It's time now for the Chapel Hour, coming to you from the campus of Bob Jones University. Our speaker is Dr. Greg Mazak, Chairman of the Division of Psychology at BJU. How many of you, you've been in school, you've been in summer school both May and June, you've been going to summer school both months, raise your hand. Okay, so for out of those eight weeks of school, we're finishing week seven. Okay, only one more week and You'll be, you'll hopefully be where the high schoolers are, right? I'm seeing smiles out there. How many of this is your only month of summer school? Okay, for you, this is end of week three out of four, so you're still 75% of the way finished. Now, how many of you, as soon as school is finished, you will leave and go straight home? Let me see your hands. I mean, that's what you're going. How many of you heading? You say as soon as school is finished, I'm heading out to Christian ministry. Let me see your hands. Camp, church, whatever it might be. How many would say as soon as school is finished, I'm going to begin working. I have a job lined up. Let me see your hands. OK. And how many of you would say, by just raising my hand, I sinned? How many of you would say you just raised your hand and you sinned? How many? No public repentance. None of you. I think some of you did. I think many of you did. I think public repentance would be called for. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Open up to James, please. Let's open up to James. You say you set me up. Yeah, I did. James chapter four. James chapter four is all about pride and humility. For example, if you open up to James chapter four and look at verse six in James chapter four, verse six, the Bible says, but he giveth more grace Wherefore, he sayeth, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. If I'm a proud person, God resists me. That basically means I have to live life by myself. I get no help from God. You say, where does it say that? God only gives grace unto the humble. What is grace? It's just help. If I want God's help, I need to be humble. If I'm not humble, I'm proud. If I'm proud, I have to live life by myself. God only gives help to humble people. You say, well, how do you humble yourself? James tells us that. Verse 7, submit yourself to God. Verse 8, draw near to God. Verse 9, be afflicted and mourn. Why? Over your sin. And then verse 10, humble yourself in the sight of God. If I want God to help me, I must be a humble person. If I'm a proud person, I'll walk through life alone. God says, fine, you want to be proud, be proud. Do it by yourself. Because God only gives help to humble people. You say, well, how would I know if I'm humble? Well, we have next a couple evidences of humility. One is in verse 11 and 12, where James writes, speak not evil one of another. If I could put that in everyday conversational English, don't trash other believers. That's what he says in verses 11 and 12. If you put down other Christians, you're a proud person. You're not a humble person. So if I'm putting down other people, that means I'm proud. And if I'm proud, I get no help from God because God doesn't give help to people that are proud. That's one demonstration of humility. But that's not the one I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the second demonstration of humility that we find in verses 13 through 17. And that's not presuming on the future. A humble person is a person who doesn't presume on the future. Let's read through verses 13 through 17 together here. James writes, Come now, you could say today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get game. Whereas, you know, not what shall be on the next day. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. For you ought to say if the Lord Will we shall live and do this or that? But now you rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil. Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. I'd like to point out three simple truths from this passage today. Number one, we must not plan arrogantly. There's nothing wrong with planning, but we must not plan arrogantly. Look how James begins his passage here in verse 13. He says, go to now or come now. You say, what is that word go to or come mean? It's basically a way of saying, hey, that's what we would say in the South. If I wanted to get your attention, I'd say, hey, you. And if I wanted to talk to you now, I'd say, hey, you right now. And you wouldn't be expecting to hear something good. Normally, I don't say, hey, you buddy. I just wanted to give you five bucks, right? Normally something is wrong. And if you've done something that's questionable, hey, you buddy, come here. That's what James is saying. Hey, you, you say, who is the you? Well, let's go back to verse 13. You, the person who says today or tomorrow, we will go into such and such a city and we will continue there a year and we will buy and sell and we will get gain. You say, what is James trying to say? Is it wrong to plan? No, it's not wrong to plan. I mean, we all talk about God's plan of salvation. It's not wrong to have a plan. It's also not wrong to engage in commerce. We don't want to read this passage in verse 13 and say, whoa, I better not be a business major, you know, because they're teaching us how to go into a city and make a profit. No, that's not it at all, right? We know Joseph was a carpenter, right? Paul was a tent maker, Peter, a fisherman, Lydia, seller of purple, etc. Nothing wrong with honest work to the glory of God. You