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TEXT: JAMES 4:7-10 | HUMILITY DEMONSTRATED
INTRO
ILLUSTRATION: Growing up, I had an immense fear of the dark.
So to help me sleep, my mom would turn on a lamp, and she would put a cassette tape in for me to listen to.
It had a bunch of Christian kids songs and a few skits.
But I remember one of the things it played was a verse… James 4:7
EXPLANATION: Last week, James introduced us to where the conflicts of life come from .
We saw that when we want what we want, and we fight for what we want, and then we ask God for what we want because we want it, God said, “It’s all about you.
You are acting like the world when you’re supposed to be the bride of Christ.
As we reached the end of the message, we saw that God tells us in v.5 that our natural human response is to respond in our flesh.
But we have the wonderful promise in v.6, that God’s gives more grace!
While you and I are unable to win the battle against our flesh on our own, the grace of God is greater and more powerful than our flesh will ever be!
And James gives the answer to how we can access that grace at the end of v.6…
APPLICATION: I don’t know about you but I want more grace!
I want the power of God’s grace to overflow my flesh each and every day of my life.
ILLUSTRATION: This past week I ran into a difficult situation, and I was ready to respond the way I wanted to.
But God gave me an amazing wife, whose voice often sounds like the Holy Spirit.
And she said you don’t want to respond that way.
But I did!
You know what I needed??? MORE GRACE!
APPLICATION: Every day of our life we need the grace of God just to make it through without making a complete mess of things!
But to access that grace, we have to have humility.
EXPLANATION: Humility is a word that has been tossed around to the point, we don’t understand what it is.
We may say that someone came from “humble beginnings.”
We mean they came from nothing.
So from our minds when we see the Bible say that we are supposed to be humble, we think that means we should think we are nothing.
But as we are going to see, it doesn’t mean we should act and think we are nothing
No, it means that we should stop thinking so much about ourselves.
And James gives us the answer to what we should be focusing on instead of ourselves.
V.7a, WHERE HUMILITY BEGINS
ILLUSTRATION: I’ve seen guys that do Jujitsu
Jayce is getting ready to start wrestling and I think he should learn it
I know absolutely nothing about it, but I know that there are various hold you can do.
The goal of a match is to get your opponent to submit.
You are constantly trying to find leverage to get your opponent into a position will they will tap out and submit to you.
EXPLANATION: I think sometimes that is the mindset we have about God.
He is forcing us into places and situation until finally we can’t help it and we submit to Him.
But that isn’t what James say here.
He says, “Submit yourselves”
So then our mind goes to us twisting our own arm up behind our back trying to get ourselves to say “uncle”
But that isn’t what James is saying here when he says we must “submit ourselves.”
No this “submit” carries with it the idea of a soldier enlisting.
Willingly putting himself under his superior.
Not a forced submission… a willful enlisting.
James is saying, Humility begins not when we cower in a corner and pretend we are worthless.
Humility begins when we understand our place in God’s army and submit to His will and His leadership in our lives.
ILLUSTRATION: When we were kids we would sing that song, “I’m in the Lord’s army… Yes sir”
I may never march in the infantry
Ride in the calvary
Shoot the artillery
I may never fly over the enemy
But I’m in the Lord’s army
APPLICATION: You didn’t know it when you were little, but that’s exactly what you joined when you got saved.
You joined the Lord’s army!
When you put on Christ’s righteousness in place of your filthy rags, you surrendered yourself to be a soldier for the Lord.
And as a soldier, you must choose to submit yourself to the One Who is your Superior!
ILLUSTRATION: Jesus demonstrated this after His trip to Jerusalem with His parents.
After they had traveled about a day out of the city and realized Jesus wasn’t with them, they returned back
And after three days of searching they found Him in the temple.
When they got back on the road to Nazareth them Bible tells us in Luke 2:51
The words “subject unto them” has the idea of being submissive to them.
Here Jesus, the God amongst men
Who always had been and always would be, submitted himself to his earthly parents.
He put Himself under their will for Him.
APPLICATION: Jesus knew what it meant to humble Himself to the will of others.
When He was in the garden on that night before He would give His life on the cross for your sins and mine, three times He prayed, “Father, not my will but thine be done.”
Friend, To enjoy the grace of God that is so much greater than the power of your flesh, you must humble yourself, and willingly submit to God!
To place yourself under His authority for your life.
While that is so easy to say, it is often so hard to do.
To lay aside your plans and your will for the father.
When was the last time you just stopped and said, “God am I following your will for my life?”
Am I following your will raising my kids
Am I following your will in my marriage
Am I following your will with my job
Of have I started saying without realizing it, “Father not your will, but mine be done.”
To experience that sweet grace of God that is greater than your flesh, you must choose to humbly submit yourself to the Lord
But that’s just the first part… because Submission is where humility begins
V.7B, WHERE THAT HUMILITY IS DEMONSTRATED
EXPLANATION: James goes on to say:
We are commanded to resist the devil.
The word resist literally means to “take your stand against.”
I heard it said by one preacher, “It is to step out of bed in the morning and seek to spend the day going the opposite direction of the devil!”
James knew that Satan is a real enemy who is out seeking to destroy.
Peter said it this way in 1 Peter 5:8
Because of that reality Paul warned the believers in Ephesus
Paul knew, Peter knew, James knew if you give the devil and inch he will take a mile.
The devil works in “small sins” because he knows the small sin’s potential!
So James warned, Resist (take your stand against) the devil.
ILLUSTRATION: According to the Bible, Samson was the strongest man who had ever lived.
He was unmatched and unstoppable.
God had given him strength to defeat the enemies of Isreal.
But in all the strength Samson had, he didn’t know how to resist.
At the very beginning of his story Judges 14:1-3
He just couldn’t help himself… it was what he wanted… and it was just a little look.
When Delilah begged Samson to tell her the secret of his strength, he didn’t tell her… at least not initially.
But with time he got a little closer and a little closer, until one day, it just slipped.
When Samson awoke without any hair one of the saddest verses in the Bible says Judges 16:20
Samson had spent so much of his life not resisting…
He’d spent so much of his life not submitting...
That Samson didn’t even realize when he didn’t have the power of God in his life.
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