Untitled Sermon

to james chapter 4 james chapter 4 james chapter 4 we're going to look again at the first 10 verses james says in verse 1 what causes fights and quarrels among you don't they come from your desires that battle within you you want something but don't get it you kill and covet but you cannot have what you want you quarrel and fight and do not have because you do not ask god and when you ask you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures you adulterous people don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward god anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of god or do you think

the scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely but he gives us more grace that is why the 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 minds grieve and mourn and wail change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom humble yourselves before the lord and he will lift you up now some of you may be here this morning and it's been the first time that you're here or you haven't been here for a while and it's palm sunday and

you're thinking well i thought this was going to be a palm sunday message well it is it's a message on palm sunday ann and i had the privilege of being in israel back in 1989 and being on the mount of olives and coming down the mountain of olives and being on the mountain of olives down the palm sunday road it's a steep road and coming to the garden of gethsemane and then going and crossing the kidron valley and the kidron brook and coming on up into the city of jerusalem we had that privilege that blessing just as jesus did as we celebrate that symbolically today as he did that 2 000 years ago as he was coming into jerusalem for that last week of his life we got

to be there and walk down that road and let me tell you it is electrifying it's amazing to be in israel and really while you're there you really don't think about all of the uh the uprising and everything that's going on the intifada was going on while we were there and you see signs of it but you're really not in the midst of it but you feel and sense the power of god in that land and you you realize that you are where jesus walked and where all of the patriarchs were and the land seemingly bubbles with intensity and excitement it's it's an amazing thing an awesome thing and if the lord tarries and you have a chance i encourage you to go but as as much emotion as was there as much as you

feel that as you're walking down the palm sunday road if it if it's just that if it's just an experience if it's just something you experienced here but it didn't get to hear if it's just something that you that you saw with your eyes and you process with your mind but it didn't come to your heart and transform your life then it means absolutely nothing and so to talk to you this morning about palm sunday about that event is not absolutely necessary because anything we talk about in the word of god relates to the word of god and the word of god relates to the word of god relates to that event and if it doesn't end up transforming your heart then it's worthless anyhow and that's what james is talking about that's why it's exciting to me to be in james

at this time of year because james is talking about the workings of faith the reality of faith working itself out in our lives and and us seeing that for ourselves and affirming to ourselves that that yes my faith in jesus christ is real because i see the transformation i see the workings of faith in my own life in chapter one again remember he said that's revealed through the trials through the times of squeezing what comes out when you're squeezed does jesus ooze out or does that flesh continue to ooze out this personal desire the workings of faith should be transforming us where we see in those diverse different kinds of trials we see the lord working in our lives and we

see a hunger and a need for him that's demonstrated when we go into those trials chapter two it's revealed in our relationships with each other we have a stronger desire we may be scared to death of people but there's a desire to relate with other brothers and sisters to begin to fellowship with one another to begin to endure each other and bear with each other's burdens and bear with each other as we come into conflict with each other and carry one another through those times impartially doesn't make any difference who it is in the fellowships there's just a desire to relate with one another and fellowship together if indeed our faith is genuine and real chapter three we see that our tongues evidence

our faith our tongues will evidence the workings of faith in our lives we can't come here and praise god and read his word and say yay and amen and go out there and act like the world anymore and say the things that the world says in condemning ways or or in ways of of defilement and debauchery it doesn't work anymore we can't do that if the workings of faith are genuine in our lives if we have really come to christ our tongues will evidence that and we will be dispensers chapter three of one of two wisdoms either the wisdom of the world or the wisdom of god it will be evidence in our lives then we come to chapter four and we see that the workings of faith will

will be causing us to release our hold on the world if god is really at work within our hearts through christ if jesus is really a part of our lives then he will be causing us to be releasing our hold on the world we will be seeing a difference between the things of the world and the things of God. It will be becoming more real to you that for me to live is Christ. My goals are now centered more on the things of Christ. It's not that we don't, it's not that we're not involved in the world. It's not that we're not, we work and we go to school and we have goals, but those goals are

now flexible in the hands of a sovereign God who's working in our heart. Lord, do you want me to go to this school and get this degree and pursue this job for me to live as Christ? So I want to be about your business wherever you want me. Do you want me as I have to change jobs? Do you want me here? I mean, this one pays a nice salary, but maybe you want me here. Which one do you want me

at, Lord? You see, for me to live as Christ. If that's not the case, there's probably not the transformation. If I'm still hanging on to the world, if I'm still trying to obtain, trying to get, and my goal is to get and to gain and to get financially comfortable towards retirement, then I've lost the scope of what I've been called for. God definitely does meet our need. He will,

