Perfect Submission

We've been in a series, in a sermon series in the book of James.

Let me remind you who wrote this book.

James was the half-brother of Jesus. They had the same mother,

Mary, but Jesus had no earthly father, as you remember the story.

James is a guy who shoots straight. He tells the truth, whether it kicks us in the gut or not.

If you've been reading in the book of James, like we've been asking you to do,

you will realize he's pretty hard-hitting at times.

He's a guy who has no problem getting in our faces.

We don't know really when James became a follower of Jesus as the Son of God Messiah,

but more than likely it wasn't until after Jesus was crucified and rose again

and presented himself to James and the others as alive.

I want to read from chapter 4 of James like we did last week.

We're going to be reading the entire chapter, verses 1 through 17.

Causes fights and quarrels among you. Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?

You desire, but do not have, so you kill.

You covet, but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.

You do not have because you do not ask God, and when you do ask,

you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what

you get on your own pleasures.

You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity with God?

Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the

spirit he has caused to dwell in us.

But he gives us more grace. That is why scripture says God opposes the proud,

but shows favor 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.

Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against

a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it.

When you judge the law, you are not keeping it but sitting in judgment on it.

There is only one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and destroy.

But you, who are you to judge your neighbor?

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? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Instead, you ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this

or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes.

All such boasting is evil. If anyone then knows the good they ought to do and

doesn't do it, it is sin for them.

Now, we read this passage last year or last week, part of it anyway.

We didn't read the entire thing, but we're looking at it in a different,

just a little different tweaking of the way we see this scripture.

2,000 years ago, God breathed a powerful letter through James,

the half-brother, as Jesus.

And James had one primary concern as he wrote this book.

James's primary concern was for the churches and Jesus' followers who attended

those churches in the first century, and for all the churches and believers

from that day forward until Jesus returns in his glory.

James's concern was that these believers who claimed the name of Jesus would

not merely talk about faith and sing about faith, but they would have real,

tangible, working faith.

And real faith is not merely thought about. It is lived out loud and is critical

to the mission of Christ.

I want you to remember this. We've said this many times, in fact,

you could probably say it with me.

God is on a mission to redeem a lost world to himself, and he chooses to use

us, his chosen people, to accomplish his mission.

So what would our life really look like if we lived our faith out loud?

We have seen some of what James has been telling us about a real tangible working faith.

James has been saying, if you will have real tangible working faith,

you will turn your trials into triumphs.

You will defeat sin and temptation. You will be doers and not simply hearers of the word of God.

You will look after the widows and the orphans and the less fortunates.

You will combine your faith with works into a dynamic duo that saves,

does good, makes sacrifices, takes risks, is alive and honors God and changes the world.

And you will tame the untamable and use your tongue and the words that come

out of it to give and bring life instead of tear down.

And you will choose godly wisdom over worldly wisdom and say no to wisdom that

is full of bitter envy, and selfish ambition.

One of the things Andy asked the kids about, how do you know what's truth and what's not?

You know, if we look at the wisdom that comes from God and the Word of God,

we will know and we will sense, if we're really in the Word of God,

what is true and what is right and what is noble.

Think on these things, Philippians 4, chapter 5, verse 8.

If we want to have a real tangible working faith, we should embrace the wisdom

that leads to peace and a harvest of righteousness,

a wisdom that leads to good deeds done in humility and is lived out loud by being pure,

peace-loving, considerate, reasonable, full of mercy, and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

So now let's receive the truth from the fourth chapter of James.

What James is talking about here is real faith requires complete submission.

Perfect submission, all is at rest. I am my Savior, am happy and blessed.

That song that we sing, this is my story, this is my song.

The central theme verse for our text is found in James 4, verse 7,

James 4:7

and it is this, Submit yourselves then to God.

In our text, James tells us four things that we must know and must do in order

to submit ourselves to God. and I'm going to list those here for you to write

down, and then we're going to go through them one at a time.

Separate yourselves from the world. Surrender yourselves and bow down before God.

Stop slandering your brothers and sisters and settle yourself to God's plan.

The first thing we see is we need to separate ourselves from the world.

We need to submit to God, and part of doing that is to separate ourselves from the world.

James 4.4 says, you adulterous people—pretty harsh, James—you adulterous people,

don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity with God?

James is not writing to unbelievers.

But to people living in the world who do not know Jesus.

He is writing to the churches and people in the church who claim to know and

follow Jesus and who claim to be in a relationship. And he says to them, you adulterous people.

Now, if James were here to stand before us and say, you adulterous people,

we would probably cringe and may even get up and leave.

