Reading through the book of James it’s apparent that there were some issues in the Church that specifically needed addressing…he has already accused them of fighting…quarrelling…and coveting…symbolically calling them murderers and adulterers because of their attitudes toward each other.
James’ desire throughout his letter is for those who are true believers to act in accordance with their faith…do your actions mirror the faith you proclaim?
There’s a term being used today to describe those who give a verbal affirmation of Scripture but fail to live their lives in a manner that conforms to Scripture….it’s called Theoretical inerrancy.
What are some of the signs of a Christian who is experiencing Theoretical Inerrancy?…failing to read their Bible…failing to pray…not attending church… failing to live their lives in humble submission and conformity to Scripture.
Christians evidence their faith by the way they live their lives…for James…a faith that does not produce real life changes is a faith that is worthless.
What they needed to experience was a revival…a restoration of their fellowship with God….so in verses 7-10 of chapter 4 James gives eleven imperatives… commands that demand immediate obedience if they were to enter into a true relationship with God.
7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and He will come near to you. Cleanse your hands…and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and weep. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble your-selves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.11do not speak against one another…
Last Sunday we looked at two imperatives… first imperative is 7 Submit to God.
Here’s the problem with that statement…it’s the easy believism idea that I’ve submitted to God because I prayed a prayer and that’s all there is to being a Christian…praying a prayer is not submitting to God.
Satan loves it when people think that’s all there is to being a Christian…that’s the very issue James is addressing in this letter…a faith with no substance.
How do we submit to God?
- We submit to God by knowing and obeying His Word.
- We submit to God when we trust in His will for our lives.
Knowing God can only be accomplished by knowing God’s Word…by listening to it…by memorizing it…by studying it…by attending Church.
The second imperative we looked at was James’ directive to Resist the devil, and he will flee from you…what if anything can be done to resist the devil?
- We resist the devil by knowing and applying His Word.
I’ll say it for the second time…the only way that can be accomplished is by knowing God’s Word…by listening to it…by memorizing it…by studying it…by attending Church.
The more we know and apply God’s Word the more we will defeat the devil and send him on his way.
- We resist the devil through righteous living.
- We resist the devil through collective fellowship
- We resist the devil through prayer
Said it last week and I’m going to repeat it this week…when we make the decision to become a Christian that is the beginning of a great spiritual conflict.
Before you became a Christian Satan had his way with you…you might not have thought that…but he did because there was no one to resist him.
But when we made the decision to follow Jesus a major conflict erupted… because the Christian life is a warfare and that’s the problem with the great majority of American Christians…they’re totally unaware that a deadly conflict is occurring in the spiritual realm…a conflict that is not against flesh and blood but against forces of wickedness in heavenly places.
Here’s how Satan attacks the church and you.
—First by false teaching
The Heretic…who teaches what contradicts essential Christian teaching..
The Charlatan…who uses Christianity as a means of personal enrichment.
The Prophet…who speaks fresh revelations outside of Scripture
The Abuser…who uses his position of leadership to take advantage of other people.
The Divider…who uses false doctrine to disrupt or destroy a church
—Second is in the realm of our imagination
—Third by our conscience that will either accuse us or excuse us.
As Christians we are largely unaware of at least two things:
- Satan is constantly on the attack…even though we know this truth from the Bible [1 Pt. 5:8] we don’t realize it because it’s so subtle.
Satan draws us into sin and bondage using emotional baggage like anger… worry…complaining…arguing… anxiety…holding on to grudges…that’s why we live in a world that doesn’t belong to God…we live in a world in which we are only visitors.
- Christians have all the power and authority from God to resist him and the authority to cast him away…that’s the benefit of memorizing Scripture.
James’ third imperative…8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. God’s desire has always been that we would draw near to Him with all our hearts…God created us to walk with Him in fellowship.
Drawing near to God is a major theme in redemption history…but it’s conditional.
The statement ‘draw near to God’ indicates that the separation from God was a result of their choice…it was their involvement with the world that had moved them away from God…that’s what happens when we are friends with the world.
