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Gretchen Rubin once wrote, The days are long, but the years are short. And for many of us, we can readily agree with this statement. In today's passage, we are reminded of a sobering truth. Our lives are like a mist that appears for a while, then vanishes. Reverend Daniel preaches this morning.

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We are continuing the sermon series on the book of James, and today we'll be looking at James chapter 4, verse 13 to 17. So here James is actually addressing merchants. So uh the first few verses, 13 to 17, he's talking about traders or merchants, or if you want to put it in another way, in terms today, businessman, businesswoman, right? Uh so yes, a word, uh particularly poignant word for merchants and traders. But I think by and large, it is also applicable to all of us who are non-merchants, traders, or business people. So James 4, 13 to 17 uh reads, let me just read it once through. It says, Come now, you who say today or tomorrow, we will go into such and such a place, a town, and spend a year there and trade and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring, what is your life. For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. In the days of old, in the time of Palestine, trade was seen as a way to obtain the fortune needed to purchase the estates on which the good life might be lived. So in James chapter 4, verse 13 to 17, the merchants are making typical plans, setting the time of departure, selecting such and such a city, determining how long they will stay, the length of their stay, and then projecting the profit from the venture. There's nothing unusually wrong with this, for it's a way of life and it's a regular practice for merchants all over the Greco-Roman world. However, James has an issue because James is tremendously bothered by the worldview or the attitude of these merchants. And what bothers James, and the heart of these few verses, is this what bothers James is the presumption that one could so determine his or her future and make plans according to the ways of the world in which the chief value is financial profit. Let me repeat again. It's a long sentence. What bothers James is simply the presumption that one could so determine his or her future and make plans according to the ways of the world, in which the chief value or the bottom line is financial profit. So their foolishness is seen in them not understanding, James says, how little control they have over life itself. James says, again, a sobering word, the truth is that their life are like mist or vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes. It reminds us of the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, where uh the author of wisdom, the wisdom teacher tells us that everything is vaporous, everything is meaningless, all the pursuit of life is meaningless. And it's the same context or the understanding life is a vapor. So the for the author of Ecclesiastes, the wisdom teacher, what is most important is to fear God, to fear God and live out his commandments. Because that is the whole duty of man. Coming back to James chapter 1 verse, uh, if we refer in our Bibles to James chapter 1 verse 9 to 11, James uses another metaphor with a similar meaning. James 1 verse 9 to 11, he writes, let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation. Because like a wild, like a flower of the grass, he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass, its flowers fall, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Again, similar idea that James alludes to very early in the book of James, speaking about how the rich also will pass away like the flower of the grass in the midst of his pursuits. This recalls a parable that Jesus told in Luke 12, verse 16 to 20. Jesus told a parable, he said, The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, What shall I do? For I am nowhere to store my crops. And he said, I will do this, I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods, and I'll say to my soul, So you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him in the strongest terms, Fool, this night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So when Jesus told this parable, he's uh sharing with us the story of a rich man in which he was consumed with the accumulation of wealth and of building up and storing up just for his own pleasure. It is a picture of self-absorption and self-accumulation to one's own end. So just as how our lives are like mist or vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes, and how we are like a flower of the grass, we will all fade away in the midst of our self-centered pursuits. I believe this is a sobering word and a strong reminder for all of us here today that as Christians, we cannot live our lives and go about our waking and walking moments, our study, our work and businesses as if God doesn't make a difference to us. Let me repeat again. This is a sobering word and a strong reminder for all of us here, including myself, that we cannot live our lives as Christians going about our study, work, and businesses as if God does not make a difference to us in our day-to-day living. We ought to make plans with a consideration of God in all that we do. In fact, James qualifies this. He says, if the Lord wills, this should be our posture, this should be our worldview. If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. Of course, we all understand or we should know that James is not telling us not to make any plans or not to plan a not to plan ahead in life, not to plan for a holiday, and it'd be disastrous for Singaporeans if James were to say that don't plan at all. Live your life laser fair and you know just go about each day haphazardly. Of course not. It'd be uh it'll