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.
James 4:13-17 ESV
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As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
James 4:16 ESV
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1. Planning your future without _God_.
V.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”
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2. Presuming you _know_ the future.
V.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.
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God is not against planning but against _presumptions_.
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Three failed presumptions:
++Life is….
_Complex_
_Uncertain_
_Brief_
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3. Postponing what should be done _today_.
V.17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
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New Attitude of Sufficiency
V.15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
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How do we plan and not leave God out of it?
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1. Plan prayerfully.
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2. Plan without making boastful assumptions.
(EX: Luke 12 “Rich fool parable”)
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3. Plan with _external values_ in mind.
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4. Plan with Psalm 119:101 in mind.
I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word.
Psalm 119:101 ESV
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5. Submit all your plans to God and be available for _changes_.