Spiritual Infidelity Pt. 4

With God’s people, please turn
to the epistle of James, James chapter
four. A couple of weeks ago, I changed
the wallpaper on my computer. Because in the course of doing
a number of different things, updating and cleaning up my computer,
I came across a picture. And the picture was of a mountain
lake. Appropriately enough, it’s called
Mirror Lake. And the picture spoke to me a
thousand words. Because the context of that picture
is really what makes it. Some of you know about my adventure,
or perhaps my misadventure, when I took occasion a couple of years
ago to head down near the Crested Butte area to do some four-wheeling,
get away, enjoy God’s creation. And I could blame it on Google
Maps, But I was eager for adventure, and so I took the turn that said
that it would add 25 to 30 minutes to my drive. Those of you who
know the story know that I made it to the top of Tin Cup Pass,
but the sun had stopped cooperating. It was about 10 o’clock and now
pitch black. I took one turn and ended up
on what I believed was a road. But soon I came to realize that
I really thought that I had driven into a stream bed and was now
heading downhill in a wet, muddy, rocky road. I ended up sideways in the stream
bed. I tried to turn around several
times. I finally decided for safety’s
sake, if not my own, my truck, I decided to stop for the night
sideways in the muddy river. I pulled off as far as I could.
I had no food. I had no water. And not only
did I begin to distress about the fact that I had no water
for water’s sake, I knew that that also meant no coffee the
next morning. It was one of the coldest nights
that summer. The advance of fall was already
on us, and I knew that I was in a bit of trouble. I didn’t
fear that maybe someday or the next day some jeeps would come
and be able to tow me out. I wasn’t fearful for my life,
but I was troubled. troubled at what predicament
I’d gotten myself into, troubled that I had no food, no water.
And so the next morning in God’s providence, I was able, through
a series of maneuvers, to get out of the mess, get down the
hill, and I pulled in at about 6.30 to this beautiful mountain
lake called Mirror Lake. And I snapped a quick picture.
And so as photography goes, it’s probably not world-class, but
it means the world to me. And every time my computer boots
up, it reminds me that God gets you down the mountain. We have
been in a passage. We’ve been in a passage of scripture
that, frankly, has been tough to preach. It’s a difficult passage. It’s an in-your-face passage.
It’s a passage that perhaps many pastors, if they had their preference,
wouldn’t even preach it. But that’s the beauty of verse-by-verse
teaching, is that you preach what’s next, regardless of what
you personally think about it. It’s a difficult passage, but
God gets you down the mountain. I want to take you back to verse
1, where Paul, or rather James, begins a very detailed confrontation
of his church, and churches, because what he’s addressing
in them is among the worst possible sins. He had already addressed
their selfishness, their selfish ambition that had woven its way
into the very fabric of the church and was now tearing it apart.
There were those in the midst that were creating division,
and so James very appropriately labels it as spiritual adultery. That’s the real problem. The
real problem is spiritual infidelity that is leading to these problems. James identifies it in verse
1. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not
the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You
lust and do not have, so you commit murder, and you are envious
and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have
because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because
you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your
pleasures. James says that the whole issue of trouble in the
church is spiritual infidelity brought about by unrequited want There are casualties, there is
a cause, the lack of prayer that we considered in verse two and
three. No wonder James is loaded for
bear when he pronounces a reproach on spiritual adultery in verses
four through six. He says, you adulteresses, do
you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward
God? Therefore, whoever wishes to
be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. If you
use the world’s ways, if you import the world’s behaviors
into the church, If you import the way that the world goes about
quibbling and fighting into the church, you are a spiritual adulteress. James doesn’t hold back. And
he lays it on the people with no holds barred. Because he sees spiritual adultery
as so destructive to the churches that he was shepherding. And he says in verse five, or
do you think that the scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously
desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us. And we saw
last week that essentially what James says there is that God
has placed his Holy Spirit resident within every believer. And that
essentially what they would have to do is turn their backs on
that relationship to cultivate another, engage in spiritual
adultery. And so we come to the third portion of what
we’ve considered. Not only the symptoms of spiritual
adultery, Quarrels and conflicts fights that ultimately destroy
even the fabric of the church we saw the reproach of spiritual
adultery in verses 4 and 5 and we come and it’s almost like
a spiritual breath of fresh air to come to verse 6 the safeguard
from spiritual adultery help God’s grace Consider verse 6
through 10 if you would but he gives a greater grace. Therefore,
it says God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the
humble. Submit, therefore, to God. Resist
the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he
will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into
mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence
of the Lord and he will exalt you. Like a breath of fresh air,
isn’t it? After five of the heaviest verses
in all of scripture, to suddenly round the corner here in verse
six and to even hear of God’s grace. that he gives a greater
grace is, as one of the commentators
said, one of the most comforting verses in all of Scripture. It was almost shocking to me
to hear how one pastor characterized this, that he just seemed to say that
this was a note of relief. Do you think? This is a picture at dawn of
a beautiful mountain lake that indicates that God got you through.