Now, I don't think that anyone wants to be called that. No one wants to be labeled

as an adulterous person.

But yet adultery is a common event in our society today, isn't it?

In fact, if you have been following the news lately, you will know that adultery is a pretty hot topic.

In the news this week is the report of a married congressman who is leaving

Congress because he had an affair with one of his aides who then committed suicide

by burning herself alive when that affair became public.

I'm told that there is even a website that helps you in the process of cheating

on your spouse and keeping it a secret.

It's disgusting, but people help each other sin.

And yet, here we are in an increasingly dark and disgusting society.

You've heard people say about many things. The Bible says not to judge.

I'm sorry, but that's just a cop-out for sinfulness and disbehavior.

Surprisingly, even in our increasingly sexualized culture, most people are still

appalled at the thought of cheating on a partner, at least when they answer a survey question.

In recent polling, around 90% of Americans said having an affair is immoral and wrong.

James, in chapter 4, verse 4, calls out these believers and churches for committing

adultery against God, not just against each other.

Throughout the scriptures, both in the Old Testament and New Testament,

the relationship between God and the people and his people is often pictured as being a marriage.

For your maker is your husband, Isaiah 54, verse 4 says, your maker is your husband.

Isaiah 54:4

The Lord Almighty is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer.

He is called the God of all the earth.

Ephesians 5, 31 and 32 says this, For this reason, a man will leave his father

and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church.

And since God's relationship with his people is like a marriage,

God, through his prophet calls them out when they cheat on God.

During the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to Jeremiah, and Jeremiah repeated

it, Have you seen what faithless Israel has done?

She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed

adultery there. He's talking about Israel.

I thought that after she had done all this, she would return to me,

but she did not, and her unfaithful sister Judah has seen it.

He's talking about the church, the people of God.

And James, here in our text, calls them out. He says, you adulterous people,

they, like us, probably thought, but we love you, God.

We would never commit adultery, but did we ever cheat on you?

James would respond that friendship with the world is tantamount to cheating on God.

When we love the things and actions of this world and take them on as our own,

we are separating ourselves from the relationship with God, the root of all sin is self.

And we understand that sin, doesn't matter what kind it is, is separation from the Almighty God.

So today, we refer to many people as being our friends, but they are not friends

in the New Testament way.

For example, I have hundreds of friends on Facebook.

That's what it says on Facebook, friend, okay? But do I really know them?

The internet has allowed us to feel connected to people in a way that 10 years

ago would have been defined as stalking.

Oh, look what so-and-so had for dinner. Who are they having dinner with? Oh, look at that guy.

Who's he dating? Oh, that girl. girl, let's look at her life.

Let's see what she's doing.

She graduated from that college? Wonder what she's doing with that.

Isn't that how we do with our Facebook things? We're looking at all these things,

and yet this constant and incessant peeking into other people's lives gives

us the wrong belief that we know them.

In fact, if you are applying for a job, understand that your future potential

employer is probably looking at your Facebook messages to see what you're like.

Is that right? Is that wrong? I don't know. But understand that they are doing it.

Again, friendship in the first century would carry a completely different meaning

than it does today. They didn't have Facebook.

I know that comes as a shock. But friendship in the first century would have

been sought after, but there would also have been limits to who was considered

close, intimate friends.

If you watch Jesus do ministry, you get a sense of this.

Jesus had the three closest friends as apostles, Peter, James, and John.

You always saw him with those three.

And then he had six, including those three who were close, but not quite as tight as the three.

Then there were the total of 12 apostles, including those six.

These were the ones who followed Jesus during his entire ministry.

Then there was the 70 disciples who he sent out to do ministry as he had modeled for them.

Then we see finally, there's the 500 who he appeared to at one time after his

resurrection. They were not close friends.

They followed him. But until his crucifixion and resurrection,

they weren't all that intent on letting his teaching change them.

But Jesus spent most of his time, the most intimate time, with the three friends,

and that friendship can be somewhat restricted because you can't go deep with everyone else.

You know, one of the things pastors find is that in any church we go to,

it's really difficult to find close friendship with people in the church.

One, you just don't have that vulnerability.

And two, it's really hard when you're only at a place for a few years.

You know, I have some friends that have been lifetime friends.

Well, actually, one of them is sitting up there, Terry. and it just so happened

that we were friends from kindergarten to third grade and we have stayed friends all of our life.

And we understand that sometimes pastors are criticized for not spending individual

time with each of the people in the congregation, yet not even Jesus did that.

He spent the most intense time with three who were the most devout leaders of the movement.

James is saying that when we go deep with the world, when we are intimate with

the world and its values,

when we allow the world to shape us and define who we are and what we do,

say and believe, that not only are we friends with the world,

but he says we are enemies with God.