say, what's the point? Let's go to verse 13 and check it out again. What does James say? He says you. who say today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a city, we will continue there a year, we will buy and sell, we will get gain. You say, what's the problem with what they say? I don't think there's a problem with what they say. I think the problem is with what they don't say. No reference to God. No acknowledgement of God. As if God doesn't exist, or at least is not incredibly important when making plans. That's what it means to plan arrogantly. Living, as some people would call it, as a practical atheist. Now, in Bible doctrines, does God exist? You would say true, and you would get it correct. But yet, in our daily lives, is this the way we live? How many of you have seen the film, it's kind of old, but it's the Swiss, I think it's, I hope this is the right name, Swiss Family Robinson. You've seen that? You know, I remember seeing that when I was, when I was young, it's a long time ago. My dad took me to that with my brother. We went and saw Swiss Family Robinson. And I still remember as my girls, you know, came along, we got the VCR tape and we would watch it. And, you know, I can watch a tape once or twice. They watch them again and again and again. But I can watch it a couple of times. I enjoyed seeing it. Probably one of the best parts I like of that of that whole tape is towards the beginning. There's the shipwreck, as some of you would recall, and the pirates attack the ship. And what do they do? They're under attack. And I think that's right. It was either an attack or a shipwreck. But anyhow, the boat's in the water and they're in trouble. OK, I'm not to the part I like yet. OK, so I'm buzzing on the details. And what do they do? They go to the island for safety. And they take things off the boat, animals, what have you, stuff, you know, some gunpowder, guns, whatever. And they go to the island and they get everything to the island. And then immediately the dad takes charge and he barks out commands to his two sons. And he says, OK, first we're going to set up camp and then you're going to do this and you're going to do that. And then I'm going to do this. And dad just takes control and says, we're going to do this and this and this and this and this. And his wife gently and appropriately rebukes him by saying, no, there's something we will do first. And she looks up and with great shame, dad looks down as he acknowledges that he had forgot to pray, that he had forgot to seek God's face. And this is a Disney film, no less. Could you imagine that happening today? Right? Today, I can't even imagine what would happen. And here they all bow their heads. And I believe that the camera fades away as they acknowledge their dependence on God. People, it's arrogant for us to presume on the future. Drop down to verse 16. James writes, But now you rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil. You rejoice in your boastings. The word boastings there basically means arrogant presumption. You're not only arrogantly presumptuous, you boast in your arrogant presumption. You know, we take fighters, guys like Muhammad Ali, who basically dance around in boxing. He was obviously good and goes around telling everyone I'm the greatest. We applaud people like that. God says that's not humility. Humility, that's pride. You get no help from me. That's arrogant boasting. We shouldn't be that way. Not at all, because all such rejoicing the end of verse 16 is evil is actually evil. Which means is it possible that if we are here today saying, man, this weekend I'm going home to see my mom and dad right next week, my last week of summer school. As soon as summer school is done, I'm going to work up north somewhere or I'm going to this camp or I'm going on that short term trip. That's what I'm going to do. Is it not possible that I am committing evil because I am planning arrogantly? Number one, we must not plan arrogantly. Number two, we must acknowledge our human frailty. We'll see that in verse 14. We must acknowledge what is true, that we're all very frail. James writes in verse 14, Whereas, you know not what you'll be on tomorrow or the next day. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. We don't know what tomorrow holds. We don't know what's even going to happen tomorrow. Right. Some of you, you have loved ones or at least maybe people in your church have loved ones that are serving in Afghanistan, serving in Iraq. And if they were honest, they don't want to be there. And they never planned to go. They joined the National Guard. Why? To pick up a paycheck. They thought, hey, this war stuff is over, right? I'm going to get some education. I'm going to enroll in something I believe in, but they'll never send me overseas. And guess what? They're overseas. They never planned to be there. Maybe you even know families that have buried some who have gone. They didn't plan for that, but it happened. And that's the way that life is. We don't know what will happen tomorrow. In fact, the only thing we can be sure of is what? The second part of verse 14, that our life is a vapor. It appears for a little while and then it's gone. And that's true of all of us. A vapor, a mist. How many of you are from up north? You're northerners. Northerners, raise your hand. OK, quite a few. You go out in the wintertime when it's very cold and then you go. And what do you see? You see fog, condensation, whatever. How long does it last? A