It’s far more than an assuring note. It is akin to the quenching of
the deepest thirst. Imagine yourself adrift on an
ocean for weeks on end, no water, in the hot sun, And suddenly
God, by whatever means, provides you a sip of cool, clear water. It is the same sentiment that
one would have being starved, by whatever means, for days on
end, finally able to take a bite of food. This passage offers
ultimate relief. It offers the deepest comfort.
It offers absolute hope. Because what James has been addressing
is opposition with God himself. And it was opposition to the
death. But now. What it reminds me of, if you
would, keep your finger in James 4, and flip over to Ephesians
2, and as soon as you hear that, you know where I’m going. It
reminds me of this passage in its profundity, in its power. Ephesians chapter two. And in very similar language,
he says, you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which
you formerly walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air of the spirit
that is now working in the sons of disobedience. You were not
only controlled by the devil, but spiritually speaking, you
were dead. Among them, we too all formerly
lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the
flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath,
even as the rest.” God’s wrath rested justifiably on us, but God, what relief, what hope greater than a drink of water
to a thirsty soul greater than a beautiful mountain lake after
a night in the cold and the dark. He gives a greater grace. No wonder another faithful shepherd
called this one of the most comforting verses in all of scripture because
it’s it’s what stands in relief. He’s confronting spiritual adultery
in the lives of believers. He’s confronting their waywardness. He’s confronting their tendency
to embrace the world’s ways and employ the world’s methods in
the church. Because of that, he calls it
spiritual infidelity. But now he He wants to know that
the child of God does not reside alone. He is not left to himself
to drift alone. What God has provided for him,
what God has available for him is far greater than whatever
depravity he has sunken into. Whatever spiritual darkness has
enveloped him, his grace is greater than that. And his grace will
enable the believer. To return to the lover of their
souls. As Charles Hodge says, as great
as is the prevalence of sin. Over all this evil grace, the
grace of the gospel probe abounds. We know that passage, Romans
5 20, which echoes this great truth. The law came in so that
transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace
abounded all the more. Though we dabble in the world,
and entertain its ideas and begin to embrace its ideals and practice
its ways and employ its methods. God does not abandon the Christian. Instead, he grants what the Christian
needs most in that moment. Grace. God’s grace. Divine enablement, the empowerment
by the Holy Spirit himself, spiritual energy to overcome the world
and its ways. And to rescue one out of sure
devastation by this adulterous relationship that they’re entertaining.
God’s power. God’s power, his grace at work
in us. wooing us to submit completely
to his will, calling us back into a love relationship with
God himself. It’s a ray of hope. It’s a cool
glass of water. It’s a beautiful mountain lake,
but it’s more. It’s the grace of God. And as
James unfolds this great section of promise and hope, He says,
God gives a greater grace. Whatever we’re dabbling in, whatever
we’ve stumbled into, however we’ve offended, God gives a greater
grace. And he quotes Proverbs 334. God is opposed to the proud,
but gives grace to the humble. Peter quoted this verse. Mary
herself, the Lord’s mother, alluded to it in Luke chapter one. He has done mighty deeds with
his arm. He has scattered those who were
proud in the thoughts of their heart. He has brought down rulers
from their thrones and has exalted those who were humble. God is
opposed to the proud. Those who are haughty and arrogant
proud, as the scriptures call them, who align themselves with
the world in complete independence from what God’s word says, even
in direct contrast to it. They align themselves with the
world in order to satisfy their pride. And God aligns himself essentially
against them. Worldliness is pride, as James
has told us. Pride is worldly and worldliness
is pride. We reviewed a couple of weeks
ago, Romans chapter one, that catalog of vices embedded in
that great list of sinful tendencies of the world is that word arrogant. Same word. Pride cuts itself off. from a
relationship with God. Pride refuses to see its own
need for God’s divine assistance. It loves its independence from
God. It refuses to see its desperate
need of Christ. As one commentator said, it denotes
one who shows himself above others. Feeling himself conspicuously
above others, he assumes an attitude of haughty and superiority and
pride. Gripped with a false sense of
sufficiency, he regards himself as the standard of excellence
and disdains those who fall short of the standard. They begin to engage in what
he points out as self-glorification, an attempt to disown his own
dependence on God. The proud man, said one, cuts
himself off from all the effects of rebuke and criticism and counsel. He is his own God. He is his
own rule. He is his own guide. He is proud. There was a quip that I penned
down a couple of many years ago. Now, you’ll recognize this person. Everybody likes a somebody. Some even like a nobody. But
nobody likes a nobody who thinks he’s a somebody. That’s essentially
what you have here with a proud man. He’s so proud he doesn’t
even see his own arrogance. He’s so proud he doesn’t even
see any need for God. He has begun to wean himself
off as a Christian from the only source of help available to him. And God says he’s contrary to
this person. God is opposed to the proud.
