Our New Testament reading now comes from the book of James. Please turn in your Bibles there and we're going to look at James chapter four and read verses 13 to 17. James chapter four, begin our reading at the 13th verse. Let's give attention once more to God's word. Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell and make a profit. Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. Amen. Once more, this is the Word of God. May he write his truth on each one of our hearts this morning. Well, this past week, the Whitlow family has observed several of our year-end traditions. We've done the Christmas thing. We've done the feasting thing. We've done the presents thing. And then this past week, as we mark New Year's Day, we did the calendar thing. And you may say, well, what's the calendar thing? Well, this is where my good wife sends me out to the store to buy a nice, shiny 2025 wall calendar for the kitchen. And then she sits down and she fills in all the future dates and events that are so far projected for the new year. It's a very long and somewhat tedious task. And those of you who prefer the Google calendars, you can snigger all you like. We like the old way better. Well, whether you have a beautiful new Northern Ireland calendar for 2025 or you're sticking with your Google Calendar app pinned on every device you possess, you need to plan for the future. Something that all of us do. You want to be organized. You want to be prepared and reminded of all the things you've planned for the new year. You want to avoid double bookings. You want to avoid missing appointments, missing family birthdays, and so on. I think we all tend to engage in such data entry for the new year, really, without thinking about it. It's just a routine chore. But this morning, James in this epistle reminds us that every single task we enter into our 2025 calendars is completely contingent upon the Lord of Providence. What will this new year bring for you and your family? Perhaps weddings, births, funerals, Joys, disappointments, we don't really know, of course. Some things we look forward to, some things perhaps we dread. But James simply tells us in this text, you do not know what will happen. That's what he says. You do not know what will happen. And yet we plan for what we sometimes call the foreseeable future as if we did know what the future holds. And so it's to people like us who are standing on the threshold of tomorrow and peering expectantly into the future that James says in verse 13, come now, come now, come and hear what I have to say. Listen up. And there are three things in this text. that he exhorts us about. First, we'll consider a future plan. That's in verses 13 and 16. Secondly, we'll consider a sovereign providence in verse 14. And finally, a proper perspective in verses 15 to 17. So a future plan, a sovereign providence, and a proper perspective. Let's think first then about a future plan. James here imagines a group of Christian businessmen, they're planning a business trip, and they tell him about their plan. Look at verse 13. He says, come now you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit. A couple of things to note about this. The first thing that we have to say is it's a lawful plan. It's not a bad plan that these men are making. They've been very careful and very meticulous, and they've covered all the angles. James, as it were, asks them, when will you go? And they reply, today or tomorrow we will go. Their plans are about to be put into action. We might say their ship is about to sail. So James continues, where will you go? And they say in this verse, we will go to such and such a city, very confidently in their reply. Their itinerary is set. They know exactly where they're going and they are assured in themselves that they will arrive safely at their intended destination. How long are you going to be there? James continues. We will spend a year there, they predict. So this is no last minute whim. It's a major undertaking. They've presumably taken considerable time and trouble to arrange for their lodging and provisions for such a length of time. They're certain that nothing will hinder them from staying there a whole year. What will you do there? James asks. We will buy and sell. These men are merchants. The Roman Empire in James's day was a trading empire with an amazingly modern and sophisticated commercial infrastructure over land and sea. Travel was quite easy in those days of the Pax Romana, and trade was very lucrative. Well, James has one final question for our travelers. What will be the outcome of your trip? He asks. We will make a profit, they say. They speak with absolute certainty that their future plan will be a great success. You can imagine them already hearing the kitching of the money they're going to make on this trip that they're so confident about. They will enrich themselves. They will return wealthier men than when they departed the year before. Now, I want to stress that all these things are lawful in themselves. Lawful things for Christians to plan. It's good to make wise plans and preparations for the future. Some of you also, doubtless, have travel plans for 2025, for business or for pleasure. You're making a future plan. Some of you perhaps have made New Year's resolutions. It's good to be a person of resolve. And so here it's a lawful plan. But the context of the passage reveals that there's more going on beneath the surface. You see, in all of their planning and their packing that's going on in verse 13, there is one major component missing. And it is simply that they have not reckoned on God. In all that they've said, God is conspicuous by his absence. It's not so much what their itinerary contains as to who their itinerary doesn't