be a sad news, right? Because we are all uh people that will plan ahead, right? I'm sure we have already planned for our December holidays. And maybe some of us have already looked beyond December and look at the 2025. So we plan ahead in life, and certainly James is not saying uh not to plan ahead. Rather, he's qualifying our motives and intentions. He's saying our response and our posture in life should be if the Lord wills. We will live, we will do this, we will do that, we will plan, we will keep things moving, but with a contingency, if the Lord wills. So we must plan our lives with a sense of contingency and recognize that God is ultimately control over all our lives. So for the merchants, the traders in James chapter 4, verse 13 to 17, they were far from having this attitude in mind. They boast in their arrogance in a worldly sense, and the boasting is interestingly, specifically linked to possessions and profit making. Reminds us of 1 John 2, verse 16, where the apostle John says, For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes, and the third part is linked to our sharing today, and the pride and the boasting and arrogance. Another word for arrogance is pride. So the pride of life, the pride of uh accumulation of wealth, the pride of um making profits, and just the hard-line pursuit of the bottom line, profits and our own interests. Scripture says, and 1 John 2.16 affirms, is not from the Father, but from the world. So an attitude, a worldview, a paradigm, a posture which plans and acts as if God did not exist or make any difference to us in our day-to-day living is evil. James calls this evil because when we boast in our own accomplishments apart from God, and when we live our lives as if God doesn't make a difference to us, it is evil. James says, all such boasting is evil. So I'm I'm moving uh quickly to an application now. All of us may be attending church regularly, but the important question is do we shut God out of our study, out of our work, and out of our business life? James is saying that confidence in our own planning is arrogant and evil as no part of life is outside the rule of God. He concludes with a maxim in James 4 17. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him, it is sin. So I'd like to draw uh some implications for us uh in response to the word this morning. And the question is this how do we see God at work today? How do we see God at work today? Is he a deistic God or is he actively involved and at work in our lives? A theology that was common in the 17th and 18th centuries is what is known as deism. And the lead up to deism actually began in the late uh 16th century by an Englishman, a Scottish man by the name of uh David Hume. So he he postulates a theory that actually all of our life is filtered through the five senses. That means what we can touch, what we can see, what we can feel, what we can smell, and so on. So the only reality that is what we can experience, right? And that began the birth of what we call in church history the enlightenment, where the enthronment of science, the sciences, enthronment of empirical knowledge, the sciences, what we can observe, what we can see, what we can feel and touch, what we can verify through hard data, becomes a form of understanding what is true knowledge. And what uh theologians say is that the whole understanding of a transcendent reality of God has been diminished. So before the Enlightenment, during the time of uh people like Martin Luther and John Kelvin, their worldview is very simple. It's just God is all and in all. But once the Enlightenment came, people's minds changed. Science became important, and along with science came the whole idea of a rationalistic understanding of the world, mechanistic understanding of the world that colors all of reality. I'm sure all of us, in one way or another, school in Singapore, myself included, are all children of the Enlightenment, right? From a very young age or in school, we know that the importance of mathematics and the sciences as a way of life, as a way to move forward. And none of us uh can be successful in some way if we don't have some basic understanding of mathematics and the sciences. But because of that kind of understanding, we tend to kind of uh dethrone the transcendent reality of God as a supernatural being that makes a difference in our lives. And I don't mean today to just throw out big words, but what I'm trying to say is because of deism, right, a lot of us uh we may not subscribe to this view. We may say that we do not believe in a deistic God, that we are Christians, but somehow there's a disconnect in the way we relate to God. Because deism portrays a mechanistic image of God as a watchmaker. So a common image that is being used is God as a clockmaker or watchmaker. He makes the world with all his pieces and the laws, with all the intricate details, and then lets the world run on its own and without further intervention. So he creates an orderly universe, he places people in it, and then allows them to exercise their God-given freedom. He supplies them with intelligence they need to gain an understanding of the physical world and the and the moral order, and that leaves them to act wisely in harmony with the laws of nature and the moral order. So now it's all up to them to make things happen, to further the goodness for the betterment of the world, and they are given freedom to act, to choose, uh to not choose evil, but if they do so, they'll face judgment and its consequence. So, in other words, God is not actively involved. So uh to subscribe to a deistic view is to deny the reality of what we call revelation, God revealing Himself, God active in creation, in the here and now, not in the past, right? So to believe in a deistic God means everything is up to us, right? Because