Our Plans in God's Hands
James 4:13-17
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. 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.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Our Plans in God’s Hands
If you could have a cup of coffee with Liz Elfman, she’d tell you how important it is to have a good plan.
Liz is a marketing specialist who works at Google for Startups, an international suborganization of Google that supports tech-based startup companies throughout the world. Liz took on the marketing and organizing of a multi-corporation tech conference. It had all the hallmarks of a slam-dunk event. The subject matter was intriguing, relevant, and important. The scheduled presenters were experienced and insightful. The corporations running the event provided the space, a quality venue fit to seat 200 people. They even provided all the drinks and snacks. It was shaping up to be an awesome conference. But on the day of the event, only 18 people came. So, what happened?
It boiled down to her planning.
Well, really, her lack of planning.
Even before she took the job, Liz was already way too busy to give this conference the attention it needed. And what time she had, she focused on the logistics of the event itself – and the actual marketing and promotion of the conference fell by the wayside. In other words, her ‘marketing strategy’ was to ride on the hope that the quality of the content and the quality of the conference would naturally sell itself. But it didn’t. Sure, it didn’t help that the event’s name was wordy, vague, and boring – so boring, she said “it would put anyone to sleep.” But it doesn’t help when you don’t plan to promote it, either. How are people supposed to know they’re missing out if you never plan to tell them about it? And she knew that. That’s Marketing 101.
But that’s where she, self-admittedly, dropped the ball. And because she didn’t really have a marketing strategy, it showed at the conference. It showed as high profile presenters spoke to an empty conference hall. Talk about a marketing specialist’s “own personal nightmare.” She had no marketing plan, and it showed.
But marketers aren’t the only ones who need plans, right? An architect sketches out blueprints – plans for what her building will look like and how it will be built. A football coach fills up his play book – plans for how his team will win and what plays they’ll need to make in order to win. A physical therapist lays out a recovery roadmap for a patient – a plan for how that patient will recover and what they need to do to get there.
Plans lay out in detail not only what objectives you’re seeking to accomplish, but how you’re going to accomplish those objectives. Good plans are structured and comprehensive in scope. Good plans have metrics and benchmarks for evaluation and assessment. Good plans strive to steward the time and resources at hand towards a given objective. Good plans are inherently strategic. Whether you’re planning a graduation party, a family vacation, or your retirement, good planning is a systematic process of envisioning a desired future and then translating that vision into goals – goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-sensitive. A good plan give direction, focus, and reiterates purpose to why we do what we do. How about for the Christian life? What about here at church? Should we engage in strategic planning, too? Absolutely. We plan to do God’s will, and we trust that our plans are in His hands.
“Hang on a second Pastor. If Christians or churches engage in strategic planning, doesn’t that inherently mean they are placing their faith in men rather than in God?”
You certainly see that attitude reflected in section of Scripture we read for today, right? 13 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.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. In this section of his letter, James is going after a particular attitude that he saw among some Jewish Christians. It was an attitude of presumptuousness and arrogance – a sinful pretentiousness where people live their lives as if they are God - that whatever they will or wish – that’s what’s going to happen – they circumvent their use of time, talents, and treasures right back to themselves – it’s all about their wants, their needs, their priorities, their projects – they act as if they’re going to live their earthly lives forever – they put their trust in themselves, not God. And God calls such foolishness out, doesn’t he? Such pretentiousness isn’t simply forgetting how fleeting our lives are – how weak, frail, and fragile we ultimately are, how not-in-control we are of even basic aspects of our lives. Such boasting isn’t just naïve. Such [boasting] in [one’s] arrogance…is evil.
But that’s not the only evil that James calls out in these verses. In verse 17, he adds that, 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. In other words, I can fail to carry out and live God’s will not just by doing that which is displeasing to God, but knowingly not doing what IS pleasing to God – knowingly not doing God’s will. Put another way, when I know the God-pleasing things I should do and yet I don’t do them – that’s sin. In the context of planning, just as it’s sinful to make plans to do what you want, it’s also sinful to knowingly neglect to do what God wants.
Jesus himself spoke to that, in a particular parable, where three servants all receive various amounts of money from their master and were tasked with putting that money to work. The first two servant did. The last servant did not – instead, he buried that which was given in the ground: he made NO plans to use it. So, no surprise that, when the master returns, he says, “You wicked, lazy servant!” He made no plans to use what he was given and instructed to use; instead, he deliberately planned to not do what he knew he was called to do.
You and I – as fellow Christians and as a church – have been given so much by God: our gifts, our talents, our time, our treasures, our worship space, our house, our home, our jobs, our networks – all are a gracious gift from God. But that’s not all we’ve been given. We’ve been given a gracious calling to be Christ’s witnesses – to intentionally proclaim the eternal hope and joy we have in him with the world! God calls us and equips us where we are as we are to share the good news of Jesus – the God who died so we would live! So, as stewards of all that we have been tasked to – not bury in the ground – but USE for the advancement of God’s kingdom, when we sit down as Christians and plan a budget and schedule our time – when we, as a church, set tangible metrics for our ministry, when we set measurable goals for outreach, when we lay out timelines for 1) what we, by God’s grace, want to get done and 2) when, by God’s grace, we plan to have it done, when we evaluate and reevaluate our governing documents (i.e. our constitution and bylaws, our mission statement and vision statement, our policies and procedures), when we conduct demographic surveys and articulate who our target audience is, when we build and train lay members within our church to be evangelists and leaders of the church, such Godly planning actually demonstrates a love and trust in God. Strategic planning of ministry – planning to use every ounce of God-given time, talents, and treasures for God’s will is an expression of thankfulness and stewardship.
