2. JESUS’LIFE,
YOURLIFE

3. 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.
JAMES 4:13-17

4. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the
Lord’s will, we will live and do this or
that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your
arrogant schemes. All such boasting is
evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good
they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is
sin for them.
JAMES 4:13-17

5. HOPES&
DREAMS

6. The way life works is we have a vision
for a future, a hope, a dream, a
longing, and then we start to plan so
that we can have our life going in that
direction.

7. The things that are most important are
the things that get a plan.

9. If you want to figure out how to put
together a plan, you start considering
your options for counsel.

10. All the management, budgeting,
scheduling, planning, coaching is in the
realm of business. As you do that,
you’ll find that some of the counsel
you’ll get is really ungodly. The
principles are actually completely
opposed to a lot of the big ideas of
Scripture.

11. Some of the counsel you’ll get is
“Godless,” meaning it doesn’t say
anything negative about God. It just
doesn’t say anything about God;
No reference to God at all.

12. Some of the counsel you’ll get is “God-
light.” It’s sort of best business
practices, tips, and tricks with vague,
general, spiritual references like,
“Don’t overlook your soul. Make sure
to include your spiritual life.”

13. TWOTRUTHS
ABOUTLIFE

14. Here’s the problem: if you don’t know
where you come from, if you don’t
know why you’re here and you don’t
know where you’re going, you don’t
know what to do.

15. 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.
JAMES 4:13-16

16. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the
Lord’s will, we will live and do this or
that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your
arrogant schemes. All such boasting is
evil.
JAMES 4:13-16

17. LIFEIS
UNCERTAIN.

18. The Bible talks a lot about planning.
Proverbs talks a ton about how wise it
is to seek good counsel and make a
wise plan. It’s not a sin to have a vision.
It’s not a sin to make a plan. It’s not a
sin to be organized.

19. The problem is not when we have a
vision, hope, a dream, a plan; the
problem is when it doesn’t include the
Lord. The problem is when it’s out of
arrogance and not humility; it’s seeking
our will, not God’s will. That’s the
problem.

20. SOVEREIGNTY&
SEPARATION

21. The problem here is that it is easy for
us to behave or believe as if we were
sovereign over our lives and our future.

22. The impression can be given that
you’re sovereign, that you’re in charge,
that you’re all-knowing, that you’re in
God’s seat, that you see tomorrow and
you know exactly what tomorrow’s
gonna bring. But we’re not sovereign.
We don’t know what the future holds.

23. The issue of sovereignty and the issue
of separation, and what they’ve done
here is they’ve separated their life.

24. This is how you behave in business.
This is how you behave as a citizen. But
the spiritual, the faith—it’s private. It’s
internal; it’s not external. You don’t
share it with anyone. It doesn’t affect
the rest of your life.

25. What they’ve done is they’ve created a
firewall in their life between their
relationship with God and all of their
other relationships.

26. Our relationship with Jesus affects
everything—how we do business, how
we vote, how we behave, how we
interact with others, how we see the
world, how we spend our money, how
we organize our days, what we
consider our priorities because we’re
not sovereign—Jesus is.

27. We don’t know tomorrow; Jesus does.
And our life is not separated into things
that involve Jesus and things that
don’t. As sovereign Lord, he rules over
all of history, all the nations, all the
cultures, all the races, and all of our
life.

28. God doesn’t factor into it at all, just
predict the future, best estimation,
organizational alignment, goal setting,
and march forward.

29. “IFTHELORD
WILLS”

30. The goal is not to have this, “the Lord
wills,” “Lord willing” be a cliché but a
conviction, OK, a conviction. And to
say, “If the Lord wills,” it is saying, “I
have sought the Lord and wise counsel,
and I’ve prayed and planned.

31. What that allows for those of you who
are more active is humility. For those
of you who are passive, it will allow
you to have more confidence. Some of
us get ourselves in trouble saying, “The
Lord said let’s do it,” and then he
changes the circumstances.

32. The way out of that is humility and to
say, “I believe this is best, and the Lord
can change his plan for us. But as of
now, this is what we’re doing and
where we’re going.

33. More humility for the confident, more
confidence for the humble to proceed
together into the will of God. If the
Lord wills, if the Lord wills. His first
principle is that life is uncertain.