God created the world, God gave us a rational mind to decide, right? Of course, some of us will say, then we don't need to pray to God in everything, right? God give us a mind, right? A rational mind to make decisions. Granted, that is true, but if we pull this to its logical end, it means that we don't need God even in our day-to-day decisions, because he has given us a human faculty, a brain, and a mind to decide, then God is no longer active. We still acknowledge a creator God, but he's somewhat not very real in my day-to-day living. I believe in him. I come to church, I worship him, I lift up my hands, but talking to God, does it really make a difference? And where he's already giving us given us a mind and intelligence. After all, we are living in a rationalistic world, scientific world where everything is controlled through uh data and through empirical knowledge and observation and verification. Why do I need God? I mean, is there a reality of God in our lives, in the day-to-day running of our lives? So some of us live our lives in a distinct way as if God has left us on our own to figure our lives out. I think many times, in some way or another, we may be guilty of that, you know, because sometimes do you feel the disconnect? You know, sometimes I do feel it uh during the spiritual low moments. When we come to church, we sing all the songs like just now, uh Sarah and Jeff and the music team let us in a song, you know, Christ is enough for me, you know, he's more than enough, you know, he's my all-in-all, he's my so when we sing those words, does it resonate with our day-to-day living? Does it resonate? Does it flow with how we view God in our lives? If not, there always will be a disconnect when we come to church because the song seems so far away from the way we live our lives. When we say Christ is enough, he's, you know, he's uh all that I need, and so on. It feels, uh, but my heart is that side, you know, it feels that uh a lot of uh what we call uh gradation to pass before I reach God because we are so disconnected if we live our life in a distinct way. So those with a distinct view of God and reality will see prayer as of as a means of increasing our awareness that God is present with us. God is the creator, right? Yeah, he's around, he's present with us. But we do not expect God to act in response to our prayers. Because God is ultimately only controlled, only interested about the overarching reality of the world. And I don't think God is so much involved in the intricate details of our lives because he has left humanity, gave us brains, left us to run the world with what he has given us. So, how many of us at a point in our lives can identify with this rationalistic worldview? I think it has it's pervasive uh in the modern society and I'm sure it affects us to one degree or another, because as much as we depend on God, practically we perhaps do not live our life in total dependence on Him. So this is I like to suggest that a deistic view of reality is something which perhaps the merchants had in James chapter 4, verse 13 to 17. They were making plans as if God does not make a difference to them. God was not a present reality in their day-to-day decisions and actions. Perhaps if these were members of the church which James was writing to, I mean uh James was addressing, perhaps they were Christians. They were Christian businessmen, but perhaps even these stick uh in the sense that, yeah, they're just going out their life and their business, but belief in God, yes, yeah. Believe that God works through their businesses, maybe no. Yeah, maybe not so important. Whether God works or doesn't work, most important is I work and I get the profit. So the bottom line is still about the self. Yet we know that this is not a God in which scripture reveals. We know a God who is alive. And active in the lives of his people. So the reformer John Calvin helps us because he draws a vital link between God as our creator. So in fact, he says that if we know God as our creator, it's impossible to decouple him as our creator and as our provider. So these two ideas are joined together. If God is our creator, he has to be our provider. He has to be the governor and preserver of our lives. So he writes in his Institutes 116.1, he says, having found him creator of all, forthwith to conclude, he is also everlasting governor and preserver. Not only in that he drives the celestial frame, runs the universe, and so on, as well as its several parts by a universal motion. This is key, he says, but also in that he sustains, nourishes, and cares for everything he has made, even to the least sparrow. Quoting Matthew 10 verse 29. He reminds us again in his Institutes 116.4, he says, providence means not that by which God idly observes from heaven what takes place on earth, but that by which, as keeper of the keys, he governs all events. God governs his creation by means of his constant oversight of us and ordering of things all our lives, the intricate details of our lives to the goal or to the talos of which he has ordained for us. And he desires us to align ourselves with him and to come under his reign and rule. So my point is this if we believe that we know a God who is alive and active in our life, then the logical response should be that we grow to entrust ourselves more fully to him each day. So our worldview, our paradigm should be a life of constant yieldedness to God and constant walking with God because He has promised that He cares for the details of our life. He has not left the universe to our own making. We are not masters of our own universe, but we are stewards of what he has entrusted to us. So uh we see that uh model in Paul's ministry. I just quoting some of his missionary journeys and some of his writings, how Paul, as a pattern of his ministry, always