Facing the Future

Rev. William "Buck" Day

We’re going to be continuing our study in a faith that grows us, so we are working through the book of James. As the choir said, we are going to dwell in the house of the Lord. Let’s do that by reading His word. I would invite you to read along with me, we’ll read it aloud together.

James Chapter 4

Look here, you people who say, "Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit." How do you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is like the morning fog--it's here a little while, then it's gone. What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that." Otherwise you will be boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil.

Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Would you join me in prayer.

Holy God, we come to You this day and as that by Your spirit, you would quicken our hearts to hear what you are saying this day. We ask that because of our Lord Jesus. Amen.

Well, I want to start with a question for you this morning. Are any of you worried about the future? Do the events that are happening around the world, and that could happen around the world, do they trouble you? If you’re not worried about the future, are you at least maybe wondering what the future might bring? A report from U.S. News and World Report says that we as Americans are obsessed with the future. We want to know what’s going to happen next and it doesn’t matter what it is. It could be American Idol, or it could be what’s happening in the Middle East. All we want to know is what’s going to happen next. What’s next? What’s next, and we will do anything we can – from looking at tea leaves, to fortune cookies ( I read fortune cookies by the way) – to Astrology, all in an effort to know the future, and if there’s a book that is talking about the future, we’re right there, right now. The prediction sections of the National Enquirer are big sellers because they are predicting the future, or so they say. For all of us, planning and goal setting are a part of our everyday lives, aren’t they? They are a part of who we are, and do you know what? It’s not just adults that are thinking of the future. Studies show that our younger adults, our teenagers, are also very concerned about the future. They are always thinking about the future, on more than a regular basis. Many times a week, they are wondering, “What’s next?” In fact, one study shows that three out of ten teenagers believe that they are very well prepared for the future. So James comes to us today and talks to us about the future. He talks about the future, and we wonder, “What are we supposed to do with the future, how are we supposed to face it as a follower of Christ?” James comes to us today with some attitudes that are pervasive among our culture and his culture as well. They are attitudes that we have towards the future, but these attitudes can actually lead us astray. So James says first off, it’s good to plan for the future, but he says be aware of the traps that that future can bring. One of those attitudes that become a trap for us is what’s called the attitude of self-sufficiency. In our text today, it is a typical conversation that happened when James wrote his book, and do you know what - It rings really true today for us, doesn’t it? It is the typical kind of conversation you would have with a vice-president of marketing, talking about their plans for the upcoming fiscal year. They gather together with their regional managers, and their regional managers are going to take this plan, implement it and make it happen. Vice president says, “This is where we’re going next, here’s the next market we’re going to take. Here are the opportunities that are there before us, here are the things we can leverage for our gain. Here are some things we need to be careful of, some obstacles we’re going to have to overcome in order to make this happen. Oh, and by the way, here’s the timeframe in which it’s going to have to happen.” Have you ever been in one of those kinds of conversations, one of those kinds of meetings? I worked for the Best Buy Company for almost 15 years and that kind of budgeting and planning meeting was just kind of a part of my life every fiscal year. I knew it was coming. It was typically, “We’re going to increase profits by ten percent, while we’re going to reduce costs by five percent.” Do you see in those kinds of conversations from our text and from our world, this kind of attitude of self-sufficiency that begins to take place? That somehow, I am master of my domain. I can make anything happen. The world will bow to my leadership, and yet you look at our text and you notice that God is never mentioned in that little sales talk? That’s how it is in many of our lives as well, isn’t it? Our scripture clearly talks about the value and the importance of planning, of goal setting. All you have to do is look through the book of Proverbs and you know that plans and vision are topics that continually come up as you read through that book. So planning and goal setting are important, they are a critical thing to our lives, but God is saying here, “include me in those plans.” So as you think about your world and the things that are going on around you, what are you thinking about? What are you planning for in the future? What are you dreaming about? In that question that you’re asking yourself, does God then get edged out by the excitement of what might be as a result of those plans? Many of us have become what I would call “practical atheists”, where there is this disconnect in our lives between our faith and the way we live. We say that “I love the Lord”, and yet our actions all too often say he doesn’t exist. We go to church on Sunday, but how much impact does God have on our Monday through Friday lives? Many times we approach it by saying, “God, bless what I’m doing here,” as opposed to saying, “God, what are You doing here, and how can I join the things that You’re already blessing?” James comes to us, with some corrections to these attitudes that become traps for us. The correction for the attitude of self-sufficiency is simply to acknowledge God in all that we do. Whether we work for ourselves, or whether we work for a Fortune 500 Company. It is okay to plan, but we need to include God in those plans, and in that goal setting. This correction says that, “God, you are Lord over all, and in my life, I want Your will to be first and foremost in what I do, above anything else.”  When we think about the future, with this kind of a mindset, we say, “Lord, what do you want me to do? What kind of appointments do you want me to make? Lord what is it that I need to get done?” Maybe for some of you, it would be what schools do you want me to attend? Don’t get trapped by “practical atheism”. Include God in the planning.

