James 4:7 10 INTRODUCTION The Holy Spirit imparted to genuine believers in the Lord Jesus Christ at conversion enviously yearns for the Christian s total love, total loyalty, total devotion, total obedience and total faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ and He will give them the grace to do it. Yet many of James readers are Christians who had been lured away from complete devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ by the seduction of Satan, the unsaved people living around them and their own sin nature. So James says in James 4:5b-10, the spirit He caused to live in us envies intensely? But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4:7, Submit yourselves, then, to God EXPLANATION The word submit is a military term that means get into your proper rank. In this situation it means to yield to God s leadership. Give in to God s plan and desires for your life. God is the potter and we are the clay. He is our Father and we are God s children. He is our Shepherd and we are the sheep of His pasture. He is our Lord, we are His servants. Therefore we are to honor Him, by humbling ourselves and voluntarily submitting to His leadership and obeying His commands in all things and at all times. We are to honor Him by accepting and doing His will for our lives rather than living to please our own desires. This is how Jesus lived His life on earth. Jesus said: John 5:30b,... I seek not to please myself but Him who sent me. John 6:38, I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. John 8:29, the one who sent me is with me; be has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases Him. In the Garden of Gethsemane the night He was betrayed Jesus prayed in Luke 22:42, Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done. ILLUSTRATION A visitor once saw the shepherds in Nazareth as they were bringing their flocks to water them at the well. The flocks intermingled as they satisfied their thirst with the water, but when a shepherd called only His sheep left the intermingled flock and followed him. The visitor asked the shepherds if the sheep always followed only their shepherd when he called them, Yes, said a shepherd, except under one condition. What is that? asked the visitor. The shepherd answered, The sheep do not follow only the voice of their shepherd when they are sick. If a sheep is healthy, it will always follow only their shepherd, but if there is something wrong with the Sermon 17 May 2015 James 4:7-10 Page 1
sheep it will follow anybody. Jesus said in John 10:27, My sheep listen to my voice: I know them, and they follow me. APPLICATION How well are you following your Heavenly Father, your shepherd and your Master? Do you honor Him, by humbling yourself and voluntarily submit to His leadership and obey His commands in all things and at all times? Or are you spiritually sick and following the calls of Satan, the unsaved people around you and your sin nature rather than the commands of God? Are you praying, Your will be done. or My will be done. Submission to God, involves two actions; resisting Satan, and drawing near God. James 4:7b-8a, Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. EXPLANATION As we try to follow God s leadership and obey His commands, Satan is continually trying to get us to rebel against God s leadership and commands. He appeals to our selfishness and pride. He tells us: Your Heavenly Father doesn t know or doesn t want what is best for you. I know a better way to live than God does. He says, Following your Shepherd isn t any fun! Why not follow me, I ll let you go where you want to go and do what you want to do? He tells us, Following God is boring why not fellow me, I ll bring some excitement into your life. Your Master can t be trusted to do what s best for you. Think for yourself, be your own master and follow me. When Satan makes His appeal to us to rebel against God s leadership and commands, we are to resist him. And James says that if we resist Satan we will be victorious over his appeals. James 4:7b, Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. If we take a stand against Satan, the Almighty God who indwells us through the Holy Spirit will fight on our behalf until Satan flees from us. This is a fact, for the Gospels and Acts are filled with examples of Satan and his evil demons fleeing before Christ and His followers. Luke 10:17, the seventy two (disciples who Jesus sent out to preach) returned with joy and said, Lord even the demons submit to your name. We can resist Satan s temptations because we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who will fight on our behalf. 1 John 4:4 says,... the one who lives in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 1 John 5:18 adds, We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God (Jesus) keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him. However, it s not enough to resist the devil. We must draw near to God and remain in close communion with Him so that Satan will never be successful in his attacks against us. Sermon 17 May 2015 James 4:7-10 Page 2
James 4:8 says, Come near to God and He will come near to you. If a Christian takes the step of faith and comes close to God, God will come close to Him. As believers we can come close to God at any time. Hebrews 4:16, Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. ILLUSTRATION Dwight L. Moody said that one of the happiest men he ever knew was a man in Dundee, Scotland. This man had fallen and broken his back when he was 15 years old. As a result he had been bed ridden for forty years and could not move or be moved without suffering a great amount of pain. Not one day had passed in those 40 years when this man did not suffer from acute pain. But day after day the grace of God bad granted him peace and joy. When Mr. Moody was in this man s house he was amazed at his peace and joy, his lack of anger and bitterness, so he asked him, Doesn t Satan ever tempt you to doubt God and to think that He is a cruel and hard master? Oh, yes, he said, Satan does try to tempt me. I lie here and see my old schoolmates driving along, and Satan says, If God is so good, why has He kept you bed ridden and in pain all these years? You might have been a rich man, riding in your carriage. Then I see a man, who was young when I was, walk by in perfect health, and Satan whispers, If God loved you, couldn t He have kept your from breaking your neck? Then Mr. Moody said, And what do you do when Satan tempts you. The man said, Oh I just take him to Calvary, and I show him the Lord Jesus Christ, and I point out those wounds in His hands, His feet and His side, and say, doesn t God love me? And the fact is Satan got such a scare