lived with a sense of contingency that God has act. God has to act. If God acts, then this is how I respond. So this was his underlying philosophy. As God works, if God wills, then this is what I'll do. So when he was at Ephesus in Acts 18, verse 21, he says, uh on taking leave of them, he said, I'll return to you if God wills. And he set seal from Ephesus. So there's a sense of, again, like the author of James, I mean the author of the book of James, if God wills. Again, while writing to the Corinthian believers in 1 Corinthians 4 18 to 19, he says, Some are arrogant as though I were not coming to you, but I'll come to you soon if the Lord wills. Again, his travel plans, 1 Corinthians 16 7, for I do not want to see you now just in passing. I hope to spend some time with you if the Lord permits. When he writes to the believers in Philippi, Philippians 2, 24, uh part of the sentence, he says, And I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also. So it is a posture of yielding himself to God daily. And I believe why Paul was able to give himself fully and completely to God's mission is because his life was bound up to his maker. And all of us, by virtue of the death and resurrection of Christ, as believers, we are all in union with Christ. We are in union with him, and he desires us to draw near and to surrender and to heal our lives to him more and more each day. So, how can we live our lives with an overarching understanding that God does make a difference to our daily living? I like to, in closing, suggest two ways we can do so. Two ways in which we can align our lives to a worldview in which God is part of our lives. God is part and parcel of our living, our waking, and our walking moments. Firstly, my prayer is that we will commit ourselves to God daily through praying the prayer of indifference the prayer for indifference. I'm not sure whether it's the first time you all hear this word, the prayer for indifference. But basically, it's a it's a kind of prayer that we come before God each day and we posture ourselves to do and to choose to do God's will over and above our own will and desires. So the prayer of indifference asks God to make us indifferent to anything but his will. So it's a deliberate choosing of doing God's will. So it's at the same time a most dangerous way to play, to pray, sorry, not to play, to pray, and yet the most liberating. As one of the old songs uh teaches us, you know, Jesus all for Jesus, it's only in your will that I am free. So the prayer of indifference makes us, turns the question around. It's no longer my and my own pursuits, but it is yielding ourselves to God's will each day. So when we are in a place, when we are in a place, sorry, of holy indifference, we are prepared and free to hear from the Holy Spirit and to pray for God's wisdom. The prayer for indifference is biblical because we see uh some parallels in that in scripture. It's the prayer of Mary in Luke 1, 38. Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word, yielding himself, yielding herself to God's purpose of the birth of the Messiah through her. Jesus himself prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane from Luke 22, verse 42, in his agony, in the pain of the cross that lies before him, he says, Not my will, but your will be done. The prayer for indifference looks to produce in us an openness to God where we are free from undue attachment to any particular outcome. It is a place where we choose to want God's will more than anything else. God must accomplish this for us and we wait for it to be given. It's a way of offering ourselves completely to God, detaching ourselves from comfort, personal ownership, advantage, or wanting to look good in the eyes of others. We humbly lay down our own will to embrace God's will. So I just want to introduce to us this prayer. There's nothing magical about the words. At the end of the day, it's the posture of our hearts that makes all our difference. All the difference. That means whether we really dare or want to pray the prayer makes more difference than the words itself. Of course, the words kind of facilitate that surrender. And this ought to be the posture of us. A prayer for indifference. So the prayer goes like this. Dear God, I come humbly before you, now searching my heart. I open my heart and hands to you. Lord, search my heart and know me. Give me knowledge of the people and places that I'm attached to anything other than your will. So as we pray this prayer, we pause and we allow God to, by His Holy Spirit, to search our hearts. And oftentimes a picture may come to our mind. Maybe someone God is asking you to forgive. Or some grudge you are bearing against someone. Or some thing that you're holding on to tightly. Maybe it's your children, uh, maybe it's your career, maybe it's your worry, maybe it's the your work issue. Um so oftentimes within a minute or so, this will come, thoughts will flash in your mind, and it's a stirring of the Holy Spirit in you. Um so that's why that's where we enter into this stage where it says, right now, it seems apparent to me that I'm not indifferent when it comes to blank. Right? So the blank thing is the area you know in which God is calling you to. And I'm sure in Singapore is always, if it's not work, it's family, right? Those are the two mid issues, or not then it's health. Right? We cannot run away from this all this uh all these things, which is so much part of our life. Right? So then we say, I know that part of me clings to my own agenda. Lord, if I am to become indifferent, you have to do it in me. God, I wait on you. So we are trusting God to give us the strength. So the prayer for indifference doesn't mean we have the inner ability to overcome. If we do, then we don't need to pray. We don't need to come before God. But