Grace that is Greater

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a privilege to share the Word of God with the saints of Durbin Memorial Baptist Church. Our Church exists by grace for glory in love.

Allow me to begin with a bit of a history lesson. Have you ever heard of Sir Walter Raleigh? You may remember his name from an old brand of pipe tobacco, but that brand came way after the real Sir Walter Raleigh’s life. By all earthly accounts Sir Walter Raleigh was an impressive man. Living in between the 16th and 17th centuries, he was an English statesman, soldier, writer, and explorer. He was a protestant believer in Jesus Christ during the reign of Queen Mary the First, also know as Bloody Mary because of her persecution of the Protestant believers. Sir Raleigh would spend his childhood escaping such persecution. He served in the French civil wats. Studied at Oriel College in Oxford. From battles to expeditions and everything in between, he lived a remarkable life. But I didn’t come here this morning so that all of us would leave here knowing another impressive figure from History.

The reason I bring up Sir Raleigh is because of one particular subtle moment in his life, nothing more than a footnote in the history books. One day he was walking with Queen Elizabeth, whom succeeded Bloody Queen Mary, was much kinder to Sir Raleigh. And as Raleigh was walking with the queen, this noble, accomplished, distinguished man saw that Queen Elizabeth was about to step into a miry place, a dirty puddle in his path, and so he took off his richly embroidered cloak and spread it over the area so that the Queen’s feet might not get damp. As Charles Spurgeon told this story to his own congregation he said, “The courtier [the servant of the royal court] knew how to smooth his own road by caring for his queen.”

As we reflect on this story we could just account it to an application of chivalry that is missing in our day and age, and there may be some truth to that. But what I want to highlight is that this noble, impressive man, humbled himself in the presence of royalty.

Despite recent changes in our demeanor towards civil authorities, generally throughout history, civil authorities have been treated with honor. I remember one time when I was in college I had the opportunity to meet former Arkansas Governor and Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Even as a young and dumb college kid, I understood that this was a person who I needed to show deference and respect to. I’m happy to report that the former Baptist pastor was kind in our short interaction and we got to connect over slapping the bass.

The reason I bring all of this is up is because I think in our day to day interactions we do have a general understanding and even desire to give to honor where it is due. Though it is not always the case, we understand giving deference and posturing humility towards authorities.

So if we can understand this in our person to person interactions, then something that perplexes me, is that we often do not show the same humility towards our God, the Creator of the Universe, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the one to whom we must give an account.

What do I mean by this? Well if are all being honest this morning, we’re quick to call on God when we need something, but He is distant in our times of comfort. We neglect the means of our preservation, we dismiss gathering with His people as He instructs us to do. We skip over the parts of the Word that are uncomfortable though He tells us they are profitable for growth. To be blunt this morning, we say we have Faith in our Savior as Lord of our lives but then live as if He is just another second-class citizen.

As you know well by this point in the series James is the book about living out our faith in obedience to the Word of God. What we must recognize is that faith produces humility. The very beginning of this letter written to the 12 tribes in the Dispersions starts by James identifying himself as a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. You may remember from the beginning of our study in this book that James could’ve boasted about being the brother of Jesus. He could have used his title as the Pastor of the Church of Jerusalem. But instead he starts by highlighting his servitude to our God and Lord. The rest of the book to this point has been full of practical ways to live out faith in Christ, ways that are often humbling when we put see how short we fall in our own lives.

It is my hope that as you have walked through the book of James you have been humbled. While this is not always the most comfortable of feelings, it is the appropriate and natural response to the grace of God.

If you would, turn in your Bibles to James 4. This morning I have the intention of preaching through a humbling section of Scripture, James 4:7-12. We know that we don’t take Scripture in a vacuum. That the text surrounding where we are jumping in directly influences the rest of the text. Where we are picking up this morning is a direct continuations from where we left off last week. Therefore, before we get into verse 7, read verse 6 with me again.

James 4:6 ESV

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

In the beginning of chapter 4 James calls out the recipients of this letter for their relationship with the world that is seemingly more important to them their relationship with own God. He paints a dark picture, of those who are friends of the world are their very enemies of God. He shows them that the source of their envious attitude is their entanglement with sin. Then where we ended last week comes these beautiful words, “But He” or if we want to replace the pronoun with the proper noun, “But God.”

