Why Should I Trust God with My Plans? | James 4:13-17

Timothy Ateek: Hey, I'm so glad you made it this morning. I'm so excited, because you're going to get to hear from Trip Lee, which is going to be amazing. If you've been here for a while, you know we're in our Year of the Word, where we are journeying as a church from cover to cover through the Scriptures. If you're still with us, you have officially concluded the first five books of the Old Testament. You should give yourself a round of applause for that.

You've made it through what's known as the Pentateuch. That's a heavy lift, but you made it. Tomorrow we start Joshua, which is going to be awesome. If you've kind of fallen off, tomorrow is a great re-entry point. Just jump in with us. Stop trying to catch up. Let go of the shame you feel for being behind. You are officially caught up. We're starting Joshua together, and it's going to be awesome.

As you know, the sermon series has been tracking along with the reading plan. We're going to pick that back up next week, but this week, Trip Lee was in town for Gather25. We asked if he'd be willing to stay, and he said, "Yes." I'm so glad. If you don't know who Trip is, he is a father. He is a husband. He's a successful hip-hop artist. He's a church planter. He was originally from Dallas; he now lives in Atlanta.

The thing I appreciate about him is the thing that drives him is a desire to declare the goodness and the glory of Jesus Christ. I have respected Trip from afar for a long time. This weekend was my first chance to meet him, and getting to interact with him briefly, I've been struck by his humility, which makes my respect for him increase all the more. I have known him to be someone who loves God's Word, proclaims the gospel, and exalts Christ, so he'll fit very well here at Watermark. Would you guys welcome Trip to the stage this morning?

As he comes up, I want to invite you to pray, as we do each Sunday. Just take a moment and pray for yourself and just say, "God, would you speak to me this morning?" Then, would you pray for the people around you and just say, "God, would you speak clearly to them as well?" Then, would you pray for Trip and just say, "God, would you use Trip this morning? Would you speak clearly through him to us?"

Lord, in your kindness, you have given us your Word, and you've given us your Spirit who leads and guides us into all truth. My hope and prayer in this moment, God… As Trip speaks, would you give us eyes to see you clearly and ears to hear from you? I pray that our hearts would be receptive to all that you have for us today. We love you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Trip Lee: Good morning. Thank you so much, brother, for the kind words. Thank y'all for having me this morning. Now, I can neither confirm nor deny that I'm humble. It would mean I'm not if I said, "Yes, I am." But as if to test my humility, as he said that, I spilled a whole bottle of water on myself. The Lord was like, "Just in case you were puffed up by that encouragement, let me remind you that you have clumsy hands." So, the Lord reminded me, and I am at least humble for the moment.

Thank y'all so much for having me this morning. Watermark is a church that I appreciate, that I've been encouraged by, that I've been here to serve in different ways, different events. This time, like always, people have been welcoming, hospitable, and, what is most encouraging, lovers of the gospel of Jesus. I do not know almost any of you individually, but I do know there is a Savior we have in common, so I feel at home. So, thank you for having me this morning. I want to pray one more time, and then we'll dive into God's Word.

Father, we come before you in Jesus' name once more. Father, we keep coming before you because everything is in your hands. God, if all of this was in our hands, we wouldn't need to come to you to ask that things would go well, but, Father, we need your grace. So, Father, we pray that this would be a time where we hear from you, where we grow in you, where we see you, Father, so we can worship you and honor you in the world. Give me grace, Father, so that I'm not up here talking about my own opinions. We don't need my wisdom; we need yours. So we pray you would speak to us from your Word, and we ask in Jesus' name, amen.

I want to talk to you this morning about plans and how to plan in a way that those plans are actually enduring. We're going to be looking at James, chapter 4. I'm going to go ahead and read the text. James, chapter 4, starting in verse 13. This is God's Word.

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes. Instead, you should say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.' But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So it is sin to know the good and yet not do it."

Recently, I watched a movie I really loved in my childhood with my two oldest kids. Now, it is a dangerous thing to go back to movies you loved as a kid and watch them as an adult, because you remember them as these perfect masterpieces. The way you remember them in your mind, all of them were classics. Sometimes you go back and watch them, and those movies are terrible. It was just your childlike taste. You didn't have any taste yet. Like Hook. Not as good as I remembered it, but that's a different conversation. (No offense to Steven Spielberg. He's the GOAT, but not Hook.)

