Sermon Transcript

“Life Like Vapor”

Rev. Dustin Largent

James 4:13-17

July 13, 2025

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The Planner’s Dilemma

For those of you that are kind of new to us, what we do at Sunrise is we just go through the Bible. We go through books of the Bible. So, I'm not real topical. We've been in the book of James for pretty much the whole summer. Today we're in the fourth chapter. We're going to finish off the fourth chapter. It has a little bit to do with planning.

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Now, I had the great opportunity to do some planning when we went to Seattle. I'm a major planner. I don't know how many of you are big on planning, but I like to plan, and I like things to be just right. I also have the spiritual gift of cheapness. So, I don't like to spend a lot of money. To go to Seattle with the whole family—fly there, do stuff there, have a car and all that—it starts adding up, right? I had a bunch of air miles, so I was able to get a flight. But I can't fly out of here, because if I fly out of here, it's going to cost me like three times the amount as if I fly out of Chicago. So I'm like, “Well, I can drive to Chicago,” and I'm figuring all this out.

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I drive to Chicago, but then what am I going to do with my car? So I planned that we would drive there, and I had a deal with one of the hotels in town. I’d pay them a certain amount, let my car stay there, and then take their airport shuttle to the airport. Then I hop on the plane. But I didn’t pay for the extra to pick my seats. So, when we got there, we were all in different parts of the plane. I said, “Julie, Julie, don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out.” We got there a little early, and I rushed up to the gate and talked to the lady. I said, “Hey, you know what? My family, we really like to sit together.” And sure enough, they put us all together in a nice seat. I planned all that.

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When Plans Fall Apart

Then we got to Seattle, and we had to get a rental car. So far, everything had gone according to plan. The drive there—I didn’t know where we were going to park the car—but I got there, the place was there. Everything was going according to plan. Then we get to the airport, and it’s time to get the rental car. I go, “Okay, I know where the rental car is.” I had to take this little shuttle in Seattle down to where the rental car place is. I get there, and they say, “We ain’t got no car.” I go, “What do you mean you ain’t got no car? I rented it.” They go, “No, you got the wrong location. You didn’t book one here at the airport. You booked one downtown Seattle.”

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I said, “Well, ain’t that a kick in the pants. So, what am I supposed to do? You got a car here I could just take down there? You’re dealing cars?” They said, “No, you have to figure that out on your own.” Lucky for us, they had what they call a light rail now that comes right from the airport and goes right downtown. So for six bucks—the whole family for six bucks—we were able to take the little train with all our bags downtown. Then we walked four blocks and got a car. When we got there, I said, “Hey, I’m here to pick up our Edge.” I think that’s what we got—a little SUV. I like to be a little high. I don’t like laying on the ground.

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They said, “We ain’t got that car.” “What do you mean you ain’t got that car? I rented that car.” He says, “No, we only got one car left.” “So, what do you got?” “Well, see that Prius over there?” I said, “Prius? I don’t want a golf cart. I want a real car.” I’d never driven a Prius before. I wouldn’t even know how to drive a Prius. But they said, “Oh no, it’s a good car.” I said, “Really? Is it a clean car?” He said, “Oh, it’s really clean. Nobody’s ever driven it.” “What do you mean nobody?” He said, “Only got 17 miles on it. Still had the sticker in the back.”

Man, I’ll tell you what—I fell in love with that car. I drove over the mountains, drove back over the mountains, drove like 500 miles, and still had a half a tank of gas. When I got done, I said, “You know, I better fill it up because it’s only got half a tank.” It took like $20 to fill the tank up in Seattle. I only put like five gallons in it. I thought, “Holy cow.”

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The Illusion of Control

And here’s the thing—I had made all my plans, right? Some of you might be like me. You make your plans and you're like, “My plans have to happen. I'm a control freak. I’ve got to control everything.” I even had a chart. I'm not kidding you. I had a chart with the codes and the numbers for the hotels. Everything was on there so I could say, “Oh, we are confirmation number this.” It was all worked out.