But God gives greater grace! Contemplate the words from the song we just sang this morning. It goes like this:

Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt! Yonder on Calvary's mount out-poured– There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.

Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that will pardon and cleanse within; Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin!

The grace of God is amazing grace. It is a humbling grace. When we truly understand the grace of God, it moves us to the core and opens our eyes to goodness and appropriate response of submitting to God in our day to day lives. That brings us to our primary text this morning. Read with me James 4:7

James 4:7 ESV

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

Hear these words in the fuller context that has been laid before you this morning, “But God gives more grace, He gives grace to the humble. Therefore submit to God.”

My son is nearly 3 years old. He is a great blessing in my life. BUT, he is getting to that age in which he begins to ask the question, “why?” Aiden-Rey, can you go get that for me? Why? Now usually I try to explain my reasoning to Him. But every now and then I’ll hit him with the classic, “because I said so.” And to his credit, by and large, he is as compliant as a nearly-three year old can be expected to be. Well why is he compliant? Because he knows that I love him, that I have never given him instruction that will intentionally harm him, and that I want the best for him and our household. He may not be able to articulate that, but it is the culture that we have created in our home. He may not understand the grand purpose for everything that I ask him to do, but he knows I have his back and so he *generally* submits to my command.

If any being had the right to say someone, “Because I said so.” It would be God! The creator of the universe! The one who knows every number of every head on our head. The one who is never changing, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The Almighty. Humanity ought to submit to God simply because He is God.

But dear Christian, in our text this morning, we are given even more rationale for why we ought to submit to God. We ought to submit to God, to the instruction given to us in the Word of God, because we are the very recipients of God’s grace! As the Christian band Casting Crowns put it, “Who am I that the Lord of all the Earth would care to know my name? It’s not because of who I am but because of what God has done. It’s not because of what I’ve done, but because of who God is!” If you know Jesus as Lord and Savior, who lived and died and rose again to pay to the cost of your sins, then you my friend have experienced a magnitude of grace that sends shockwaves into the expanse of eternity! We are to submit to God because we have seen how He loves us, in our salvation we see that He has our good as our goal, and we know that He has our back so much that He would go to cross to pay our debt. The only right response is a gratitude driven driven submission!

What does it mean to submit? “Submit” sounds very passive in English, but the Greek concept is more active. The greek word is a compound word that literally means, to “arrange” “under”. To submit, in Scripture, is not to idly sit back and wait for God to smack you in the face with a direction. Submission in this sense is to arrange your life under the direction that God has given to you. It’s approving what you do by the Word of God, seeking to have a God-honoring home, gathering with His people, caring for the orphans and widows, being a peacemaker in your relationships. It’s taking the imperatives, the directions, breathed out by God and written through the pen of James that we have been looking at week in and week out for some time now, and taking them to heart. You may not understand the exact reason for why each and every direction is given but you desire to obey and submit because you have seen your Heavenly Father loves you and has is working for your good!

Because of the great grace of God, submit to God! Arrange your life around Him and His Word! Which implicitly accomplish the back half of verse 7, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

To submit to God’s authority is to resist the devil’s authority. To submit to God is to order our lives under his authority. Resist here, in the greek, means stand against. To resist the devil means we oppose, we fight back, we take a stand against the devil’s authority. To oppose Satan in this setting means to resist temptations especially to fight each other or covet, refer back to verses 1 and 2 of this chapter! (4:1–2).

Now, I don’t want to give the devil more credit than he is due. Unlike our all powerful, ever-present God. Satan isn’t ever-present or all powerful. In 2 Corinthians 4:4 he is referred to as the little g god of this age. This does not mean he is on the same footing as The One-true, Triune God, but rather that Satan has major influence on the ideals, opinions, goals, and views of the majority of people. His influence encompasses the world’s philosophies, education, and commerce. When people live as if there is no God, they by default follow the god of this world. The unholy thoughts, destructive ideas, wild speculations, and false religions of this world have been propagated from Satan’s lies and deceptions.