as we trust him and let him, he does. The world is consumed with that. Are we following the ways of the world? Are we releasing our hold on the world and more and more surrendering every part of our life to the Lord? That's what James is asking. That's what he's not asking. That's what James is demonstrating for us as we come into chapter four. And one of the things he shows us

as we began last week, he shows us how we can be a part of the world. And he shows us how we can be a part of the world. And one of the things he shows us as we begin last week in the first six verses is that we are involved in wars. One of the evidences of, of our still having a hold on this world is the warring that goes on in our lives. We are at, first of all, he says in verse one,

at war with each other. There are conflicts, personal conflicts that happen with us. We desire to have that covetousness that we saw in chapter three, that desiring to gain for self, selfish ambition, again, in chapter three, we want, we can't have and so there's there's a conflict that develops among us now in the world we're going to have conflicts and james has already talked to us about that and in chapters one and two about the relating to one another and the desire or the need to bear with each other but james is now telling us the this same thing again in chapter four and that's let's go a little aside here and do a little parenthesis because i'll say this again many of you have been here for

a long time and and know this principle but some of you haven't and i just want to say it over and over again until you get it god simply says the same thing in his word over and over and over but he says it in different ways just like a good teacher does hopefully turning the the picture this way and that until his students get it god said everything he needed to say in the first three chapters of genesis and since then he's been saying the same thing over and over and over turning it a different way just like you would a hologram a picture so that you can see all the different sides and see how it begins to fit together so that hopefully sometime along in your walk you'll be able to go click oh yeah i see how that works he's already

talked to us about relationships several places even in james now he's talking to us about him again and he's wanting us to see how relationships can can cause conflicts and we're to bear with each other through those conflicts but he he says why why do you war you have conflicts with each other well then he tells us a little bit further down the next couple verses it's because of the lusts within of the we war within ourselves we have desires that war within ourselves we have desires that war within us we want and can't have we're we're our flesh is at war with the spirit paul says in galatians chapter 5 it wars with our spirit see the same thing telling us the same thing

in a different way in a different place we're at war within ourselves and then james tells us a little further down here the reason we're at war within ourselves is because we're at war with god we're at war with god being at war with god is what causes internal conflict is what manifests itself externally so when we have conflicts with each other it's because we've got a conflict inside and ultimately it's a conflict between us and we're at war with god and we're at war with god with the lord now again a reminder this is written to believers it's not written to non-believers it's written to believers so it's talking about believers who war with god maybe that's a new

concept maybe you've always thought i've been saved i've come to christ i once was at enmity with god but he's put away the enmity because of his the blood of his son that was shed that's true as far as relationship is concerned not as far as fellowship is concerned if you've come to christ and his blood has covered you then you are no longer at war with god as far as relationship is concerned you are his brother and you are his brother and you are his brother and you are his child but there are ways every day that we can war with him and it disturbs and destroys our fellowship with him as believers we need to realize that and and james tells us that the ways that we war with god are by befriending his enemies by fraternizing with god's enemies and

james points out those are the world the flesh and the devil paul's pointed that out john points that out in his epistles jude mentions it as you go through jude and find the ways that the the false teachers are coming in they all mention it it's the same thing said in a little bit different way so that hopefully we understand it now the world is in direct opposition to god the father we saw that last week the world is in direct opposition of god the father because god the father says i am the only one that can satisfy you i am the only one that can provide the satisfaction that you need the world offers an alternative offers a counterfeit alternative and people try to find satisfaction in the things of the world drugs

sex alcohol finances property whatever they try and find it there and so the world is in direct opposition to god the father the flesh is in direct opposition to god the holy spirit god the holy spirit has been sent by christ to us to guide us to lead us into all truth so that we might follow him in the directions that god is leading us as we are on our journey towards him the flesh and all of its desires lusts and seeks to take that away from the spirit and guide us into things that will satisfy our our fleshly desires and the devil is directly opposed to god the son jesus has provided for us blessings through the cross blessings through his atoning work on the cross and if we look to him we draw from him his grace and his mercy that's sufficient

for us and the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms that paul talks about in ephesians those are available to us but satan the devil wants to deceive us to minimize the work of the cross so that we trust in ourselves so that we try and do everything ourselves so that we depend upon ourselves and our own skills and our own abilities and our own intuition and our own strength to do things denying the power of god that's given to us through the son so those are the three main enemies of god those are the the things that we befriend and cause us to be at war with god that was last week okay now i want to give you four ways to resist those enemies that james gives us here in these verses in verses six through ten but first of all i want us to to

stop for just a minute on verse six because last week i asked that during the course of this week you meditate on verse six and that you ask god to open unto you the truth that's found in verse six look at that with me if you would we'll go back to verse five just a second james says or do you think the scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely now you can read that in king james the new american standard and you get several different renderings of that because it's a hard verse to translate we talked about that last week it can it can mean one of two things the spirit that he gave can be one of two either the spirit