The movie I went back and watched with my oldest kids was a movie I loved as a kid called Like Mike. This is a movie that starred child rapper Lil' Bow Wow. His name in the movie was Calvin Cambridge, and he was an orphan. He was at this orphanage, and he loved basketball, so he would go out and play basketball with the other kids at the orphanage. He was small, and he wasn't good. There was a bully who was good. He would block his shot, laugh in his face, all of the terrible things. Most kids' movies start with an orphan, and this one does as well.

Something happened at some point where he was hoping he got better at basketball. They got some new shoes from a thrift store or something. He saw these shoes, and they had "MJ" scrawled on the shoes. So, he puts the shoes on, and he loves them. Then the bully throws his shoes onto a power line. There's a storm, and lightning strikes the shoes, and somehow these shoes are infused with the skills of Michael Jordan himself. So, all of a sudden, he puts these shoes on, and he's amazing.

They end up getting to go to an NBA game somehow, and he gets called out on the floor. He plays against one of the players, and he is cooking this NBA player. He's so good they sign him to a 10-day NBA contract. When he's playing a game, they're like, "Hey, you can't wear those old, beat-up shoes. You have to put on the team shoes." They're like, "That would be strange if you wore those old shoes." It's not strange that we signed a 10-year-old to an NBA contract, but it would be strange if your shoes didn't match ours.

So, for the first half he played, and he played terribly. He was like, "I've got to put the shoes back on." At some point, the bully took the shoes. First of all, he's helping this basketball team. He plays in an all-star game. All of a sudden they're great. The bully steals his shoes, and he's like, "I'm not good anymore." Do you want to know what he doesn't do? He doesn't go to the gym and get shots up so he can help the team win. He doesn't go do some dribbling drills or get advice.

He knows, "Before I had these shoes, I was losing to other orphans. I'm not good at basketball. All the goodness was in the shoes." So, instead of trying to get better in order to help his team win, he says, "Let me go to the thing that actually gives me the power to be good at basketball." He understood his limitations. Because he understood his limitations, that shaped the way he went about trying to help his team win. The movie had a happy ending. Not only did they win the championship, but he got adopted. Amazing.

Here's what happens. When we do not understand our limitations, we will not plan in light of reality. Here's one of the things I think this text shows us. All of our plans are severely limited until we understand our own limitations. I don't know if you've ever read the book of James. It's an incredible book of the Bible. Normally, I would say to find some free time to read it today, because it's not even long. You can read the whole book. But as I've just heard, some of y'all are behind on the Bible reading already. I don't want to give you extra homework.

The book of James is an amazing book. It's very practical. It talks about the nature of true faith in Jesus. It calls us out for our partiality. It calls us out when we think our faith can be true and sincere apart from any good works they show. What he begins to talk about here in this part in chapter 4 is humility, how God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. What he talks about in our verses is the way that humility applies even to our plans. We have to understand our own limitations in those. So, I'm going to give you three reasons you have to understand your own limitations if you're going to plan in a way that honors God.

1. You don't know. One of my least favorite things about our culture in 2025 is that everybody acts like they know everything. I hear a lot of "Mms," because we know. There is a wealth of information available to all of us, so that makes us think we've soaked everything in. There are at least 4,000 podcasts started every minute. I just made that stat up, but it feels true. There are a lot of podcasts. People think they know things. We all do.

Sometimes when I talk to somebody and I say something, they're like, "But that's not true. I just saw an article about it." I'm like, "What did it say?" They're like, "No, I just read the headline." We love to pretend like we know more than we do. In our information age, one of the hardest limitations for us to admit is that we do not know things, whether that's sports statistics or finance lingo or what's happening in Severance. We always like to pretend we know everything. It is okay not to know.

I want you to know one of the most freeing things you can say to somebody when they ask you a question is, "I don't know." We have to understand our limitations. The thing, though, about not knowing something is it can make it hard to move forward when we don't have all the information we'd like to. Sometimes we pretend we know everything until we can or we convince ourselves we know everything because it feels more safe. I'm going to read you again what James says in chapter 4, verse 13.

