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[0:00] James 4, beginning in verse 10. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.! Brothers, do not slander one another.

[0:11] Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law to judge your neighbor.

[0:32] Now listen, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make money. Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.

[0:44] What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.

[0:57] As it is, you boast. And brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone then who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

[1:13] I wonder if you realize just how often you are making plans. Do you have a calendar? A day timer?

[1:24] Palm Pilot? One of those new electronic gadgets? Or maybe just in your head where you log your appointments, your plans.

[1:37] Every time you make an entry, every time you enter an appointment, you are making plans to be there, to meet someone, to do something.

[1:49] Got any plans for Mother's Day? Any plans for next week? Next month? Summer vacation? Maybe a dentist appointment? An oil change?

[2:01] Whether we... Just to reflect a moment, reminds us just how often we are involved in this activity of planning, whether short-range or long-range.

[2:14] Whether we're simply saying, see you tomorrow. Or, sitting down to plan how we're going to pay for college or a house. Well, according to the book of James, there's a holy way to plan and an evil way to plan.

[2:32] And James speaks with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God. Now, throughout his letter, the Lord Jesus is urging us through James to passionately pursue a holy life.

[2:47] Last week, we saw that a holy life gets down to the very things we speak about others. We don't speak bad things about others unless it's kind, unless it's true, and unless it's necessary.

[3:09] And this week, we see that living a holy life gets down to the way we make our plans about the future. So being holy is not merely something that we do for an hour or two every Sunday here.

[3:22] It's not something that you do for 30 minutes a day in your devotions at home. It's something that you do all the time. It's the way you live your life 24-7.

[3:34] So how are you making plans? Are they holy? Or are they evil? Now we've got five verses this morning and five points.

[3:48] One for each verse. The first point is from, here we are, in James chapter 4 and verse 13. Evil planning scene. James wants to get our attention so he grabs us by the shirt and says, now listen!

[4:04] Now listen, you who say! today. And we get to listen in on some merchant men making their business plans. Listen to what they say.

[4:16] Today or tomorrow, we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make money. Now these guys are meticulous in their planning.

[4:29] You notice, they've covered all the bases. When? Well, today or tomorrow, I will go there. Where? To this or to that city. They could point to it on a map.

[4:40] How long? Well, we're going to spend a year there. And what will you do? Well, we'll carry on business. We'll buy and sell. And what will the outcome be?

[4:53] We're going to make money. We're going to have a profit. After all, no one ever planned to lose money, right? So these guys are planning and they've got it down to a science.

[5:06] Now, at the outset, we need to know that thoughtful planning is recognized as a virtue in the Bible. We're sent to the ants in Proverbs 6 to learn from them to plan ahead, aren't we?

[5:20] And in many other scriptures we could turn to. In fact, it's the fool and the sluggard who fails to plan in the Bible. Henry Crabbendan comments, there is nothing wrong with plans, with traveling, with doing business, or making money for that matter.

[5:37] Far from it. In fact, an entrepreneurial spirit that cannot stand laziness, that refuses to drift along in a life of self-indulgent pleasure, but rather seeks to go places, is thoroughly applauded in scripture.

[5:55] God does not only appreciate it, he demands it. It is a part of dominion taking as a creation mandate. Regrettably, there are not enough Christians who display such spirit.

[6:09] So, let's be sure we understand what James is condemning. There's nothing wrong with planning. In fact, there's nothing wrong with the plans that we've just read in and of themselves as far as they go.

[6:24] So, what's wrong with this planning? simply this, that God is not at all in the picture. It's planning without God in mind.

[6:36] Planning as if we were the captains of our fate. As if we could accomplish whatever we set our minds to do. Something that's often told to our young children.

[6:48] You can do anything in life that you set your mind to do. And that's the spirit of these planners. They're self-sufficient.

[6:59] They're self-confident. They're self-reliant. And they plan accordingly. And this is just oozing with pride in their own abilities.

[7:09] Of course, we'll succeed. Of course, we'll have a profit at the end. Because we will do this and we will do that. There's no question about it. It's as if their will was the deciding factor.

[7:20] in making money. It's as if they had life by the tail. As if they had control of all the variables that go in to making money.

[7:33] They will go where they like. They will stay there as long as they like. And they will have the outcome and achieve the success that they like. So they're planning like practical atheists.

