James:Tests of a Living Faith
Faith Tested by Responding to the Will of God (4:13-17)
By Steve Budd
Section Summary
The genuiness of a person’s faith is characterized by doing the will of God “from the heart”. A constant disregard for or disinterest in God’s will is a mark of the presence of pride and an unredeemed soul.
Outline
I. It is foolish to ignore God’s will (13-14)
Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will 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.
James describes those who ignore God in their plans. They choose their own time (today or tomorrow), their own place (such and such a city), the duration of their stay (spend a year there), their enterprise (engage in business), and their goal (make a profit). These were most likely Jewish businessmen who were practical atheists, living as though God did not exist. James reminds such people of two things:
1. We don’t know the future.
2. Life is short.
On September 11, 2001, I was reminded of a verse in Ecclesiastes that describes the uncertainty and brevity of life. That verse, coincidentally, is Ecclesiastes 9:11;
“I have seen something else under the sun: That the race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance overtake them all.”
II. It is arrogant to deny God’s will (16)
But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.
James now describes a second group of people who arrogantly deny God’s will. These could be described as self-theists. They refuse to submit the uncertainties of life to God, and emulate the sin of Satan described in Isaiah 14:13-14: You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”
III. It is a sin to disobey God’s will (17)
Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.
This next group of people seems to affirm God’s existence and His supremacy, but proceed to disobey it. “Therefore” affirms that they have now been warned. Meditate on the following paraphrase of this verse; make it visible in the places where you are prone to sin (your PC?), note it in your Daytimer, and recall it to memory in times of temptation. As we will see in the next section, God honors such obedience with His blessing.
“Knowing what should be done obligates a person to do it.” -Donald Burdick
IV. It is a blessing to acknowledge God’s will (15)
Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that."
We now come to the point of exciting application. Can we know God’s will? If so, how can we know it? Can we know it all? To answer these questions, we go to a very short but appropriate verse in the Old Testament; Deuteronomy 29:29:
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
We see here that we indeed can and should know God’s will, and we can find His will in the pages of Scripture (the things revealed). We also see that we cannot know it entirely (the secret things). Thus we see two aspects of God’s will:
God’s Revealed Will – Theologians call this God’s will of command, will of desire, or moral will. These are the things that God’s Word tells us we should do. There are at least five things that are clearly described as God’s will for us:
- That we be saved (1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9)
- That we be Spirit-filled (Ephesians 5:17-18)
- That we be sanctified (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8)
- That we be submissive (1 Peter 2:13-15)
- That we suffer (1 Peter 3:17, Philippians 1:29)
These passages all clearly proclaim God’s will for our lives. This is the part of God’s will that we can know, and should obey.
God’s Secret Will – Theologians call this God’s will of decree or providential governance. This represents the things that God has not chosen to reveal.
To see how these two aspects of God’s will work, we’ll look at the words of Joseph to his brothers in Genesis 50:20: “You intended to harm me (men disobeying God’s revealed will), but God intended it for good (God’s secret will) to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Parenthetical comments mine)
We also see these two aspects working in the salvation of men, where God “…wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth” (God’s will of desire, I Timothy 2:4), yet only He determines who will be saved (God’s will of decree, Acts 13:48, Ephesians 1:4-5, John 1:12-13).
Can a man resist God’s will of desire? Yes, and we often do. Our adherence to God’s revealed will determines personal blessing or chastisement. Can a man resist God’s will of decree? To quote John Piper, “Yes, but only as long as God allows it.” What God has decreed will come to pass for His glory. We challenged the class to replace the word “accident” with “Providence” in their vocabulary.
One might ask, “Is God the author of sin and evil?” The answer is, “Absolutely not.” So how do sin and evil fit into God’s secret will? We can look again at a dramatic example from Scripture; the Crucifixion of Christ:
– “This man (Jesus) was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross.” (Acts 2:23).
– “They did what Your power and will determined beforehand should happen.” (Acts 4:28).
See also the ninth chapter of Romans, and Grudem’s quote below.
"God Himself never sins but always brings about His will through secondary causes; that is, through personal moral agents who voluntarily, willingly do what God has ordained. These personal moral agents (both human beings and evil angels) are to blame for the evil they do. Scripture repeatedly gives examples where God, in a mysterious, hidden way, somehow ordains that people do wrong, but continually places the blame for that wrong on the individual human who does wrong and never on God Himself." -Wayne Grudem
The next time we ask about God’s will for our lives, I trust we will strive to obey His revealed will. If we can say with a good conscience that we are in line with this will, I believe we are at liberty to do anything we desire to do, since our desires will be God-given, as it says in Psalms:
“Delight yourself in the Lord (i.e. obediance is the prerequisite) and He will give you the desires of your heart.” (Parenthetical comments mine)
Next Lesson: James 5:1-11 Faith Tested by Reaction to Injustice