of life that he gives to us our spirit that dwells within us or the holy spirit that lives within us either way it really doesn't make any difference god is jealous over us he desires that our spirit and all that we are is yielded to him or the holy spirit that's within us desires that all of us is yielded to that control and authority of the holy spirit his leading and guiding either way it means the same thing the emphasis is on the fact that god is jealous over us where that's concerned because he knows and it's a righteous jealousy it's the only jealousy in the world that's righteous is god because he knows the destruction that comes when we move outside of

what he's prepared for us when when we move outside of his blessing when we refuse him when we when we as believers when we turn our backs and go after the the world or the flesh or the devil he knows the destruction that awaits and so he's jealous over us because of that now we go into verse six and it says but he gives more grace that's why the scripture says god opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble now there's a major contrast there that i want you to see in verse six major contrast and it helps with the understanding of the rest of james god gives more grace in the one sense but god opposes the proud in the other sense i want you to i want you to

catch this i want you to see the meaning in this god gives more grace he just told us about the enemies of god the world and the flesh and the devil he's jealous over us he wants us to yield to him in all these areas that we're struggling against where the world the flesh and the devil are concerned he knows they're a struggle when these new believers come into this fellowship after this crusade you don't make it a rosy picture for them okay you tell them the truth about your relationship with jesus christ that it's an awesome relationship that he is an awesome god that he's a god of love that he will carry that he will defend that he will uphold that he will support but you don't rose over the picture as far as the walk is

concerned it's a battle it's a struggle it's an agonizing day by day conflict with the enemy you don't minimize that at all to a new believer you tell them about the struggle that's involved but you also tell them as james is telling us that as we stand against the world and the flesh and the devil god gives more grace see what is grace somebody give me the acronym of grace g-r-a-c-e what have we learned it as god's riches at christ's expense what does that mean what does that involve what are god's riches what do they involve you go to ephesians chapter one everything in the heavenly realm and you look at what's been given to us through christ and in ephesians chapter one and i don't know about you but i have to read that over and over just

to kind of sort of understand what those things are but it has everything to do with god's glory and his radiance and that's important in a few verses here his glory and his radiance and and everything that he is he's given to his son as an inheritance and when we come to christ he gives it to us as well we share in that inheritance it's god's riches that he's given to his son that he pours out to us at christ's expense that involves his glory that involves his mercy that involves his love that involves his peace it involves the power of his holy spirit it involves the magnitude of everything that god is that he can reveal to us that we can begin to comprehend all of that's available to us by his grace that's what grace is

as you and i struggle against the world and we take those stands against its pull and against the flesh and we seek to keep our eyes on the lord and walk after him and the devil who seeks to deceive us from what christ has given us as we take a stand against that god gives us more grace that's what he says here more a greater realization of the resources available he gives us more of that i want you to understand that because in the contrast he says as we befriend these enemies as we give in to the pull of the world and make our goals the things of the world as we give into the pull of the flesh and we follow those desires and we've see it's it's one of those things where you know what god wants you to do and you say i don't care i'm going over here

as we give into that god withholds that grace god holds back that grace and he will allow an individual to go his own way headlong and experience failure and run into walls and fall flat on his face and get hurt sometimes and die sometimes as a result of that disobedience is there is there anything in scripture that shows us that absolutely scripture is replete with it let me give you two jacob jacob was an individual who god told jacob's mom he's the one second born i'm going to put my blessing on second born well things are going along coming towards the end of jacob's life his name is jacob which means heel snatcher deceiving one and dad father isaac's ready to give the blessing and mom and jacob flip

and go okay you know where's god god hadn't come through with it and he's going to put his blessing on second born so we've got to take care of it in our own strength and our own wisdom and our own power and our own skill and our own deceitfulness and of course you know the plan they devise a plan jacob's already already deceived his brother esau getting him to release to him his birthright now they deceive as far as the blessing is concerned and it just continues to go into turmoil continues to move from bad to worse jacob has to flee he goes down to his uncle laban's and spends 20 wonderful years with his uncle laban if you think that you haven't read the text go back to genesis

and read that he spends 20 deceitful agonizing years with his uncle laban and he's going to go back to his uncle laban he spends 20 years conniving with his uncle first for his wife then for his possessions finally gets fed up there after 20 years can't stand it anymore tells his wives we're going out of here we're leaving where is there to go only place to go as far as he knows is back to the promised land back to the land that god promised his father and him only problem esau's still there problem from 20 years ago is still now plaguing jacob why because he's been dealing with all of it in the flesh from the time that he deceived to the time that he ran to now