Friendship with the world means enmity toward God. That means hostility and

hatred toward God. None of us would ever say we hate God.

None of us would ever say that. But yet, that's what friendship,

close friendship with the world, aligning with the world does.

Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

James is saying to us today that to be in submission to God,

we have to break up with the world.

Now, that's easy to say, but it's hard to do.

So the second thing we see is we need to surrender ourselves and bow down before God.

What is God's response to our acts of adultery against him?

What is God's response to our cheating with the world and our rebellion against him?

An example of his crazy love is found in verse 6, but he gives more grace.

God's response to my sin, my rebellion, my adultery against him is to give me more grace.

I can't figure that guy out sometimes. Why would he do that? But he does.

There's no sin with more power than the cross of Christ. The cross of Christ

has not and cannot be defeated.

Regardless of how high the sin volume is in your life, grace abounds all the more.

And God adds grace upon the grace.

The grace, that's grace abounding all the more. That's the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Grace abounds all the more. How does God respond to our adultery?

By acting through grace to remove the sin and the punishment from us.

I want you to write this down and remember this.

Grace overwhelms our sin nature.

Grace overcomes the power of temptation, and grace overthrows the evil one.

This chapter in James also shows us how to surrender and bow before God.

Have you written that down yet? I'll give you a minute.

Well, I'll give you 20 seconds.

Five, four. Okay, I can get to you later.

So what he says is, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Now, normally we think we're supposed to flee from temptation,

and that's what scripture says.

But here's the situation is he says, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

The meaning of the word resist is to stand firm and fight back.

From Ephesians chapter 6, if you read that, we learn to put on the full armor

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

of God to resist the devil. In the Greek, it's about aggression.

Ephesians chapter 6 is not about running away. It's about standing and fighting.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

It's about aggression. It says, resist, stand firm, fight, don't run,

turn toward the evil one and fight.

Pull out your sword of the spirit and of truth and engage the enemy.

Do you know how Jesus fought the devil when he was tempting him in the wilderness?

With the word of God. And he says, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

1 Corinthians 10, verse 13 says, No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.

1 Corinthians 10:13

God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.

But with the temptation, he will also provide the way to escape that you may be able to endure.

According to the New Testament, because the Holy Spirit is inside me,

I don't have to sin anymore.

I can resist, and God is faithful to make a way out. If there's temptation in

my life, I can turn to Jesus.

And resist the devil's temptation. Whatsoever things are pure,

whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are righteous,

whatsoever things are nobles, and goes on, think about these things.

And then second, we need to come near to God. It says, come near to God,

and he will come near to you through the word and prayer. I'm not talking about just reading the Bible.

We need to intimately know the God of the Bible.

Here at Richland Center Free Methodist Church, we believe that it's important

to be reading the Bible in a systematic, intentional, and daily way.

That's why many in our church are reading through the one-year Bible on a daily basis.

And then even recently, that's why many in our church, and I hope most of you,

are reading with me as we read one chapter in Proverbs and one chapter of James each day for this month.

And by doing so, you'll have read through the book of Proverbs one time,

and you'll have read through the book of James six times.

But we need to do more than simply read the Bible.

We need to come near to the God of the Bible and know him personally and intimately.

Our lives are being transformed by the renewing of our minds as we come to know the God of the Bible.

And by growing in his grace, we are being transformed from one degree of glory

to another. Community is an indispensable part of growing as a believer.

We need to be involved in that community, this community, to grow in grace and be surrounded by God.

This is how we come near to God, and oftentimes we do that with each other.

And then we need to get real and be serious about our sin.

James says, 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.

You know, we talked about this last week, grieve, mourn, wail, and gloom.

Doesn't sound particularly exciting to us, does it?

We want things to be light, fun, and bubbly. In our entertainment and feel-good

culture, we don't want anyone making us feel bad, do we?

We just want somebody to make us feel good, and we want to laugh.

We want church to be like that, don't we?

In fact, Nancy and I were in St. Louis this last week for our grandson's celebrating

his birthday and for his honors choir concert, and we drove past a church.

The name of the church was Enjoy Church.

Now, I think that says a lot, but what does it really mean? Is church an entertainment?

Or is a church a place where we seek God and we ask God to transform our lives?

The Puritans were very deep thinkers. They wrote some profound things.

One of the things that Puritans would pray for was tears.

They would pray to be grieved by their sins.

When they felt like the weight of their rebellion against God wasn't weighing

heavy enough on their hearts, they would literally stop and they would pray

and ask God to help them mourn about their own sin.

