Greetings and welcome to the Beacon Broadcast from Beacon Baptist Church on Kirkpatrick Road in Burlington, North Carolina. The Beacon Broadcast is supported in part by the gifts of faithful listeners. If you'd like to correspond with Pastor Barkman and The Beacon Broadcast, or if you wish to support this radio ministry, write to The Beacon Broadcast, Post Office Box 159, Alamance, NC 27201. The Beacon Broadcast, Post Office Box 159, Alamance, NC 27201. Now with today's message from God's Word, here is Pastor Greg Barkman. We have come to the point in our study of the book of James where we find James warning his readers, presumably Christians, about the dangers of living their lives as if there is no God. You say, well, Christians wouldn't do that. Well, don't be too sure. Because James describes a self-sufficient attitude in verse 13 that is really very different from those who don't know the Lord, may not even believe that there is such a thing as a God who created this world. That self-sufficient attitude described in verse 13 is exposed in verse 14 when James reminds his readers that God controls the world, God controls the future, God controls life. You can't do anything apart from God's blessing. You can't do anything apart from God's will that you do it. So recognize that. Act like that. Think like that. Live like that. That's what it means to live like a Christian. That's what it means to live like a person who believes in God. but to have that self-sufficient attitude that just goes through life without thinking about God, without praying to God, without being conscious of your need for God's help and blessing upon everything you do is dishonoring to God and is living your life no different from those people who don't even believe in God. Here's what he says, come now you who say today or tomorrow we shall 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. So we'll go on to the correction of this self-sufficient attitude in verse 15 after we welcome you. to this Friday, August 17 edition of the Beacon Broadcast, and thank those of you who remember our need for financial support to maintain this program on this station. Well, here's what you ought to do. Verse 15, instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. That's what you need to say. You who say, today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year, buy and sell and make a profit, what's wrong with that? Nothing as far as it goes. It's not what you said that is the problem, it's what you failed to say that is the problem. Here it is, verse 15, instead of what you just said or something like that, instead you ought to say, if the Lord lives, or rather, if the Lord wills, excuse me, we shall live and do this or that. That's the proper God-honoring language that reveals the proper God-honoring attitude. If the Lord wills. The Apostle Paul exemplified that very attitude on more than one occasion we read for example in Acts 18 21 this is Paul who well it's back up to verse 18 so Paul still remained a good while then he took leave of the brethren and sailed for Syria and Priscilla and Aquila were with him and he had his hair cut off at Sancria for he had taken a vow and he came to Ephesus and left them there but he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews when they asked him to stay a longer time with them he did not consent but took leave of them saying I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem but I will return again to you God willing and he sailed from Ephesus I can't stay and minister to you now. I can't honor your request at this time. I will come back, however. I've got to go, I've got to leave, I've got other responsibilities, I've got other appointments, I've got to take care of these responsibilities. I will, however, come back here and minister to you again, and honor your request. I'll be back, God willing, if the Lord wills, I can't guarantee that I'll be back, because I don't know what the Lord has in store for me. I don't know what shall be on the morrow, as we read in James chapter 4. I can't guarantee it, but it is my intention to come back, and if the Lord wills, I'll be back again. And that's exactly how he instructs us to talk. He said this in 1 Corinthians 4.19. Now some of you are puffed up as though I am not coming to you, but I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up at the power." He's warning them. Some of you are acting and talking as if I'm not going to come back. But I will. I'm going to come back and call you into account. I'm going to come back and check on you. I'm going to come back and confront you who are out of line. I'm coming back. Don't act and talk and live as if I'm not. I am coming back if the Lord wills. That's my intention, but of course it all depends upon God's intentions for me. I make my plans. It's not as if we sit around and twiddle our thumbs and just see what God's going to do with us. No, we go ahead and make our plans using the mind that God has given us, and the wisdom that we have acquired by experience. Of course we make certain plans, but always, always, always with the thought uppermost in our mind, I will do this if the Lord wills. That's the only way that I can think about it, because I know full well that my life is in His hands and my plans and future all depend upon Him. That's God-honoring language. We don't know God's will, so we submit to it in advance. I will do this if the Lord wills." Meaning, if I get to the time that that is supposed to be done, and God has not made it possible for me to do it, then I'll know, of course, that it's not His will. He has intervened, but I've already submitted to that ahead of time by saying, I'll do this if the Lord wills. In other words, my life is in God's hands, and I am happy to submit to whatever God has planned for me. I'll do this if God allows. If He does, I'll be there. But if not, I'm happy to do whatever He wants me to do. That's the right attitude. So we use proper God-honoring language, and we use the proper God-honoring attitude. Again, verse 15, instead you ought to say, and this is the proper language, if the Lord wills, and then He goes on to say, we shall live and do this or that. we shall live and do this or that if God wills." As long as God is first, and we recognize that everything depends upon Him, there's nothing wrong with making plans for the future. we need to articulate our faith. Namely, that we believe God is in control of our lives, and God is in control of the future, and therefore we don't do anything without consulting His will. We can't do anything apart from His blessing. Acknowledge that. plan like that, live like that, if you believe in God. Because if you don't live that way, you are living as if you don't believe in God, regardless of what you say. So this is not just simply a nice phrase to say, if the Lord wills, if the Lord wills, and parrot it without thinking until it becomes religious musack. No, no, no, no, no. It's not that we take religious vocabulary and tack it onto our plans. It is that with every plan we make, we are always submitting it ahead of time to God. God, is this what you want me to do? God, is this plan all right with you? God, is that what you want me to do? To come back and visit these people later? To come back here and minister here later? Is this what you have in mind for me?" And submitting everything to God in prayer, and in this conscious, moment-by-moment recognition that we do what God wills. We do what God allows. We do what God determines. It's a constant attitude to live by, submitting all our plans to Him. That, of course, presumes a regular prayer life. We've got to submit our plans to Him in prayer. If you don't do much praying, you probably aren't as conscious of this as you ought to be. And so you need to have a regular time of prayer where you submit every plan, every ambition, every thought, every desire to the Lord. This is what I'd like to do. I think I would like to do it because you put that desire in my heart. But Lord, here it is. I lay it out before you. If this isn't what you want, I'll be happy to do whatever you prefer. It also requires a regular study of the Bible because it is through studying the Bible and meditating upon God's Word that we learn how to discern the will of God. We will know, for example, that some plans are not pleasing to God because we realize that they just don't fit in with the will of God as revealed in Scripture. That's not the way God does things. That's not the sort of thing that would bring honor and glory to him. And we realize that by Bible study. You can't honor the Lord with your life by ignoring his word. You can't honor the Lord with your life by ignoring time with Him in prayer. You can't honor the Lord by living your life as if God is not really a factor in your life. God is just somebody we think about on Sunday when we go to church, if we go to church, and people who think like this generally miss a lot of church, because they're always doing their own thing, making their own plans, and a lot of times those plans take place on Sunday, so it's kind of like, I go to church if I don't have anything else to do. No wonder, no wonder you don't have a strong God consciousness in your day-to-day life to be recognizing that every plan, every idea, every thought for the future depends totally upon Him. So how do you live your life? Do you live your life like a Christian, somebody who really knows that God is intimately involved with my life every moment? Is that the way you live? Is that the way you think? Or are you living like a Christian atheist? Think about it. Join me again next Monday. Until then, Greg Barkman saying good day. May God give you His eternal peace.