A second attitude that is prevalent, that James calls a trap, is the attitude of predictability. We assume that the sun will be there tomorrow, that the sun will rise because it’s risen every day that we’ve known. And we assume that tomorrow is going to be there, that everything will go on just as it has for as long as we can remember. But the old adage is true. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. James tells us that our lives are really a nanosecond on the stage of history, and who says we get to live beyond this present moment? James drives his point home in two ways. First he says, “We don’t know what tomorrow will bring.” Life is uncertain. Tomorrow has the potential to bring profound change. All we need to do is think about 9/11 to know that’s true. And for those of you who are self employed or work on commission, you know the ups and downs of your financial lives and how uncertain it can make your whole life. We can’t see what tomorrow will bring but we need to remember to not let that frighten us. We can use that to trust God all the more, to realize that each day that we have is really a gift of God’s grace, that each day truly is the gift from God. The second thing that James points out is that life is brief. You marvel at how quick children grow up. We go from diapers to driving to grandkids overnight, don’t we, parents? So as we plan for the future, God says, “Let me in on your plans, but don’t presume tomorrow.” The correction that James brings to us for this track of predictability is to live each day to the fullest. We can’t live in the future, can we? We can’t get there, no matter how hard we try to get around that corner, it’s not going to happen. All we have is the present. In fact, Jesus says, “don’t worry about tomorrow, today has enough stuff to do.” His correction says that all we have is this present moment. It’s all I have to give to the world. It is the gift that God has given me right now. So use it to the fullest. Too many of us approach life thinking, “You know, I’m always going to have time to spend with my kids”, or “You know I have to make sure I get our financial house in order, I have to do whatever it takes before I spend time with my wife, or my husband.” In that kind of an attitude, we are giving up the present for what we think might happen in the future. Live each day as if it were your last. Plan for the future, but don’t let the present pass you by.

The last attitude that James lays out for us that can become a trap is the attitude of procrastination. Do you like putting things off? Are you attempting to do something, or perhaps as our southern friends might say (Chris, this is probably true) “I’m fixin’ to do something”.  Just because we know the right thing to do doesn’t always mean we’re going to do it. James talks about sin being the things we know we should do, but we don’t do them. He’s talking about the sin of omission. We can actually sin by doing nothing. We sin when we do nothing because there are things that we ought to be doing. For when we procrastinate, we live in the land of “some day”. “Someday” I’ll do this, “someday” I’ll get to that. Well that “some day” presumes tomorrow, doesn’t it? We know that God says there are no guarantees for tomorrow. So the correction for the attitude of procrastination is to do it today. Or, as our friends at Nike say, “Just do it.”  If someone asks for a favor from you and you can do it now, do it! Don’t procrastinate. I’ve had the opportunity to work with students in my life. Many times when I’m talking to students, I ask them, “What are you investing in for the future?” and we talk about all the things you can invest in. I encourage them to think about investing in things that will last. One of those things that will last, is their friendships, relationships. So I want to encourage all of us as well to invest in our friendships around us, invest in the relationships for God’s glory. Make those relationships count. There’s an old TV commercial from the Peace Corps. It says, “It doesn’t matter how long you live, if you’re not going to do anything with your life.” We think about how long we will live, but God wants us to think about how we are living. Are we living to make each day count? Jesus tells a story of a landowner who gave gold to three of his servants to take care of while he was gone. Two of those servants actually went and doubled their gold so that when the master came back, he said to them, “Well done, good and faithful servants.” The last servant was afraid he would lose the gold, and he knew if he did lose the gold, the landowner would not be happy, so he buried it. When the landowner came back, he called him a wicked servant. He was wicked because he didn’t do anything with what was given to him. Doing nothing with your life doesn’t please God. Make it count. Make it count.

What are you intending to do for the Lord? Is there something you’re fixin’ to do? Maybe it’s starting a bible study at work. Maybe it’s starting a small group with some of your neighbors. Maybe it’s that friend you’ve been wanting to invite to church. Now’s the time. Now is the time to do that. For some of you perhaps it’s the right time to get it together with God. 2 Corinthians, it says that the Lord is ready to help you right now. Today is the day of salvation. So perhaps for some of you today is the opportunity to let Christ become Lord over your life. Perhaps others of you are wrestling with “practical atheism” and you need to get that right before God. The time is now. What better time to do that than before we come to this table. This table is all about renewal. It’s all about celebrating what God has done and what God can do in our lives. So I want to take just a moment and ask you to pray with me as you do that.

Lord God, we are coming from all over the place, and there are a lot of things going on in our minds. We confess that we are obsessed with the future. Lord, we know that you hold the future very securely in your hands. Help us to rest in that fact. Lord, help us to live this day in ways that are pleasing to you. To not put off what we can do today, to bring congruence to our lives, the way we live our faith out. Lord, allow us to be good and faithful servants. Lord, perhaps for some of us it is the first chance to take that first step of faith. Lord, I ask that you would hear those prayers; those prayers of confession, of asking you to become Lord over every area of our lives. We’re thankful that you hear our prayers, that you know our thoughts, and you know our hearts. Lord, we bring all of this to you.

The future will always be there and James calls for us to plan for it. Plan for it with God’s help. Live today as if there were no tomorrow and do what needs to be done today. Don’t wait.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.