It's when our hearts are broken because of our sinfulness that the forgiveness

and grace of this jealous God who gives more grace can launch us into an orbit of joy.

"'Satan's Greatest Nightmare'.

Is the Christian who is convinced of these two realities.

Sin is serious and deadly, and God's grace is more than sufficient for all our

needs. If we are convinced of these two truths, Satan doesn't like that.

He wants us to think everything's okay.

In fact, in the very first temptation in the garden, he said,

doesn't God know that if you do this, you're going to be like him.

And so his temptation is that it's okay to do what you want to do.

Then this type of grace penetrating this type of lives brings about a humility which God exalts.

James 4.10 says, humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.

And then number three, stop slandering your brothers and sisters.

Here James hits on a topic upon which he uses more ink than any other topic.

In his letter, our words and our tongues being used in a way that tears down

our brothers and sisters is an abomination to James.

He says, brothers and sisters, do not slander one another.

Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against

the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it,

but sitting in judgment of it.

Slander is a legal term. It means the telling of a falsehood that harms or ruins another's reputation.

The Greek word that was used in this passage is even a broader, more general meaning.

It literally means to talk down or speak against someone. One can tell the truth

about others, but do it in such a way that it puts them down and is derogatory toward them.

Gossip about might be a better translation.

A defamatory word may be perfectly true.

We do not have to tell lies in order to defame. The fact that it's true gives us no right to say it.

What we say, even if it's true, can bring somebody down or make somebody look

bad. You know, why do we do that?

Oftentimes, we do that to make ourselves look better, isn't it?

We cannot condone sinful behavior in our family.

Speaking the truth, biblical truth about sinful nature is not wrong.

It's when we impugn and harm the character of a person that it's wrong.

The argument James is making in this letter is that those who have experienced grace,

those who have experienced mercy, those who have mourned, those who have had

their face lifted up by the Son of God, who understand that he gives more grace,

should become experts, not in the weakness of their brothers,

but in the strengths of their brothers and how they can lift them up and help edify them.

They should rejoice in the God-blessing movement of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Speak well of each other. Lift each other up, even when you're not with them.

Speak well of them to others. Husbands, when you are not with your wife, speak well of her.

James is arguing that where we walk in true wisdom and understand the grace

of God, quarrels and fights and judgment will disappear.

And then settle yourselves to

God's plan. James chapter 4, verses 13 to 17 says, Now listen to you say,

James 4:13–17

Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there and carry

on business and make money, and it goes on.

The motive behind the statement here is money and self.

Man is on this mission to make money and to glorify himself and to have his own way.

So we have been reminded by James that the root of all sin is self.

The sin in all of this is that man is thinking that he's in control of his own

destiny. Haven't you heard that?

You control your own destiny. You can create your own future.

The funny thing is, we really don't even know what will happen today,

let alone what will happen tomorrow.

And if each one of us is in control of our own future and our own destiny,

then so are all the other more than 8 billion people on this earth.

What happens when the plans of more than 8 billion people collide with and conflict

and contradict each other? Who's right?

Who's creating their own destiny? Who's creating their own future?

If my destiny and my future conflicts with yours, who's right?

James is saying not only do we lack knowledge, but we lack the power to do anything

about what we do know In contrast to us, our God is all-knowing and all-powerful.

Is James teaching us that we shouldn't make plans, or that when we do make plans,

we had better always have that little caveat, if God wills?

Well, we know that James is not teaching that making future plans is sinful

because the Bible talks about planning and preparing as a virtue.

What man, if he's going to build a barn does not weigh out the cost of what it's going to take.

And then consider the ant who stores up.

For hardship. James's point is that since human plans and even our own existence

in this world is somewhat insignificant and we can quickly disappear,

we ought to take thought for larger matters,

matters having to do with faith and submission to the will of God.

James's point is that our future plans, which may be right and good,

should be informed by, driven by, and fueled by a greater reality, which is God's will.

And so we close this with this message reminding you, separate ourselves from

the word of God or from the world.

Surrender ourselves and bow down before God. Stop slandering our brothers and

sisters and settle ourselves to God's plan.

If there's a sovereign king of glory, which there is,

who has a mission and who has created us, than who he is and what he has called

us to is what drives every area in our life.

He transforms us into his image so that we can be his servants.

And then this is true. God is on a mission to redeem a lost world to himself,

and he chooses to use us, his chosen people, to accomplish his mission.

Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, as we close this service,

we give you thanks and praise.

Father, we ask that you would indeed visit us with your presence,

that you would do more than visit us.

You would transform us into your image and your likeness.

In the name of Jesus, we pray.