Christ-Centered Atheism (Part II)

God’s people would take their
Bibles and turn back once again to James chapter 4. James chapter
4 we’re in verses 13 through 17. I quickly realized and acknowledged
last Lord’s Day that I indeed had some explaining to do regarding
that shocking title for the morning message. And I acknowledge that
even while it’s shocking and it’s impossible, I think it’s
entirely appropriate given the passage. The title is Christ-Centered
Atheism, and even as that sounds incongruous, as it sounds absurd,
it is appropriate given the passage. And that’s entirely the point. James is writing to believers. He’s writing to believers and
addressing in this particular context their worldliness. And just as worldliness is incongruous
with Christianity, so also atheism is with Christ-centeredness. And so, James, in the course
of his consideration of worldliness, zeroes in on another aspect of
it, namely this sin of completely omitting God from our well-laid
plans. If you would, go back to verse
13 as we Just have a brief, brief review. Come now you who say today or
tomorrow we shall go to such and such a city and spend a year
there and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you do
not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just
a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if
the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that. But
as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore,
to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it to him,
it is sin. We began to look at this, what
I believe is probably a fictitious man’s account, but one that is
so familiar to us because we have thought this way, we have
spoken this way, we have lived this way. It’s familiar to us
because we’re much like this man. James is creating a hypothetical
discussion a boast, really, by an individual who plans to go
do great things. And James calls him on it. James
says, come now, come on. You can’t be serious, essentially. Come now, you who say, today
or tomorrow. And as we looked and considered,
the man doesn’t even know when he’s leaving. It might be today. It might be tomorrow. And yet
he has the entire next year mapped out. Look at verse 13 today or
tomorrow. We should go to such and such
a city. We’re going to go to a particular
place. We’re going to go for a particular
purpose. We’re going to make a particular
amount of money. He has it all figured out. We
should go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage
in business. and make a profit. And as we
talked about this last week, it was probably one of the most
consistent questions or comments that I received was, does that
mean that planning is bad? There’s nothing wrong with planning.
There’s nothing wrong with forecasting. There’s nothing wrong with thinking
and praying and determining to go to a particular city. There’s
nothing wrong with purposing to start a new business. There’s
nothing wrong with forecasting that business and picking a product
and putting that product forth at a particular price. There’s
nothing wrong with any of that. There’s nothing wrong with labor.
There’s nothing wrong with turning a profit. Then what? We got to the end
of that and said, then what is James’s big concern? Why the
characterization of this man’s work? And we saw that the underlying
concern is, without a doubt, based on the context of these
verses, it’s the sin of presumptuousness. It’s the sin of a complete disregard
of God while planning all of those things. God, as we saw,
is completely left out of the equation in this man’s mind.
He is living as a practical atheist, and that is what James is addressing. He’s addressing believers, those
who are professing to believe in Christ, but who are living
as practical atheists, as if God didn’t exist, as if God is
not in charge. Here, as James has already addressed
worldliness in its many forms, he’s addressed worldliness in
its allures, in its enticements. He’s addressed worldliness in
its disregard of other people’s reputation. And here he is addressing
worldliness with regard to our own plans, regardless of God’s
mind. on the matter. It’s the sin of
presumptuousness, as we saw. And it’s a sinful tendency to
which we are all subject. We’ve all done this. That’s why
when we read verse 13, it sounds so familiar. And even at the
end of verse 13, we say, what’s the big deal? If we haven’t placed
it in its context, it’s that foolish inclination to look down
into the future and to establish a plan, even if it’s only in
our mind, completely devoid of God’s blessing
upon it. We begin to set our mind there. We begin to count on it and count
on our success. We expect life to begin to fall
into place exactly according to our plan. Presumptuousness, as we saw,
is one of those slippery, elusive tendencies that we know is commonplace. We know people fall into this
sin all the time. We just never dreamed that it’s
us. That’s what James is addressing. And as we delve more deeply into