he's coming back and it's so hard to believe that he's still there and he's still there and he's so anguishes him that as he gets close to coming back into canaan he sends everybody on ahead and he spends the night on bethel with god and he wrestles with god why because he has been so trying to do it on his own that he he's he's thought he's done a good job he's amassed flocks and herds and family but there's no peace there's no rest there's the anguish that's been plugging him for 20 years and he's crying out to god i can't stand it when he cries out in that vision bless me lord before you leave he's hanging on to god he's finally holding on to the lord and he's saying i can't do it anymore

bless me before you leave and god touches his thigh and puts it out of joint asks him what his name is and he says my name is jacob he'll snatch your deceiver no more will it be will it be that but it will be israel the called of god the love beloved of god and jacob has this pain just like paul did that thorn that continues to remind him of that fact that he can't trust in himself he needs to trust in the power of god god removed the area of the blessing of his grace until jacob came to that point where it's so ate him up that he finally had to fall on his face before god the prodigal son and in the new testament is another example of the same thing a picture of god and his children and and the the prodigal takes the

inheritance that's rightfully to him and leaves the presence of his father goes out on his own against his father's will against his father's wishes and you know the story squanders it all on the flesh and the world and the devil and finally ends up in a pigsty eating pig slop and fighting pigs for corn cobs and it says he came to his senses now i've mentioned the first service i've often wondered how he came to his senses and he came to his senses and he came to his senses if he hadn't come to his senses would he have died there absolutely but he came to his senses and he remembered what it was like in his father's house and he went back to his father's house see

god had removed his grace he'd moved out from the presence of that grace of god that grace was withheld was removed until he hit the pigs and he comes back and that grace is restored is poured out upon him abundantly when we oppose god when we war with god god doesn't just stand around and go naughty naughty naughty and that's what james is wanting us to get right here as we stand and we're we're laying our hearts before the lord and we're resisting the world in the flesh and the devil god gives us more grace to be able to do that but as we oppose him and go off after those things we are doing nothing different than lucifer did when lucifer rebelled against god and every time you and i do that every time you and i are at a point

and we know what god would want us to do but you're in that position where lucifer was when he tried to usurp god's authority exactly and when you go the other way you have done the same he did and god does not take that lightly and james wants us to understand that the book of revelation the judgments of god are not something that god has just devised and concocted and it's waiting out there somewhere it's simply god removing his hands his grace from a world that's disobedient that's gone away from him after its own lust he just removes his grace and says okay go for it so let me give you four ways to resist these three enemies four ways to resist the world and the devil that james shows us here in these verses verse seven he starts off with submit

yourselves then to god that's way number one submit yourselves then to god unfortunately and i believe it's through the enemy's cunning and craftiness and deceitfulness that word has been abused in the church the word submit to the extent that it's become almost a dirty word it's almost one of those words you kind of cringe to say or think about because men have so used it in abusive ways against the church and they've used it in abusive ways against the church and women demanding that they submit to my authority when that's not how it was intended that it has become a word that's revulsive and as such we have a church that's weak because it does not understand it submit yourselves then to god the word is a military term it means to rank yourself

under now okay i say that what do you picture in your mind blank i don't know what does that mean it means like generals and colonels and majors and lieutenant that's right in a sense and it means that each one knows the authority over him let me give you an example in a court of law when two attorneys get at it in during a trial and the judge hammers the gavel down and he says you're out of order means the same thing it means you have violated your position in this courtroom and you're failing to submit to my authority as a judge you're out of order that's what this means if we submit it means that we're in order we're yielding to god's sovereignty god is sovereign

he is the judge he is overall and i'm ranking myself under him i'm not seeking to go out here and do all this stuff on my own i'm setting myself under him and i seek to not move out of rank or out of order i want to move according to the authority that he has given me just in those areas that he's given me in my life it's an unconditional surrender to him it's an unconditional surrender to him anything listen anything in your life be it your language or your music or your alcohol or your drugs or your sexual desires or your food or your desires for personal gain any of those things that you withhold that you don't lay before the lord and say you take them i give them to you unconditionally i surrender those things to you

anything that you don't do that with you will have a daily battle with daily the area of your life that you hold back in will always be the area that will produce battles in your life let me ask you right now what area in your life are you are you in in the area where you know god wants you to do this you know he's already spoken to your heart to do this but you have already purposed to do the other you're in disobedience you're no different than lucifer when he rebelled against god you are out of order and you are in a position for having god remove his grace in your life not only does god remove his grace i forgot this parenthesis here we're still in the area of