brief period of time. And then it's gone. You say, what is that a picture of? That's you. And you're gone. You say, I'm from the South. That didn't make any sense. OK, your mom, your mom is steaming a pot of okras. How about that? A big pot of okras. All right. Steamed okra and you take the lid off real quick. And what do you see? Mist. And how long do you see it? Not long, right? Now the smell, that's a problem, right? But the mist, it's there and it's gone. You say, what is that a picture of your life? We're here and then we're gone. In fact, a very literal rendering of verse 14 would be something like this. What is our life? Well, we appear for a little while. And then we disappear. And then we disappear. You know, I was sharing this with my oldest daughter and she said, Dad, I know it seems this way to you, but it doesn't seem this way to me. Summer school is taking so long. It doesn't seem like my life is in this. I say, well, honey, when I was your age, I didn't feel that way either. But but it's true. You know, I came to school here to work on my graduate degree. I was in 83 and I finished up my MDiv and started teaching here part time. I was 20 years ago. I mean, here I am. I'm teaching in my low 20s, but that was 20 years ago. And sometimes I still find myself thinking like I'm new here. Someone else, someone came up to me recently and said, you know, you've been here a long time. You know, I can't picture you not being here. And I think that's odd. I feel like I just got here. But here I am in my middle ages. Right. And already I realize I'm not young anymore. And some of the people who taught me are sitting in the back of this very room. OK, what does that say about you? Right. It says that you're very wise. That's that's that's what it says. You have to meet them after. It says that they're very wise. I had a great blessing. It was also sobering. A situation take place this past weekend. I was preaching up in Pennsylvania and I preached Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon. Then we had an early dinner with the pastor of the church and some other members. And so we had a little dinner and the host family I was staying with was so incredibly kind. And the guy came up to me and said, Greg, what do you want to do? You know, there's time you can do anything you want. You can take my car, anything you want to do. I said, not really. He said, are you sure? I said, you know, I have an aunt and an uncle that I used to see a lot. I really love him a lot, care about him. I don't think I've seen him in over 10 years. They may live somewhere nearby. I don't know if they lived anywhere close by. I'd love to see him. He said, well, let's get on the Internet and check. And to make a long story short, they lived 90 minutes away. And this was an uncle of mine. He used to come over. He was very athletic minded. I always loved sports. I can still remember throwing a football with him, playing catch with him, that type of thing. I'd only see him a couple of times a year, but we always did well together. And he's not a believer. His wife's not a believer. So I called them up. I said, I'm 90 minutes away. Could I come and visit? They were all excited. I went and visited them. And by God's grace, just had a fantastic time with them. It was so wonderful. Actually, I never thought I would see him again. And here I had the chance to see him, to talk to him. We talked about old times. We talked about memories. He's really not open to the Gospel, but in the middle of reliving memories, I reminded him of how I got saved, of how Christ changed my life, of how I could leave my grandma to Christ, about how my kids came to Christ. I left him tracks and things like that. What was sobering was my uncle's 82 and he can barely walk. and he can barely talk. And through his misty eyes, he was so happy to relive the memories that he cried frequently. Through his misty eyes, he was looking at me but stumbling to find the right words. And I have memories of my uncle being my age right now. You know, still able to throw a football, still able to play a little bit of catch, still able to go out and have fun and do things. And I'm reflecting on all of this thinking it wasn't that long ago that I was playing catch with my uncle. He was my age. And pretty soon my kids are going to be my age and maybe I'm going to be his age. And the next thing you know, I'm gone. And that's what life is like. It's a vapor and poof and we're gone. If I can steal an illustration from a former chapel speaker that has stayed with me, how many of you can give me the first and last name of all four grandparents? First and last name of all four grandparents. Raise your hands. Hi, please. Yeah, that's maybe half. How many of you can give me now? I realize there's blended families. You might have more than four, but how many can give me first and last names of all eight great grandparents? Raise your hands. Hi, please. One. One hand I'm looking at. one hand, that's three generations and no one even knows your name anymore, let alone who you were or what you did. That's how transient our life is. We're a vapor and we're gone. At the most, three generations and we're forgotten. We must acknowledge our human frailty. See, we tend to be selfish people and the whole world revolves around us and we live like we're going to live forever. And at least in this world, we're not. And James is saying we need to realize that. So number one, we must not plan arrogantly. Number two, we must