This isn’t a new treatment of this concept when James quotes
Proverbs 3. James quotes Proverbs 3, but
the principle itself is replete in scripture. Jesus said it in
Luke chapter 18. I tell you that this man went
to his house justified rather than the other for everyone who
exalts himself will be humbled, but he who himself humbles himself
will be exalted. Job 5.11, a much briefer treatment. He sets those on high who are
lowly and those who mourn are lifted to safety. It’s a principle
of God’s Word that if you are humble, God himself will lift
you in time. But if you are arrogant, God
himself will lay you in the dust. 1 Samuel 2, the Lord kills and
makes alive, he brings down to Sheol and he rises up. The Lord
makes poor and rich, he brings low and he exalts. God is God. But when we set ourselves up
with an attitude of pride, we make God our enemy. We pick a
fight with God. An attitude of pride God is aligned
against. It calls out, as one said, God’s
armies. No wonder we were made by God to be his
children. As one described it, simple,
childlike dependence on God. Anything beside that is arrogance. God wants us to come to him.
He wants us to love him. He wants us to walk with him
in fellowship. God is opposed to the proud. But the hope, remember this is
a passage about hope. It’s a message about hope. God
does give a greater grace and it says that he gives grace to
the humble. And every child of God ought
to sit and sit up at attention at the
great message of hope that God gives grace to the humble. We
were made for this kind of dependence upon God. But pride, in whatever
form it takes, is essentially glorifying of our own person,
our own self, our own efforts, our own thoughts. So God looks for those who have
humbled themselves, who have acknowledged in their own hearts
that they don’t have the final word on everything, that they
desperately need the grace of God. God is ready and willing and
able to impart his abundant grace to those who are in need. And
so as James opens this really incredible section to us. Hope. Relief. From spiritual adultery. He opens up into a section. With
some very pointed exhortations. 10 if you will. In verses 7 through
10, we have 10 imperatives. 10 commands and they roll off
James’s tongue or off his pen, if you will. They roll off like
military commands. Do this. Don’t do that. But lest you think that James
is just cold and aloof, he weaves into this list of exhortations
three glorious promises. Look at verse 7. Submit therefore
to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. That’s the first glorious promise
and the first two of 10 commands. But James isn’t finished. Draw
near to God. and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners.
Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into
mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence
of the Lord, and He will exalt you. 10 powerful commands, 10 imperatives,
with three glorious promises. Look briefly, beginning in verse
seven. And I would suggest to you that
these come in the form of couplets, a grouping. The first is in verse
seven, the second is in verses eight and nine, and the final
one standing on its own in verse 10. The first couplet, submit
therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Submit to God. It’s really the
theme of this entire section. Come back. Forget this adulterous
relationship. Come back to me. But he uses,
interestingly enough, he uses military language. Submit, and
it literally means to line up under, to get in line, to yield
to one’s appropriate place. You don’t belong with her. Come
back. Come back to God’s program. Throw
down your weapons. Stop your rebellion. Cease this
foolish skirmish against God. End this adulterous relationship
with the world. Get in line, soldier, is essentially
what verse seven says. It’s a call to subordination.