But what happens when your plan doesn’t come to fruition? What happens when you show up and there’s no car there, and you’re stuck at the airport and don’t know where you’re going to go? Do you freak out? Some people lose it. You’ve been to the airport and seen some guy—he’s a businessman, and he’s really important, or at least he thinks he’s important—and all of a sudden his flight is going to be five minutes late. And he’s losing it. Losing it over five minutes. Why is that? Think about that for a second. Why is he freaking out over five minutes? Why is he freaking out that the plane got delayed? It’s going to be another hour. Why is he freaking out?

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He’s freaking out because his perspective is all wrong in life. He believes he is in control. He believes he has control of these things. And now, all of a sudden, he’s realizing that he planned stuff, believed it would all go according to his sovereign will—and his sovereign will fell flat. Somebody else had a better plan and a different plan than he had. And he loses it. He thought he was God of his life. He thought he had control of the weather, control of all these things, and that he could make everything happen according to his plan. And then he would feel good about it. But it didn’t work out that way.

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When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan

When things don’t go the way you plan them—okay, just back up a little bit—this isn’t about me. This isn’t about the guy at the airport. This is about you and me. When things don’t go the way you plan them, how do you respond? Do you go sideways? Do you just not know what to do? And what does that say about planning?

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I have my phone here. In my phone, I put in all the appointments that I’ve got to do for a week. I put them all in there. Then it automatically syncs to my Outlook on my computer so I can keep track of them all. So I never miss the appointments—unless I don’t look at my phone or my computer, which sometimes happens. Everything syncs.

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Is that bad? Is it wrong that I’m planning? What about planning to retire? Is that anti-God? Can we not plan? So, I have my calendar. My day’s all planned out. I come into the office and start doing my stuff, and then Bob shows up. He comes in to talk to me for an hour. Then a problem comes up with the church insurance. Then I go to paint the handicapped parking spots, and it starts raining. Then I get inside the bus, and it needs to be cleaned—but it’s 105 degrees outside and humid. And you’re like, “Well, I can’t do that.”

And all of a sudden, my plans go sideways. Here’s what I want you to understand this morning: your plans and your life are not the same thing. They’re not the same thing. And James wants you to understand that this morning. James wants you to understand your plans and your life aren’t the same. If you think your plans and your life are the same, you’re going to be very, very unhappy in life.

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Humility and the Illusion of Control

This is building on what we talked about last week. What did we talk about? We talked about humility. James is honing in on this idea of being humble. Humility and pride are enemies of each other. If you think you’re in control of whether or not there’s going to be a car there when you get there, you are in trouble. If you think you’re in control of what the weather’s going to do tomorrow, you’re in trouble.

So, let’s watch what it says here. We’re going to finish up this chapter. “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?”—James 4:13–14

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Now, when James—or anyone—says, “Now listen,” what does that mean? Let’s say I come up to Cody and say, “Now listen.” You’re like, “Oh, he must have something he really wants to tell me.” It’s like, “Pay attention.” James has been explaining to us our need for humility. Last week, we found out that if we don’t humble ourselves, we end up judging people—judging them according to our own judgment.

Now James is going to stay on the same theme. He’s going to explain that because you aren’t God, you need to live as though you’re not in control of your life. You’re going to have to give up control of your life. You’re going to have to give up your plans—because only God is in control of your life. Why? Why is that?

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“Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life?”
—James 4:14

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That’s a really weird question. Think about that question just for a second: What is your life? Has anyone ever asked you that before? What James is really asking is: How do you view your life? How do you view it in terms of its stability, your control over it, and all that?

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Is It Wrong to Plan?

So, is it wrong to make plans? Is it wrong to have a daily schedule? Is it wrong to plan for retirement? Is it wrong to schedule out my trip to Seattle? No. It is not wrong to do that. But what’s missing in the verse?

“Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” —James 4:13

What’s missing in that whole thing? There’s no allowance for God to do anything in that. We’re in control of it. We are going to do this. We are convinced we’re going to go. We are going to get the car. We are going to drive here. We are going to do this. And that’s how it’s going to be. There’s no allowance for anything that would go outside of my control. I’m not allowing for there to be anything outside of my control. I think because I’ve planned it the way I have, that it’s going to go according to my plan. And if it doesn’t go according to my plan, I’m going to freak out, man.