this passage, James is going to move beyond just uncovering
this sin of presumptuousness, a sin that takes place in the
heart, in the mind, but ultimately issues forth from the mouth. It’s a boast, as James will go
on. But James isn’t content to just
uncover this sin, He wants to address it. He wants us to address
it. And so he issues a challenge
to presumptuous thinking. We’ve looked at the offense of
presumptuousness in verse 13. Now James wants to move to the
challenge of this presumptuous thinking. Having set forth with great clarity
the nature of the offense, the sin of presumptuousness, James
issues a challenge to that thinking here in verse 14. Those who omit
God from the equation of their planning, they are blindly disregarding
God. They are living out a practical
atheism. And just as worldliness is the
overarching theme of these chapters, this is just the latest example
of worldliness. Look, if you would, at verse
14. Where James challenges, yet you do not know what your life
will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears
for a little while and then vanishes away. James addresses what is ignored
or intentionally forgotten, brushed aside, that we don’t know what our life
will be like tomorrow. James begins here with a direct
reminder to those who presumptuously map out their lives without conference,
without affirmation from God, without approval from God himself
for their plans. And in so doing, they reveal
their utter forgetfulness of just how fragile life is. We have no assurance of tomorrow
morning. Individually, collectively, as
a nation, we have no assurance of tomorrow morning. How can
we set our sights so confidently on a year from now? Such a mindset
completely leaves God and his sovereign providence out of consideration,
doesn’t it? That’s not only absurd, it’s
sinful. We cannot guarantee our presence
on earth a year, a month, or even a day ahead. But in disregard
of that fact, we often boast of great things, don’t we? What
we are going to do, what we are going to accomplish. Paul, if
you might recall in his address to those aimless religionists,
remember they had all kinds of statues there. And Paul on Mars
Hill began to address the unknown God. And he sought to inform
them of the real God and of his sovereign dominion over all of
life. And he told them that this God
gives to all life and breath and all things. But he also told
them that in no uncertain terms in him and only in him, we live
and move and have our being. In other words, he told them.
So clearly, so plainly. that unless God allows you to
take that breath, you perish. We are nothing, and we have nothing,
and we do nothing outside of God’s sovereign providence. As we closed last Lord’s Day
with a consideration of that appropriately named parable,
the parable of the rich fool, Luke 12, This was exactly that
man’s sin. He presumed upon God’s sovereign
providence, didn’t he? That he would even be alive to
enjoy the bounties of his life that he had earned. There was
no thought of God whatsoever. He had earned it. It was his. And now he was going to enjoy
it. Or was he? These are calls as the testimony
of the whole of scripture that should promote a healthy dependence
on God, an awareness that all is dependent on God. And it’s
not merely an acknowledgement that God is in control and can
bless as he sees fit. That is to almost give God the
permission that he doesn’t even ask us for. We don’t grant God
that permission. It’s not merely an acknowledgement
that God is in control and that he can bless as he sees fit,
but that God is in absolute control and he will do as he wills. And that’s something entirely
different. It is a submission of heart. It is a yieldedness
to God and his sovereignty. that our times are not in our
hands. Psalm 31 15 says that my times appropriately
are in your hand. What a comfortable place for
the child of God to be. To know that God is in absolute
total control of our life Of all the turnings and twistings
that the world goes through, God is in absolute control. God is in absolute control of
our plans, our future, our earnings. And this is a great truth. It’s
a great perspective on which we, as God’s children, should
dwell. It should be a place of comfort
for us. That our times are not in our hands. That we do not
control our own destiny. That God in his awesome sovereignty
oversees and overrules all things. Should be a comfort to us. That we serve at his pleasure,
by his divine appointment. And all must be yielded to his
will. If we actually subject all of
our plans and hopes to Him, do you realize we cannot be caught
off guard? We cannot be disappointed when
life unfolds differently from that for which we prayed. In
God’s world, there is no chaos. There is no confusion. There
is no uncertainty. There is no bad luck. There is
no misfortune. I was repulsed a couple of summers
ago attending a wedding to hear somebody sing about the reckless
love of God, some contemporary ditty. Shocking. That’s blasphemy. God is not