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes."

We are familiar with these types of short-term and long-term plans. "First I'll do this, and then I'll do this, and this will be the outcome." If I asked you, "Where do you think you'll be in five years?" some of us have a very specific plan. If I asked you about your New Year's resolutions, some of us are like, "I'll do this, which will definitely lead to this, which will definitely lead to world domination." We lay all of our plans out that way.

This is often how I've sounded when I talked about my plans, because we are in an age of planning. In previous eras and generations… I think we're more vulnerable to proud planning than others were, because people used to have more limited options available to them. They only had a few possibilities for what their life could look like. They usually did the work their family did before them. They stayed in the location their family was in the whole time. They married someone they met through their family and lived like their families lived.

In 2025, we're so connected to everything that we usually find spouses nobody knows. We do work our families don't know anything about. We move to places our families have never been to. We have unlimited options. Some of those things are not inherently wrong, but it does mean we're more vulnerable to this, more likely to be guilty of the mindset that James is rebuking.

Instead of putting our heads down and being faithful with what's in front of us, we think we can just write this incredible narrative and it's a "choose your own adventure" book. We can just decide what everything will look like. I want to be clear. There is nothing wrong with plans. The question James is raising here is how we plan. He says in verse 14, "Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be!"

Did you hear how specific that was? "In such-and-such a city at such-and-such a time we'll do this kind of business, and this will be the outcome." He's saying, "You have no idea what you'll do." He says, "Tomorrow is coming bearing gifts, and you have no idea what that gift is going to be." He says, "When tomorrow shows up, it's bringing friends with him, and you don't know if you'll like those friends or not."

Have you ever been surprised by something before? One time my wife threw me a surprise party. My wife is not good at keeping anything from anybody, but she did a great job this time. I thought we were going to a party at my friend's house. It was a month after my birthday had already passed. I was like, "Why is she acting so weird?" We got there, and someone was like, "Surprise! Happy birthday!" I was like, "Bro, be quiet. My birthday was a month and a half ago." They were like, "No, really." I was like, "No, it's not."

All of my friends are there, and it slowly creeps up on me, like, "Oh, this is really a surprise party." Then somebody was like, "Oh, it's actually a roast." I was like, "Be quiet." My best friend gets up. He starts saying, "Oh, Trip-Trip…" Then he does a 10-minute comedy set about me. Like, written jokes. Some of my other friends are getting up. I'm like, "You're not even funny. Where did this sense of humor come from when it came to tearing down my character? This is the only time I've ever…" Some of them paid people to write them jokes.

All I'm saying is I went into that night expecting something very different, and at every turn of the night, something surprised me. This is unique to the human experience. We can only be surprised because we do not know everything. This is a huge part of what it means to be a human. I want you to understand this. God does not have the capacity to be surprised. Being surprised implies some kind of ignorance. Nobody can sneak up on God. Nobody can catch God asleep at the wheel. Nobody can suggest something God has never thought about. He cannot be surprised. He is God. He knows everything.

But there is a news flash for us. We are not God. We do not know everything. Even in areas we think we understand well, there are things that pop up that catch us off guard. You've probably had an electrician, or somebody, come to your house to fix something. They're like, "Usually, when I press this, it does this. Usually, when I connect this, it does that." Or maybe you're doing a presentation, and you're like, "My computer works a specific way every single time except when I need it to do that in front of other people."

Things don't always work out the way we expect them to. This is part of what it means to be human. We allow the routine of life to lull us into thinking we are omniscient. If we allow that to happen, we will be discouraged and disappointed. There are things that catch us off guard. There was winter weather that caught us off guard. We didn't know that would happen. We didn't know Patrick Mahomes would have a disappointing performance in the Super Bowl. We didn't know Drake would be disowned into oblivion.

There's stuff we don't know. No one could have predicted these things. The only thing we're sure of is stuff that is happening in the present and in the past. Here's the thing. Even the stuff we know has already happened and what we're experiencing in the moment… There are still parts of that we do not know and understand. If we do not know, we have to live our lives with reliance on the God who does know.

