But He Gives More Grace

I love James, and the more I read it, the more I love it - practical, rich wisdom available to us as we live out our faith. And James is a book with a big focus on sanctification - becoming more holy and maturing in our faith. When people think about the gospel message being preached in the epistles, they think about Romans, or maybe Galatians, maybe Ephesians….usually not James. But I’m very excited about this message because in this short passage in James, the gospel of Jesus Christ is front and center, just laid out right before us. And we know that the term gospel means “good news”. And in order for the good news to be good, we have to first acknowledge the bad news. So this passage will address the bad news of who we are and then the Good News of who God is.

There is no good news without bad news.

James 4:4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

I want to start with a story that I hope will help us understand this scripture a little better.

So, God tells this man to go and marry this woman, and it may surprise you to learn that she’s not a Godly woman..she’s a woman who is inclined toward sexual sin..she is inclined toward unfaithfulness..But the Lord commands it, so this man marries the woman, and throughout their marriage, she is unfaithful to him time and time again. And despite the wife’s persistent infidelity, the husband is persistently loving and forgiving. Despite the pain that she causes, he continually responds with love and forgiveness and mercy. And that’s only a surface-level synopsys of the story, but that is a Biblical story of the prophet Hosea and his wife Gomer..he’s got his own book in the Old Testament if you want to go home and study deeper; there’s a lot that we can learn about God in that story.

And like with many other Biblical stories, we, as children of God, are represented in the story. For example, in the New Testament, we have the story of the Lost Sheep or the Story of The Prodigal Son..and in those stories, we aren’t the rescuer, we’re the one who needs to be rescued. In the Old Testament, we all know the story of David and Goliath…and we can identify with individuals in that story…not with Goliath though, and not with David either, but we can identify with the soldiers on the sideline who couldn’t save themselves, so they relied on a hero to do it in their place, amen?

In the book of Hosea, we see ourselves represented, obviously not as God, and not as Hosea, who is an example of God’s love, but as Gomer, the unfaithful spouse. We, by nature, are people who are rebellious against God and desperately need the love, and mercy, and grace of God…And that’s what the Word of God, in James, is going to show us tonight.

So James, a Jewish Christian writing to early Jewish Christians, is obviously familiar with Hosea as well as many other OT references to the unfaithfulness of God’s people. And like James often does, he begins verse 4 with a strongly-worded message: Talking to the church.. talking to Christians..talking to people who have a saving faith in Jesus Christ, he says...

James 4:4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?

4a You adulterous people!

When James says, “You adulterous people”, He’s saying exactly what it sounds like He’s saying. He’s saying that we’re unfaithful to God. A modern commentary on this verse might say that we cheat on God..with what? With the world. Which the Word of God clearly speaks against.

He’s saying that by your faith, you are no longer an enemy of God. So stop acting like it.

5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?

God is saying, “I created you, and this life is not what I created you for.” He’s saying, “You are my child, and I want you to live for me.” We are His, and He wants us fully, completely. He’s not jealous of us (it’s not like we have something that God can’t have)...He’s jealous for us..We are His, and He just wants us completely.

5: Jealous for you, not jealous of you. Ex.) if I come home and someone else is putting Luke to bed, I’m going to be very jealous. Because this is my family, I’m my house..that’s my role….that’s what we do to God when we choose the world.

We are called to be in this world without being of the world. We are called to not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

God’s Word says whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God…so what does that look like? What does it look like to be living for the world?

1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

Before we talk about each of these topics, please understand that as long as we are in the world, we will, to an extent, battle these things. And this ain’t a word for y’all, okay? It’s a word for us…it pertains to all of us, including myself.

A friend of the world follows…

1) DESIRES OF THE FLESH - sexual immorality, gluttony, addiction, fits of anger (desires that give us instantaneous physical gratification)..to follow the desires of the flesh is to do whatever feels good regardless of the consequences.

2) DESIRES OF THE EYES - materialism, envy, consumerism

Coveting an item or an experience that someone else has that you want.

God is not anti-nice things. But if what God blesses us with all goes to our hobbies and toys and other material things that give us momentary happiness, and as a result, building the kingdom of God with what God has blessed us with is an afterthought, then we’re making ourselves friends of the world.

When we make ourselves friends with the world by following the desires of the eyes, it will be most evident in our bank statements. Jesus said “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”...If we contribute more money to vacations and new clothes and new toys than we do to the kingdom of God, then we’ve made ourselves friends with the world…and that doesn’t mean things or vacations are bad. I love vacations…I love new clothes…You can ask Haley, as soon as I walk into Target, I’m heading straight for the men’s clearance rack to see what they’ve got this time…and that’s okay. God is not anti-nice things. He’s anti-prioritizing those things over Him.

3) PRIDE OF LIFE - arrogance, self-righteousness, selfish ambition

Not always necessarily a pursuit of self-glory, but an attitude that “nobody can tell me what to do, not even God, because I GOT THIS. I’m gonna do it MY WAY.”