submit yourself therefore to god not only does god remove his grace but god removes his resistance against the enemy and he removes his resistance against the enemy and he removes his resistance against the enemy when we oppose him real quickly i know we're running we're going to be running we're still okay right now but as far as my notes are concerned we're running late turn back to judges chapter 2 with me real quick god not only removes his grace but he will discontinue resisting the enemy on your behalf judges chapter 2 in judges chapter 2 uh samuel is giving us an idea here of what happened during the time of the judges and he's telling us he's giving us a scenario of how

the people of israel rebelled against the judges god and the people rebelled they cried out to god for help god give them a judge to reign over them they were okay for a while but just as soon as that judge dies they went off into their own rebellion again and this continued and continued and continued he mentions that in verse 15 they were in great distress then the lord raises up judges verse 16 who saved them out of the hands of these raiders verse 17 yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them unlike their fathers they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked and they would not listen to their

god and the way of obedience to the lord's commands and whenever the lord raised up a judge for them he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived for the lord had compassion on them and they grew i laid down for their forefathers and does not listen to me i will no longer drive out before them any of the nations joshua left when he died i will use them these nations to test israel and see whether they will keep the way of the lord and walk in it as their forefathers did god said to the nation of israel because you refuse to follow me you're at war with me you're opposing me and you're not going to follow me you're not

going to follow me i'm going to remove then that resistance to the enemy before they could move into the area into the land and god said go wipe out the canaanites and go wipe out the emirates and they go that way and they may be highly undermanned but god had given the victory now he says no longer not gonna do that anymore matter of fact they're going to have authority over you it's the same way with us see i don't know how much you realize it or not how much every day god restrains evil restrains the enemy on your behalf because you're his child i mean we'll be driving down the road and we have a flat tire and what do we do i'm trying more and more to praise god but you

usually complain because i'm going to be late and how could you god you know it's like we're arguing with god you know my schedule you know i'm supposed to be there and you're fixing the tire and putting it on and getting dirty and putting the car and you drive off and you're still complaining because of the time that it took and it slowed you down and all that while you don't realize that down the road there was a semi that was going to be coming across the highway into your lane and would have killed you had god not restrained the evil but so often and it happens every day every single day in our lives the little bit that he lets through every now and then as we've seen in james one is to test us to pull

out to squeeze us to see what we're made of to see what the workings of faith are doing in our lives but he restrains times and times more when we oppose him he lets that go you think it was bad before you ever wondered how your appliances lasted as long as they did see when they break down that's when we complain right we don't realize we've had that junker thing for so many years and it's just lasted forever we've worn the same shoes for all these times or the car all that it does why does it do that because we're so special no because god's grace is there he's he's resisting he's holding back and then you wonder why when you know you're kind of going your own way and you know he wants me to do this but i go do this everything starts falling apart

stuff starts breaking down i start running into problems why is that coincidence no that's what he said he's going to do he says it again in romans chapter one god gave them over they resisted they resisted they worshiped the creature rather than the creator god gave them over he said okay have a ball and he pulled away his hands of resistance that's exactly where we see the world today a world of opposition to god and god's removing his grace and removing his restraint on evil and that's exactly what he said he'd do that's what he told timothy what would be characteristic of the last days according to second timothy chapter three one of the things is disobedience it's reflected

to parents it's reflected to teachers it's reflected to anybody in authority because it's reflective of how man has opposed himself against god and our society is reflecting that and god's grace is pulling away and god's restraint of evil is pulling away it's so evident the next thing is to catching out of the church before the revealing of the antichrist in the last seven years where the devil comes in the first place we have to submit to god he says rank yourself under get in line get under him secondly he says the second half of verse seven resist the devil and he will flee from you now let me say number one you in no way will resist the devil if you're not submitted

to the lord you can't number one is submit yourself to the lord lay it all at his feet i'm under your control and your authority lord i'll do what you do i'll give up what you want me to give up i'll go where you want me to go until that happens you can't resist you can't resist the devil the word resist there literally means it's again a military term and it means to array. Now this is an exciting word. See, you have to resist the devil. How many of you thought of, you know, Rocky or Karate Kid 48 or whatever, you know, going to resist the devil with this something of your own. Well, literally it's a military term

that means to array. Think of it in this sense as when the military arrayed itself against the enemy. The Roman army arrayed itself against its enemies. Now picture that. You've got in front, you've got the horsemen and they're stretched out as far as you can see and they have their lances and they're ready to go. And behind them are the foot soldiers with their spears and their shields

and behind them are the archers that are ready to send out a barrage of flaming arrows. Or modern day, imagine the tanks, the M60 and the Abrams tanks all laid out, ready to go. And behind them, the soldiers and above them, the Cobras and the Apache helicopters. And off the sides are the cruise missiles on the Tomahawks off the ships ready to come in. That's a battle.