The reason why I bring this up is that I don’t want us to leave here thinking that when we fall to sin we can blame it on that old, nasty devil. We will give an account for our lives alone with no one to point fingers at but ourselves. Further should we be tempted to blame it on Satan, we would only be reminded that we were instructed to resist him and that he would flee from us.

What we are seeing play here in verse 7 could be called the Replacement Principle. We don’t simply avoid the bad things, we have to replace them with good things or other bad things will fill the void. This ideology has recently gained some credence in the world of psychology. For example, if you have an unhealthy habit of staying up late watching television, you can replace this habit with a more beneficial activity like going for a walk or reading a book. By doing this, you’re not only improving your physical health, but also your mental health. But the psychologists are just catching on to what has long been a biblical principle. We don’t just sit around “not sinning”, we proactively order our lives under God’s direction, replacing the sins that once defined us with goodness of God’s guidance.

And we do this from a posture of humility, birthed from receiving the great grace of God. See how this plays out in the next section of our text this morning.

James 4:8–10 ESV

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.

In this section Paul focusses on the positive side of the Replacement Principle. That is, a list of many of the things our lives should include as we submit to God and resist the Devil.

First on this list is this wonderful promise, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”

If you are familiar with the story of the prodigal son, there was a wealthy man who had two sons. The younger man decided to leave his fathers house and requested his inheritance before his father was even dead, a major insult in that culture. The father obliges and gives the son his inheritance. The son wastes all of the money in a short time, finds himself destitute and ends up being jealous for the slop being fed to the nearby pigs. So he decides to go back to his father’s house, recognizing he messed things up. He was going to request to be a simple servant in the house, relinquishing his rights as a son. Then we read this in Luke 15:20 “20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” This story, being parable, is an allegory of the sinner repenting and running to their heavenly Father. The mind-blowing and humbling reality is that when we run to God, He runs to us!

One pastor said, “Inch toward God, and he will step toward you. Step toward God, and he will sprint toward you. Sprint toward God, and he will fly to you!”

Church may we draw near to God through prayer, praying without ceasing, through the study of the Word, knowing that is good for our instruction, through the gathering knowing that God gave us these people to spur one another on in love and good works.

As we draw near to God, He is drawing nearer unto us. We are exposed to His goodness and His way. It changes the way we see the world and ourselves.

Have you ever went out and bought a new car? Then you go out driving wherever you need to go, and you look around and you start to see other people with the same car? If you’re anything like me, and this has happened every single time my wife and I have gotten a new car, you start to see that car all over the place. Now, its most likely not that in an area as big as Lexington and the surrounding counties that there was not some substantial spike in sales for the model you purchased. Rather, what is more likely is that by your exposure to this specific make and model, you can become more aware of it, and you look around and see it all over.

As we draw near to God and He to us, we are exposed to His instruction for His people. We are exposed to reality and weight of our sin. If you remember back to James 1:23, exposure to the Word is like looking into a mirror. I like to liken it to one of your wive’s bowed, close up magnifying mirror. The closer you look, the more that is exposed. The closer we get to God, the more we see the faults in this flesh. So that is was the back half of verse 8 through verse 10 is addressing. What do we do with what we find as we draw near to God? We repent! Repentance is turning from sin and to our God. And you might say, but Pastor Brad, the word repent is not in there. So I’d say back, you are very astute! Thank you for actually following along! The word, “repent” is not directly stated, but the essence of repentance is.

We’ve seen submitting to God, resisting the devil. Running to God. That has implied repentance, turning from the influence of the devil to building your life under God’s influence. Further, drawing near to God, when we think about it in the context of the prodigal son, is running to God and away from the World. The rest of the descriptors in verses 8, 9, and 10 also describe aspects of genuine repentance. Let’s break these down in sequence.

“Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts.” Repentance is active! James’ command to “Cleanse your hands” references the external effects of Sin, “purify your hearts” then looks to the internal effects of sin. James is telling his readers and us this morning to clean up our acts from inside to out. This is a call for tangible action, proactive removal of sinful behaviors that use to have a stronghold in our lives. James intentionally uses pointed language, saying sinners, and doubleminded. That is because our sin is serious! God’s grace is greater than our sin but as we learn in Romans 6, does that mean we are to continue living comfortably in sin? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it! When God exposes sin in our life we must wash our selves of it, both inside and out.