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So, it’s not wrong to plan. What’s missing is God. This person is living and planning presumptuously. If I plan presumptuously—as if I’m in control of all the possible factors that are going to bring my plans to fruition—look what it says: “We will do this. We will carry on business. We will make money.”It’s very unwise to live your life this way because that view of life is a lie. Do you realize that? That’s a lie. If you live your life as though you’re in control of your life, you’re only fooling yourself. That is a lie. And lies come from the devil. The devil wants you to think you’re in control. And then you lose it when it goes bad. That was the same lie he convinced Adam and Eve of—that you can be in control of your destiny, right? Eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then you’ll be in control. You’ll have all the knowledge God has, right? He’s been peddling that same stuff ever since then.

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What Is Your Life?

James wants you to truly know what your life is. Any of you familiar with the movie The Matrix? Anybody ever watched that movie? You watched The Matrix—all of you saw The Matrix. I watched it when it came out, and I remember it was a weird movie. It just did some weird stuff to my head. I was like, “Man, am I living in the real world or am I not living in the real world?” The idea of the movie was that the people in The Matrix—the world—none of it was reality. It was all just a computer program, and people were actually just batteries to power the computer program. And this guy, Neo, he wants to find out: What is the reality of life?

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So, he’s got an option. He can take the red pill. If he takes the red pill, he goes down the rabbit hole and learns the truth about what his life really is. Or he can take the blue pill. If he takes the blue pill, then he gets to live in ignorance and just live happily ever after, not knowing the truth about life. And so, what I want us to do this morning is—I want us to take the red pill together. I want us to see truly what life is. I want us to see the reality of who we are as people, what our life is. And we’re going to do that by continuing on with James. He’s going to show us.

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“What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
—James 4:14

So, I got this little mister. Now, there’s a couple reasons for this. This is good for sermons—see, it has a mist there. And it’s got a fan. Gives a little mist. It’s also good if your wife has a lot of hot flashes, right? So that’s what this is for as well. But it’s a mist. “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” —James 4:14 What does that mean? You are a mist. Some versions of the Bible actually say you are vapor. I like that—you are vapor.

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You Are a Mist

So, what are the characteristics of mist—or vapor?  First of all, it means that your life is fragile and can be taken at any moment. I mean, look at it. Look at how fragile that is. How long does it last? Let’s count. I’m going to say on the count of three: one, two, three. One second. It’s gone. It was here—and it’s gone. You guys feel that? It feels good, doesn’t it? Oh yeah. Now I’ve got spots on my glasses. But it’s there for a second. It appears, and then it disappears. And there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

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That’s what I want you to understand. When this is going, and that mist goes, I can’t do anything to make it last longer. I can’t do anything to dissipate it faster. I can turn the fan on, and it does the same thing each time. I can say, “You know what? I’m going to try really hard, and I’m going to be in control of the mist.” Or I can try to contain it. That’s the way life is. James is telling you: when you go down the rabbit hole and you find the reality of life, you won’t live life unless you understand that it is vapor. It is here for a second. When we’re younger, we think we’re going to live forever, right? We think we’re going to last forever. I just lost a friend of mine—played Little League with him, went to high school together—lost him this week. Same age as me. Just like that. I didn’t know he was sick. I didn’t know anything. He just passed away. He didn’t know the week before that he was going to die. I don’t know if I’ve got the rest of the day. I don’t know—because I’m not in control of that. I don’t have control of that.

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You Are Not in Control

So, the first thing is: your life is fragile and can be taken at any moment. The second is this: you are not in control of your life. I don’t have control of the mist, right? I can’t make it stay longer. I can’t make it go faster. I can’t even direct it. Look—I’m going right into it, and I can’t even get it to go that way. I don’t have any control of it. You don’t have control of what’s going to happen in your life. You are not sovereign over life. You can’t control the mist. You observe it. I can affect it a little bit—like if I spray it there, a couple of things kind of go that way—but I don’t have control of it. I can’t put it in a box and save it for later. I can’t wrap it up. I can’t make it last longer.