reckless. God is not out of control. There
is no whimsy. There is no capriciousness with
God. Everything is under his total
and complete control. And that is a comfort to the
child of God. To know and to rest in the truth
that we do not know what our life will be like tomorrow, but
God does. But beyond just this challenge
that James throws down to the presumptuous believer, he wants to remind each one of
us how prone we are to forget how fragile life is, that we
don’t know what life will be like tomorrow. that we are not
assured even another day, let alone another year, but James
provides some absolute clarity about our nature. And this is
humbling. We’re no more than a vapor. This is a terrifically humbling
truth, isn’t it? Especially to those who are given
to proud thinking, who think that they control their own destinies,
your life is a vapor. Unless you misunderstand what
James is saying there, he’s talking about no more than a puff of
smoke. Or even more graphic, as one
put it, no more than the shadow cast by a puff of smoke. If Scripture is clear on anything
regarding our existence in this flesh, it is clear that we are
fleeting in this life. Job chapter 7 said, my days are
swifter than a weaver’s shuttle. and come to an end without hope,
remember that my life is but breath, my eye will not again
see good.” The image that he uses, the first image he uses
of a weaver’s shuttle, I had no idea what this was initially
when I read it, but in industry, the weaver’s shuttle is this
little stick that goes sliding through with a thread attached
to it, and back and forth this weaver’s shuttle goes. I’ve since seen clips of women
in countries doing this, actually working these weavers And they
get really good at it. And when he talks about the swiftness
of a weaver’s shuttle, it’s something that’s literally whipping back
and forth. That’s our life. The second image that he uses
is so common, it parallels what James says here. My life is but
breath, just a vapor. Psalm 139 echoes that. Surely
every man at his best is a mere breath. At our best. Psalm 102
uses a similar but a different analogy with the same point.
I wither away like grass. Isaiah 40, all flesh is grass. Psalm 103, as for man, his days
are like grass. As a flower of the field, he
flourishes. When the wind has passed, it
is no more. We are a vapor. Our life is temporary, it’s fleeting. But I want you to see also that
there’s a play on words here in this second line, the original
of this second line. When James says you are just
a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. This play on words typically
gets lost in translation, almost all translations. The word literally
means shine and the second word there would mean unshine. And
so perhaps the best we could do is to render it here appear
and disappear. It’s a play on words. And it
just adds to the fleeting nature of the vapor that we are. We’re
here now and we’re suddenly gone. Please know that this does not
mean, James is not suggesting here that our life is unimportant
to God. After all, God says that we are
made in his image and we know well that Christ died for us. But this metaphor, This metaphor
of a vapor, it does accurately capture the fragileness of human
existence, doesn’t it? It’s a momentary mist like that produced when we walk
outside on a cold day and huff out a breath of air that we see
only momentarily. James says, you’re a vapor. And what he means to do is to
seize hold of our attention here. He’s addressed the offense of
presumptuousness, and he’s issued a challenge to that presumptuous
thinking. But he wants to help. He wants
to give us a corrective. He wants to give us another way
of thinking. And so we see the corrective
there in verse 15. Where James says, instead, instead
of this thinking, instead of this boastfulness recorded in
verse 13, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live
and also do this or that. If the Lord wills, today or tomorrow,
we shall go. If the Lord wills, we should
go to such and such a city. If the Lord wills, we should
spend a year there. If the Lord wills, we shall engage
in business. If the Lord wills, we shall make
a profit. James moves here to provide a
corrective for the believer. He doesn’t want to just identify
wrong behavior or challenge wrong thinking. He wants to correct
it. He wants God to change our hearts. But we have to note at the outset,
it’s not just a verbal formula that God is providing here for
us, that James gives us here in this sentence. It’s not a
verbal formula. It’s a different mindset. Merely
uttering this phrase does not necessarily affect our thinking. Do you realize that? But a transformed
mindset will affect our speech. It will affect what we promise. It will affect what we set forth. And so it’s the thinking that
James is after. It’s the mindset that he wants
to correct. It’s the attitude that he is
addressing here. One faithful shepherd described
it as this, it is a principle given in the form of a rule.