contain. So it's a lawful plan, but also secondly, it's a boastful plan. That's clear from what James says about them in verse 16. He says, but now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. James has some very plain words for these men and for us as professing believers, that the best laid plans that do not reckon on the sovereign Lord of Providence are not plans, but boasts. They are not preparation, but presumption. There's not a single reference to God's providence in their speech. And consequently, their plan is an expression of what one commentator has called practical atheism. James says that all such boasting is evil. Maybe you think evil's just a little too strong of a word. Maybe going a little too far here, James, are we not? Murder is evil. Adultery is evil. But boasting about tomorrow, is it really evil? Well, of course, we have to say, yes, it is evil. Because boasting about tomorrow effectively dethrones God. It is to live godlessly as if there were no God. It reduces God really to the level of the creature. And it tacitly says that God does not know what tomorrow will bring. God says to the believer in Psalm 32 8, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with my eye. But the man that James is addressing here defiantly or subtly is saying, I will instruct myself and teach myself in the way that I should go. I will guide myself with my own eye. Now we might expect that kind of thing from the world, but what about when such presumption is found within the church? Because after all, James is writing here to Jewish believers, living in and doing business with the godless Roman world. I think it's very easy for us, the godless culture, with all of its assumptions, it's easy for those assumptions to seep into our own way of thinking. our own plans for the future, and we perhaps come to take the future for granted. For example, I plan, Lord willing, to travel to England in April for 10 days. A few little clicks of my mouse and I've reserved a specific seat on a specific plane flying to Atlanta. A few more clicks and I've got another specific seat on a flight to Manchester. A few more clicks and I've got a particular train to Stoke-on-Trent. A few more clicks, I've set up a lunch appointment with an old friend. Click, click, click. It's fast. It's convenient. It's easy. I think we've got so accustomed to the ease and relative safety of travel around the globe that we can just presume, with James as businessman here, on the when, where, and how long of our travel and of its ultimate outcome. And we can imagine that we can do all of this clicking with our mouses, or our mice I should say, without reference to God. And so this is not so distant from our experience if we're honest. Our lawful planning for 2025 can quickly cross the line into sinful boasting. Now you may not be planning a major trip or a major move in 2025 like these men, but I bet you're making other plans. They may be life-changing plans like moving or getting married or having a baby or retirement, or they may be very mundane things. Maybe there are things on the honey-do list that you hope to do on the home this year, home improvement projects or what you're going to do for your child's birthday. And again, it's good to make plans for a new year. Proverbs 21.5 says, the plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty. but those of everyone who is hasty surely to poverty. But James here, friends, is warning us that there is a corresponding danger to which Christians are prone. And it's expressed clearly in another proverb, Proverbs 27, one, do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring. Friends, we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven. We live in the context of the kingdom of this world. Specifically, we live in the context of a very busy society pursuing the American dream. Buying, selling, and making a profit, those words that James uses here, does that not describe the spirit of the age in which we live? And certainly of the season we've just come through. And we can command the American work ethic and the spirit of capitalism that's made us rich, perhaps. But if we do all of that at the expense of God, we have committed a great sin. What James calls boasting in our arrogance. On the contrary, Proverbs 10, 22 tells us the blessing of the Lord makes one rich. And he adds no sorrow with it. So let me ask you from this first point, where is God in your plans for 2025? Where in your planning are his priorities? Where is his providence? The question we want to consider next, we move from a future plan to think secondly about a sovereign providence, a sovereign providence. Have a look again at verse 14. Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow for what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time. and then vanishes away. Human planning that disregards God's providence displays two problems. The first problem is a lack of knowledge, a lack of knowledge. James says, you do not know. You do not know what will happen tomorrow. The planners of verse 13 act as if tomorrow was known to them, but it isn't known to them. They lack knowledge. James says to them, you don't know what will happen tomorrow. Nevermind the 364 other tomorrows that follow after it. They're busy there filling out their calendar for the upcoming year, but disregard the sovereign providence of God that overrules it all. It is God's unknown calendar of events that will most certainly transpire. You see, man's lack of knowledge really serves to highlight God's all knowledge, his omniscience. It's not just that God knows in advance what will happen tomorrow. He has foreordained what will happen tomorrow. Yes, we are free, responsible agents in our planning, but God