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Why? Why can’t I do that? I’m going to let you all in on a hint—and this is probably the biggest thing you’ll learn in church or in seminary. I’m going to tell you the one thing that we all learn—well, most of us learn—in seminary.

There are two things we learn:

1. There is only one God.

2. You are not Him.

There is only one God, and you are not Him. You need to understand that. You don’t have control. And when we think we have control of our life—and we live that way, as if we have control—we are basically saying that we are God of our life. You can’t live that way.

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Life Will End—And That’s Not a Threat, It’s Reality

The third thing is this: your life will certainly come to an end. There is nothing I can do. When I spray this mist, there is no way to keep it going forever. I spray it—it’s going to end. And it’s not too long. Let’s count again. One, two, three. It’s gone. I don’t remember it. It might have made a little impact on somebody. But it’s gone. I just want you to get real about who you are. Get real about life. Get real about myself. And that’s what James says:

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“What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
—James 4:14

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If you don’t know when you’re going to die, or have control of how you will die, or what will happen on your business trip, or whether it will rain on your crops, or if the stock market will crash, or if bombs will drop on your house, or if rivers will flood and wipe you away—then why do you make your plans arrogantly and presumptuously like you can control anything? Why? The band Kansas—remember them? Dust in the Wind. “All we are is dust in the wind.”

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And James says we need to live in humility. This means living in the knowledge of our own frail mortality, of our own lack of true control over our lives today or our lives tomorrow. Our life is what God gives us. It’s a gift. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights.”
—James 1:17 So, we need to live in humble expectation that God will do whatever He wants in your life at any moment—and there is not a thing you can do about it.

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Living in Humble Expectation

So, we need to live in humble expectation that God will do whatever He wants in your life—and at any moment. And there is not a single thing you can do about it. That should take a little bit of burden off of you, right? Those of you that thought you were in control of your life, control of the whole world, control of everything—it takes a little bit of burden off. “Well, I guess I don’t have to control everything. I don’t have to be in control.” And I’m a bit of a control freak, right? I like to have control of stuff. But boy, there’s a real peace when you know that.

I’ll tell you what—when I got there and the car wasn’t where it was supposed to be, I expected something was not going to go according to plan. I expected that. I thought the car would be there, but when it wasn’t, I didn’t wig out and lose myself. Because I was like, “You know what? It’s a problem. And I don’t have control of it. But I know who does.” I know who is in control of it. God’s not going to abandon us out here in the middle of Seattle with all the people tweaking around and walking down the street. God’s not going to leave us there, right? We’re going to be all right.

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It’s not like there’s no way. And it’s not like I’m the only person in the world that’s ever gotten stranded at the airport and didn’t have a car. Am I that important that, “Oh my goodness, I’m the only person this has ever happened to”? No. Come on, man. God’s got it. And the car was there. I just had to work around a little bit. Don’t wig out over it. You know, if things don’t go according to plan, then maybe your plan wasn’t that great. Maybe your plan wasn’t that great.

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God Is in Control—Even When You’re Not

It also means living in full knowledge that we are not in control of our own life. But listen—our life is not out of control. Even though I’m not in control of my life, that doesn’t mean my life is out of control. There’s a difference.

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If your life is out of control, that’s bad. But even if you’re not in control of your life, that doesn’t mean your life is out of control. It might feel like it’s out of control to you—because you’re not in control of it—but if you trust God, and you say, “Well, God, You’re in control of it,” then you can rest and say, “I don’t feel out of control now, because I know that God is in control of this whole thing.” I expected that something along the way in my plans to Seattle wasn’t going to go as planned. But I knew that when things went sideways, I was walking with the One who was in control of it—and He had a better plan.

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So, this concept of humbly accepting our limited knowledge and power over future things—instead of being able to know and control our future—that’s a deeply spiritual issue. I don’t know if you know that. This idea of us wanting to control the future, wanting to know the future, wanting to be able to control it—that is a very serious issue. It’s part of the devil’s plan.