[7:46] Oh, of course they believe in God. Chapter 2, verse 19 tells us that. But they plan as if there is no God. This is one pocket of their life where they're acting as if there's no God.

[8:01] They don't need God for this stuff. Oh, they need Him to get to heaven. Sure. But not for success in their business. They can make that happen. So the one great deficiency of their planning, it's not what's there, it's what's left out.

[8:17] God. God. No sense of needing Him for their plan to succeed. No humble acknowledgement that God's sovereign will determines all things, including the success of their plans.

[8:32] He's the one in control. Not them. They are absolutely dependent upon Him. And so James is putting his finger on a common, ordinary, everyday sort of sin.

[8:49] sin. It's a kind of sin that we may think nothing of. We may easily overlook it because as you read verse 13, it doesn't have the appearance of sin about it, does it?

[9:03] These guys are just making plans. Nothing bad in what they're saying. It's just that something was missing and that's what James is putting his finger on. They do this without thought of God.

[9:17] And so the sin goes easily undetected. These men were good at making business plans. They did it every day. And so I must ask you, what do you do best? What do you do every day?

[9:30] What do you think that you can plan on doing without depending on God to achieve success at it? This is evil planning as James labels it and we'll see that later.

[9:46] Second point, the folly of such planning is exposed. Verse 14. You see, they have just said, we will do this and we will do that. And James says, why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.

[10:01] There you are planning so confidently a year from now, a year out, what's going to happen and you don't even know what will happen tomorrow. You know, there were a lot of businessmen starting new businesses last year that didn't count on the recession.

[10:21] There were a lot of financial advisors that made all sorts of plans for themselves and their clients that didn't see the coming of the stock market decline.

[10:34] And so all their best laid plans to make money never materialized. And so men did not figure on the job market being so tight.

[10:46] And suddenly we are seeing that we're not in control of the variables that perhaps we thought we were in control of. No, we don't know what's going to happen, do we?

[11:00] So your ignorance of the future in the first place should shut your mouth from such self-confident planning as we see here. It should keep us humble and dependent upon God in our planning.

[11:12] We simply do not know what the economy will be doing a year from now, but even more to the point, you don't even know if you will be here yourself a year from now or even tomorrow.

[11:27] What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then the sun comes up and burns it off and it's gone. Or a vapor of smoke, of cloud, of steam, of breath on a cold day and it's there and it's gone.

[11:44] The imagery here is that of which quickly passes. That's your life. The Bible has all kinds of images to emphasize the shortness of life.

[11:55] David says in Psalm 102.3, my days vanish like smoke. There's the smoke and you see it and then as it goes up it dissipates and it's gone. That's your life.

[12:08] Job says my life is but a breath. Say we've taken many since we've just been sitting here this morning. Just one breath. That's my life. James says you're a mist.

[12:20] And what he's emphasizing is the shortness of life. You appear for a little while and then you vanish. That's the nature of earthly life.

[12:31] Here today, gone tomorrow, maybe, maybe gone today. We don't know. It's uncertain. It appears and then it disappears. Now you see it, now you don't.

[12:43] That's your life. So uncertain that you can't count on it. We're mortals. And so we're not to put our trust in mortal men, others or ourselves, because when their spirit departs they return to the dust and on that very day their plans come to nothing.

[13:04] Psalm 146, three or four. Now should such a one as this with short and uncertain life self-confidently plan as if he's certainly going to be here all year?

[13:16] As if his willing can make it happen? A lot of people made plans for 2009 that never made it to the new year. You see the sheer folly then.

[13:29] That's what James is pointing out. The sheer folly of mortal men who are ignorant about what will happen tomorrow and who are so short, their life is so short and uncertain.

[13:39] Can you see the folly of them making such cocksure plans about what they're going to do a year out and what the outcome of that will be? No, with such huge uncertainties this kind of planning is absurd.

[13:55] That's the second point. The third point from verse 15 is the holy planning commanded. We've seen the evil planning. Now here's the holy way to plan.

[14:06] Here's the divine corrective to all this kind of planning. You're saying we will do this and we will do that. Instead, you ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.

[14:21] You see the difference? They had left God out of their planning. James demands that God be front and center of their planning. If it is the Lord's will, then we will live and we'll go into such a city and we'll do this and we'll do that.

[14:41] Now the sovereignty of God catches a lot of flack today in a man centered world. Sadly, it catches a lot of flack in the churches that have become so man centered to speak that God is sovereign over all things is so offensive to ears today.