And yet, even in the face of all that God abundantly gives, our sinful nature creatively crafts abundant excuses for why we don’t do any strategic planning as Christians or as a church. Even we, as Christians, can quickly fill up our schedules to do everything but the Lord’s will – even when we know better: parents neglect to be in God’s word with their children; we don’t even fight for Sunday off when the boss tells us we have to come in to work; we divvy up our paychecks to pad our pockets and pay for vacations, and neglect giving at all back to God; we avoid carrying crosses for Christ, even though we know that cross-carrying inherently comes with the territory; we shy away from sharing Jesus when opportunities to share Jesus would force us from our comfort zone.
Even we, as a church, can fail to do the Lord’s will: we hear Christ’s call to action, to proclaim the gospel with passion, creativity, and innovation, but instead we retreat to the familiar – the status quo; we see the opportunities to pursue the lost with the live-changing message of Jesus, and instead we justify the complacency, laziness, and fear inside of us that would shackle our efforts. We justify our inactivity with expressions like “God will take care of it – after all, it’s God who grows his church” – which is totally true, but when we cite such promises to justify our inactivity, are we expressing a trust in God’s promises? Or are we testing God’s promises? God deigns to use you! God himself has given you the message of Jesus to share – and yet, so often, we dig a hole and bury it in the ground.
We concern ourselves only being faithful to God’s Word, but fail to be faithful with God’s Word – which means using it – living it, proclaiming it, mailing it, sharing it, streaming it, carrying it to our communities. And yet, how fast are we to say “Oh, God will take care of it; God will provide.” It’s true, God promises to give us today our daily bread, but that same God says, “If a man does not work, he shall not eat.” The the same God who says that he will not fail in gathering his people to himself – that he will grow His church – He is the same God who calls you to “Go and make disciples.” James isn’t advocating against planning; he’s advocating against planning without faith in God. And when we don’t have a faith-filled plan, it shows.
But when we do have a plan, it shows. When we plan our ministry with the visitor in mind, it shows. When we pursue excellence in all we do – all for the glory of God, it shows. When we intentionally engage in gospel-ministry, it shows. It shows when we plan to do the Lord’s will.
15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” You catch that? The Christian is a planner! We plan to do God’s will! The verb here that James uses for doing when combined with units of time denotes rooting where you’re planted. It denotes a settling and working where God has uniquely placed you – where God has planned for you to be. That’s right. You and I aren’t the only ones who engage in planning. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD. The LORD himself is described as one who makes plans.
Don’t believe me? This is the God who – before the foundations of the world were laid – God had already drafted his plan of salvation. Because we had fallen into sin, God planned to save us – to deliver us from sin, death, and estrangement from God. Jesus, God the Son, planned to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins – he planned to step in for us, to live a perfect life as our substitute, to die as a curse on a cross and endure the wrath and justice of God the Father! And it was all part of God’s plan that Jesus should suffer for our guilt, our shame, our regrets, our mistakes – so we wouldn’t. And it was God’s plan that Jesus would rise again on the third day – fulfilling all of God’s prophetic promises – promises he made for you. God, before you ever loved him, he already loved you. Before you were even born – God in grace set you apart for himself. Our Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – uniquely made you, personally saved you, and continues to nourish and build up your faith – that God is a planner. And that God has equipped you to carry out the good works that he in advanced planned and prepared for you to do: as parents, as teachers, as pastors, as brothers and sisters, as friends and neighbors, as a congregation.
If you could have a cup of coffee with Liz Elfman, she’d give you this piece of advice: if quality is what you have to offer, plan to give it the time and attention it deserves. And when it comes to offering ‘quality’, does it get any better than giving people Jesus? Does it get any better than sharing with others the joy we have in sins completely, fully, and freely forgiven? Does is get any better than knowing that – in Christ - the skeletons in our closet are no more? Does it get any better than knowing we have a home in heaven waiting for us? You and I have been made heirs of heaven – family with God! You, fellow redeemed children of God, God most certainly has a plan for your future – one ultimately with him in heaven! But God also has a plan for your present: to share Jesus. We are privileged to give people Jesus! So, let’s make faith-filled plans – plans to do God’s will! And not just as Christians, but as a family of Christians: our church. “If we’re doing all we can with the gospel, the numbers don’t matter.” So, let’s plan to do all we can with the gospel. Let’s not merely listen to the word, and so deceive ourselves. Let’s do what it says. God improves the plans that exist, not those that don’t. Let’s plan to do God’s will, and we trust that our plans are in His hands.
Amen.