with godly planning: “Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that’” (vs 15). It was common for the Greeks to say, “if the gods will,” but James makes the Biblical worldview clear by using Lord not God.

God’s will in a broad sense is all of Scripture, but there are also specific aspects of God’s will for our lives that He reveals. John MacArthur elaborates: “Specifically, the Bible says that God’s will is that people be saved (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9), Spirit-filled (Ephesians 5:17-18), sanctified (1 Thess. 4:3-8), submissive (1 Pet. 2:13-15), and suffering (1 Peter 3:17). For the Christian, doing God’s will is an act of worship (Rom. 12:1-2). It is to be done from the heart (Eph. 6:6) as a way of life (Col. 1:9-10; 4:12), recognizing that He must energize us to do it (Hebrews 13:20-21).”[4]

When we say, “If the Lord wills…,” we express submission to God’s sovereignty. We hold our plans loosely. We echo Jesus in Gethsemane when He prayed for God’s will not His own (Matthew 26:39) or Paul in a similar prayer, “Let the will of the Lord be done” (Acts 21:14).

When we lived in Dubai (an Arabic country), my husband’s business associates would often say, “inshallah” translated “If Allah wills it.” My husband knew it was just an automatic response when discussing deadlines because it would be rude to say it couldn’t be done. My husband knew it usually meant there was little chance the task would be completed on time. James is not teaching us a meaningless formula. He is exhorting us to submit to, acknowledge, and welcome God’s sovereignty over our lives and His will for our lives.

“If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” – It is God’s will that determines how we live. If God wills, we respond. We act. We obey. We WILL live and do this or that. We have this encouragement that whatever God wills, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (2 Peter 1:3). God has equipped us to respond rightly to His will, to obey His will.

James returns to worldly planning’s mindset: “As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil” (vs 16). This boasting is about one’s expected business outcomes. They boast in their arrogance – in their disregard for God which James declares is evil.

“Phillips perfectly captures the resultant meaning: ‘you get a certain pride in yourself in planning your future with such confidence’. It is this ‘pride of life’, this arrogant sense of self-sufficiency and self-importance, that John deplores as characteristic of the world (1 John 2:16; see also Rom. 1:30; 2 Tim. 3:4). People not only leave God out of account in planning their lives; it is the essence of sin that they brag about it as well—‘I’ takes centre stage in place of God. This kind of boasting is evil, then, not because of the arrogant manner in which it is done; it is evil because the objects of the boasting are instances of arrogant disregard for God.”[5]

James ends with a statement that might seem out of place: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (vs 17). Again, there are varying ideas of how this is connected. It’s possible James is using it as a lead into verses 5:1-6 or reflecting back to verses 1:22-25. I lean towards Douglas Moo’s conclusion that it is probably an encouragement to obey the commands just issued.  “He has told his readers what is right; if they now fail to do it, they are sinning.”[6]

Humble planning entrusts our plans to God. Humble planning remembers that God is sovereign. We are dependent on Him. Humble planning knows the outcome is by God’s gifts, enabling, and grace. Humble planning submits to God’s will not our own.

Reflection

1.        When have you made plans without regard for God? What was your motive in making the plans? What were the results?

2.        How have you presumed in your plans that you determine the length of your life, that your plans are your own or that you determine the outcome? How have you ignored in your planning your own ignorance, weakness, and dependence on God?

3.        Think of a time you did submit to God’s will. How did God work? How was He glorified in it?

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jas 4:13–17.

[2] There is debate on the structure of the first part of verse 14. The ESV and RSV among others break it into two parts – a statement and a question. The NASB combines it into one statement. “Without rehearsing all the arguments, the decisive consideration seems to be the placement of poios (what), which is most awkward if it is construed as the object of epistasthe (know). It is more naturally taken as the introduction to a separate question, as in the rsv translation.” (Douglas J. Moo, James: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 16, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 160.

[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Lk 12:13–21.

[4] MacArthur, John F.. James: Guidelines for a Happy Christian Life (MacArthur Bible Studies) (p. 77). HarperChristian Resources. Kindle Edition.

[5] Douglas J. Moo, James: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 16, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 162.

[6] Douglas J. Moo, James: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 16, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 163.