“Be wretched (miserable) and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.” Here we also see internal and external aspects of repentance. As we see the sin in our lives, it should break our hearts. A major problem in the church today is that in many cases we are apathetic towards sin and in some places we celebrate it. To often we reflect on our younger years in our Sunday School classes and we laugh at our sinful pasts when we really ought to be mourning. Jesus said in His sermon on the mount, “blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.” Looking at that verse in the greater context of the rest of the sermon, Jesus is saying blessed are those who mourn their sin, those who are cut to the heart by the grievous nature of their sin, those who see their sin for the dastardly blight it is, they will receive comfort by God driving them through their grief into His embrace.

“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.” As we have said throughout our time this morning, seeing the greatness of God’s grace to cover the great cost of our sin rightly results in us being humbled. As we have come to understand the greatness of God, He would have every right to leave us in our humbled estate. But once more, by His great grace, He will exalt us, all those who repent of their sins and believe in Christ will be exalted in glory! We are more than conquerors! We are heirs of the promise, receiving the inheritance of grace!

It’s my prayer that we would all be humbled this morning by the great grace of God. Something we didn’t earn, something we didn’t deserve, and Yet God gives so freely.

Before we conclude this morning, I want to look at one more implication of humility lived out in response to the grace of God, this time in the context of how we live out life together as a church. Read verses 11 and 12 with me.

James 4:11–12 ESV

11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

The book of James is sometimes considered to be disjointed and hard to follow. Some theologians suggest that these verses should be evaluated apart from everything else we’ve looked at this morning. But if we see humility in light of God’s grace as the underlying theme, I believe all of what we have read through this morning ties together nicely.

James changes focus from our relationship with God to our relationship with one another within the church, but they are both fueled by humility. As we look at these verses, we need to be careful in our interpretation here. In our culture, “You can’t judge me!” has been used to disregard any bit of biblical reproof. But we know from a whole view of Scripture that we are to hold one another accountable. That includes uncomfortable conversations, calling out sin in one another’s lives, if persistent even church discipline. We do ourselves a disservice by seeking to understand verses like this as an excuse to disregard anyone ever stepping on our toes.

The key to understanding the instruction here is in understanding the word “speak evil.” if you’re reading from another translation it might say, “criticize”. James is speaking against belittling one another with our words. We can have uncomfortable conversations about serious issues without neglecting the dignity of the other individual in the conversation.

Further, Everything we have seen today has pointed to the humility that the grace of God births in us. Our interactions with each other must be marked by the same humility. Thus, we don’t approach our brothers and sisters from a position of superior self-righteousness but rather as a fellow wretch enjoying the same grace of God, seeking good in their lives.

“It is this unkind, judgmental spirit that James attacks in verse 11. His point is, when anyone speaks uncharitably against a fellow believer and judges him, he breaks the law of love, the royal law (2:8)—“love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)—which then makes him guilty of breaking the whole Law of God (James 2:10). His failure to keep the Law amounts to judging it, in that he has judged it to be invalid and unnecessary.”

While we must be vigilant and lovingly watch out for our brothers and sisters, we must not elevate ourselves above our station. We must remember we too are sinners saved by the grace of God living humbly in response to the grace we have received.

As we come to a close, everyone in this room this morning needs to understand the humbling truth given in verse 12. “There is only one lawgiver and judge, He who is able to save and destroy.”

There are two applications of this verse I want to end on.

First, we must not think ourselves bigger in the lives of those around us than God. Hold to His Word, point your friends and family to Him, but do so with a posture of humility and love.

Second and lastly, we must not think ourselves bigger than God, period. I hope that we all leave here today humbled. There is one lawgiver and judge. The judge is able to save and to destroy. He is the judge to whom it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment. He is the One who’s word is living and active sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit of joint and or marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. He is the one whom no creature is hidden from his sight, all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.

But He is also the God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

I hope that in the bigness of God we recognize our smallness. I hope that in the holiness of God we recognize our sinfulness. And I hope that in the grace of God we recognize our rightful humility and seek to serve the One who loves us well more than we deserve.

If you have questions about who this God is, what He has done, and how you stand before Him, come find me in this hymn of response. Let’s pray.