[14:59] But I want you to see that you cannot obey the command of verse 15 without believing in the sovereignty of God. You can't obey it.

[15:11] You can't keep it. According to James, the Lord's will is what controls and determines everything that happens.

[15:22] it determines the Lord's will determines whether you will live and whether you will do this or that. These things do not depend ultimately upon your will, but upon his will.

[15:36] Your will is not ultimate. There's someone else whose will is ultimate and final and determinative and absolute. Someone else whose purposes cannot be thwarted, who accomplishes all he plans, not us, but the Lord.

[15:54] That would be the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not in a tomb anymore. He's on a throne and he is doing all that he wills.

[16:06] And his will determines all things. The Lord foils the plans of the nations. He thwarts the purposes of the peoples, but the plans of the Lord stand firm forever.

[16:21] The purposes of his heart through all generations. Have you thought lately of how easy it is for God to thwart our best laid, most well-intentioned plans?

[16:36] Is this something hard for God to thwart our plans? He just turns on the rain and we cancel our plans. He sends a storm.

[16:49] A lot of things, plans are scrapped. He sends a flu bug. Plans are gone. He sends a recession.

[17:03] He sends this, he sends that. He has innumerable messengers to fly at his command and to thwart and to frustrate our plans.

[17:16] But nothing and no one can ever thwart his plans. He is sovereign. They stand firm forever. He does all that he plans because he's sovereign over everything.

[17:29] His will is the final determiner of what does and does not happen everywhere in his universe. And that includes your life and everything on your day timer. Everything on that day timer.

[17:42] Now this is the teaching of the entire Bible and James is simply telling us, brothers, this must factor into your planning. You must plan with this reality before you.

[17:55] Notice verse 15, how all encompassing God's sovereignty is. What does it touch? What does it reach? Well, he controls our life and he controls all that we do.

[18:07] Notice first our life. He says, you ought to say if it is the Lord's will, we will live. You're self-confidently planning on a year of doing business.

[18:22] Oh, but if it's the Lord's, it's the Lord's will that determines whether or not you'll even be alive tomorrow. Tomorrow's not a given to you. Just because you had a yesterday that had a today does not mean that you will have a tomorrow.

[18:36] That's the way we think. One follows the other. It does not follow that you have a tomorrow. James is saying you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, so don't boast about it.

[18:48] No, tomorrow is only yours if God gives it. That is, if the Lord wills it, if he exercises his will to give you tomorrow, you'll have it.

[19:00] otherwise you won't. We don't live by bread alone, Jesus says, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, I could have a whole barn full of bread, but it would not be enough to keep me alive one more day if God did not will that I should live.

[19:23] I could have the best surgeons. All the doctors in the world cannot keep me alive if God has not willed and decreed from his mouth that I should live.

[19:37] David knew it. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. God is sovereign over our life. Job knew it.

[19:47] Man's days are determined. You have decreed the!! You have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.

[19:59] Self-confident Belshazzar, king of Babylon, learned it even as Daniel rebuked him and said you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways.

[20:12] Those are the very two things that James is showing that God is sovereign over. He has in his hand your life. That's right there. It's in his hand not yours.

[20:24] And Belshazzar was dead that very night. So the reality is that my life is in his hands. My next breath is in his hands. I'll only take it if he gives it.

[20:37] That's the reality we live with. When the Lord wills my death not all the doctors in the world can keep me alive. So you ought to say if God don't forget to factor this into your planning.

[20:54] Acknowledge your absolute dependence on God for your very life itself. But God is not only sovereign over whether we live. He's also sovereign over all your ways, all that we do.

[21:08] And so we should say if it is the Lord's will, we will do this or that. If he wills that we live and go to this place for a year, and if he wills that we carry on business and make money, we will do so.

[21:23] If he does not will it, it simply is not going to happen, not now, not in a million years. It is the Lord and his will that is the final determiner of all things.

[21:38] And that's to enter in, consciously enter in, into the way that we make plans for the future. We're to acknowledge the truth of Proverbs 16, 9. In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.

[21:57] Man plans, the Lord determines his steps. You see, there's two stages here. There's the planning of what we're going to do. That's what's done in the hearts of men. And then there's the actual outworking of what we actually do.

[22:12] And that is determined by the Lord. Proverbs 16, 9. What is the execution? Well, that's what the Lord decides.