What this could do to us is to be a big source of anxiety that there's so much we don't know. We feel comfortable when we know what to expect. We like knowing what to expect, but that's only the case if we refuse to accept what it means to be human. Here's what I want to say to you. Don't be discouraged that you aren't God. Cling to God. Don't be discouraged that you don't know everything. Cling to the God of the heavens who knows everything.

You do not need omniscience in order to have peace. If you are saying, "God, I refuse to be at peace. I refuse to trust you until you lay out for me a perfect road map of everything that will happen in my life in the next week, in the next month, in the next year," and you hold your own peace hostage, you'll not only lead yourself to be discouraged; you will dishonor God.

The other thing is this: God is wise enough to tell us the things we do need to know. It's okay that you don't know everything. Scripture says there are things we do know. Even in this book, James, it says, "You know that the testing of your faith produces endurance." Romans 8 says, "We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose."

Romans 6 says, "We know that our old self was crucified with him." Second Corinthians 5 says, "We know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, eternal in the heavens." Galatians 2 says, "We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus." First John 3 says, "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay our lives down for one another." First John 5 says, "We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies."

What I'm saying is it's okay that you don't know every event. God has given us what we need to know in order to be faithful, in order to have peace in him. Are you content with God being the only one who knows everything? That impacts how we live. If we lived in light of these things we do know, we would have more restful lives.

We think peace comes from the perfect plan. Y'all, peace does not come from having a perfect plan. We think we can plan our way out of anything ever going wrong. You cannot. For some of us, the only peace we have about raising our kids is that we have them in a hundred million different programs, thinking if we put in the right formula we can ensure their success. God says, "You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow." So don't find peace in your perfect plan; find your peace in a perfect God.

There have been so many times in my life where I had a plan, and I thought I knew exactly what was about to happen, and God did something completely different. When my wife and I got married, we knew I had an illness that was hard. We did not know the way that illness would impact our lives, that it would be the hardest part of every part of our lives, that it would mean there were different transitions we didn't plan for. We had no idea. Y'all, we can look at all the information available to us and make plans. We cannot guarantee what those outcomes will be.

Here's one of the ways, though, that can be an encouragement to us, because some of us are in a season when we don't have a good plan. Some of us are in a season where we think, "I don't know how I'm going to get from this point to the next one." I want you to know there are some people in this room who think they do know how to get from A to B, and they're wrong. God in his grace has allowed you to live in light of the reality that you don't know everything, and that is a good place to be.

2. You don't last. Any of us who have any money at all and want to use that money carefully make a budget. You make a budget because you want to think about how much money you have and how you want to spend it specifically. You don't want to go to the mall and just spend money all crazy, knowing that money is going to dry up. That's what we do with stuff we know there's a limited amount of.

Or how about this? Imagine you didn't know how much money was in your bank account whatsoever, and when that money was gone, it was just gone. You could do nothing to make any more. You know what you would do? Every single purchase you made would be careful and calculated. You would get nothing more than you needed to. You would think really carefully, because you don't know when you're going to be out of money. Here's what I want to say. Scripture is telling us our time we have on earth is something we should budget carefully for and we do not know how much of that time we have.

Listen to what he says. "For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes." James could have compared us to many things. He could have said, "You're like a roaring lion, striking fear in your prey." He could have said, "You're like a big, strong oak tree, immovable and enduring." He could have said, "You're like sunshine, blinding those around you with your beauty." Instead, he compares us to a vapor, a mist, gas, steam.

It's almost like James is standing outside in the cold and says, "Huh! Do you see that? Oh, wait. It's gone. Huh! Do you see this breath? Here one moment, gone the next. That's you." That's what James says we're like. We do get compared to a lot of things in Scripture, the bride of Christ, we're the branches and he's the vine, we're the sheep and he's the shepherd, but so many of those comparisons the Scripture gives about human beings have to do with how small we are and how short our lifespan is.

James is saying not only do you not know what's coming next; there may not even be a next. There are other places in Scripture, I want to point out, where something similar is said. Job 7:7: "Remember that my life is but a breath. My eye will never again see anything good." Psalm 39: "In fact, you have made my days just inches long, and my life span is as nothing to you. Yes, every human being stands as only a vapor." Psalm 102: "For my days vanish like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace."