You have to understand that this is our default setting. We are naturally inclined towards the things of the world..we are naturally enemies of God. That’s the bad news..but the good news comes in verse 6…the Bible says, “but He gives more grace.”

6 But He gives more grace. God’s Riches Available at Christ’s Expense.

1- He gives Grace that draws us.

Titus 2:11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,

That doesn’t mean that all will be saved..It means that salvation is offered to all. That when we meet our creator, we are without excuse.

John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

When James says that we’re an adulteress people, that means that as we naturally are, we are incapable of coming to God on our own. It’s only by the grace of God that we can come to

2- He gives Grace that saves us.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Salvation is a gift from the Lord, a gift not be earned, but a gift to be received in faith. And when that gift is received, no matter what you’ve done, no matter how bad you’ve messed up, no matter your deepest darkest, most shameful sins, you are accepted as a child of God, BY GRACE through faith. If you have put you faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, then you have gone from an enemy of God to a child of God, adopted, as Romans 8 says, into His Holy family.

Romans 8:1 says that There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

That means what it says..if Christ is your Lord and Savior, then you are not condemned. All the terrible things you’ve ever done, God finds you not guilty. If you are saved and in a moment of weakness, you fall back into the desires of the world, God wants you to know that you are not to live in shame because you are not condemned! His grace covers you.

So does that mean that we now have a license to live the way we want? The Word of God has an answer for that. Romans 6:15 Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

Grace is not a license to live the way we want. The grace of God on our lives does not end at our salvation experience..

3- He gives Grace that sanctifies us.

Philippians 1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Who will complete the work? The same one who started the work. And it wasn’t us..we could never do that on our own..It was HIM.

What this means is that it was the grace of God that drew us to Him, it was the grace of God that brought us salvation through faith, and it is the grace of God that will take us to where He has called us to in life.

SANCTIFICATION CHART

Thank God He gives more grace. And James gives us application to receiving the grace of God and really leaning into the grace of God. 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you

Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

You know if someone is drowning, it is critically important that they give up and stop fighting in order to be rescued. In order to be saved, they have to surrender and admit that no matter how hard they try, they can’t do it on their own..

God works in the same way. In order to be saved, we have to acknowledge our brokenness and the fact that we can’t save ourselves.

In order to fulfill the purposes of God in our lives, we have to acknowledge that we can’t do it on our own; that we desperately need His help.

The grace of God is to be received in humility.

An act of humility brings us to God. A walk in humility keeps us in His will.

God moves most powerfully in our lives when we acknowledge, in humility, that we can’t do this on our own. Idk how to make a marriage work, lord I need your help. Idk how to raise a kid, God I need your help. I certainly don’t know how to start a church from scratch and grow it into a thriving ministry…but God does. Any success that comes in our lives is by the grace of God..and the grace of God shines through when we admit to ourselves and to Him that we can’t do this thing on our own.

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Submission is humility. There’s grace in humility. (visual of putting the Bible over your head - You’re under it).

Only by the grace of God can we resist the devil, and we are not to do it alone. Jesus, in the wilderness, shows us the best way to resist the devil, and that’s with what Ephesians 6 calls the sword of the Spirit, the spoken Word of God. God has graced us with His Word. Use it; speak it.

When the devil whispers condemnation because of your past, you speak Romans 8:1 - There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

When the devil tries to plant fear in your mind, you speak 2 Timothy 1:7 - God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love and a sound mind.

If fear and doubt creep in with Haley’s pregnancy, we speak Psalm 139 - God is knitting that baby together in her womb. It is fearfully and wonderfully made.

When you are under attack, and the closer you walk with God, the more you will be attacked, you SPEAK THE WORD OF GOD to the enemy…and just like he did with Jesus in the wilderness, he will flee.

8a Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

It is by the grace of God that we can have closeness with God. This is a PROMISE from God that if we come near to God, He’ll come near to us. Which part is first? (we draw near to Him)...that means that He is patiently, graciously waiting on us to pursue Him.

8b Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

This word is not a word of condemnation for the believer who has put his or her faith in Jesus Christ. It’s a humble reminder that apart from Him, we can do nothing..that without the grace of God, we are helpless sinners without hope..without the grace of God, we are nothing..

Double-minded: pursuing the world and pursuing God…”God, any desire in my heart that is not from you, please take it away.”

That is humility - acknowledging our brokenness - living in the fear of God (not condemnation, because of grace), acknowledging that 1) we fall short and 2) we are nothing (enemies of God/less than nothing) without the grace of God

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

“God, I am nothing on my own. It is only by your grace that I can accomplish anything..” When we take on that attitude, then we begin to fulfill the will of God in our own lives. We begin to see God move in a way that we’ve never seen before. We become vessels of God that He uses to accomplish incredible Kingdom purposes.

ALL BECAUSE OF THE GRACE HE GIVES…amen?

Big takeaways:

Rest in God’s grace - you are not condemned for what you have done.

Lean into God’s grace - whatever you face in this life, His grace is sufficient, and humbly leaning into His grace is the only way to fulfill His will.