I love that. It’s a principle given in the
form of a rule if the Lord wills. Rules are given that they may
be observed literally. Principles are given that they
may be applied intelligently and observed according to their
spirit. And so James isn’t giving this
quick formula. I had a number of people ask
me that last Lord’s Day. Do we just go around saying if
the Lord wills to everything that we ever say? Imagine how
cumbersome that would be to a conversation. He’s not providing a quick, simple
formula to which we attach to all of our statements. mindlessly
added to the end of our so many assertions, James says that there
should be not just an awareness of God’s sovereignty, that’s
one part of it, but a conscious yieldedness to it. That’s what
James says is missing. That’s what James says is missing
in verse 13, a conscious yieldedness to the sovereignty of God. You
see, to the child of God, the thought of their heavenly Father’s
sovereign control of all things is a comfort, not an inconvenience. Robert Johnstone, my friend that I hope to meet
one day, said in reference to thinking, When looking forward,
we should remember reverentially and thankfully and lovingly God’s
providential government in the world and our absolute dependence
on his will. That should be our guiding principle
of life, that God is in absolute control. And what a comfort that
is to the Christian. And so I want you to look, I
want you to look at the first word of the corrective that James
offers. Instead, you ought to say, if. If, if the Lord wills, and that
is a big if. That word sweetly and trustingly
lays all plans at the feet of one’s sovereign Lord and says
simply, if. God may choose to bless my efforts. He may choose to see through
my plans. He may choose to honor my longings,
but equally surely He may not. There may be Nothing morally
wrong with my intentions, my desires, my well-laid plans. It may seem like a perfectly
good idea to me. It may be attended with a history
of success as I look at others who have engaged in similar things
or even what God has done in my life previously. But God is
under no obligation to bless it, to see it through, to honor
and guarantee my plans, if.” What a small word with such huge
implications, huh? And even if that little word
is the trusting acquiescence to their heavenly Father’s will, the child of God trusts in the
expression of if. All is contingent on his loving
God’s will, and that is enough. The child of God can ask and
hope and express, but he does so with a conscious acceptance
of God’s will. He trusts God in the if. He embraces the if because it
is bound up in God’s will, not his own. The child of God knows
that God is for him. This is the great truth of Romans
8.28, is it not? We know that God causes all things
to work together for good to those who love God, to those
who are called according to His purpose. But that doesn’t turn
James. 4.13, upside down, the child of God
knows if. Well, look for a moment here
at what the child of God immediately acknowledges. Look at the passage. If the Lord wills, we shall live
and also do this or that. You see, there are two elements
upon which everything is contingent, right? His life and his plans. If the Lord wills, we shall live. And if the Lord wills, we will
do. We will accomplish our plans,
our entire life. And all of our plans are subjected
to the sovereign determinations of the will of God. And so this
phrase, if the Lord’s will is not a formula, it’s not something
that should mindlessly be appended to the end of our statements.
