James Part 9 - Pride and Plans

Immanuel Church's Sunday preaching series continues with Mark Smithers teaching from James 4v13-17.

This is from Sunday 31st May 2026.

Transcript

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Well, before we turn to James, I want you to imagine a conversation. Imagine two student friends in the final year of university. It's a couple of months before they finish their studies. And they're having a coffee. And one of them says to the other, What are your plans after uni? And the chap responds, Well, I'm going to get a first class degree. Then I'm going to take a few months off. I'm going to go to Australia. Then when I return, I'm going to get a terrific job in the city with a great package. I plan to meet a lovely girl and get married. And I'm going to have a four-bedroom house with some children by the time I'm 30. Well, I wonder what you make of that conversation. Okay, it's a little bit exaggerated. Maybe you think, well, it's okay to make plans, to set goals. Maybe you've had a similar conversation or you've had similar thoughts in your life. And isn't it better to plan your life than just to drift along? Or maybe you're sitting here thinking, gosh, that sounds a bit arrogant, sounds a bit boastful, it sounds a bit presumptuous. And maybe you're in the camp that would say that this sounds like an arrogant man believing he's utterly in control of his own destiny. And isn't it true in the world today, in the media and in many organizations, that type of philosophy, that sort of worldview is promoted, it's encouraged, it's even celebrated. I mean, just look at the adverts on the television. You can achieve anything, be successful, be true to yourself, follow your dreams. Maybe it could be summarised as ambition for self is good. Well, God's word today is going to warn God's people not to hold this kind of view, not to ascribe to this kind of view. And it's going to highlight to us the danger for all of us of subtly slipping into this worldly thinking about our lives. And as usual with James, he he's very direct. He doesn't pull any punches. The big thing that God wants to teach us through his word today is this that God's people are not to be like the world in our plans, our desires, and in our words. So please turn with me to James chapter 4. That's on page 1013 of the Back Bibles. Children, just listen. Put your pens down for a minute while I read God's Word, James chapter 4, and we're going to just read a few verses at the end of chapter 4, 13 to 17. So let's listen to God's word. 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. 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. Instead, you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. Well, as we've uh preached through the book of James, we've reminded ourselves regularly of the aim of this whole book. Back in chapter 1, verse 4, it says the aim of this book is that we might be complete, lacking in nothing. And God throughout the whole book of James wants us to be complete or whole Christians, that is, not divided, not to have a foot in two camps, not to have a divided heart or to be double-minded, but instead to live wholly for God, to be wholly obedient to his commands. And that passage we just read, it comes in the wider context of chapter 4, which we looked at a couple of weeks ago. And especially in verse 4, James is addressing the danger of worldliness in the Christian. Look with me at verse 4. It says this Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. And there is danger, isn't there? That we can perhaps read this and think, Well, I'm not worldly, or we think that the people that James is writing to are a bunch of wobbly believers. But throughout the book of James, he's repeatedly says, brothers, the message James is writing to is to believers. So it's relevant for us today. And we too are in danger of falling into worldliness. And what I mean by that is lining up with the world. Well, let's get into the text that we've just read. There's an outline of the sermon in your orders of service with some key points. And I think the first point that James wants us to recognise is the problem. And that's down in verses 13 and 14. The problem, it says, is come now, who 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. And we're warned not to adopt this attitude, which is the kind of attitude that I shared in that conversation with those students, what I've called the arrogance of the world. And you might be thinking, well, where do I get that word arrogance from? Well, well, God says that to us down in verse 16. God says to us that statements like this are arrogance. You boast in your arrogance. And God's declaration on this attitude throughout this letter is stark. Read on in verse 16, it says, All such boasting is evil. And gosh, when we hear that word, it makes us sit up, doesn't it? Is boasting about moving house or getting a job or emigrating, is that really evil? Well, I think we need to think about meanings, meanings of words, and often the Bible has different meanings or emphasis than perhaps contemporary society does. The words arrogance and boastful within the Bible are closely related to that word pride or being proud. And in this passage earlier, in chapter 4, verse 6, we've seen how God declares how he hates and opposes boasting, arrogance, and pride. And why does he hate that? Well, the Bible teaches that at the heart of boasting and pride is man saying, I am independent, I am