34. LIFEIS
BRIEF.

35. 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.
JAMES 4:14

36. All the little questions orbit around
the big question, What is your life?
What is your life? A mist that appears
for a little time and then vanishes.

37. “HEBEL”

38. He starts his book, Ecclesiastes, with
the word hebel. “Hebel, hebel,” says
the teacher, “everything is hebel.” Life
is hebel. You say, “Well, what is that?”
He boils life down to one word. Some
of your translations will say
“meaningless.”

39. Life doesn’t have to be lived in vain,
but it can be. You can have a wasted
life instead of an invested life. That
word hebel—it has a lot of meanings
because life is complex.

40. But ultimately, James here gets the
best interpretation of that word
hebel. What is life? Life is a mist that
appears for a little time and then
vanishes.

41. LIFEISFASTER
WHENYOU’RE
OLDER.

42. DEATH

43. Life gets very clear when time is very
short. It’s ultimately people and
memories that matter, and we take
those with us to the kingdom of God.

44. Ed and Floreen Hale

45. Floreen and Ed’s love
story began more than
60 years ago when the
two met at a party.
When the young
engineer went to
Floreen’s parents to
ask for her hand in
marriage,

46. they refused because
the young woman was
recovering at that time
from a horrific car
accident which
claimed the life of her
first husband whom
she had married only
three months earlier.

47. Here’s Floreen’s story:
She’s young. She’s in love.
She gets married. She and
her husband have plans,
and in a car crash, he dies
three months later.
Breathes his last breath,
and life is a breath that’s
here today and gone
tomorrow. Somehow this
shaped she planned her
future to enjoy it.

48. The story continues. But
Ed was determined to be
with Floreen and would
not take no for an answer
declaring to his future in-
laws that he was willing to
carry his beloved in his
arms every day. The
couple said, “I do” May
12, 1953, and settled in
Batavia, New York, in a
home designed by Mr.
Hale.

49. The Hales have two
surviving children, Renee
and Ricky. A third baby
died in infancy. Life is a
mist here today, gone
tomorrow.

50. Ed’s greatest joy in life
was pampering his wife
and spoiling her with little
tokens of affection. At a
time when she worked as
a telephone operator at a
local hospital, Ed would
bring Floreen her dinner
and dessert.

51. Ed did most of the grocery
shopping for the house,
and every time he went to
the store, he picked up
some sweet treat or
flowers for Floreen. In the
winter, Ed would clear his
wife’s car of snow and
warm it up for her to drive
home from work earning
him the nickname Saint
Edward from their
relatives.

52. When Floreen’s family
and friends would tease
her about her adoring
husband asking her what
she would do without
him, Floreen would reply
that he was not allowed
to go before her.

53. After an active, full life,
Mr. Hale was diagnosed
with kidney disease a little
over five years ago
requiring dialysis, regular
treatments. He also
suffered severe heart
attacks and had diabetes,
but that didn’t stop him
from taking his wife out
almost every day.

54. Mrs. Hale, known for her
irrepressible sense of
humor, chattiness, and a
pension for colorful
adornments, also had a
laundry list of ailments,
from asthma to heart
disease. Still she would
dress up to go to the
doctor, with Ed always by
her side.

55. At the same time, her
husband was in Unity
Hospital in Rochester with
kidney failure. We were
handed two death
sentences. Floreen’s
sister, Marlene DeCarlo
told this blog. The 83-
year-old man, Ed, was
semi-conscious and
appeared to be at death’s
door, but two days after
his wife’s hospitalization,

56. Ed woke up and told his
daughter, “I need to see
Floreen.” See, Ed had a
plan to take care of his
wife for the duration of
her life. That was his plan.
What followed next was a
series of negotiations
between the hospitals in
Rochester and Batavia
helped along by a social
worker whose job it was

57. to convince United to
admit Mr. Hale. The
Batavia Hospital agreed to
accept the dying patient
but only if he was strong
enough to make the 35-
mile trip. She’s in the
hospital dying. He’s in the
hospital dying. They’ve
been together for 60
years, and now they’re
separated by thirty-five
miles.