alone is the sovereign planner. It is God who directs providence. Man merely discovers providence. Man depends on providence, and yet he somehow acts as if providence depended on him. The Puritan Thomas Manton writes, many think within themselves, I will follow my pleasure and profits and then spend my old age in a devout and retired privacy. First build and trade and bustle in the world and then adjourn God to the aches and flam of their age. Foolish man decrees all future events as if all were in his own hands, whereas the natural exercise of your faculties and the divine assistance of grace do all hang upon God's good pleasure. Manton here is telling us that man decrees all future events as if he were God. And he makes plans for his comfortable retirement, but he does not know what will happen tomorrow. He makes social security his surety rather than the sovereign God. And how often you've perhaps set off confidently on some course of action only to find your plans thwarted, and very often by the smallest of things. I read this week that one flu virus, apparently, is 80,000 times smaller in diameter than a human hair. That blows my mind. I can't even process that. Something that small, but it can sure ruin your Christmas plans. It can sure ruin your vacation. I'm sure many of you have had that experience. You don't know what will happen tomorrow. Maybe a very tiny, seemingly insignificant thing, but God does know. what will happen tomorrow, and he governs even the flu virus. Another Puritan, William Bates, he says, there is nothing in the lower world exempted from the empire and activity of God's providence. He is unmovable, yet moves all, invisible, yet appears in all. The most casual things are not outside his guidance. God is sovereign, or in the words of our confession, this is Westminster Confession 2-2, in his sight all things are open and manifest. His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature. So as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain. So friends, this lack of knowledge about tomorrow, should humble us. It should humble us before the sovereign God for whom nothing is uncertain. And it should be a daily reminder that there is a God who directs all things in his wise providence and we are not him. We are finite, bound by time. Our knowledge is limited by the clock. But instead of this lack of knowledge humbling us, James says so often, we boast. We boast in our arrogance. So the problem of knowledge is also accompanied by a second problem, and that's the lack of self-knowledge. Lack of knowledge and the lack of self-knowledge. Having tackled our A presumption to see into the future, James tackles another presumption, that we're going to live forever. You may say, well, I know I'm not going to live forever. Surely we don't think that. But he asks us a very telling question. He says, what is your life? What is your life? Do you know yourself? Do you know your finiteness? You must confront Each one of us must confront our human frailty. Your life, he says, is a vapor. Well, there's an illustration we can all draw from this morning. I think the wind chill this morning is something like eight degrees out there. When you breathe, you can see the vapor, and you know what that's like, a sudden wisp of vapor. You exhale into the cold air, and it's gone. It's gone. just as quickly as it appeared. Your life is limited in terms of time, which means it is also limited in terms of what you can realistically accomplish. While the Bible makes every effort to remind you that life here in this world is limited, the world is making every effort to tell you exactly the opposite. Now, as usual, we were bombarded with advertising on the road up to Christmas. All of us dealt with it on billboards and all over the place. But how many products are advertised with slogans to disguise the fact that your life is but a vapor? Look younger, they say. Beat aging, they say. Get thinner, or my favorite, we grow hair, right? And you know what I'm talking about. We see this everywhere. The world is telling you the opposite of what James is saying here. The godless merchants in our text, we will buy and sell and make a profit. That's all there is to live for. And act as if you aren't getting older, as if this life is indefinite. But it is not indefinite. You remember that was the attitude of the rich fool. In Jesus' parable, Luke 12, 19, I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, you fool, this night your soul will be required of you. And then whose will those things be which you have provided?" So once again, behind this stark depiction of man's helplessness and finitude is the reality of God's sovereign providence. Man does not know what will happen tomorrow. God is the architect of all our tomorrows that we put into our calendars. Man is a vapor that appears for a little time and vanishes away, but God is an eternal spirit. What difference should all this make in your life and mine as we plan for a new year? Well, it should give us a proper perspective. And that's the last thing I want us to think about from our text. We thought about a future plan and a sovereign providence and now a proper perspective. Let's have a look again at verses 15 and 17. