SEIZE THE DAY!
Psalm 39 4
"Show me, O LORD, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know
how fleeting is my life.
5 You have made my days a mere
handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath. Selah 6 Man
is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro:
He bustles about, but only in vain; he heaps up wealth, not knowing who
will get it.
BIG GOD +
SMALL ME =
PLANNING WITH HUMILITY
SELF-SUFFICIENCY=========รจGOD-DEPENDENCY
- PLANNING THE WRONG WAY
- GOD HAS THE FINAL SAY
- SEIZE THE DAY!
- PLANNING THE WRONG WAY
Verse 13: “Come now,
you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a
year there, doing business and making money.’”
- three
kinds of merchants at the time of James:
- (1) the old Hellenistic
mariners who never left the sea and shipped and sold cargo from one port to the
next;
- (2) the caravan traders who
used camels, wagons, horses and mules to bring and sell goods from one
city to the next;
- (3) local shop-keepers who traveled abroad to find goods and
merchandise for their stores and businesses
- choose their own time, location, operation—NO MENTION OF GOD…THEY
HAVE MADE THEMSELVES INTO GOD
- these traders pick the exact day of their departure: “today or tomorrow”
- they pick the city they will visit: “this or that city”—one can imagine
them pointing the town out to one another on the map
- they determine the length of their stay: “a year”
- they state what they will be engaged in: “carry on business”
- and they even state that they will make money
2X PROBLEMS
A.WE ARE
FINITE
Verse 14A: “Yet you do
not even know what tomorrow will bring.”
- We
tend to forget that we are mere human beings who are finite. We do not know what tomorrow will
bring. Only God has that ability;
only He is infinite and all-knowing.
- Solomon
warned: Proverbs 27:1 Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do
not know what a day may bring forth.
- TITANIC When the New York office of the White Star Line was
informed that Titanic was in trouble, White Star Line Vice President
P.A.S. Franklin announced " We place absolute confidence in the
Titanic. We believe the boat is unsinkable." By the time Franklin
spoke those words Titanic was at the bottom of the ocean.”
- Charles
Spurgeon: “It is a great folly to
build hopes on that which may never come. It is unwise to count your chickens
before they are hatched.”
Verse 16: “As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all
such boasting is evil.”
- 1
Corinthians 1:26 “Let him who
boasts boast in the Lord”
- Galatians
6:14 “May I never boast except in
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to
me, and I to the world.”
B. WE ARE
FLEETING
VERSE 14B: “What is
your life? For you are a mist that
appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
NASB: “You are just a vapor that
appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”
MESSAGE: “a wisp of fog, catching
a brief bit of sun before disappearing”
- Life is like mist or
fog: uncertain, transient, and
temporary.
- Isaiah 40:7-8 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers and the flowers
fall, but the word of our God stands forever."
- Hosea 13:3 “Therefore
they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears,
like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a
window.”
- GOD HAS
THE FINAL SAY
- Verse 15: “Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord
wishes, we will live and do this or that.’”
- message: Instead,
make it a habit to say, “If the Master wills it and we’re still alive,
we’ll do this or that.”
FALSE MEANING
OF VERSE 15
“Lord willing
and the creek don’t rise”—means “barring catastrophe”
TRUE MEANING
OF VERSE 15: GOD IS SOVEREIGN; GOD IS
KING
Remember the former
things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none
like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not
yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my
purpose,’
Who has spoken and it
came to pass, UNLESS the Lord has commanded it?
My Days Are Numbered
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
(Psalm 139:16)
WHAT THIS
MEANS FOR OUR PLANS
- Proverbs
16:1 “To man belong the plans of
the heart, but from the Lord comes the reply of the tongue.”
- Proverbs
16:9 “In his heart a man plans his
course, but the Lord determines his steps.”
- Proverbs
19:21 “Many are the plans in a
man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”
- Proverbs
20:24 “A man’s steps are directed
by the Lord. How then can anyone
understand his own way?”
- THOMAS
A KEMPIS: “MAN PROPOSES BUT GOD
DISPOSES.”
- SEIZE THE DAY!
- Should we even plan?
- Winston
Churchill: “It is better to have an
ambitious plan than none at all.”
- It
is not wrong to plan
- Apostle Paul: 1 Corinthians 4:19 “I will come to you soon, if the Lord
wills.”
- Apostle Paul: 1 Corinthians 16:7 “I hope to spend some time with you, if
the Lord permits”
PROPER PLANNING
IS DONE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH GOD
- give
God our future; it is His to do with as He pleases
- FIRM
CENTRE; SOFT EDGES--ALLOW ROOM FOR GOD TO CHANGE YOUR PLANS
- ALLOW
TIME FOR GOD TO BREATHE INTO YOUR PLANS
- HOLD
ONTO YOUR PLANS LOOSELY
- PLAN
WITH GOD’S PRIORITIES AND GOALS IN MIND
- “Pray
as if everything depended upon God; work as if everything depended upon
you.”
PLAN FOR TOMORROW BUT SEIZE TODAY
- 17 Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.
JONATHAN EDWARDS—AGE 21
- • Resolution
#5: “Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most
profitable way I possibly can.”
- • Resolution
#6: “Resolved, to live with all my might, while
I do live.”
- • Resolution
#17: “Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to
die.”
Friends, that is planning God’s way, and that is
seizing the day.
So today we learned by looking at James 4, don’t
plan the wrong way. God always has the final say, and make sure you seize the
day.
Will you join me in our closing prayer?
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word which reminds us that you
are God and we are not; that you are big and we are small; that you are
infinite while we are finite; that you are perfect while we are imperfect; that
you are eternal whereas we are temporary.
We thank you for that reminder because, well frankly, Lord, it’s good
for us to be reminded, and it can allow us to sigh a sigh of relief that not
everything depends on us: that you’re in control; that you are sovereign, and in
your perfect timing you will work out all things for good for those who love
you.
(I) pray for each listener today that they will not pray the wrong way,
but instead they will remember that you have the final say, so that they will
seize each day and remember, always, to say, “...if the Lord wills it.”
We thank you, God, for each day, for each breath, and each heart beat.
May we use them for your glory! Amen.