[22:24] For all man's planning, what actually happens is what the Lord wills and determines always and in every detail. Consider the plans of the folks that killed the Lord Jesus.

[22:37] In Acts chapter 4, in verses 27 and 28, we indeed Pontius Pilate, indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire.

[22:50] Kids, that means to plan, to plot. They met to plan against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.

[23:06] So they conspired and planned. But all that they did in reality was what God's will had decided beforehand should happen.

[23:18] Now, the Jews had wanted to kill him, but not during Passover. Why not? Because that's when all the pilgrims would be in Jerusalem and it could create a riot. So we want to kill him, but not during Passover.

[23:31] That's their plan, their plan. God determined their steps. God had planned that his son should die when?

[23:41] During Passover as a testimony that this is the blood, that when I see it, I will pass over you in my destructive wrath. You deserve my wrath forever and ever.

[23:54] But if you will look in faith to this Jesus who is here shedding his blood during Passover, the Lamb of God, my wrath will pass over you. So God wants his son killed during Passover.

[24:08] The Jews don't want it to happen during Passover. They planned and God determined their steps. He was killed during Passover, wasn't he? And all the pilgrims in Jerusalem have that vivid scene of the son of God bleeding and dying.

[24:27] And then the messengers of the gospel go out into every place and tell them and explain to them what that blood does. That blood will forgive you of all your sins. That blood will take away God's wrath and give you his favor.

[24:40] Trust in this Savior. So we see many are the plans in a man's heart, but it's the Lord's purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19 21. So God's sovereign will literally covers everything that happens.

[24:56] Ephesians 1 11 in him that is in Christ we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.

[25:11] If you don't have that verse blazoned in your mind you will not or verses like it you will not understand something that is the most fundamental thing that we need to get and that is that this world is controlled and ordered and directed by God in everything that happens Christian it includes your salvation God determined your salvation that's what Ephesians 1 11 says I just read he chose you he predestined to save you all according to his plan and everything about your salvation was planned by God the person you met the track that was given you the sermon you heard the verses of scripture it was all planned according to his will to save you and there is enough wonder and amazement in that reality that will keep us worshiping God forever and ever when we see our savior face to face but that's not all far from it he works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will so whether you live today and take your next breath whether you live tomorrow whether you go to this or that city whether you stay here there a day or a year whether you carry on business and whether that business is profitable and you make money whether you do this or that and the this or that includes everything it will only happen if it's the

[26:40] Lord's will therefore you ought to say in your planning if it is the Lord's will we will do planning for the future but you have plans you're making them all the time what is your this or that seniors in high school you're going to college and I'm making plans for college that's your this or that you're going to get a job this summer some of you are going to get married some of you are going to buy a house or get a car some of you are coming to church tonight or at least you're planning to some of you're planning to go to school tomorrow to work go on vacation this summer only if the Lord wills only if the Lord wills will you do this or that so acknowledge that in your planning humbly acknowledge the sovereign will of God over everything that you plan doesn't mean don't plan it means plan with a humble dependence on

[27:43] God's will now notice in verse 15 this is something we are to say this is something we are to verbalize instead you ought to say you've been saying this we will we will we will we will instead you should say if it is the Lord's will we will do this or that this is meant to be a means of testifying to the sovereignty of God we find Paul often speaking this way in Acts chapter 18 verse 21 he's at Ephesus the people want him to stay a bit longer but he declines but as he left he promised I will come back if it is God's will and then he set sail from Ephesus you find similar things in his letters he writes in 1 Corinthians 4 verse 19 but I will come to see you very soon if the Lord is willing that's the very thing that James is saying here you ought to say if the

[28:47] Lord is willing if it is the Lord's will now there were other times that Paul didn't say this so I'm not saying that this has to be on your lips every single time you state anything you're going to do in the future Calvin says we read everywhere in the scriptures that the holy servants of God spoke unconditionally of future things when they had it as a principle fixed in their minds that they could do nothing without the permission of God so perhaps the primary thing that God is after in James chapter 4 here at the end of the chapter is that our mind and the awareness in our hearts that we can't do anything apart from God graciously willing!