at the cross 1900 years ago that he cannot stand it. He leaves me every time. APPLICATION Are you alert to Satan s strategy? Do you know your weak areas where he will attack? Do you resist him? Are you drawing near to God through prayer, Bible reading, confession of sin, and church participation? If you resist the devil, he will flee from you. If you come near to God, He will come near to you. The first evidence of true desire to draw near to God is deep sorrow for sin. James 4:8b, Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. EXPLANATION James calls these Christians double-minded. In other words they are trying to serve two masters, the world, Satan, the unsaved people around them, their sinful desires and God. Trying to serve the world and God or our sinful desires and God at the same time is like trying to go North and south at the same time. It s impossible. The double minded Christian can never be close to God. Jesus said in Matthew 6:24, No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other... Sermon 17 May 2015 James 4:7-10 Page 3
So James is saying to these Christians who are trying to serve two masters the world, Satan, the unsaved people around them, their sinful desires and God that it cannot be done. James is saying that If you are going to draw near to a holy God and enjoy fellowship with Him, you must repent and serve Him wholeheartedly. James says, Cleanse your hands which could be rendered, Repent of all outward sinful acts which are known to yourself and others. But repenting of all outward sinful acts is not enough. James says, Purify your hearts. or Repent of all the sinful thoughts which are in the heart repent from sins that no one knows about but you and God. We may work very hard to have clean hands because the world can see those, but we may tolerate and entertain sin in our hearts because no one can see into our hearts. ILLUSTRATION Dr. Robert E. Speer tells the story of an old sculptor who was cutting a statue that was going to stand in a little niche in the wall, so its back would never be seen, yet this old sculptor was working with the same pains taking care on the back of the statue as on the front of the statue. Someone asked him, Why are you working on the back of that figure? No one will see it. Ah replied the sculptor, God will always be looking upon it. The sinful thoughts which are in our hearts, which no person sees are not hidden from God s eyes. 1 Samuel 16:7, Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks upon the heart. How can believers cleanse their hands and purify their hearts? By confessing their sins. 1 John 1:8-10, If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. True repentance means that we forsake the things that are wrong and turn to the things that are right. If we are confessing a sin while at the same time planning to do it again, it is not true repentance. ILLUSTRATION THE TAX COLLECTOR - He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. (Luke 18:13) ZACCHEUS - If I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount. (Luke 19:8) APPLICATION Are you single-minded in your desire to obey God? Or are you double-minded, trying to please the unsaved people around you, your sinful desire and God at the same time? Do you confess your sins while you are planning to sin again or do you confess your sins with a desire to forsake them? How quickly do you repent? Are you as concerned about your secret sins as you are your public ones? THEME - GOD WANTS OUR SINCERE OBEDIENCE. Sermon 17 May 2015 James 4:7-10 Page 4
James 4:9, Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. EXPLANATION James is saying that outward sins and sins in the mind should destroy a Christian s attitude of carefree indifference. The laughter he rebukes is the flippant laughter of careless unconcern about sin. A Christian should not laugh and joke about the unconquered sin in their lives. The unconquered sin in a Christian s life should make them feel miserable because they have failed to please their Heavenly Father, their Shepherd, their Master. Repentance and grief go together. Paul said in Romans 7:18b-24,... I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do this I keep on doing.... What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. David said in Psalm 38:4-8, My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly. I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning. My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body. I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart. James is not saying that a Christian should dress in black clothing, walk around with a somber face, and preach gloom and doom. A Christian ought to be happy in the Lord, thankful for the gift of salvation, and obedient in doing the will of God. But when the Christian has fallen into sin, the repentant Christian feels like a failure. After Peter denied Jesus three times the scriptures tell us that he went outside and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:62) APPLICATION How do you feel after you sin? Miserable? Or carefree? Have you lost the sense of sorrowing over your sins? James 4:10, Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. EXPLANATION Humbling yourself before God means that, as a sinner who has been bought out of the slave market of sin with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ by God s love, grace and mercy, you acknowledge that God as your Heavenly Father, your Shepherd, your Savior, your Master deserves your wholehearted love, loyalty, devotion, obedience and faithfulness and you submit your will to His. James says that if we submit our personal desires to the will of God, and take the humble path of Christian service in the community God will exalt us. In other words, God will confer on us a position of privilege in the future kingdom of God. Philippians 2:5-11, Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross! Sermon 17 May 2015 James 4:7-10 Page 5
Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. APPLICATION Are you humble before God? Do you acknowledge that He deserves your wholehearted love and service? Do you submit your personal desires to the will of God? Is your life characterized by humility or pride? Are you able to consider others better than yourself? Are you able to look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others? James 4:7-10, Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. We have a choice. We can voluntarily submit ourselves to God now and receive salvation and blessing or we can wait until God makes everyone submit to His leadership on Judgment Day. We have a choice forgiveness today or judgment later. Sermon 17 May 2015 James 4:7-10 Page 6