acknowledge our human frailty. And finally, number three, we must submit to God's sovereignty. And that's in verse 15. Where James writes, you ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or do that. You say, why? Because God is sovereign. That's why you say, what if sovereignty mean? Well, think of it as a king. God's a king and God rules and nothing happens that he doesn't want to happen. And if he doesn't want it to happen, it doesn't happen. And I could say today I'm going into such and such a city, but if God doesn't want me to be there, I'm not there. And I could say today I'm going to be there for a year or stay there for a year, and then I'm going to buy and then I'm going to sell and I'm going to get gain. But you know what? If God doesn't make it happen or at least allow it to happen, it doesn't happen. Which means you could say I'm going home in just one more week. But if God doesn't want you home in another week, you're never going to see home. And you can say, I'm going to be back in the fall. But if God doesn't want you back in the fall, you're not back in the fall. And some of you are counting down how many days till you're married, you know, just whatever this summer I'm getting married 28 days and I'll be. No, no. If God doesn't want you married this summer, you're not married this summer. In fact, if God doesn't bless us with the gift of life for another five minutes, we're not going to live to hear the bell ring. Which is why we must acknowledge that God is sovereign, that He is King. Our next breath is only as He would give us life. I frequently have heard people say, all God has to do is speak the word and we'd be dead. And I still remember my pastor explaining that technically that's not accurate. All God would have to do is to stop speaking the word and we would be dead. Because our every breath, our every heartbeat is only as he would sovereignly ordain it to be so. Which means we should be saying, you know what, Lord willing, I'll see you in class in a few minutes, right? How many of you are in general psych? Come on, you're supposed to. Any of them go to chapel? OK, there's one. I got two. OK, three, four. Great. Some of my guys come to chapel. We got a test next hour and I'll see you there, Lord willing. And I'll look for you in the classroom, Lord willing. And then after the test is over, we'll review it. Lord willing. And then after we review it, we'll just have a little bit of class. Lord willing. And then I'll dismiss class, OK? Lord willing. And then maybe we'll all go our separate ways. I'm taking my girls to a play tonight on campus. Lord willing. And then I promised one of my daughters, who's really into sports, that I would watch the World Cup game with her. Because she wanted to watch it last night. And I said, I'll tell you what, just study really hard. And if you study really hard this weekend, we'll watch it together as a treat. Lord willing. And I'm looking forward to preaching Sunday morning at Trinity, our church. Lord willing. And I hope to be able to continue my series through Philippians, Lord willing. I'm looking forward to meeting a couple of believers Sunday afternoon and fellowshipping with them, Lord willing. And then Monday, we'll all come back together and finish this last week of summer school. Lord willing. You say, doesn't that get old? I don't know. Does acknowledging God's sovereignty get old? Does acknowledging humility before the Lord, the creator of all, get old? It certainly shouldn't. Now I realize that can be just a cliche. And certainly the goal is not to learn to talk like you believe it. The goal is to believe it and express it verbally. But to wrap this all up, Can I not remind us all that God gives no help to proud people? If you want help, help is just another way of saying grace in this context. If you want God to help you, you must be humble. You say, how do I know if I'm humble? Well, James gives us at least two illustrations. He says, don't trash other believers. But secondly, what we talked about today, don't presume on the future. What does that include? Let's be careful with saying, I will do anything. We must make sure that we don't plan arrogantly. Secondly, let's acknowledge our human frailty. Let's remember we're up and we're gone. And let's submit to God's sovereignty. I think all of us would do well to at least increase the number of times we add the phrase sincerely, Lord willing. Let's pray. Father, we do submit to you and humble ourselves and confess that without you we can do nothing and that even our next breath is dependent on your grace. Lord, we pray desperately desiring your help, fearful that as we're proud we get none of it, and yet confident that as we humble ourselves, we receive it. Lord, we openly acknowledge our great need before you. We need your help. Lord, please help us. Help us to humble ourselves before you. And Lord, as we would sincerely humble our hearts, we pray that you would help us to express it in an appropriate way. Including no longer presumptuously planning about the future. You've been listening to the Chapel Hour, coming to you from the campus of Bob Jones University. Our speaker was Dr. Greg Mazak, Chairman of the Division of Psychology at BJU. For a cassette or compact disc copy of today's message, send a check for $6 to Campus Store, Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina 29614. Be sure to mention the name of the speaker and today's date. The Chapel Hour has been sponsored by Bob Jones University.