“Turn Your Plans into Prayers”
James 4:13-16

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost—September 27, 2015

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

There’s a rocket ship on top of a building in downtown Kansas City.  The building is the former headquarters of the airline TWA, and the rocket ship is a concept model for a TWA “Moonliner.”  It was seriously predicted in the 1960’s that there would be regular flights to the moon, even for tourists—with your family taking fun vacations on the moon!  Another airline, Pan Am, actually took advance reservations for regularly scheduled shuttle flights to the moon, which they confidently predicted would start taking off in the 1990’s.  Though like TWA, Pam Am has since gone out of business, there still exists a list of 90,002 people who have reservations on Pan Am for the flights to the moon.

For many years Popular Science magazine had a feature called, “Things to Come,” giving predictions about what life would be like in the future.  According to a prediction from the 1950’s, in 2015 we should not be eating any actual food for our dinner later today, because each day we take just one little pill that provides for all our nutritional needs.  According to a 1930’s prediction, instead of cars, our parking lot this morning should be filled with car-sized airplanes, that we all routinely fly around in—or maybe you flew here this morning in your jetpack!  At the time they were made, those were serious predictions about what life would be like in 2015.

Those predictions show just how little we have advance knowledge of or control over of our lives in this world.  In today’s Epistle Reading, James points out the foolishness, and sinfulness, of planning and predicting your life without reference and deference to God and his will:

“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 and brag. All such boasting is evil.” 

It is not wrong to make plans for your life.  In fact, making plans for your life is part of good stewardship, and it can be a good, God-pleasing thing to do.  But, it is wrong, it is sinful, to make your plans without placing your life under God’s will.

Point #1) God is not angry or arbitrary with you; he is on your side and working all things together for your good.

Several years ago a very bad cyclone battered the coast of Bangledesh.  The Associated Press quoted one man whose hut was flattened: “It’s God’s punishment, but for what?”  That often is our natural first reaction when we face trouble and suffering in our lives, to assume that God is punishing us.  The bad news is, we do indeed deserve punishment from God because of our sin, as we humbly acknowledged this morning at the opening of our worship: “[I] confess unto Thee all my sins with which I have ever offended Thee, and justly deserved Thy temporal and eternal punishment.”

The Good News is, your sins are all forgiven for the sake of Jesus Christ: “But I am heartily sorry for my sins, and sincerely repent of them, and I pray Thee of Thy boundless mercy, and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of Thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being.”  The Good News is, God’s Son, Jesus Christ, took your sins upon himself, and suffered all the punishment for you, in your place. 

That is why Paul can say in Romans, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”  God is not punishing you, God is not against you; he forgives you, he loves you; he is for you, he is on your side because Jesus Christ cancelled out all your sins and earned you God’s favor.  “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

For those who trust in Jesus Christ, even trouble and suffering in your life, even a disaster like a cyclone, is not ever a punishment from God, but actually God somehow working all things together for your good, as Paul says in Romans: “And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love him. . .  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

God is not angry or arbitrary with you; he is on your side and working all things together for your good.

Point #2) What happens in your life is not fate or a fluke—God is in control.

James points out the folly and arrogance of imagining you have power to plot the course of your life: “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.”  Proverbs says, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.”

On the other hand, what happens in your life is not due to fate, or a mere fluke, for God is actively in control of all things.  Psalm 139 says, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to pass.”  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us to what amazing extent God really is in control: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from the will of your Father.  And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” 

What happens in your life is not fate or a fluke—God is in control.

Point #3) A practical way to put your life and plans under God’s will is to turn your plans into prayers.

As James says, “Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’”  Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Every time you pray those words you are really saying, “Lord, you know what is best for me.  So, I trust in you, and I turn my life over to you.  Thy will be done, in my life.” 

Jesus himself gives us the ultimate example, when he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not My will, but Thine, be done.”  In the same way, instead of just hoping and dreaming and planning for your life, turn your plans into prayers: 

“Lord, this is what I want, this is the way I have planned it.  If it be possible, and if it is best for me, let it happen this way.  But, I trust in you; you know what is best for me, and you are working all things together for my good.  So, Lord, not my will but Thine be done.  And help me to accept your will, and understand your will for my life.” 

A practical way to put your life and plans under God’s will is to turn your plans into prayers.

Point #4) Turning your life over to God’s will gives you confidence and peace, even when things don’t turn out the way you plan.

There is nothing more painful and discouraging than tormenting yourself with second-guessing: Have I made the right choices and decisions?  Did I do it the right way?  And what about my mistakes and failures?

Psalm 55 says, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord.”  Instead of bearing the burden of second-guessing, cast it upon the Lord. 

Isaiah says, “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.”

Proverbs says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Psalm 31 says, “But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.  My times are in your hands.’”

Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled; trust in God, trust also in Me.”

And Paul says in Romans, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Turning your life over to God’s will gives you confidence and peace, even when things don’t turn out the way you plan.

It is not wrong to make plans for your life.  But place your life and your plans under God’s will.  “Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’”  Turn your plans into prayers.

Amen.