autonomous, I am in control. And it gets worse. Sinful pride comes from a heart that says, I don't want you, God. I don't want my good and perfect maker to have a say in my life. I want autonomy. Pride says, Look what I can do independent of God. And when we turn away from a good God who's ultimately in control of our lives, we fuel that evil desire in our hearts, and what God says leads to boasting, and that boasting is evil. It's rejecting God's goodness and his rightful place as king and ruler of our lives. And it reminded me of perhaps one of the most famous incidents of this pride recorded in the Bible. And you may be familiar with the story of Babel. Please turn with me, if you will, back to the beginning of the Bible, Genesis chapter 11. That's on page 8 of the Church Bibles. If you're not familiar with the story, in Genesis, God has created the world, He's created man and it was good. But then man sinned and he was banished from the presence of God. And about a thousand years later, we begin to see the full effect of man's sin. Sinful men decide to build a great city and a tower. And the Bible helpfully tells us why. It records their motivation. And down in Genesis chapter 11, verse 4, we hear the words of pride and arrogance and boasting. Look at verse 4. The people said, Let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves. And in his pride and arrogance, man wants to elevate himself to God's level. And the story of Babel becomes Babylon, and Babylon is known throughout the Bible as a deep-seated place of one of God's enemies. Babylon is establishing and determining man's pride and his autonomy over his own destiny. This attitude is saying, I want to be God. And it's quite chilling, isn't it? This is where our sinful hearts and our desires can lead us. And we need to be careful, don't we? We need not to deceive ourselves. James is warning us that this kind of pride can seep into the church, into the midst of God's people. And friends, like all sin, there is a scale, isn't there, or a spectrum? And probably very few of us are like the people of Babel this morning. But pride, like all sin, is progressive. It can sneak into our lives very subtly. Our small thoughts and our wishes, they get bigger. We desire things for the future, and they're often good things. We say, I'd really like that job. Children, as you're sitting here thinking, when I grow up, um I'd like to be famous, I'd like to be on TV. Maybe you want to be an England footballer, I'm not sure. Maybe you're sitting here thinking, I'd love to get married, or I'd love to study at this university, or to live in that house. And very subtly our plans become all about us. Sometimes in our plans we forget God. And isn't it true that when we're planning, we often don't think, well, it might not happen. So what is the antidote to falling into this kind of worldly thinking, this arrogance, this pride? Well, the passage warns us what we ought not to do, but really helpful it tells us what we should do, what we ought to think, and how we should plan for the future. And that's my second point. Well, firstly, we need to remember our finite existence or children. We need to remember what we are. And this is very clear in the centre of our passage. And James expresses it for us in a very short but hugely significant phrase. I wonder if you noticed it in verse 14. God poses a very profound question to all of us today. Did you notice it? He says to us, What is your life? Or in other words, God says, What is your significance? Who are you? Doesn't it remind you of God's response to Job at the end of the book? If you're familiar with that, that story, Job is a righteous man, he fears God, but he experiences extreme suffering, and he wrestles with the question of why, and he questions God, he seeks answers. But at the end of the book, God simply reminds Job who he is, or rather who Job is compared to God. And that's what God is doing here for us in James. And like the book of Job, he doesn't leave us guessing, no, he answers his question and it's very clear. Look at how verse 14 goes on. Who are we? We are like a mist that appears and vanishes very quickly. Friends, in the sweep of history, we are insignificant. And when we read that verse, we're reminded of that other great book of the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes. I wonder if James had that in his mind when he wrote this. Many of us are familiar with that book of Ecclesiastes. It's it's one of the Bible's wisdom literature books. And the teacher of the book says this Our life is vanity, it is a disappearing mist. What happens to the children of man is what happens to the beasts. Man toils under the sun for the few days of his life that God has given him. And in Psalm 103 it says this for very familiar words. These words are very sobering, aren't they, for us this morning? And they're so counter to our culture that teaches me, me, me. I am the centre of the universe. And that's so different from God's verdict here. God says, What is your life? You are a mist that comes and goes. And we may be sitting here this morning thinking, Well, how can God say that we are so insignificant? Well, it's because he knows how much power and autonomy and authority we really have. And it's right that we're sometimes reminded of that truth. How much uh how little, if any, control over our lives we really have? And God summarizes it here for us in James in verse 14. He says, You do not know what tomorrow will