It’s a mindset of submission to God’s providence. That said,
there are many examples where Paul used this particular phrase,
but rather than being a statement that is added on to all of our
own, Paul used it very infrequently. And it comes out in much the
same way. Paul said it in 1 Corinthians
4.19. I will come to you soon if the Lord wills. I do not wish to see you now
just in passing. I hope to remain with you for
some time if the Lord permits. Acts 18, 21, taking leave of
them saying, I will return to you again if God wills. But when you stand back and you
look at all the statements that Paul makes in the book of Acts
and in all of his epistles, all of those promises, all of those
assurances, all of those plans. It’s a very infrequent thing,
but it does bubble up to the surface of the child of God’s
Speech, doesn’t it? And we say things like this all
the time. I purpose to do thus and such. I endeavor to do these things. Acts 19 records similar language. Paul purposed in the Spirit to
go to Jerusalem. Now, if you’re indwelled by the
Spirit, how humbling is this, that you still have to submit
your plans to Almighty God, that He might ordain them. Second
Corinthians 9, 7, talking about giving, let each one do just
as he has purposed in his heart. You’ve made this intention by
God’s will, see it through. And so from time to time, we
speak of endeavoring to do this or that. And what freedom does
the child of God have? What confidence do we enjoy? Not a confidence in ourself,
but a confidence in Almighty God and in His ability to oversee
and ordain all things. One careful historian noted,
the reference of all the contingencies of the future to one supremely
wise and loving will has been in all ages of Christendom the
stay and strength of devout souls. Did you hear that? This is nothing
new that James is asking of his people. It’s nothing new that
God is asking of us. This has been the strength and
stay of all Christian people throughout the ages, to look
up and trust God. What a liberation we experience.
What a freedom we enjoy. When we are able to know and
express our absolute dependence on God. Not just as a verbal
tag to the end of our grandiose plans, but a heartfelt confidence
in the God that we know. Whom we know loves and cares
for us. This little phrase, if the Lord’s,
if the Lord wills, becomes more than a little stamp to our plans. And though the child of God would
affirm this very unforgettable phrase, even if it’s unspoken,
the effect of it is imprinted on all that he endeavors to do. And so having addressed and introduced
the offense of presumptuousness and issued a challenge to presumptuous
thinking and the corrective to these presumptuous statements,
James has to rebuke this sin. Look at verse 16, the rebuke
of presumptuousness, where James says, but as it is, you boast
in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Now I don’t know why there’s
a back and forth here. I might have put verse 16 immediately
after verse 13 and gone right for the point there. But James, James is coming back
around. He’s already wooed us and shown
us that there’s another way. But now he takes us back to verse
13 and he says, this is evil, this is sin. James reverts back to the statement
of verse 13. He evaluates it not just as a bold statement
of plans, it’s a boast. It’s a boast that is proclaimed
from an arrogant and evil heart that, oh, by the way, just happens
to profess faith in Christ. He says this has to be remedied. This has to be addressed. You
can’t live like this. The word boast may be surprising
to us, but it’s not out of place. The word boast means to take
pride in, to exalt, and it appropriately captures the arrogance and the
pretentiousness of the declaration of our plans so often. Originally, the word was used
to refer to a wanderer. And in time it was referred specifically
to the wandering quack who went from city to city proposing some
elixir to fix cures or ills and cures. He was boasting in things
that he could not accomplish. That’s essentially what the word
came to mean. And in time, It became more generally
used of anyone, not just a wandering quack, but anyone who would hollowly
boast of things over which he had no control. And now we begin
to see ourself in the mirror, don’t we? To boast in things in which we
have no control, which we cannot rightly promise, to lay claim
to things that we don’t own or possess or cannot do. And so
it’s more than interesting that the same word is used in 1 John
2.16, speaking of the pride of life. It’s the boastfulness of
life. It’s the substance of the boastful
man’s boast. James indicts such proud thinking
and speech Not only does he consider it boastful and arrogant, he
plainly declares it as sinful. There should be no uncertainty
here for the child of God. All such boasting is evil. One pastor said, the security
which ignores the will of God and its calculations and thinks
and acts as an independent power is godless. Dependence upon God
is the center of Christianity. The man who makes plans for the
future without taking account of providence is not far removed
from the fool who says in his heart, there is no God. Do you
hear what he said? This is practical atheism to
live this way. It is sinful, and the child of
God cannot live that way. To engage in such is to live
the life of a practical atheist, living and acting and speaking