Psalm 144: "A human is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow." Proverbs 27: "Don't boast about tomorrow, for you don't know what a day might bring." Isaiah 2:22: "Put no more trust in a mere human, who has only the breath in his nostrils. What is he really worth?" Over and over again, Scripture makes these comparisons that tell us our days are short. We're here today, and we are gone tomorrow.

You may ask, "Trip, why did you bring a collection of depressing Scripture references for us?" Facing our own mortality is good. It helps us to see the world as it really is. It helps us to see our lives as they really are. It does us no good to live in delusion. I'm not a big fan of reality shows. I don't watch very many, but whenever I do, one of the things that is the most cringey about them is the lack of self-awareness. I'm like, "You do know people are going to watch this, right?" Especially competition reality shows.

I used to watch American Idol sometimes when it first came out. I think it's probably now in season 94, but when it first came out, those first couple weeks of American Idol… Phew! There were some people who I think were in on the joke. There were other people who really thought they were great. They thought they were Whitney Houston. Their hands were going up and down.

They were plugging one of their ears, trying to hit notes they'd never hit before and haven't since. Those notes have never heard of those people. They've never been in the same place. What you think is, "Man! I wish somebody would have told you before this that this is not your skill, that there are other gifts you may have that would be a better use of your time. Some self-awareness, understanding your limitations, would be good."

It's the same thing with human beings. We make bad decisions if we don't make them with our nature in mind. You are here, and you will be gone. It's hard to wrestle with that, because life doesn't always feel so short to us. It usually doesn't feel short until it's almost over, honestly. The average lifespan in the States is 78 years. That sounds like a long time. That's 28,000 days, but that's a drop in the bucket. It's all about perspective.

For instance, if I tell my kids to wait to watch something… If I tell my 4-year-old, "You can watch The Lion Guard, but just wait 20 minutes," that sounds like an eternity to him because of his small toddler perspective. Here's the thing. We all imagine our lives as if we're going to get those entire 78 years. Seventy-eight years is not that long, and we imagine we're getting all of it, so we're thinking about our life with all of that in mind.

Brothers and sisters, this could be your last year. This could be your last week. This could be your last day. You do not know. So, why plan with the kind of pride that assumes we have forever? If there is something in your way right now that is keeping you from being faithful to Jesus, and you think, "Let me wait until this thing, and then I'll be faithful," I want you to know you do not know how long you have. Be faithful to Jesus right now.

Sometimes one of the reasons we procrastinate is because we do not acknowledge that we're limited in how much time we have. There are some things we keep putting off because we think, "Let me put this perfect plan together, and I know I'll be able to do this later." That's not a good way to think about it. One example. (Somebody might get mad at me. The great thing about preaching at somebody else's church is I'm not going to see you next week.)

There may be some of us who are in relationships… Sometimes I'll talk to someone, and I'll be like, "Hey, how long have y'all been dating?" and they'll say, like, "Nine years." I'm like, "Why?" They're like, "No, no. What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get all of these things together. I'm trying to make sure I am basically a multimillionaire before so we can do this and do this and do this and do this." My question is…Why are we putting off things that are honoring to God with the assumption we have forever to do it?

Some of us are married, and we're thinking about when or whether or not to have kids. We make all kinds of assumptions. We say, "No, no. I'm just going to wait 10 to 15 years so I can get this in place, I can get this in place, and I can get this in place." Family, you don't know how long you have. You don't know how your body will be in all of those times.

This is not me telling you to get married as young as possible and have kids as young as possible. This is me saying do not make presumptions as if you're God and you know all things. When you make plans, make those plans with your limited time and your limited knowledge in mind. Don't put things off for the sake of putting them off with the assumption that you know how things will go.

Now, I know what will come into our minds some is to think, "Well, are you just saying that planning is bad?" Planning well is good, but we cannot plan our way out of any possibility of failure. Sometimes we put off those hard decisions, like marriage, like kids, like job things, because we're afraid. We have fear, and we think we'll eventually get to that perfect plan that ensures everything will be perfect. We cannot.