Array. That's the arraying of battle against the enemy. That's the picture here. We resist the enemy by the battle array. Now what's that? Where is that? Well, first of all, it's in Ephesians 6 in the armor of God. You know what that is? If I were to ask you what the sword of the spirit is, could you tell me? If I were to ask you what the helmet of salvation is, could you tell me? If I

were to ask you what the shield of faith is, could you tell me? The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel. Do we even know what it is, let alone have it on? It goes beyond that though. And this is where it gets exciting. You see, when you're submitted to God, when you submit yourself to the Lord and lay yourselves at his feet, he arrays himself around

you and you have everything in Ephesians 1. Remember what we talked about grace being? Grace is not just stuff you get. Grace is the arraying of the glory of God about you. When Jesus went with Peter, James and John onto the Mount of Transfiguration, not long before Palm Sunday, not long before the day that he went to the Mount of Transfiguration, he went to the Mount of Transfiguration.

He went down into Jerusalem. He met with Moses and Elijah, and the text indicates he talked with them about what was ahead as he went to Jerusalem. But what happened to him when he went up there and talked? He was transfigured, it says. What does that mean? Well, it says in the text, and the glory of God shone itself round about him, literally, and the glory of God arrayed itself

before him. See, he was going into battle. He was going into battle in a way that he'd never battled before. He was going to battle the enemy as he went to the cross in a way that he hadn't battled him before. And he didn't seek to go in his own strength. He sought to go arrayed in the glory of God. When the prophet and his servant were surrounded by the enemy in the Old Testament, and the

servant is coming and crying out to the prophet, what are we going to do? The prophet prayed and asked God to open the eyes of his servant that he might see the glory of the Lord arrayed against the enemy. And he did. The scales dropped, and out there he saw the flaming chariots of God that were arrayed, you see. When Adam and Eve sinned, what did they lose? They lost that arraying, the arraying of the power and the glory of God.

It was gone. They stood there in their own flesh. You see, when you and I oppose God, we run out there in our own flesh to oppose the enemy. Peter says that the enemy goes about, Satan goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Who does he see that he can devour? Those standing out there in their own flesh thinking, I'm going to do this on my own. I'm

going to do this with my own ability. I know what God wants. I don't care. I'm going over here. Oh boy, mealtime for Satan. But at the beginning of that text as well, it says, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God. You're arrayed, and Satan can't devour you. But you have to submit to the Lord first to understand and realize and stand in the arraying

of God. Thirdly, he says, verse 8, come near to God. Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Come near to God. How do I do that? How do I do that? You see, again, this is written to believers. God is not far off there that he can't be reached. God, as we know from scripture, is all around us. David said, where can I go to get away from you? I can't. You're everywhere. But as believers,

we have the special privilege they didn't have in the Old Testament because he lives inside of us. He dwells within our heart. So how do I come near? How do I do that? How do I come near to God? What does he mean? How do I get any closer than he is? That's why he's not talking about relationship here. To a believer, he's already here. He's talking about fellowship. Fellowship has been

hindered. He's talking about fellowship. He's talking about fellowship. He's talking about and you are moving out in your own strength, and he's moving his grace and resistance against the enemy so that you're in some dangerous territory. How do I come near to you? Well, let's look at the next part of verse 8. He says, wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your

hearts, you double-minded. Drawing near to God begins with a genuine, open confession of sin and repentance before God. Wash your hands, you sinners. Again, this is talking to believers. He's talking to the church. Wash your hands, you sinners. That's a direct reference to the laver of the Old Testament that sat outside the tabernacle or the temple. Quick temple tour here

again. Remember, court, outer court, brazen altar, sat here, sacrifice. Then they come over, and the laver was the wash basin before they could go into the holy place, and they washed themselves. And it was symbolic of the washing, of the cleansing, of the regeneration from the blood of Christ that would come upon us. They could not purify their hearts. They could not purify their hearts. They

could not go in there without passing through the laver, or they would be killed by God. God would kill them. He told them that. Solomon so understood the necessity of this cleansing that he built a swimming pool, literally, out there. You read about the dimensions of this thing. It held thousands of gallons of water. It sat on the backs of 12 brazen oxen that he'd made to set this huge

bath or pool that he wanted them to get the picture. You got to take in, dive, and wash everything off before you can go in there. It's representative of the cleansing. Jesus, the night he was to be betrayed with his disciples in the upper room, he washed their feet. What did he use? What did he put the water in? The laver, a little basin. It represented the laver, and he cleansed