bring. Can anyone put their hand up and tell me what's going to happen tomorrow? Children, do you know what story mum or dad will choose to read you at bed tonight? Children, do you know who you're gonna play with in the playground tomorrow? Maybe some of you do. I wasn't sure about saying this, but Emmanuel's older children, do you know what grades you're gonna get in the summer? You don't know. The simple answer is none of us know. We don't know what tomorrow will bring. But God knows. You see, the sovereign God of history who knows and ordains all things, he knows. And we don't know because we are just his creatures living in his world. Friends, let me remind you what happened to our holidays that we booked in June 2020. We didn't go. If we'd known what was going to happen in June 2020, we wouldn't have booked our holidays. If you're not good with dates, that was the COVID-19 pandemic. And what about all the city workers who got up to go to work on September 11th, 2001? They didn't get to work. And if the day before they'd known what would happen in New York on that day, they would have stayed away. You see, in the great play of life or the sweep of world history, God says with absolute authority, you are not the main actor. You are just one of the extras. God, He is the lead actor and orchestrator of history. And so God says to us this morning, what is your life? And it's a sobering reminder, isn't it, for all of us, who we really are. And so God says, remember who you are. You are not to be arrogant or boastful in your life or in your plans. We are not to be like the world. We need to remember that our lives are short and we do not know what tomorrow will bring. We have a finite existence. So God tells us what we are not to be like. That leaves us asking questions. So, as Christian people, as God's people, how should we speak about our plans, our desires, the future? And so I would urge you to look at verse 15. It's a really important verse for the whole passage. It's if you like the turning point of the passage, and it commands us what we should say and be. Look at verse 15 with me. God says, Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. So, in other words, we should recognise and remember that our lives sit under the sovereign will of our Creator God. God is reminding us that a Christian is someone who submits to the will of God for their lives in everything, in the small things and the big things. God is utterly sovereign. He ordains all things. The big things, if we will marry, the jobs we'll have, but the small things, is it cereal or toast, tomorrow for breakfast? Proverbs says, the lot is cast, but its every decision is from the Lord. We're all sitting here this morning wanting to know the date of our first meeting in the church building. Well, I can confidently say to all of you this morning that we will start meeting in the new building when God wills us to. And isn't that reassuring? God knows, but we don't know. Let's look to our Lord Jesus' words, Matthew 10, no sparrow falls from the sky apart from God. Or Luke 12, Jesus says to the man, building his barns, filling them with things for his retirement, remember what he says? He says, Fool, because this night the sovereign God has commanded that he will take your life. So God says to you, to me today, be careful not to boast with your words, with your plans, with your dreams and your desires. Remember that all the days of your life are known and ordained by our sovereign Father. I'm reminded of another verse in Proverbs 16. The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. And we've used this illustration a few times at Emmanuel. I think it's really helpful. You see, the arrogance and pride of the world says that you are in control of your life. And before any of us became Christians, we believe that we hold the steering wheel of our lives. We like to be in control. We desire control. We want to make decisions. We don't want God to have his say. But when we believe and trust in the Lord Jesus, we hand over the steering wheel of our life to our sovereign God. We say to him, We trust you to steer, to guide, and to intervene in our lives. And that's my third point this morning. Look down at verse 15. We as Christians ought to say, Not my will, but your will. We seek the Lord's will. And this is consistently taught throughout the Bible. It's that verse again in Proverbs 16, commit your work to the Lord. It's fine to make plans, but commit them to God. Ask for His will and not my will to be done. And yes, we use the word Lord willing in our words and in our plans, but I think there's a there's a bit of care with that phrase. I pray it doesn't become an empty phrase. The challenge for asking for the Lord's will is to really mean it. We should ask ourselves, how am I praying about my plans? Am I really praying for God's will and for his glory in this? Is this plan going to be best for my walk with Jesus? How am I praying for my children? In my plans and my desires for my children, how am I praying? A good test for our plans, whether there is any pride or arrogance, is asking us, how would I feel, how would I really feel if this didn't happen? How would I feel if I didn't get that A star? If I didn't get that job or that promotion or marry that person? And maybe why COVID-19 was such a shock for many of us, that we just didn't like it. We weren't willing to sit under a God who changes things. So can I push us a bit further? As God's people, do we