It’s a call to align themselves with God himself. One pastor said the submission
spoken of is in the first place to God’s grace. He has this abundance
of grace there and available to us. And we have spurned it
to go to the council and the practices and the attitudes of
the world. Come back, he says. Get in line. One faithful pastor said, no
element of submission is more needed than submission to his
will in providence. Not with sullenness, because
we must, but true submission of the heart as of a child to
the act of a father whose wisdom and love he trusts perfectly. Come back, God says. Get in line. Align yourself with me. You see, many of James’s people,
just like many in our day, we become discontented and we begin
to justify our sin. We begin to justify our worldly
allures. because we are dissatisfied with
the way that God has provided for us. It’s a dangerous, dangerous
equation. And so James says, submit to
God. But then he immediately says,
resist the devil. The devil is involved in this.
It shouldn’t surprise any of us. The world has been wooing
us. The world has been telling us
that the church’s methods are old and passe. Try this instead. The devil’s involved. The devil here, when he says
resist the devil, it’s a rendering of that Hebrew word, but it literally
means an adversary, one who’s against you. And the absurdity
of this whole thing is you have aligned yourself, if you are
a spiritual adulterer, if you are engaged in dividing the church
with your selfish ambition, you have aligned yourself with the
world, you have aligned yourself with the devil, who, by the way,
is your adversary. This word was used, it’s a fascinating
word, it was used, remember the angel? that stood in Balaam’s
way. The angel stood in the way of
Balaam and his donkey as an adversary. Used twice in that section. The
devil is your adversary. And the sooner you come to a
theologically correct understanding of that, that he’s not your friend,
he’s not an alternative, he’s not another way, He’s your adversary. He’s the enemy. And then you
add to that the biblical understanding of who he is and how he operates.
He is the deceiver. He’s there to trick and trip
up all who listen to him. And he’s a slanderer. He won’t
have anything good to say with you. Even if you do begin to
employ his methods, he’s going to turn his back on you and throw
you under the proverbial bus. Not only deceiving and slandering,
but he will accuse you. He will stand in direct opposition
to you when it’s all done. He is not your friend. As one described him, the Greek
term rendered the devil means slanderer. That is his principal
activity. James speaks of him as God’s
enemy. He is the power of evil, God’s
inveterate enemy. Constantly engaged in seeking
to subvert the allegiance of God’s people. by leading them
to a self-centered, world-centered attitudes and activities. In
other words, the devil is always playing matchmaker. He would
love to find you someone else so that you can commit spiritual
adultery, so that you can align yourselves with him against God. And it’s such a simple command.
I know, I know what’s out there. I’ve heard some of the stuff
that’s out there, how you deal with the devil and you go through
all these gyrations and all these incantations and you say all
these things to the devil. That’s not the biblical approach.
One word. Resist. I know that because of some of
what’s out there, some of you might not think that that’s very
helpful. I agree with the counsel that I received as a young man.
An older saint of the Lord said, I have always found it bad practice
to talk to the devil. No good thing can come of that
conversation. And so what James says here,
using another military word, is a composite word that means
to stand against. Take a stand, he says. Get up
on your feet, soldier, and stand firm. Resist the devil. Take
your stand. But now, instead of taking up arms against and standing
against God, which is what spiritual adultery amounts to be, now,
he says, take up your arms against the devil. Stand up. Resist the
devil. He’s the real enemy There is no truce I’ve talked to people before
Foolishly ill-informed people who think that the devil perhaps
could be one Maybe he could be reasoned with maybe he could
be evangelized Maybe he will repent of his sinful ideas the
devil can’t be reasoned with He can’t be one to your side
There is no truce. There is no idle soldier James
says That if you’re in the trench playing cards with your buddies,
you are ready to be a victim Get up on your feet Pick up your
weapon Stand your post And instead of quibbling and warring with
one another in the church in this endless exercise of selfish
ambition, this is the real battlefield. It’s the devil himself. And there
is no idle ground. There is no middle ground. There
is no break room. Robert Johnstone. One of my favorite
commentators in this section says that Satan is too shrewd
to go on persistently wasting his energies. When he sees distinctly
that though strong faith, all mightiness is enlisted against
him, he may come back and repeat his assaults many times. in hope
of finding unguarded moments, seasons of faithlessness, consequent
feebleness. But every assault well repelled
confirms the believers spiritual strength. What Johnstone says
is the devil’s going to keep coming. He’s going to keep at
you. Don’t wear down. Stand your ground. Don’t have an argument with him.