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The devil is always wanting you to take control of your future. It’s the reason why things like palm reading, Ouija boards, tarot cards, crystal balls, horoscopes, astrology, crystals—all that stuff—it’s demonic. Because it’s the devil trying to say, “Listen, you take control of these future things. You need to know your future. You can have control of it if you have these things.” That’s the reason why.

So don’t try to usurp God’s knowledge and sovereignty over your life. That’s what they tried to do in the garden. They said, “Well, God has this knowledge, and we want that knowledge too.” Well, it’s not your knowledge to have. You’re supposed to be submissive.

Jesus on Planning and Control

So, it’s the heart and the attitude that’s important here. Let’s look at Luke chapter 12. It’s the same thing. Jesus is telling a story—a parable—in the Bible:

“And he told them this parable: ‘The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, “What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.” Then he said, “This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.’” —Luke 12:16–21

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See, it’s not saying that you can’t store for yourself. The problem is that you’re not storing with this richness toward God—understanding that God is in control of all this. Right? He’s clarifying that. So, humility means knowing that God is sovereign and we are not. God is in control, and you are not. And being willing to sit and rest in that. Can you rest in the knowledge: “I don’t like what’s going on, but I know it’s okay. I had a plan, and my plan is not going the way I thought—but I’m okay, because I trust God. I love Him. He loves me?”

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Boasting in Arrogant Schemes

It finishes off this way: “As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.” —James 4:16

I like how he says that. When you’re making plans for yourself and you don’t allow for God, he calls it an arrogant scheme. That’s what it is—an arrogant scheme. And all such boasting is evil. Then it finishes up with this:

“If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” —James 4:17

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You’re like, “What does that mean? How’s that related to what we were just talking about?” Well, it relates because Jesus taught that when we don’t do something we know is right—that’s sin. And James is applying it to this particular purpose: if you don’t take what James is saying, and you still continue to plan and leave God out of it—that’s sin. If you don’t humble yourself—that’s sin. This idea of sin by omission—sin by not doing something—that’s common in Scripture.

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For example, the Good Samaritan. The sin is that there was somebody who needed help, and these religious people didn’t help him. It wasn’t that they did specific harm to him—they just didn’t help. And because they didn’t help, that was the sin. Or think about the wicked servant who was given one talent. He was supposed to use the talent he had to bring forth more. But instead, he just did nothing. He buried the talent and said, “I knew you were a hard man.” That was wicked. Why? Because he didn’t do what he should have done.

Take the Red Pill: Trust the One Who Is in Control

So here we go. If you don’t humble yourself—and you’re here at Sunrise with a sin nature like me, ever since birth—then you’ll end up becoming prideful. And you’ll start planning without God. You’ll try to reign and control over your own life.

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But I want you to understand: that’s a lie. That’s all fiction. The idea that you had any control ever in the first place—take the red pill and understand that’s all fiction. If you want to take the blue pill and believe that you’re in control, you can do that. And you can live blissfully—until something doesn’t go according to your sovereign plan. But if you really want to be happy, and you want to live, then you’re going to surrender and say: “God, I know I’m not in control. But I trust the One who is. And I’m cool with that.” Humility leads to the right perspective on life. The right perspective on God. The right perspective on others.

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Closing Prayer

Let’s pray, God, You tell us we’re supposed to order our life. We talked about that last time—we should keep our life ordered. “Seek ye first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these other things will be added unto you.” And God, we’re ordering our life right here too. We’re ordering who has control of our life and recognizing that we are not at the top of that food chain. You are at the top of that—as far as who’s in control of our life. We control some things. We work hard. But God, it can be usurped by You anytime, because You’re at the top. You’re in charge. And my will is in submission to Your will.

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So, when things don’t go according to my plan, I’m okay with it. I’m going to be okay with it, God, because I know You’re in control—and Your ways are better. God, we trust You. Bring this to fruition in our lives as we walk through this week and we make plans—and then things don’t go according to plans. Somebody gets sick. Things go as we didn’t expect. In fact, God, bring an overwhelming peace over us as we trust in the One who is in control of all things. We pray that in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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