believe that God is our Father? That He knows what's best for us, that His will is better than often what we may have chosen at the time. And I'm sure there are many older saints here this morning who can look back over their lives and can testify that God's will is always good. It's always what's best for us. And can I challenge us to think, can I trust God's will for my life? Can I find rest in God's will for my life? So God is teaching all of us here today to live different lives to the world, not to be proud, not to be boastful. So what is the opposite of pride and arrogance and boasting? Well, friends, it's humility. God is calling us again to humble ourselves. And James has already told us to do that. If you look up at verse 10 of chapter 4, he said, Humble yourself before the Lord. And in our passage this morning, he's saying, humble ourselves in our future plans, in our words, but in our posture, our stance towards the future. But there is a final warning here that we mustn't ignore. Look with me at the end of our passage, verse 17. It says, So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, For him it is a sin. And God has been teaching us, hasn't he, throughout this whole letter to be whole, not to be double-minded, not to have a foot in the world and a foot in Christ. And when we're honest with ourselves and thinking clearly, we all know the right thing to do. We all know the right thing to do. But when we don't do it, when we slip into worldliness, boasting and pride, we must not deceive ourselves thinking, well, that's okay. God says it's not okay, and He says here that knowingly being worldly is a sin. And friends, I hope we all know what to do when we sin, because we all fall short. We all sin. Friends, we need to repent. That's what we need to do. The Christian life is one of ongoing faith and repentance. And friends, God is so pleased when we repent. He is waiting for us. Do you remember the parable of the lost son? Do you remember the joy of the Father as his wayward Son returned in repentance from his sinful living? And it's the same for us when we sin. When we turn from our sin, when God's Holy Spirit convicts us to repent, when we turn away and repent of the sin of pride and arrogance, we turn again to Jesus, don't we, our Lord and Saviour? And it's Him that I want us to think on and meditate on as we close. Well, we've reflected this morning that our words and our plans are often boastful, but Jesus' life and words are always full of grace and service and humility. Humility is the opposite of pride. Jesus' life on earth was full of humility, humble, steadfast obedience to God his Father. Did Jesus ever boast that he was God? Did Jesus ever lord his authority over people? No, his life was one of humble service. He rode a donkey, he touched the unclean, he restored the outcast, he washed the dirt and the filth from his disciples' feet. He welcomed and embraced small children. His heart was not full of pride. No, his heart was full of love. Love that went so far even to death. And Jesus taught us, didn't he? He taught us how to pray. Our Father in heaven, your will be done. And in the garden, the night before his death, he modelled that prayer for us. When facing his suffering, Jesus prayed, Yet not what I will, but what you will. Jesus' earthly life was one of humble submission to his Father and His great plan of salvation. He always sought the Father's glory. And friends, don't we know that pride and arrogance is ugly? It's ugly. But Jesus' life was so beautiful. Jesus' humble life was so beautiful. And it's that kind of life that we want to be like. We love the Lord as our King and our Saviour, but we want to be like Him. So as we conclude this morning, can I challenge all of us, and I include myself in this with a question. As we think about our sinful pride this morning and Jesus' perfect, beautiful humility, do we want to be like Him? Do we want to be humble? God wants us to be more like Jesus. That's what He's been teaching us throughout this whole letter of James. To use an old-fashioned phrase, God wants Jesus to be formed in us. And it's not all about our strength. No, he's given us his spirit to enable us to become more like Jesus. And James chapter 1 reminded us, didn't it, to ask God? And earlier in chapter 4, we went read these wonderful words, to draw near. He gives more grace. And so can I gently challenge all of us this morning? Are we willing to repent? To ask God to help us to change? Are we going to pray, Lord, help me by the Spirit's work to be more like Jesus, to put to death our pride? Are we going to draw near and ask for God's grace? To grow our humility. Well, let me lead us in a prayer and ask God to do that for all of us now. Our Heavenly Father, we admit and confess our pride and our arrogance to you today. O Lord, help us to repent, to turn again to our Lord and Savior. O Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit, change our hearts. Help us to be more humble, to be more like Jesus. Help us to commit our lives, our plans, and ourselves to you afresh this morning. To sit content under your good, sovereign will for our lives. Oh, help us, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, our last hymn picks up that theme of God's providence. And it's a song that we sing because we can trust that whatever God wills for our lives, whatever He ordains, is right, we can sing that with confidence this morning. So I encourage you to stand as the music begins.