Don’t have a discussion. Don’t have a dialogue. Don’t
try to reason with him. Stand your ground. Stand on what’s
right. And that essentially is the great
testimony of scripture. Ephesians 4.27, do not give the
devil an opportunity. Resist him. Ephesians 6.11, put
on the full armor of God. Why? So that you will be able
to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 1 Peter 5.8, be of sober spirit,
be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls
about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Stand firm,
resist him. Take your stand against the devil. and he will flee. We can stand by God’s grace. That’s what makes this passage
so incredibly great. It’s great news. It’s great hope.
It’s great relief that though, in a sense, we were caught up
in this spiritual adultery, God is providing us help, spiritual
benefit, the grace of God, And that if we will only follow what
God commands, the devil will flee. But if we engage in doubt, if
we open the door, if we lay down our weapon, if we become idle,
if we begin to embrace some of his thoughts and ideas and employ
some of his crafty methods, He’s already got a foothold in our
hearts. But when we confront him, when
we stand toe-to-toe with him in the full armor of God with
the sword of the Spirit, as Paul says in Ephesians 6, the devil has no choice. He’s
up against the very grace of God. And he flees, at least for
a time. There’s a second couplet. There’s
a second couplet, not only verse seven, that tells us the first
promise, that if we will only submit to God and resist the
devil, the devil will flee. What a great promise. That’s
worth the price of admission right there, isn’t it? Isn’t
that good hope in the face of spiritual adultery? But verse
eight is the second couplet. And it’s a couplet that describes
repentance unto communion. Repentance unto communion. And
he says very pointedly, draw near to God and he will draw
near to you. And of course the insinuation
there, if you read between the lines, is that there has at least
been a season where we have not been drawing near to God. where
we have had our backs to God or we have been in affinity with
another relationship. He says, come back. Draw near
to God and he will draw near to you. James is pointing to
that worldliness that they had embraced, the distance that they
had created in their relationship with God, and he calls them back
to an intimate communion, a relationship with God himself. Draw near. Draw near in repentance. Draw
near as the priests used to do as they approached the Holy of
Holies. Draw near in repentance. Psalm 24 echoes this passage
well. He who has clean hands and a
pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood and
has not sworn deceitfully, And lest you think that that’s purely
just an Old Testament idea that James is pulling into his largely
Jewish church, Peter said the exact same thing. 1 Peter 1.22,
since you have, in obedience to the truth, purified your souls
for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from
the heart. Cleanse your hearts, cleanse
your hands, commune with God. And of course, we know that the
most prominent element of this whole equation is going to be
prayer, isn’t it? It’s going to be a prayerful
frame of mind. It’s going to be a season of
prayer for the believer that aligns himself back with God. Psalm 73 echoes this same truth. As for me, the nearness of God
is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge
that I may tell of all your works. We are to draw near to God, draw
near like the writer of Hebrews urges on numerous occasions,
draw near. with confidence to the throne
of grace. Draw near, Hebrews 10, 22, draw near with a sincere
heart full of assurance and faith. And in order to do that, we have
to cleanse our hearts. Cleanse our hands, you sinners,
he says. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. And may I
just say that when he calls them double-minded here, it’s the
same thing that he’s been saying all along, this is why we’ve
said that he’s talking to believers. Because you can’t be double-minded
if you’re just a heathen. You have no inclination to God
whatsoever. This is somebody who names the
name, have professed faith in Christ. To some degree they have
aligned themselves with believers. They name the name of Christ
But they’re double minded. And so James calls them in very
strong terms. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. And he isn’t telling them to
wash their hands with soap and water. He’s telling them to repent
of their sin. Namely, their sin of selfish
ambition and all the language that went with it that was literally
dividing the church. Just as our iniquities stood
between us and a holy God, James calls them to repent of these
sins, repent of these very sins. Realign themselves with God. Purify your hearts, you double
minded, he says. Those who had begun to dabble
in the world. had their heart blackened and
darkened by the effects of sin and sinful thoughts and tendencies,
and he woos them back. He woos them back and he calls
them to repentance, a repentance that he describes so clearly
in verse nine. Be miserable and mourn and weep
Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. You say, well, I thought the
Christian life was something completely different. I thought
it was a life of joy. I thought it was true happiness.