58. Ed wakes up and is
determined. His plan is to
get to Floreen. As if by
miracle, Ed rallied
sufficiently for the short
ambulance ride arriving at
United in the afternoon of
February 6. His sole
request was to see
Floreen. The hospital
prepared a room for the
couple where the two
beds were pushed

59. The 82-year-old woman
was pronounced dead the
morning after Ed’s arrival.
Ed made it there in time.
He got to walk his wife
home. Surrounded by
dozens of friends and
family, her husband
followed her a day later.

60. The most important day of your life is
the last day. There are enumerable
things that could distract you from
living for that last day.

61. That’s the most important thing. You
could go at any time, and you’ll all go
at some time. What about the people
and things in your life?

62. LIFESHOULDBE
URGENT

63. We make our plans and we seek to
make our plans his plans for our life.
Life is uncertain. Life is brief.

64. If you know you’re supposed to be
doing something and you’re not
doing that, that’s sin. And if you know
you’re not supposed to be doing
something and you’re doing that,
that’s sin. Some sins are clear. They’re
for everybody.

65. LIFE’S
PRIORITIES

66. WHATTODO
WITHYOUR
LIFE

67. DON’TBE
ARROGANT.

68. GOTO
SCRIPTURE.

69. Don’t just make a plan for your life
and then find people who agree with
you and declare them to be wise
counsel.

70. SEEKWISE
COUNSEL.

71. Seek wise counsel, godly people
whom you will invite into your life
and entrust to your decision-making.

72. ASKTHE
HOLYSPIRIT
TOEMPOWER
YOU.

73. The Holy Spirit is God come to take
up residence in you to inform and
empower your life as he did Jesus.
And Paul declares that the Holy Spirit
is the Spirit of wisdom. What we’re
talking about here is wisdom and
folly.

74. PLAN
ACCORDINGLY.

75. Plan accordingly, openhanded,
if the Lord wills.

76. WHATJESUS
DIDWITHHIS
TIME

77. Now, God became a man, his name is
Jesus Christ, but he welcomed upon
himself certain limitations for a
season to identify with us.

78. The reason that we get burned out,
every extended and exhausted is
we’re doing things that the Father
didn’t tell us to do, and we’re not
doing some things that the Father
told us to do like take a nap, take a
day off.

79. We can give the impression that
we’re busier than Jesus, that we’re
more essential than Jesus.

80. Jesus didn’t start worshiping when he
stopped hammering. He was worshiping
through hammering, and then he was
worshiping through preaching, and it was
always worshiping, and it was taking what
the Father had given him to do and just
doing that well by the grace that God
gives.

81. THREETHINGS
TOKNOWABOUT
YOURPLATE

82. KNOWHESIZE
OFYOURPLATE.

83. There are limitations, and we have
greater limitations than he. When
we’re talking about your plate size,
we’re talking about your life capacity.

84. Do you realize that some people can’t
get as much done as other people,
and that doesn’t mean that they’re
ungodly or less spiritual or less
valuable.

85. KNOWWHAT
TOTAKEOFF
YOURPLATE.

86. So you have got to take some stuff off
your plate. Whatever the case may
be. Maybe there were things that you
had time and energy for, and now you
don’t and they have to come off your
plate.

87. KNOWWHAT
TOPUT
ONYOUR
PLATE.

88. But it never comes, so we need to start
with our priorities and God’s priorities for
me. And we need to put the most
important things in our life, in our energy,
in our budget, in our schedule first, the
people and things that matter the most.
And then entrust God to help us discern
what else we can handle and what we
can’t.

89. Life is a mist. It’s here today and it’s gone
tomorrow. And here’s the good news:
we’re alive. We have an opportunity to
examine the life that God has entrusted
to us, to make some course corrections
and changes so that we don’t live in such
a way that the last day is a regrettable,
remorseful day, but it’s a rejoicing day.

90. We don’t want you to be discouraged but
encouraged. We don’t want you to just
regret the things you haven’t done, but
we want you to celebrate the things that
are yet to be done.

91. Lifeisshort
butgodis
good.

92. FAITHWORKS CHRISTIAN CHURCH GLOBAL
Presented By:
Ptr. Alvin Gutierrez
FCC Main
10AM Morning Worship Service
May 29, 2016
Website: http://faithworkschristianchurch.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Faithworks-Christian-Church-Global-
292363410916567/