On the surface this verse seems to be so simplistic… Come near to God and he will come near to you…just like the verse…2 you do not have because you do not ask.
I can’t emphasize enough the importance of how God responds to us.
And really it is that easy…BUT…the catch is we can’t be living in sin and at the same time be close to God…just like you can’t be living a disobedient lifestyle and expect God to hear your prayers.
He doesn’t care how sincere you are…how earnest you are…how genuine you are in your request…God will not hear your prayers and you cannot be near to God when you are out of fellowship with Him.
In this verse James is not giving an evangelistic invitation…this is not a call for the lost to be saved…James is speaking to believers…‘draw near to God.’
There was a reason some were not as close to God as they once were…some had stepped away from God and allowed Satan to be an influence in their lives …as a result they had broken their fellowship with God.
God is in fellowship with us when we ‘diligently seek Him’ [Heb. 11:6] so what does it mean to diligently seek Him?
The word diligent means to persevere…to be persistent…when you draw near to God you don’t just do it once in a while or when the mood strikes…it means spending time with God becomes a priority in our life.
Studying the Bible is essential if you want to draw near to God because it tells us what the Lord requires of us.
As Israel was preparing to cross into the Promised Land Moses gathered the people together one last time to tell them what the Lord your God asks of you.
To fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD’s commands [Deut 10:12]
Hundreds of years later the prophet Micah reflected on Moses’s instruction by identifying three things the Lord requires of us.
what God does require of you…to do justice…to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God [Micah 6:8]
It’s these three things that give us the framework to hang all of Jesus’s teaching on…essentially… do your actions mirror the faith that you proclaim?
To do justice …is something you must commit doing yourself…it means that you’re fair in all your judgments…the challenge in this is doing what is morally right and fair in every circumstance…even when it’s not popular.
Doing justice means not just loving people who look like me…or live like me … we are called to love all people and we can’t do that faithfully until we are working toward justice for all…this is what the Lord requires of us.
Said before I don’t preach on social justice issues…the gender pay gap… income inequality…universal healthcare…poverty…domestic abuse…that’s not what God has called me to preach on…are they important?…they are… but you don’t need me to lecture you on what needs to be done to eliminate them.
I don’t preach on gender identity issues even though half of adults ages 18-29 say someone can be a man or a woman even if that differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.
I don’t preach on political issues…political polarization is a serious issue in America today…it is having devastating consequences…Democrats and Republicans are farther apart ideologically today than at any time in the past 50 years.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that people in the pews are deriving their moral meaning from politics instead of allowing their theological convictions and values shape their political ideas.
I want my preaching and pastoral leadership to help people increase the abundance of Christ in their life…to help people meet God on a personal level. By saying things that have a Biblical impact and help reveal Christ’s presence in the world.
That’s why I stay away from social justice issues…gender identity issues…and political issues…doing justice means not placing ourselves as superior to others but to walk in love…sharing and living out the truth of the gospel and with a desire to honor and glorify God.
As a Church…as Christians…when we do that… sharing and living out the truth of the gospel…social justice issues…gender identity issues…and political issues are driven by scripture instead of by our prejudices.
To love mercy…in Hebrew the word ‘mercy’ implies a loyal commitment that flows out of love…it is a call for us to be faithful to the love of God which is demonstrated in a commitment to love others.
We define ‘mercy’ as ‘not getting what we deserve’. This is how we think about God’s mercy…we all deserve punishment…because all have sinned… BUT… God’s mercy says I’m not going to do that. Instead God gives us grace…‘getting what we don’t deserve’…spending eternity with God and our loved ones.
To love mercy means that we are required to give people what they don’t always deserve…to cut them some slack and show them mercy instead.
To walk humbly is to walk carefully before God…being mindful of how you live before Him…the person who walks humbly with the Lord does so without arrogance.
To sum this up…Come near to God and He will come near to you…is a call for action…an action we initiate…coming near to God is not for His benefit…drawing near to God and walking in the Spirit is for our benefit.
That’s why the more you abide in God’s Word and in His presence the more accessible God will be to you.