I thought it was life itself. It is. Joy unspeakable, as Paul says. But when we begin to dabble with
the world, when we begin to turn our back with God, It’s repentance
like we’ve never repented before. Be miserable and mourn and weep. He isn’t saying that the Christian
life is all gloom and doom. But what he is saying is that
if you are a professing Christian, you should stay as far as you
can from the world and its ways and to the degree that it is
woven its vines around you and pulled you down. You should repent
of the sinful tendencies that you’ve embraced. One pastor said
he’s pleading for sobriety in the place of frivolousness. He’s
talking to people who are in love with the world. These self-satisfied,
easygoing, luxury loving, complacent, unworried hearers should be confronted
with their sins. They should be ashamed, grief
stricken and afraid. To the degree that we have done
that, James says, we need to be miserable. We need to mourn. We need to repent. We need to
weep over our past sins and our sinfulness. And immediately, the image that
comes to my mind is the publican, remember? In Luke’s gospel, who
was standing at the back of the church, pounding his breasts,
pleading with God to be merciful, Well, the religious one was making
a great show. Jesus said, blessed are those
who mourn, blessed are those who see their sin for what it
is and hate it and repent of it. For they shall be comforted. Psalm 51 says, the sacrifices
of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, oh God, you
will not despise. He calls them to repentance. And then he rounds out in this
third and final couplet with essentially a summary or a reminder,
a recapitulation of everything that he said. Look, if you will,
at verse 10, humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord. And he will exalt you. That’s where it began in verse
six. That’s the relationship that
is key and paramount in this whole section. Humble yourselves
in the presence of the Lord. And that was a little detail
that perhaps some people forgot. The God is observing everything
God is watching our ways. He’s watching our means. He’s
watching our behavior. He’s listening in on our conversations. He’s he’s observing it all. And so we need to be mindful.
That is, God is watching. He’s taking into account. Not
only our words, but our attitudes. And James reminds all when he
says humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord. And if
you are truly humble, if you are truly contrite, if you truly
desire to align yourselves with the Holy God, he will exalt you. You think of the great saints
of the scriptures. The principle bore itself out
over and over again. Moses spoke to God, who am I
that I should go to Pharaoh? That I should bring the sons
of Israel out of Egypt? God said, certainly I will be
with you. Gideon, likewise, the Lord looked at him and said,
go. In this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand
of Midian. Have I not sent you? And he said to him, that is God,
Oh Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is
the least of Manasseh and I’m the youngest in my father’s house. Jeremiah, likewise, great prophet. tried a similar excuse on God.
Alas, Lord, behold, I do not know how to speak because I’m
a youth. But the Lord said to me, do not say I’m a youth because
everywhere I send you shall go and all that I commend you shall
speak. You see, the Lord, the Lord is opposed to the proud,
but he exalts the humble. No wonder James rounds out with
this exhortation in his third couplet, humility to exaltation.
Do you want to be great in the church? Do you want to impact
the church in a powerful way? Humble yourself. Do you want
the Lord to use you for his glory and his kingdom? Humble yourself. Do you want to avoid the ugly
pitfall of a divorce from God himself by committing spiritual
adultery? Humble yourself, submit to the
Lord, and he will exalt you. Let’s humble ourselves before
him now. Our merciful King, we thank you
for your grace and your goodness in our lives. We thank you for
this relief. We thank you that those though
these passages. Verses one through five were
so incredibly heavy. Heavy to read, let alone preach
heavy to hear. Heavy to ponder. You grant us relief, and you
have granted us relief over and over again in giving us your
grace. Lord God, we thank you that even
though we’ve had past skirmishes, even in this church, skirmishes that involve selfish
ambition, Lord, we thank you for protecting us at least until
now. From another episode of the same,
but we know we know the human heart. We know the tendency is
to employ the world’s methods and means. To be arrogant. To be super self confident. To think only of our own desires
and ways. Lord, we thank you for your word
that calls us to repentance. We thank you for your work of
grace already in our hearts. And we pray that if there are
any who are wayward. Inclining themselves to another.
Having an affair. With the world. Lord, we pray
that you. by your abundant and marvelous
grace would woo them again to repentance and to restore a full
relationship with a holy God that you might exalt them in
time. We pray all of these things in Jesus’ name, amen.