their feet in the same way that the priests did. And Peter said, wash me all. Give me a Solomon bath. And Jesus said, no, you're already clean, but your feet, you still walk through the world, and daily you pick up sin, and that needs to be cleansed. It's a daily need for cleansing. Listen, brothers and sisters, you and I sin. We sin to the max every day. All of us, every day. We sin to the walls. We sin to the extent of the

commandments every day. But how many of us have confessed that before the Lord? How many of us just kind of take it for granted, God's existence and God's, you know, nearness, and we just immediately, when we go to prayer, we start right off asking, chapter 4, verses 1 and 2 and 3, and we get ticked off at God because we're praying for healing, or we're praying for finances, or we're praying for this, and he doesn't answer, and we get miffed at him when the thing that's hindering is the fact of our sin, and we've excused it, and we've rebelled against him, and gone our own way, and continue to do that in rebellion, and never confessed it, never sought to repent before God, and James is emphasizing it, and he's

emphasizing the necessity of it. Wash your hands, you sinners, not brothers and sisters in the Lord, you sinners, because he understands, you see, God's jealousy, and the fact that the grace and the resistance is being removed. Unless we deal with the sin in our personal lives, now this is not guns for you to go point it out to anybody else, this is personal, all these guns are pointed in, the workings of faith are pointed at us, not at anybody else, we're not seeking to judge the workings of faith in anybody else, but us. When was the last time you confessed a sin before God, or repented before the Lord? He says in the

rest of verse 8, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Now, when was some other time here in James that we've heard those words double, or that word double-mindedness? It's back in chapter 1, when what occurred? When we asked God for wisdom, and he gave it, and we doubted it, and went our own way. Same concept, different twist, so we can hopefully see it better. God, show me what you want me to do.

God says, I want you to do this, and you go, I don't want to do that, I'm going after this, and double-minded. He says, wash your hands, repent of that, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Wherever you've done that, you need to confess it before the Lord. Nobody made you do that, nobody caused you to do that, you decided of your own will to do that, because he said, if you stand against that, I'll give you more grace to resist it. But you decided

in your own way to go off after that, and he says, wash your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, you double-minded. Acknowledge to God the fact that you haven't trusted him, and that you've gone off in your own way. Then he says, verse 9, now it gets intense. I mean, you think that's intense. This really gets intense. Grieve, and mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning,

and your joy to gloom. We're talking some serious hurt over personal sin. You see, we excuse our sin in the name of under-construction. There's a little bumper sticker I don't have. In my own heart, I'm having a problem with it. It's been around forever. It says, I'm not perfect, just forgiven, or I'm a Christian under construction. And that's okay. But when I see that on the back of a car, what it's communicating to me is, if I change lanes

without turning on my blinker, or if I roll through the stop sign, or if I go 65 in the 55, hey, I'm not perfect, just forgiven. In other words, it's excusing the fact of my mistakes. So don't get on my back. I'm under construction. I'm not perfect, just forgiven. I don't see that in here. I see Paul saying, I agonizo, pressing towards the mark. I beat my body. Now, you read

that. There is no other way you can take that other than literally. He's not spiritually saying, oh, I go and I sweat before God, you know, in my spiritual prayer life. He's saying literally, I beat my body to keep myself under, under what? Under submission, lest having run the race, lest having gone all this way, I myself become a castaway. How do I become a castaway? By denying

God and going off after the things of the flesh. Paul says, I beat my body to keep it under. Does that mean we got to go crawling down the street on our knees with a cross on our back? No, but it means we take sin seriously. When was the last time you grieved or mourned or wailed over sin in your own personal life? I'm not talking about the sins of the world. Somebody guns down your mother or

your friend in a restaurant, a gang kind of thing, and you grieve over that. Yeah, that's natural. I'm You sin. There was something you did today that you knew God didn't want you to do, or there was something he did want you to do that you didn't. That's sin. When was the last time you agonized before him and said, Lord, God, that was awful. Forgive me, Lord, with the idea that I'm not going

to do that again. I'm going to set myself against that and array your glory and power against that. And I know you'll give me more grace against that. When was the last time? It's because this church in America doesn't do that, that it's weak and God's removing his hand of grace and is removing against the enemy. And we see a country going to hell in a handbasket because the church doesn't

care about sin. The church doesn't mourn over sin. The concert of prayer the other night, they called the youth forward and something was done that I had never seen before. He mentioned that in 1962, prayer was removed from school and he read the prayer that was the test case prayer that was read before the Supreme Court that acknowledged our total submission unto God, our total submission unto his sovereignty and are asking for his blessing upon us from the heads of state all the way down.