Some of our procrastination comes from perfectionism and the assumption that everything is on our shoulders. We think, "I'm not ready to make sure this can be executed perfectly." That's not a place you can get to. Procrastination is helped when you remember that God is sovereign, not you. Unless the Lord builds, the laborers labor in vain. All we can do is obey God's commands and trust him to do the rest.

3. You don't reign. So, if we should not declare our plans the way it's talked about at the beginning of this passage, what should we do instead? I don't know if you've ever had somebody at your home or in your car who was a little too comfortable. It's like, "Make yourself at home, but relax." Or maybe even on a plane. Here's a good example. I've been on a plane, and I've seen people take off their shoes and their socks and rest their foot on the armrest. I'm like, "Ma'am, this is not your house. And now that I see the kinds of things you do, I would never come to it."

There's a level of comfort you should not have when it's not yours, when you don't have particular kinds of authority there. "This is not your house." This is almost like what James is saying to us. There are certain liberties that come with being the one who's in charge, with this being yours. James is going to get to this in verse 15. This is what he says. "Instead, you should say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'"

Instead of just saying, "Hey, tomorrow I'm going to do this, this, and this, and this is going to be the outcome," he's saying, "No, no, no. Don't do that. Instead, you should say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'" We may be familiar with hearing other Christians say things like, "Lord willing." It's one of those Christian phrases we hear from time to time. There are other phrases Christians say, like, "In Jesus' name."

We don't always think about what those words mean all the way. Sometimes we just say them because we know we're supposed to. Same thing with "Lord willing." What does it really mean? "If the Lord wills." When Scripture talks about God's will, we can put those mentions in two categories: God's moral will and God's sovereign will. The other way to say it would be God's revealed will and God's secret will. Let me give a very brief explanation of that.

God's revealed will is that God tells us what he wants us to do, his commands to us. He shows us in the Word what is good, what is holy, and true. This is God's revealed will. Think of passages like 1 Thessalonians 5 that says, "Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in everything; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." This is what he wants you to do. This is God's desire for how we live. It's what he has called us to. It brings him pleasure. He has told us this. That's God's revealed will.

The second category is God's hidden will. This is what God will do, what God will accomplish in creation, his ultimate purpose, his decrees, what will happen in the world. He hasn't told us what this is all the time. Think Isaiah 46:10. God says, "I declare the end from the beginning, and from long ago what is not yet done, saying: my plan will take place, and I will do all my will." That is God's hidden will.

So, which one are we talking about here? We're talking about God's hidden will. When James says, "If the Lord wills," he's saying, "If this is truly God's plan…" When we say, "I'll do this or that if the Lord wills," we have to say if because God knows and we don't, because God has the final say and we don't. We cannot force our desires onto what happens. It is very humbling to have to say, "Here is my plan, but God may have a different one."

Proverbs 16:9 says, "A person's heart plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps." James is saying we should only declare our plans with God's will in mind. If we are as limited as God says we are, that should come into how we plan. In that sense, every decision we make, every plan we make, is really a request. We're saying, "Here's what I would like to do, God, if it is your will."

Now, to be clear, there are patterns in creation, things that generally work out in particular ways. If you don't work, you don't eat. Right? That's true. Discipline leads to good outcomes. A soft answer turns away wrath. Those patterns are things we should understand and live by, but we cannot guarantee outcomes. Life is not a math problem where you can plug in some numbers and get the perfect answer out. Life is more like a crop that you plant and water and pray for growth.

Now, here's one of my questions for you: How does that land on you? I know, for some of us, it may make us feel helpless. How can we be okay with not being able to determine outcomes? The answer is we can be okay with this because we know God's will is perfect and sovereign. When I go on vacations with my wife, she does most of the planning. Would you like to know why? Because she's good at that, and I am not. If I was doing most of the planning, we would have the worst restaurant reservations. I'd be Googling where we were going on the way there. That's not my strength. She is good at that.

God is all-knowing. God is all-powerful. God is all-wise. God is perfectly holy. God's character is perfect. His will proceeds from his character. So, how can we be at rest? Because God's will is perfect. Imagine if you were in charge of that. Imagine if you were in charge of all of the outcomes. It makes us feel vulnerable that we're not in charge of all of the outcomes. I want you to know these plans are much better in the hands of God than in yours.