as if God did not exist. It is something of which, as
identified by James, must be repented. This is the speech,
this is the attitude, this is the mindset of the ungodly, not
the child of God, not the Christian, not the one who is Christ-centered. Psalm 10, the first four verses
essentially uncover this same sin. Why do you stand afar off,
O Lord? Why do you hide yourself in times
of trouble? In pride, the wicked hotly pursue
the afflicted. Let them be caught in the plots
which they have devised, for the wicked’s boast is of his
heart’s desire. And the greedy man curses and
spurns the Lord. The wicked, in the haughtiness
of his countenance, does not seek him.” All his thoughts are,
there is no God. James urges that things need
not be so, especially not for the child of God. We must learn
to think and speak with humility and dependence and thankful submission
to our God, not to our own plans. And so James offers a concluding
admonition. in verse 17. Therefore, to one who knows the
right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin. Do you know what James does here,
essentially? He says, now you’ve heard. Now you’ve heard. From now on,
you are called to leave off presumptuousness is essentially what he says. James declares that the message
has been delivered. And obviously to his first century
audience, that was true, but now it is true. Even if this
was the first time that we ever read this, it’s true of us. The
message has been delivered. And as with all truth, once heard,
the hearer becomes responsible. As the Puritans used to say,
if God’s word does not quicken, it must deaden. You harden your
heart, you harden your conscience to God if you do not take this
passage to heart. If it doesn’t begin even this
morning to change the way that you think and act and speak,
We can never listen to truth and remain unchanged. And so
with the truth of God’s providence and our presumptuousness, self-assurance
and self-confidence and self-focus must give way to a humble, healthy
trust in God’s sovereign providence. That the future, including our
future, is in God’s hands. not our own. John Gill, Spurgeon’s predecessor,
offered this little tidbit of help. He said, men should not
resolve upon these things without consulting God and attending
to his will and subjecting themselves to it and without considering
the uncertainty and frailty of human life as well as should
not promise and assure themselves of success, of getting gain and
riches, as if those things were in their own power and had no
dependence on the providence and blessing of God. May I unpack just a few of his
statements in closing? Men should not resolve upon those
things, making their plans, making their grandiose statements without
consulting God. That’s the bottom line of all
of this. The picture painted in verse 13 is one who did not
consult God. He didn’t go to God in prayer.
He didn’t lay his plans before God. He didn’t say if, and he
didn’t look to God’s word because if he had, he would see this
principle. Men should not resolve upon those
things without consulting God and attending to His will. All of our principles, our guidance,
providence itself is clearly laid out in His will. Without attending to His will,
without subjecting themselves to it, and not just in a sullen
yieldedness, but in a joyful, peaceful, trusting yieldedness. As a child of God, as a child
of God that knows God has only good intentions for us. Without considering the uncertainty
and frailty of human life, there should be a sober mindedness
to all that we do. Try it this week. I’m not asking
you to add this little phrase to the end of everything that
you say, if the Lord wills, but I do want you to think it. When
you make some statement of plan, when you propose any idea, some
plan, some intention, run the thought through this grid, if
the Lord wills, and then prayerfully consider your plans, Submit them
to God, and take note of how presumptuously
we tend to live. Would you examine your heart
before him? O merciful God, so many times
we come to your word and we see its richness. This truth could
only have come from Almighty God himself, and we thank you
that In your spirit, you worked through James, providing him
this vital message of which we’re so prone to forget the fragileness
of our life and the absolute sovereignty of Almighty God.
Lord, what a comfort this is to us as believers, even if we
have our own degree of atheism to repent of this morning. Lord,
we pray that you would adjust our thinking, that you would
seize hold of this really mindless approach, godless approach, for
sure, to setting forth our plans, leaving you completely out of
the equation. Lord, we acknowledge humbly that
if there are those among us who do not know Christ, who have
not placed their faith in Christ, they can have no moorings, they
can have no guidance, they can enjoy no peace, they can have
no assurance of God’s absolute and sovereign control until they
place their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray, Father,
that you, in your spirit, would prevail on any in our midst. Even if people have been in church
for many, many years, it is possible for them to be unregenerated,
unsaved atheists. Lord, have mercy and have your
way with each and every person in this room. We pray all of
these things in Jesus’ name, amen.