That was the test prayer. It was a result of that that prayer was removed and a result of that then in 63 that the Ten Commandments and Bible reading were removed from school. And he called down the youth of today because they are the ones that have received the results of that tragedy. And he called the pastors and intercessors down and around and he asked for someone from our generation to pray in confession of sin to God for our sin of allowing that to happen. I was 12 years old when

that went out in 62 and I don't remember anything about it. That's how deceived I was. I don't remember hearing anything about it until after I got saved when I was 20 years old. And we confessed that. We prayed a prayer of confession and repentance and I was gripped. That's the first time that I can remember really grieving lately over sin. As we do that, as we cleanse our hands, as we purify our hearts, as we treat sin for what

it is, acknowledge it. It says here in verse 8 that God graciously draws near. He'll come near to us. He draws near in his grace. He makes his presence known. You see, God's around us all the time, but we've been walking around with a sin. We've been walking around with a sin. We've been like here and we can't see him. This is my desire to follow after my flesh. And we finally

confess that and God removes it and there he is. He's right there. He's been here all the time. We just haven't been able to see him. And he graciously draws near. Fourthly, verse 10, it says, humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. And again, this is actually a summation of the other three. Submitting myself to God, resisting the devil by arraying the power of God

around us, of coming near to God by repentance and confession of sin. All of that is humbling ourselves before the Lord. True humility is simply facing the seriousness of sin, my need for a savior, my need to submit my life to a sovereign Lord and to be obedient to him. That's humility. That's humbling ourselves before the Lord. It's the same thing he said. Remember in chapter 3 when

we were talking about the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world? Remember what the first characteristic of godly wisdom was? Humility and then purity. Without humbling ourselves before the Lord, we'll never be able to set our own hearts aside unto him in an act of purity. See, he's saying the same thing again, just with a different tilt. Hopefully, we'll see it this

time. Humble yourselves before the Lord. Submit yourselves unto him. Resist the devil. Stand in the array of the glory of God. Come near to God. Cleanse your hearts. Purify your hearts. God graciously draws near as we humble ourselves before him. The exciting thing is we close on an up and he will lift you up. He'll raise you up to where you need to be. If you're having a battle in the

flesh against food, if you're having a battle in the flesh against drugs or alcohol or sex or worldly desire, he'll lift you up. You put yourself unto him, he'll give you more grace that's necessary and he'll lift you up. He will raise you up. He'll bring those around you who can be accountable to you, who can help walk you through this particular situation. Some, he takes it away overnight, but he will lift you up. He

will raise you up. It's a constant daily humbling before the Lord. Submitting yourself unto him, resisting the enemy in that array of God, coming near to God, confessing it as sin. It repulses receiving his grace, receiving that refreshing. He's going to lift you up. Let's stand together. Maybe you haven't done that. Maybe you haven't come to that point. Maybe

the Lord is still new to you. Maybe it's up here, but it's never made it down here. You've not seen the transition. You've not seen the workings of faith. Right now, you can just ask God to come into your life. Ask Jesus to come into your heart. He will. I don't have to lead you in a particular prayer. Just ask him to come in. Lord, save me by what your word says as far as your shed blood on

a cross. Come into my heart and save me and take away my sin and cleanse me from unrighteousness. He will right now. Maybe you're one of those who are using the little bumper sticker as an excuse to stay in sin. God loves me. I'm okay. I know I'm supposed to do this, but I'm going to do that. And you don't realize, maybe right now you're realizing that he's removing grace. He's withholding grace. He's

withholding or he's removing his hand of resistance from the enemy. All he wants you to do is come before him and just confess that. God, help me, strengthen me, and he will lift you up. The brother that led the dessert banquet from YWAM the other day had just come back from the church. He was in the church. He was in the church. He was in the back from West Africa. And I've been to West Africa, been to Nigeria. And as he shared this,

it just sparked my heart. And all week I've been going through this. And I did this with first service. But he said when they're in the middle of their services, and he said their services over there will last three and four hours. And he said the pastor will intermittently throughout the service say, God is good. And the people will respond with all the time. And he'll say all the

time. And they'll say, God is good. And we did that at the dessert banquet. We did that first service. And that was with me all week. Now, I'd be going through something, and it just hit. And I'd go, oh, God, you're so good. And I'd hear all the time. And I want us to do that. And I don't want you to do it in your Kansas accents. I want you to try it like a West African, a West African individual. God is good. And all the time.

God is good. And all the time. Oh, Lord, help us to know that. Help us to realize that blessing of your goodness upon us. That you've given us grace, not only unto salvation, but as we stand with you, as we submit unto you, as we resist and stand in the array that you've given us of your glory. As we come near to you, you come near to us. As we humble ourselves unto you, you will lift us up. And God, you give us

more grace. Help us to walk in that, I pray. Knowing your goodness, knowing your righteousness, knowing the full extent of your love for us. Because the days are short, and there is much happening. Much work you're calling your church to. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.