this is really posturing our hearts, centering our lives in God. And that is only possible when we choose to do that. So we surrender to God and we ask God to do it in us. Work in me and our work. Right? So it's God who works in us, his good purpose. And we are called to work out so-called our salvation as God worked in us. So that's the divine principle. As God works in us, we work. Not that we don't have to work or we don't have to respond, we don't have to act, but as God tucks us, tucks at the heart, stir up our hearts, reveal the things to us, you ask God for strength and then prayerfully act on what the Lord is saying. And you don't have to think about many issues, and when you pray the prayer for indifference, ah, God, my family, got my work, got my this, got my dad, and when you count in the end, it's like, oh, attend over things. Like, usually just focus on one thing that the Lord is leading you. Oftentimes it's just a one thing. And of course, then the the closing part of this is this I entrust myself to you, bring me to the place of holy indifference, so that I may I might hear from you and follow you to the people and places in which you are leading me to. I commit my heart fully to you. Amen. So I believe, how long will this take? Probably 15 minutes, if we have time. 15 minutes a day of praying the prayer for indifference. And I think and I pray and I hope it will make a difference to your life. The prayer for indifference will make a difference in our life, and then we can make a difference in the life of others as we yield ourselves fully to God. And I'd like to encourage us to do that, that our faith must be lived out in our daily life. It cannot just be something we do on Sunday, otherwise, we are of danger of being deistic Christians. Right? We profess to know God in a rationalistic way. Yeah, God is the creator, but that's about all. Morning, we are all geared up, right? For me, I need usually it's the morning. Night is hard for me to do anything when I'm too tired. Some of us is wow, morning, so many things to do, but night is like wow, full of energy. So it really depends on you. But I'd like to just encourage us to learn to assimilate the prayer for indifference. If 15 minutes is too long, then try five minutes, you know. And just get into the rhythm of doing it. Like how if you want to persevere in certain exercises we do, right? We need constancy, we need to build up a rhythm of training, you know, like everything in life. And I'm sure as good Singaporeans, we we don't have an issue with discipline and hard work. You know, all of us know that we need to work hard, we need to also work smart. But anyway, this is the prayer I leave with you all, and I hope from time to time we will have a time to re revisit this. And if you can, uh sorry, the previous slide. Um if you can just take a picture of this prayer. If you can, we also will send it to you through the WhatsApp broadcast sometime next week. Yeah, but yeah, it's just a prayer, you know, take a picture of it or just have it on your phone. Yeah, you can take pauses in the day, just pray. Pray this prayer. Because life is so burdensome, right? So many things confront us. And sometimes what happens in our lives, we have no answer. We can't deal. In times of crisis, uh, the prayer for indifference helps us a lot because it keeps us focused on God and not on the issue, and it invites the Holy Spirit to come and give us the wisdom to handle. Not that it will immediately take away your problem, but it helps us to center on God, helps us to focus on Him. Alright, uh secondly, and the second point is actually very short, we live with a sense of contingency. So if we are able to pray the prayer for indifference and learn to yield our lives to God, then my second point is easier. Then the flow of it will be, then our lives will be lived with a sense of contingency, if the Lord wills. And this is not fatalism, you know, like we don't make any plans, if the Lord wills, it will happen. It's not that. But it's with a sense of wrestling with God and praying the prayer for indifference, then we learn to live with a sense of contingency. So I think this is particularly difficult for Singaporeans because we are used to planning things up to its uh exact detail, right? That we are not able to rest until we make our plans. Some of us, not all of us, but some of us. But living with a sense of contingency opens up to the possibility of God's intervention in our lives. If we have no room for God to work, basically he's a gentleman, right? He says, I stand at the door and knock. Right? If you invite me, I'll come in. So seldom will the Holy Spirit uh force his will on you, right? So a lot of times it's not that God doesn't want to speak, it's that we have no room in our lives to hear him speak because our life is so cluttered, it's so is so well programmed that we program sometimes God out of our lives. So the church the my encouragement to us is to program him back into your life by setting aside 10 to 15 minutes a day. Pray the prayer for indifference. Allow God to work in your life, and you see the difference. So living with a sense of contingency is also a way of opening spaces for God to work. Instead of cramming our lives with many activities and programs that we have no room for God, as I said earlier, even if he desires to speak to us or to intervene in our lives. So may the Lord help us to grow, to be more and more yielded to him, to have a posture in which God does make a difference in our lives, because he does. But the question is do we create spaces for him to work?

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We pray that you've been ministered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Eastern Christian Church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.