I Can Predict Your Future (And So Can You)

Written By Ben Hightower

I Can Predict Your Future

‍I don't know if you know this or not, but I can predict the future. I'm serious. I can't tell you who's winning the Super Bowl or who the next President will be, but there's a lot in life I actually can predict. Don’t believe me? If you plant black-eyed peas, I can predict with a high degree of certainty that you'll be harvesting black-eyed peas. It's pretty easy to predict the future on some things. You can do it, too.

Here's how: ask two questions about somebody. What do they want? And more importantly, what are they willing to do to get it? I listen to a lot of personal finance podcasts, and you see it there constantly. A firefighter making $35,000 a year, is debt-free, and is prepared for retirement. A doctor making $300,000 a year is headed for bankruptcy. Why? Not becuase of what they want, they might want the same thing. Because of what they’re doing to get it. If the answer is “anything”, then they’ll have a disaster. If the answer is, “anything that I can afford and still keep my priorities”, they’ll be fine. It doesn’t matter how much money they make, what they doing to get what they want predicts the future.

‍We're looking at the book of James, and we're in James chapter 4. James is wrapping up this letter, and he talks about this idea: you say you're following Jesus, but you're still living like you're not. You still have the same goals and priorities you had before. You're still chasing the same things, in the same way. And that's causing problems.

Specifically in these verses, he says that if you’re willing to do the same things you were willing to do before you started following Jesus, then your life will be a disaster.‍ ‍

The War Within You

"What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." (James 4:1-3)

‍What's causing your problems? Look at the disagreements you have with people, the money problems, the relationship problems, whatever fights you're having in your life. James says he can tell you the source of most of your problems: there's a war going on inside of you. You've been saved, you've trusted in Jesus, you've been made new, but you're still living like you haven't.

‍You still have the same goals and priorities you had before. You're still chasing the things you chased before, or chasing them in the same way. And it's causing a struggle. It's always going to cause a struggle when you're playing one game but using the rules of another.

‍James talks about this several times throughout the book. He talks about being double-minded, which means being inconsistent. All over the place with your decisions, all over the place with your priorities. And that's the majority of your problems.

Now maybe you've got a problem you didn't have anything to do with. Maybe you've got cancer. Maybe your company closed down. But if you look at most of your struggles, they're caused by you trying to get something in a way Jesus told you not to, or somebody else in your life doing the same, and that's caused ripple effects.

‍You're probably not murdering anybody. But look at the extreme end: why do people murder each other? Because they want something. They want revenge, they want to remove somebody from their life, they want some sick pleasure. It's because they want something, and they're not pursuing it the way Jesus said to.

‍You may not have made it to the extreme, but the problems in your life are largely caused by what you want and what you're doing to try to get it. You chase whatever you have to chase, break whatever rules you have to break, cross whatever boundaries you have to cross to get it. It's as predictable as planting black-eyed peas and knowing there's going to be a harvest of black-eyed peas. When you sow disobedience to Jesus, when you cross the boundaries he's set to get what you want, you're going to sow trouble for your life.‍ ‍

Just Ask

‍"Which one of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him." (Matthew 7:9-11)

‍But there's another option: you do not have, because you do not ask. We treat it like the only way to get what we want is to go grab it ourselves. But Jesus talked about this constantly. Ask for what you want. Seek it. There's a caveat, though: it only works if you're following him. You either want something and you'll do anything to get it, boundaries be damned, and that road causes you nothing but problems. Or you say, I'm chasing Jesus, and if I can't get this while following him, it's off the table.

‍Some of us aren't asking at all, we're just grabbing. Others of us are asking, but still grabbing on the side, treating God like a vending machine. Neither works. The real question isn't just "did you ask," it's what do you want and what are you willing to do to get it. Chase it your way, and it'll cost you. Stay inside the boundaries Jesus sets, get what you can while doing that, and ask for the rest, and God is more than willing to give, because your attitude and your ask are both right. That doesn't guarantee a yes. But it means he's open.

‍My wife and I got married at 20, both still in school, and we learned to be poor for a lot of years. I quit jobs with nothing lined up because I knew it's what Jesus wanted. We chose ministry with no guaranteed salary, twice. We chose homeschooling. Pastors don't make much money, and we were genuinely poor. I prayed for fifteen years straight, just give us some money, Lord. And I'd read the promise, ask and you'll be given, and think, I've been asking. It was only looking back that I saw what he was actually doing. He gave us enough to survive every month, and then more for the things we actually cared about, things we couldn't even recognize as gifts at the time. He made us mature in a way we wouldn't have been otherwise. God has all the money he needs to take care of us. He doesn't need it in my bank account. For as long as money would have been bad for me, he didn't give it to me. He just took care of me instead. And the moment we were mature enough to handle it, there was money there.

