"Who Holds Tomorrow"

Robert Burns wrote the poem "To a Mouse," in which we have the line, "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men, gang aft agley," which loosely translated means "often go awry." James had the thought long before Burns wrote the poem.

Who Holds Tomorrow?

(James 4:13-16)

Introduction:

A.   I am not poet or even a great fan of poetry, but every now and then I am captivated by the meaning of a poem.  A line jumped out at me of a poem by Robert Burns that I decided to check into.  The poem was “To A Mouse.”  I listened and read the poem in the old Scottish, but did not really understand all of it.  As I read explanations and meanings, it came to life.  But the stanza that is most quoted in standard English is:

But Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leaves us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

B.  The story is that Burn had overturned this place of winter refuge for these mice and realized that in doing so he may well have taken away any shelter from the cold as the scurried away.  Personally, the plight of a mouse does not normally concern me.  But the idea that I could plan something out so well, take precautions, do what needs to be done only to have it all overturned or ruined does bother me.  I am a planner; I am also a procrastinator, so a procrastinating planner is oxymoronic.

C.  I struggle with some of the teachings of God from the Bible because I have a hard time simply following them.  Don’t get me wrong, I know them and even understand them.  In fact, I would agree with them, not that God needs my approval.  But I still struggle with the practice of them.  James continues to challenge Christians to step up in their faith and live it out to the fullest.  While his teachings may be straightforward and strong, the desire is for us to really experience the fullness of what being a Christian means.

D.  So what can you and I take away from this challenge and others that are familiar to us and apply it to life instead of just to our heads?  Let’s ask ourselves the right questions:  What is the point of the passage?  What is the instruction, correction, or training for us?  Is there more said about this by others I need to understand?

I.  Plans Aren’t Bad

A.  James is going to use a business venture as an illustration to tell about the best laid plans of mice and me and how they often go askew.  The topic that James is challenging is not the making of plans.  God made plans.  From before the creation of the world, Peter tells us, God planned for Jesus to come as a sacrifice for the sin of mankind.  Mankind had not yet been created, but God had made plans.  God would tell the Israelites that he has plans for them, not to harm them, but to bring them good.  Making plans is not a sin.  But sin is the conclusion of this teaching – so what is the teaching?

B.  As we come back to the text we realize the sin is when we treat the future as though we had control over it.  In doing so, we minimize the sovereignty of God and set ourselves up as the ones in control.  That arrogance, that pride, that conceit is what gets us into trouble.  It is making plans without the Great Planner involved.  They did not seek God or include God, but excluded Him and made themselves gods.

C.  In Luke 12, Jesus tells a parable to warn against the desire to store up things for self instead of being rich towards God.  In that story Jesus speaks of a man whose soil produced an abundance of crops.  The man thought to himself and pondered what to do.  The conclusion:  tear down his barn and build bigger ones.  That, in and of itself, was not the problem.  The problem was the man’s desire for things and what he did not know, in the story Jesus told, was that he would die that very night; then who would get his precious things.  The point is that when God is not a part of the plans, the best laid plans are the wrong plans.  Planning is not bad, but don’t leave God out of them.

D.  When you decide where to live, is God a part of the plans?  Are we more concerned about our commute to work, about work itself, or are we thinking about how we can best bring glory to God, build our spiritual life, and enhance our families with the influence of Christian friends?  Make your plans, just make them thinking about God and His will, more than your own.

E.  This section is almost in direct opposite of the problem Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount concerning worry.  In that case people worried about what tomorrow may bring, but the conclusion is the same:  you don’t have control over tomorrow.

II.  If The Lord Wills

A.  If you want to know a man’s heart, hear his private prayers.  When Jesus prays in the garden we hear the heart of our savior in anguish.  “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.  Yet not my will, but your will be done.”  When Jesus talked about prayer, he taught that we should pray, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  These are not simply good words to say, but the idea behind them, the conviction, is that God has the final say on everything and the future is in his hands.

B.  I desire to something, I desire to make a business plan, I desire to start a new ministry, I desire to do anything; let me start that desire by saying, “If the Lord wills, I will do this or that.”  When our attitude is centering on God, his will, his desires, his goals, then our plans are not nearly as big as we might think.

C.  The phrase “If the Lord wills” is a surrendering of our own view of control to the better view of God being in control.  There is a freedom that comes when I don’t view myself as big as God.  Letting go to God is comforting when I see the works of my own hands and the many failures I have caused.  Whether it is my prayer life, business life, or any other aspect of my life, let it be “if the Lord wills.”

Conclusion:

A.  Many things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand But I know who holds tomorrow And I know who holds my hand.

B.  I don’t know what tomorrow may bring.  I have be a part of two funerals in one week.  I don’t know if Jesus will come back this day or if one of us might die this week.  I don’t know about tomorrow, but I know God does hold tomorrow and I know God does hold my hand.

C.  Maybe today you are thinking about your future plans, plans for joy, love, work, family or anything else.  Good plans.  What James teaches is that we make sure that God is the center of those plans.  Let God be your today and your tomorrow.  Give yourself over to him in such a way that you can bask in the freedom of knowing the one who hold your tomorrow.  Live in such a way that God always is the reason for what you do.  For there is no better way to live than God’s way.  Do you agree?