[29:27] it however God is after more than words does not make verbalizing it optional for the Christian instead you ought to say this is your duty to say it this ought to be found on your lips we're to verbally acknowledge God's sovereignty over all of our plans and folks if we did so more often just perhaps the sovereignty of God would not be such a forgotten truth in the world or in the church for that matter our plans ought to sound different from the world's plans if we're Christians instead of sounding self confident and proud as if we could bring about what we're setting out to do we ought to humbly acknowledge God's sovereign will that determines all that happens and show a humble willingness to bow our knee to whatever his will is if it is the

[30:35] Lord's will we will do this or that it's part of the glory God deserves in the earth he deserves to have people acknowledging that he's sovereign over everything and over our plans it's part of our witness to the world verbally acknowledge him as the final determiner of all things that's the holy planning commanded the pride of evil planning expose!

[31:07] verse 16 James says I've just taught you how you ought to plan but as it is the way you are presently planning you boast and brag all such boasting is evil!

[31:21] Do you hear what James is saying? All of your planning added up what does it all amount to? A bunch of boasting and bragging this isn't something else that they were doing on the side this is what they did in verse 13 go back and read verse 13 you who say today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city continue there a year carry on business and make money and James says you are boasting and bragging you say I didn't hear anybody boasting and bragging I just heard some businessmen making plans but James goes to the bottom he's not a surface guy he goes right to the heart and he uncovers what's talking here is pride your planning amounts to boasting and bragging kids you ever heard a bragger I suppose there's one in every class usually is they're it in their eyes and they just tell everybody how wonderful they are how good they are whatever it is the game that they're playing the academics they're it my mind goes to

[32:26] Muhammad Ali for some reason I can't get out of my head I am the greatest that's a bragger and everything in you wants to cheer for his opponent there's something obnoxious about a bragger isn't there do you know that that's how God sees it when we plan without him in view when we just say I'm going to go do this and this and this and this and there's never a thought or a word about him and about his sovereign will that's over all of my plans we just assume that we will do this because we've done it before and we're boasting about tomorrow isn't that interesting that's what Proverbs 27 verse 1 forbids from us do not boast about tomorrow you see when I just plan as if I'm always going to have tomorrow I'm boasting I'm boasting you don't even know what a day will bring forth tomorrow will be like today or even far better

[33:29] Isaiah 56 12 I'm going to do this I can get it done watch me you have a good plan to see it brought to pass you have the ability to pull it off and you don't even think you need God to make money you've made lots of it you've been to school you've been trained you've got experience and James says what pride what arrogance in all such planning I can't help but believe that God has a lesson in humility to teach America who forever has thought that this business of making money is so easy and he has so blessed us that it has been relatively easy hasn't it America has made gobs of money to the place where we start planning I'm going to do this and that and the other and I'm going to make money and God is saying you don't even know what will happen tomorrow oh that we would hear his voice in this recession oh that we would hear his voice in reminding us of our ignorance we don't know we don't know oh that we hear his voice in reminding us of our uncertainty of life itself our life is like a mist that whenever we plan we will always think and it will be found often on our lips if it's the

[34:49] Lord's will I'm going to do this I'm going to do that what are you doing you you're you're glorifying God as the one who's sovereign over all your life you're telling that the Lord Jesus reigns from his throne and that's the glory he is due James shows us that pride is at the bottom of this self conscious planning by the way what else have we seen in chapter four pride is at the bottom of this conflict that we get in with other people I want it to me that's pride we don't deserve anything but hell and so pride is at the bottom of our conflict pride is at the bottom of our worldliness what is the worldly spirit it's all about me pride is at the bottom of our unanswered prayers because we're we're going to spend all we get on ourselves pride is at the bottom of our slander what is it that allows me to talk down my brother it's my pride my high view of myself and so it is with our self confident planning pride you see runs right through this chapter and should we be surprised then to find right in the middle of it in verse 10 humble yourselves before the

[36:05] Lord you see that's the message here whether it's conflict unanswered prayers because you're just out for what you can get whether it's worldliness whether it's slander whether it's self confident planning thinking you can pull it off there's pride at the bottom we need to humble ourselves before the Lord you see we're either walking humbly!