Some of us, when we get given a little bit more responsibility, sometimes don't handle it best at first, and we have to grow. Some of us change our desires from day to day and from month to month. There is a God in the heavens who never changes, whose plans are perfect, who never falls asleep at the wheel. They're safe in his hands. So, there is rest in us letting God be God.

One of the things, too, is there are people who may make plans that would not be good for you. One of the things that encourages me is that even if people make plans aimed at harming you, there's still a God who is sovereign even over those. It is not just your plans that don't always work out how you intend. There's a sovereign God who has all things in his hands.

So, the question is…Are we allowed to make plans? Yes, we're allowed to make plans. The passage doesn't tell us not to plan; it tells us how to plan in a way that is subject to God's will. It's like when little kids are like, "Hey, you should come over to my house. We're going to watch a movie. We're going to drink a bunch of Coke and eat a bunch of candy, and then you'll stay over for a week."

It's like, "You do not have the authority to make those decisions. It's not bad for y'all to talk about what you would like to do." The right way would be, "Hey, I'd love you to come over if my parents say that's okay." This is how we should plan. We do not reign. We do not have ultimate authority. We should say, "I would like to do this if the Lord wills."

There are definitely areas in our lives where we want to plan things out carefully and use wisdom and seek counsel, but we plan those with God's will in mind. Here's one of the things that happens. When we assume our plans will work out exactly how we do them, we get discouraged and disappointed, because we've written this story about exactly how things will go, and when it doesn't, we think God lied when that wasn't God's plan; it was yours. There's comfort in remembering that we're limited.

James is not just telling us to tack the words "Lord willing" or "If the Lord wills" onto our plans. We all know somebody who said, "No offense, but…" and then said the most offensive thing you've ever heard. Tacking the words Lord willing onto the end of a sentence doesn't mean what you said wasn't offensive. It doesn't take the pride away. He's talking about a posture of our hearts that understands that God's will has the final word.

The last two verses say, "But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So it is sin to know the good and yet not do it." We usually think of boasting as people bragging about how great they are. James is saying it's boasting when you plan as if you're sovereign. You may not be saying, "I'm the sovereign king of the universe," but you're planning as if you are.

Another area in the Scriptures where Scripture talks about boasting and arrogance is when it talks about what it means to have a relationship with Jesus. In Ephesians 2, for instance, it says, "We are saved by grace through faith, not by works, so that no one can boast." Our very natural inclination is to think, just like our plans, that we are strong enough and righteous enough to make our own way to God. Scripture makes very clear that we are not righteous enough and we are not holy enough. The only way we can have a relationship with God is if God does all the heavy lifting and allows us to enjoy the spoils.

If you're here today, and you're not sure where you are with Jesus, I want you to know what this humility is calling us to. How limited we should think of ourselves and our plans also applies to our spiritual life. If you're here, and you're thinking, "I'm going to come to Jesus one day. Let me just get myself together first, and then I'll present myself to him," I want you to know if you think, "I'm a mess; I'm dirty," that's exactly how Jesus wants you to show up to him, with a willingness to let Jesus be the one who does the saving.

Scripture teaches our righteousness does not come from us; it comes from Jesus. We have sinned against God. We're separated from God, and we can't just try to start doing good things to get back in his good graces. There is a Savior who, as part of God's plan, came to earth, lived a perfect life, paid for our sins, resurrected from the grave, and says, "I will give you my righteousness. I will give you forgiveness. I will give you a relationship with God."

If you're here today and you don't know Jesus, if you walk away with one thing, I want it to be this. Not only is it boasting to act like I can plan as if I'm God; it's also boasting to act like I can be righteous by myself without God. There is a loving Savior who willingly welcomes you into his family. Even Jesus, before he went to the cross, prayed, "Lord, not my will but yours," and God's will was that Jesus would pay for sins that sinners like us could know God. Let me pray.

Father, we come before you in Jesus' name once again, thanking you so much for your goodness, for your Word, for your holiness. We thank you for allowing us to see our own limitations. God, we pray that you would help us to see ourselves as we are, you'd help us to see that the plans that are most enduring are those that are written in pencil, because there's a God in the heavens who rightfully is in charge, not us. God, we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.