God may tell you no. He never says no unless it's for your good, and even then he still takes care of you, just maybe not the way you pictured. So ask. There's a good chance he'll say yes. And if he doesn't, you can trust it's because he loves you.

What You're Really Chasing

You've got two options, and I can predict your future based on which one you pick. Chase whatever you want by whatever means, and you're sowing trouble and disaster. Follow Jesus, stay inside his boundaries, ask for the rest, and trust that he loves you, and that sows peace, contentment, maturity.

So. what are you actually chasing? Usually it's not the money itself, it's what you think money buys: safety, comfort, status. You want safety because you grew up not knowing where the next meal was coming from. You want comfort because you don't feel good and think more stuff will fix it. You want status because you were the unpopular kid and think money buys acceptance. And it works, for a minute. Then the emergency fund isn't big enough, the stuff isn't enough, because somebody always has more. You chase it and chase it, and you turn around and see a trail of broken relationships and broken marriages behind you, and you still don't have what you wanted.

Here's the thing: everything you're chasing money to get, you can find in Jesus, except better. What makes you safer, a six-month emergency fund, or the one who created the universe meeting your needs? That doesn't mean tornadoes won't come or you won't get cancer. It means that no matter what happens, you are safe. You're trying to find that in money, and it's not going to work, and it leaves a trail of destruction behind it. But it's available to you in him.

How to Actually Fight Sin

"But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.' Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." (James 4:6-8)

How do I fix this? How do I beat sin? We generally talk about it like brute force: just don't do it. But that doesn't work very well. James lays out four things here, and only one of them has anything to do with you choosing not to sin.

Number one, humble yourself. Recognize your sin. You did this, you chose this, you messed this up. He is not to blame. You are not Job. Be real about the problem. The way you can predict whether somebody's going to recover from something is whether they admit they've messed up or not. The ones who say, I need help, I am broken, I don't know what to do, those are the ones who can recover. Same thing with your sin. When you humble yourself and say, I don't deserve help, but dear Lord, I need it, that's the first step to beating this.

The second thing is to submit yourself to God. Not focused on I'm not going to sin anymore, but focused on I'm going to obey Jesus. What is Jesus telling me to do? How is Jesus telling me to live? I'm going to do those things.

The third thing is to resist the devil. What are the temptations in your life? What are the triggers that set you off? You know yourself, I don't. But you do. If it's money, defeat the hold money has over you. Get a budget. One of the most spiritual things you can do is tell your money what to do, because if you don't, it will tell you what to do. Give it away. Identify the triggers leading you into that behavior and stay away from them. Get some help. Talk to me, talk to Tyler, talk to your deacon. There are people here to help you.

And finally, draw near to God. Spend time with him. Get in the word. Get in prayer. Do what you can to pull near to God.

The way to defeat sin is not brute force. It's by chasing Jesus, by spending as much time as you can with God, by letting him change you and sanctify you, and then not even resisting the temptation in the first place. Everybody wants to get in the middle of the temptation and fight it. That's not how you do this. You stay away from it, because if you're tempted in that situation, you're going to give in. Most of defeating sin in your life is about pursuing Jesus, about having a right relationship with him.

What's Stopping You

So which is better, a life of destruction chasing what you want, or following Jesus and getting eternal rewards and what you want? Obviously the second one. And yet we don't do it. Why?

Maybe you don't actually believe. Maybe you haven't trusted Jesus, and what you need is to recognize you're a sinner headed for hell, separated from God, who needs to accept the forgiveness he's offering. Maybe you believe, but you don't trust him with the real world, only with eternity. You trust him for heaven but not for Monday morning.

But, here's the most common reason: we're afraid he'll say no. So we don't ask. I planted a church in Columbia, Missouri, and begged God every day to send us people. He did, just not as many as I wanted. I was so obsessed with what he wasn't giving me that I missed the people he did give me. I was so upset about the “No” that I didn't see all the “Yeses”. The nos are good for you, and there are a lot more yeses than nos.

What do you want, and what are you willing to do to get it? Chase it your own way, and I can predict your future: hard, broken relationships, broken dreams, and you still won't get it. Follow Jesus and let him say no when he needs to, and I can predict that future too: content, mature, strong. C.S. Lewis said we're like kids playing in a mud puddle while our Father is trying to drag us to the beach to play in the ocean. What we want sounds great. What he has for us is so much better.

This message continues our series in the book of James. Catch up on the previous sermon "Friendship with the World: Are You Playing the Wrong Game?".

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