[36:27] with God or we're walking proudly without him and we're called upon to walk humbly with him to plan humbly with God in view James says as it is you boast and brag all such boasting is evil it's bad stuff it's wicked it's sinful you may not have thought of your planning as evil that's the way God sees it downright evil because it's a proud declaration of independence from God it's to cut from God and to live life without him to plan without him I can do this and all such boasting is evil it's the same word used for the evil one and he was the first to cut in proud independence from God I will be like God I can do this he's not the only one and he's the one who led men to strike out in proud independence from God it's evil and so this idea of planning it's so common so every day we're just making plans that we might miss the evil in it and

[37:41] James is uncovering it and saying see how you're striking out in proud independence from God when you plan without him oh we can't forget God at any time under any circumstances you know what it says to me John how many other things are you doing in proud independence from God and you're blind toward oh search me oh God show me show me where I'm not humbly depending on you where I'm not living as if indeed you are Lord over everything my life and all my ways no quicker way to have God oppose your plans than to plan without him because God opposes the proud he stands straddle over your plan and sometimes he thwarts it just to teach us that we are dependent upon him it was said that when Napoleon Bonaparte was considering invading

[38:41] Russia a friend tried to dissuade him from doing so saying man proposes but God disposes and Napoleon's reply was I dispose as well as propose well that campaign began the beginning of the end for Napoleon man makes his plans but God determines his steps man proposes but God disposes the pride at the bottom of evil planning is exposed and lastly verse number 17 and number 5 to know and not do is sin anyone then who knows the good he ought to do but doesn't do it sins now the good that you know to do is that you ought to be making your plans and dependence upon God and his will you ought to be acknowledging his will as the final determiner now you know what will you do that's how

[39:42] James leaves it now you know what will you do! how are you lay your plans does it ever cross your lips if the Lord wills or God willing I will do this or that oh may he be the center of our least endeavor may he be the center of all that we do we're to live this God centered life that that demonstrates to the world that God is indeed the center of the universe and his will is being worked out on the earth and I humbly submit my plans to him oh if we've ever planned and who of us hasn't like these businessmen in James chapter four we've got much pride and arrogance to confess but you know we have a savior for such sins as pride and arrogance and evil planning you know he died for our evil plans he died for our self confident can do spirit that we can strike out on our own and we'll show the world we don't need

[40:54] God he died for that so we can come to him and he says if we confess our sins he's he's faithful and just and will forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness he's willing to forgive us even as he shows us the evil of our planning oh and then we come to him to be taught how to plan he says come on come to me you are weary and heavy late I will give you rest and learn from me for I am humble and gentle in spirit we can learn from Jesus how to humbly make our plans and so he's he's planning who he will choose to be his twelve disciples on the morrow on the next day who should I choose out of all my disciples who should be the inner band of twelve he doesn't say well I will do this and I will do that no he's come and become a man like you and

[41:55] I!

[42:44] I but just not now so whenever your guilt of your sin comes upon you you you satisfy your conscience with saying I'm going to I'm going to get right with God what a proud thing to say that's what James tells us what a proud thing to say you do not know what will happen tomorrow don't boast about tomorrow that's boasting you could be dead tomorrow you could be an eternity tomorrow this night your soul could be required of you and then what would happen to all your plans of heavenly gain of coming to Christ it would all come to nothing and if it is proud folly for a businessman to make plans for a year and to self confidently plan on getting profit what is it for you to plan on finding

[43:45] God's mercy and planning on God's grace and forgiveness neither of you know what tomorrow will bring he may lose his profits and business you may lose your life and heaven so outside of Christ you're just a breath away from hell you don't know what will happen tomorrow it's pride to presume!

[44:09] on the grace of God why why why will you go on in this just adding sin to sin you might think that you're more virtuous in God's eyes because you're saying someday I'm going to get right with God you know what he's saying she is so proud she is so arrogant to say that she's boasting as if tomorrow is in her pocket she's not acknowledging that I give her today is the day of salvation today if you hear his voice don't harden your heart come to him do you know Jesus is more willing to save you than you are to be saved he delights in mercy the scriptures say you come to him right now and you'll find his arms wide open he saves all who come to him let's pray or reigning Lord Jesus we address you on your throne as the one who is Lord of all we acknowledge that you have been kind to us in your will in giving us this day giving us to live another week to come into your house on this your day to hear the gospel to hear your word instructing us thank you for your kindness of your will to us help us not to take it for granted to presume!

[45:36]  to make our plans with you in mind and to speak of it to each other and to the world we have a God who reigns over all and our dependence is on him give us opportunities to give you glory in the way that we speak to others and bring some who are this morning planning on someday getting saved to humble themselves right now and to call out for your mercy for Jesus sake amen