Grace for the Humble
Notes
Transcript
Scripture Intro:
Scripture Intro:
Scripture Reading (“Please stand…”)
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet 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 wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
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.
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”?
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Pray...
Intro:
Intro:
After the many times that James has called his readers “brothers” (1:2; 2:1, 14; 3:1, 10, 12)
or even “my dear brothers” (1:16, 19; 2:5),
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.
his address you adulterous people really catches our attention.
The Destruction of Gospel Community
The Destruction of Gospel Community
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Controlled by Your Desires
Controlled by Your Desires
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
“your passions at war within you”
Passions translates the Greek word hēdonē, which means simply “pleasure,”
but often with the connotation of a sinful, self-indulgent pleasure
(we get our word “hedonism” from it).
You DESIRE and don’t have.
You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
Living for Yourself
Living for Yourself
“fights among you”
“your passions”
You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet 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 wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
Ten Commandments (the ones about interpersonal relationships):
Murder, Adultery, Coveting
Perhaps, then, the best alternative is to take “you kill” in its normal, literal, sense, but as a hypothetical eventuality rather than as an actual occurrence. As we have seen, the tradition to which James is indebted often portrayed murder as the end product of envy.
Loving the Ways of the World
Loving the Ways of the World
fights - means “battles” or “strife” of any kind.
can refer to violent conflicts (e.g., Josh. 4:13),
but most of its occurrences in the Septuagint and all three of its other occurrences in the NT
(2 Cor. 7:5; 2 Tim. 2:23; Tit. 3:9) denote verbal quarrels or inward anxiety.
the problem of community strife fits perfectly into the larger topic that James develops in this part of the letter. For disputes are almost always accompanied by harsh words, criticism, and slander—the misuse of the tongue that James castigates (3:1–12; 4:11–12; 5:9).
Frustrated desire, James makes clear, is what is breeding the intense strife that is convulsing the community.
True Nature of Worldly patterns...
James warns his readers about flirtation with the world and its consequences for their relationship to God (v. 4).
The Beauty of Gospel Community
The Beauty of Gospel Community
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The Love of God
The Love of God
the enormity of God’s love.
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.
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”?
(v. 4) “You adulterous people …”
(v. 5) “He yearns jealously”
This is not a sinful desire or characterized by selfishness.
This is like a husband rightly guarding his wife from other lovers.
“Dwell in you”
Is this the human spirit that God gives us
Or the Holy Spirit?
Commentators are split.
But one thing they agree on for the most part...
this jealousy...
is God’s jealousy for his people’s love back to him.
Since we already talked about the Ten Commandments:
2nd Commandment...
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God...
For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
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.
(v. 4) By seeking friendship with the world, they are, in effect, committing spiritual adultery.
If you’ve ever been in love, you know that
you are not your own anymore.
You are not an independent person anymore.
You don’t want to be an independent person anymore.
The Posture of Humility
The Posture of Humility
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Tim Keller:
Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less. (Tim Keller)
“It’s not being focused on yourself, because inside you are supremely confident of your own worth and that God is taking care of the circumstances of your life.”
If you lay down your life and you die to your own power and your own control,
if you lay down your life for God and the people around you,
you will get your life back in fullness now and forever.
But if you hold on to your power,
if you hold on to your safety,
you’ll become more and more like Satan and your life here will become more and more like hell,
He who would lose his life will find it, and he who would find his life will lose it.
Andrew Murray writes, “Just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds the creature abased and empty, his glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless.” (Andrew Murray)
Jeremy Linneman:
Happiness, now and for all eternity, will be found as we present ourselves before God as an empty vessel—so that he can dwell and manifest his infinite glory in this clay jar. (Jeremy Linneman)
App. Jonathan Edwards, On Revival...
Here are the six things that are marks of spiritual pride and are, therefore, marks of spiritual humility.
First of all, he says spiritual pride makes you more aware of others’ faults than you are of your own, but humility disposes you to be far more aware of your own faults than others’.
Secondly, pride leads you, when you speak of other’s faults, to have an air of contempt and disdain, but humility (a humble person) means whenever you do speak of people’s faults you only ever do it with grief and mercy.
Thirdly, pride leads you to quickly separate from people who you’ve criticized or who criticize you. That means you’re cold to them or you avoid them, but spiritual humility means you stick with people even through difficult relationships. You don’t give up on them.
Fourthly (I like this one), a proud person is dogmatic and sure about every point of belief. Proud people cannot distinguish between major and minor points of belief because everything, the proud person believes, is major. John Calvin had a friend named William Farel, and at one point he was very candid in one of his letters and said Farel is always fighting with people because he can’t stand to be contradicted.
Fifthly, a proud person either loves to confront because you like winning or proud people refuse to confront because you don’t want criticism and controversy, but a humble person confronts when it’s necessary. If you over-love confronting or hate confronting, if you do it too much or never do it because you’re afraid, you’re not humble. Humble people confront necessarily. Proud people confront too much or too little. Here’s my favorite …
Sixthly, Edwards says a proud person is often unhappy and sorry for himself. Here’s the reason why. Proud people are filled with self-pity because, first, they’re so sure they know how life ought to go.
The Power of Grace
The Power of Grace
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Murray: To lose yourself is not to give up care of your soul and body; it’s to trust the Father’s power and goodness in us to be better than our own strength and character apart from him. (Andrew Murray)
Keller:
Our God is “a consuming fire,” (Deut 4:24)...
and his demand for our exclusive allegiance may seem terrifying.
But our God is also merciful, gracious, all loving,
and willingly supplies all that we need to meet his all-encompassing demands.
As Augustine has said, “God gives what he demands.”
“Death to your individual needs leads to a resurrection of community.” (Tim Keller)
The Humility of Jesus
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
Close in Prayer
Close in Prayer
Closing Song:
Closing Song:
Benediction:
Benediction:
