Plans, Possessions, and the Kingdom of God [James Study Week 10, James 4:13-5:6]
Submitting Our Plans to God: James 4:13-17
Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
James 4:13-17
I think we can all understand this passage better after the events of 2020. We’re more aware now than we were a few months ago that our plans are not secure. Our control is an illusion, our life a mist. We truly do not know what tomorrow will bring, as James reminds us.
That may be the understatement of the year.
Right before this passage, James warned against worldliness. He reminded us that we are prone to arrogance and pride. We’re selfish and eager to spend what we’ve been given on our own passions (James 4:2-3). Instead, we’re meant to draw near to God in humble repentance (verses 6-10). Arrogance and pride are antithetical to kingdom living.
That theme continues in verses 13-17. We’re prideful even about our plans and our timing. We think we have control. Oh, how I am guilty of this! I love planning and preparing. I love calendars and schedules and maps and notepads. Currently, I have no less than nine notebooks sitting on my desk. Plus one currently laying one on the floor. Plus a desk calendar. Yes, it’s pathetic, and yes, I need to simplify.
Planning and preparing isn’t wrong, of course. We know this. There’s nothing ungodly about putting things on a calendar. In fact, it can be a helpful way to steward our time and resources. But what’s our attitude when things don’t go according to plan? What’s our response when tomorrow comes, and it doesn’t look quite as neat and tidy as we wanted?
Usually, my response is frustration, anger, bitterness, and complaining. Sometimes, I even attempt to grip my plans more tightly, trying to desperately hold together my broken agenda.
Abraham, the Israelites, and Mary
Consider Abraham when God told him that he’d be a great nation. He believed God for a while, but when God seemed to be slow in keeping his promise, Abraham slept with Hagar, his wife Sarah’s servant. He took the plans into his own hands rather than living in faithful obedience to God.
Think of the Israelites who were delivered from the hand of Pharaoh in Egypt. Things sometimes didn’t go their way as they journeyed to the land God promised them. So they complained and grumbled and did things their own way. When manna came from heaven, for example, they were told not to gather more than what they needed for that day (and enough for two days when they needed to prepare for the Sabbath). “But they did not listen to Moses,” Exodus 16:20. Some gathered more than they should have. They tried to save it up—and it “bred worms and stank.”
Their planning and preparing was a replacement for trusting God and doing what he asked. Instead of believing that God would again provide the next day, they tried to plan and prepare in direct disobedience to the word of the LORD. That didn’t work out so well.
On the flip side, consider Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was told that as a virgin, she’d bear a son who would be great and would be called the Son of the Most High (see Luke 1). But this pregnancy would cause shame and distress for her. She was an unwed young woman, and this miraculous birth would change her life forever—and not all in good ways. She would deal with people all over accusing her of adultery and believing Jesus to be an illegitimate child. Yet she says in response to the angel, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
This pregnancy was not in her plan. Raising the Son of God was not in her plan. Yet she did not argue. She didn’t complain. She didn’t take things into her own hands. She submitted herself to God and what he had planned.
His Plans are Greater
“He shapes our paltry plans into something much greater than we could have ever imagined.”
Our planning and preparing is not bad, but our responses when things don’t go our way should be more like Mary, less like the Israelites in the desert or Abraham with Hagar. No one can foil God’s plans, of course, and he still fulfilled his promises to Abraham and the Israelites, despite their doubt and unfaithfulness. He also saw Hagar’s suffering and in his grace provided for her (Genesis 16:10-13). But how much better off we’d be if we just submitted our plans to God in the first place! Life may still not be easy. In fact, as we can see from Mary’s story, it can get much, much harder. But trusting God means opening our tightened fists and saying, “Here, God. Here’s what I’d like. Here’s my plan and hopes and desires. Take them and do with them what you will.”
As we humbly offer those things to him, we may even see that he shapes our paltry plans into something much greater than we could have ever imagined.
It’s okay to grieve and mourn the losses we’ve been dealt this year. It’s good to come before God to lament what we’ve missed, the expectations that have gone unmet, and the sorrow we’ve suffered. Those are real and painful wounds that need to be cared for. But in all of it, we must come humbly to God. As we make our plans, as we prepare for tomorrow, we must submit ourselves to his will, not our own. As Isaiah 55:8 says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
We Are a Mist
Even if we have all the wealth, power, and anything else we could want, we are but a mist. It’s not that what we do has no meaning, as if we can make no contribution or our work has no value. That’s not what James is saying when he calls us a mist. Rather, the proud and arrogant aren’t nearly as great as they make themselves out to be. The person on top of the world is still nothing compared to God, and they are no more in control of their life than anyone else.
If that’s the case, if our time on earth is short and our plans uncertain, when we do know what we should be doing, we shouldn’t delay! James ends this section with an exhortation to use the time we have well to do the things God has called us to do. We are to be people who love God and love others and demonstrate the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.
Life is short, and we’re not all we think we’re cracked up to be. Yet God still uses us in his plans, plans that are far greater than ours. Why hold so tightly to our own plans when we can submit them to a God “who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think”? (Ephesians 3:20).
Build God’s Kingdom, Not Our Own: James 5:1-6
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.
James 5:1-6
This is a hard passage to read. There are clues here that James directs his words toward the unbelieving rich who use their wealth to oppress the poor. He doesn’t say, “my brothers” like he often does, and he tells only of judgment rather than calling them to change. This section reads more like an Old Testament prophetic pronouncement, warning of impending doom that will one day come rather than an exhortation to the Church.[1]
Maybe he’s talking here to the Jerusalem elite of his day, like the Sadducees and chief priests.[2] They were people of power who trusted in that status and their wealth rather than trusting in God. Yet their riches are no good on judgment day, and their injustices will be made known. The very treasures they trust in will be the things that eventually condemn them. The cries of those they’ve oppressed will reach the ears of the Lord, and justice will be served. This is not good news for the oppressor.
While this passage may serve as a warning to the unbelieving wealthy about what’s to come, the Church cannot gloss over what’s written here. As we’ve already seen in James so far, we’re to be people who love God and love our neighbor. We’re supposed to be doers of the word. We’re supposed to demonstrate what God’s kingdom looks like.
In these verses, James calls out those who trust in wealth instead of God. They exist to build their own kingdoms, not God’s. Don’t we sometimes live more like that? Don’t we sometimes—maybe even often—trust our resources, our wealth, our power instead of God? And even if we don’t have those things, don’t we sometimes wish we did because we believe those things will solve our problems? When we put our trust in what we have (or what we want to have) instead of in the God who is over it all, whose kingdom are we building? Are our lives about building God’s kingdom or our own?
“Our moth-eaten treasures will never hold up on judgment day. But if we trust our God and humbly submit to him, we have nothing to fear and everything to share.”
The Law the Israelites were given in Leviticus commanded them to not oppress one’s neighbor, delay paying a worker, do injustice in court, or defer to those with high status at the expense of the poor (Leviticus 19:13-14). All these things were happening in James’ day—and they continue to happen now. If we are people who do things God’s way, we won’t oppress others. We will pay fairly, we’ll be just, we won’t show partiality (James 2). We will be people who don’t store up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy (Matthew 6:19-21), but we will place our hope in God. And when we do, when we put our hope in Him, we can humbly share all we have, because everything good comes from our God, anyway (James 1:17).
Our moth-eaten treasures will never hold up on judgment day. But if we trust our God and humbly submit to him, we have nothing to fear and everything to share.
This doesn’t just apply to us on an individual level. Over and over again, the Old Testament calls out the Israelites for their injustice and oppression, even as the people of God (see Jeremiah 22:13-14, Isaiah 58-59, Micah 6:10-13, and Malachi 3:5, to name a few). N.T. Wright said, “No doubt, like the Jerusalem elite, the rich will then pour scorn on the poor: they deserve it, they’re lazy, they don’t know what life is all about. But the church must keep James 5:1-6 at its elbow, and must continue to speak out against the wickedness, not only individual but systemic, that colluded with such a situation.”[3]
Putting this into practice takes thought, work, and sacrifice. We don’t drift toward justice and generosity. We drift toward selfishness. We’re naturally inclined to do whatever will benefit us, even at the cost of our neighbor. But we must live as people who know the mercy, grace, generosity, and justice of God. We are to demonstrate the kingdom and the character of God to the rest of the world, and this call to kingdom living requires that we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).
May we be people—both individually and as the Church—who aren’t just hearers of this hard word, but doers also.
Reflect
What is your response when plans don’t go your way? How has God shown you lately that you’re not ultimately in control, but he is?
What current plans do you have that you need to bring before God and humbly submit to him?
When in your life have you known the right thing to do and avoided doing it? Take time to confess if you haven’t yet, and pray for wisdom and insight as you move forward.
What material things do you tend to put your hope and trust in? Money? A sense of security? Your plans? Your job? Abilities? Etc.? What does trusting God instead of those things look like in your life this week?
We don’t drift toward justice and generosity. How can you fight your natural inclination toward selfishness and live justly and generously instead? What could it look like in your life to pursue justice and generosity on an individual level as well as a systemic level?
[1] Longman, Tremper, David E. Garland, et al. Hebrews—Revelation. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006, p 260-261.
[2] Wright, N. T. The Early Christian Letters for Everyone. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p 33-34.
[3] Ibid, 36.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.
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