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. Verse 17, therefore to him who knows to do good, and does not do it to him, it is sin. Well, we come now to the practical application. And James here gives us three calls. The first is a call to faith, a call to faith. James has been addressing people who say something in verse 13. Come now, you who say. And then you remember he gives us their script of what they say. It's an unbelieving script. Now, he says, instead, you ought to say. So stop saying that thing and start saying this new thing. This is the challenge to us this morning. James gives them a new script. He's saying, stop talking like that. and start talking like this. He's telling us today to start talking and walking and planning by faith in the sovereign Lord of Providence and not as if he wasn't there. Instead, you should say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. Friends, the challenge to all of us as we start a new year is to start acknowledging God's sovereignty in all of our planning. The mature Christian makes all his future plans in humble faith and reliance upon his God expressed in a perfect submission to God's will. Proverbs 16.1, the preparations of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. And verse 9 of that same chapter, a man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. So as he fills out the 2025 calendar, he says to himself, Proverbs 19.21, there are many plans in a man's heart, nevertheless, the Lord's counsel That will stand. So acknowledge God's sovereignty in your planning, and I think also acknowledge God's sovereignty in your prayers. Proverbs 3, 6, in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths. It doesn't really matter how big or small those plans are in your life. The best way to avoid boastful planning is to develop the habit of prayerful planning. And here we have the example of no less than our Lord Jesus himself. We read, for instance, that before he chose the 12 disciples, he spent the night in prayer. before he went out on the waves, you remember, to rescue the disciples in the storm. He was praying before he went to the cross. Again, we find him praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, because prayer ultimately is a surrendering of our wills to God's perfect will. It says, I'm making these plans, Lord, and I desire them to be accomplished, but I have a far greater desire. Not my will, but yours be done. That's prayerful planning. And if Jesus committed his way thus to the Father in prayer, shall we act as if we don't have to? Acknowledge God's sovereignty in your prayers. And also I think we must acknowledge God's sovereignty in our speech, the way we talk. I would submit to you that the apostle is doing more here than address our thought patterns. He wants our speech patterns to change as well. You know that James' epistle is full of language about the tongue, and the power of the tongue, and the dangers of the tongue, and how to govern our tongue. And I think it applies here too. How the Christian talks about his or her future plans should be markedly different from the non-Christian. Our language should be punctuated with language that testifies to the reality of a sovereign providence. When I was growing up in Northern Ireland, it was very customary for Christians to use a little acronym any time they would make plans for the future. Some of you may have heard this acronym. It's the letters DV. DV. From a Latin phrase, Deo Volente. Deo Volente. It means God willing. So for instance, when the announcements time came at church, the elder would stand up and would say something like, the congregational meeting will be next Friday, DV. The church picnic will be next Saturday, DV. The prayer meeting will be on Wednesday evening, DV. It was just always there. That was just something that was said. part of the regular vocabulary of Christian people, and frankly, I think it was taken for granted. In fact, it even sounded unusual when somebody talked about future plans and they didn't say DV. Now, I've no doubt that for many, it was just one of those Christian cliches, that we all have Christian cliches we throw out there we don't maybe think about too much. But I will say this for it. It certainly kept alive in the minds of God's people, or at least kept ringing in their ears, the reality that God is sovereign and that man proposes but God disposes. As you've maybe heard it said, there's another cliche for you. I would just make an appeal, I guess, this morning that it would be beneficial for us to return, maybe not necessarily to the acronym DV, although that would be fine, but perhaps some English equivalent. Lord willing, let's try to speak as those who have embraced the preaching of God's word, and that says to other people as well, we're making our plans. Lord willing, these things will take place. We have the apostles' example for this. For instance, Acts 18.20. When they asked Paul to stay a longer time with them, he did not consent, but took leave of them, saying, here it is, I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem, but I will return again to you, God willing. God willing, and he sailed from Ephesus. Paul, he's making travel plans, he's going to Jerusalem, he plans to come back to them sometime, but in expressing the plans, he adds those words. God willing, D.V. We find this apostolic example elsewhere, 1 Corinthians 4.19, but I will come to you shortly if the Lord wills. 1 Corinthians 16.7, I hope to stay a while with you if the Lord permits. But I will tarry in Ephesus until Pentecost." Hebrews 6, 3. And this we will do, if God permits. And I could give you other examples, but you get the idea. This is not some empty Christian cliche. James says it is what you ought to say. Instead, you ought to say, and if God's word tells you you ought to be saying something, something's wrong if you're not saying it. So let's try to include in 2025 this kind of language. It's not just a reminder to ourselves, but it's a witness to the watching world. It's a reminder to them that as we make our plans, whether it's our home dealings, our business dealings, in school, wherever we are, Drop in these words not just as Christian cliches but as reminders to ourselves and others that there is a God. at whom we are accountable. Let's all write a big DV on our 2025 calendars, indeed over our whole lives. Proverbs 16, 3, commit your works to the Lord and your thoughts will be established. So there's a call to faith here. And there's also, in the second place, a call to action. A call to action. James says here, if the Lord wills, we shall live and shall do this or that. There's a call to action here. We might read this text, I think, and come away as pessimists, right, about the future. All right, so what you're saying, David, is basically, I make my plans, but God reserves the right to mess them up if he wants to, right? That's not the spirit with which we should come away from this text. James' warning today should not paralyze us in the present. through fear of the future. If the Lord wills, we shall live, James says, all other things being equal. We shall live and we shall do this. or that. That's positive. That's an urgent command to us to be people of action. Go do this or that. He's not saying scrap your plans because God's going to mess them up anyway. That's not the burden of the text at all. God calls each one of us today at the threshold of a new year to be living and doing Christians. We shall live and we shall do. Plan on it. under, again, an acknowledgement of the sovereign providence of God. Whatever He withholds from us in our planning, whatever plans He does disappoint, must not be good for us. And whatever He bestows upon us in line with our planning is good for us. He's our Father. He works all things together for good. to those who love him, Romans 8, 28. So let's make our plans. Let's dream. It's fun to sit down and dream about things we'd love to do in the future, and then let us rest in him. As Psalmist says in Psalm 37, 5, commit your way to the Lord, trust in him, and he will act. Once again, think of Jesus, our perfect example. How in Gethsemane, when he trembled at taking the cup, he said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. Jesus surrenders his will and preferences to his Father, and thereby our salvation was secured. So a call to faith. call to action, and finally, a call to obedience. A call to obedience. Look at that last verse, 17. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. James concludes by returning to this matter of knowledge We know that we are accountable for what we do, and we are doubly accountable for what we know. James has here been speaking to professing Christians who lack knowledge and lack self-knowledge. We should know better, as we've seen. We should know that we are fallible like vapor. We should know that we have no certainty of what tomorrow will bring. We should know that God does and that he lovingly overrules our schemes. But this knowledge of God's sovereignty and man's frailty in the head demands a corresponding obedience in your life to do the good, which is the opposite of the evil, namely to live in such a way that we accept and delight in God's sovereignty over all our plans, that we cease boasting about tomorrow, And if we fail to do so, as we leave this place, we sin a great aggravated sin of omission. God wants you to do good. He wants you... to do the right thing in response to the word today. He wants you to make plans for the new year and be excited about them, but you will never experience contentment or peace of mind in your planning unless you hold those plans with an open hand and submit them to your Father's scrutiny and guidance and final disposal. Brothers and sisters, our Father in heaven, is not a distant plan wrecker. That's not how he has revealed himself in his word. He rather is an intimate watchman over every step you take, guiding your steps into his paths. So when the Lord blesses and prospers your plans, thank him for his kindness and his approbation. And when he redirects your plans for 2025, thank him for steering you into what must infallibly be a far better course, even though it may have been one you would never have chosen for yourself. God's goal is not to take our hopes and our aspirations for a new year and reduce them into a sense of foreboding at what may befall us. Rather, his goal is to take our hopes and aspirations for the new year and sanctify them. Sanctify them. James calls the person who has listened to his apostolic counsel, him who knows to do good. Him who knows to do good. May we all then do good as we plan and as we fill our calendars. And may we say with the Psalmist Asaph, nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with your counsel. And afterwards, you will lead me to glory. Amen. Let us, as we remain seated, unite our hearts in prayer. Let us pray. We thank you, our God and Father, for your word. And we thank you that it reminds us that we live in a world that is filled with your glory and it is directed by your kind providence. Lord God, we ask that you would help us as we make our plans for this year to remember always that we should, by our thoughts and our speech, always be conscious of your providence that directs and leads us. Help us, O Lord, our God, not to see you as one who takes delight in wrecking our plans, but help us, O Lord, to see you as a loving Father who always knows better than we do and always sees further than we ever could. We ask, O Lord, that you would guide us in our planning to do your will as it is revealed to us in your word. Help us, O Lord, our God, to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. Lord, since we do not know what a day will bring to pass, help us to live each day with a conscious faith in you. Help us, O Lord, to count our days and to give us a heart of wisdom, O Lord God. And may you prosper the work of our hands, for we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.