James 4:7-10 - Drawing Near
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Introduction:
Have you ever walked into a house and immediately smelled something cooking? You haven't even seen what is in the oven, but that smell captures your attention and starts drawing you toward the kitchen. There's something about a good smell that draws us in. The smell of turkey, stuffing, fresh rolls, or homemade pie has a way of making you want to find out where that smell is coming from.
God has given us our senses to enjoy His creation. But there is a far greater drawing than anything we can smell, see, hear, taste, or touch.
The glory of God, the goodness of God, and the love of our heavenly Father ought to capture our attention and cause us to desire His presence.
The beautiful and majestic glory of God should draw us in much more than the best of what this world has to offer.
With that said, let’s listen to James plea for us to draw near to God in our Scripture today…
Read Full Scripture:
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Prayer
As we have mentioned before, the book of James was written to the dispersed early church. This early church was likely filled with true converts but likely also had some false converts among them. His message is directed at calling true believers to repentance for their sin of worldliness and calling unbelievers to repentance and faith in Christ alone for salvation.
The reason we know that the letter is primarily written to believers is that there is a command for them to draw near to God.
We know that Romans 3 reminds us that no one seeks after God. We learn in John 6:44 that no one comes to the Father unless he is drawn. Yet once we have been drawn to Christ we can then draw near to Him first in salvation. And once we are in Christ, we are to constantly draw near to God. We are then promised that He will draw near to us as we draw near to Him as we see in James 4:8.
With that said…
Today we will see four requirements in order to draw near to God. The first is…
I. Drawing Near to God Requires Submission to Him (7)
I. Drawing Near to God Requires Submission to Him (7)
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
After teaching these early church believers about the war within themselves and the need for more grace, James gives a list of commands in rapid-fire sequence.
Sections of the book of James like this are why James is called the Proverbs of the New Testament. There are statements of wisdom throughout this book, and this is one such section that gives incredible statements of wisdom in rapid succession.
In fact, in these four verses, we are given ten commands, all as imperative commands in the original Greek.
The first of these is that we are to submit to God.
What does submit mean? It is the surrender of one's will to another.
So what does it mean to submit to the Lord? It means to actively align your will with God. True Biblical submission to the Lord means that we understand His authority.
Saving faith is not merely an intellectual agreement with the facts about Jesus. When we truly trust Christ, we are turning from our sin and submitting ourselves to Him as Lord.
As believers, we are not given the authority over any area of our life to do as we please. Instead, we answer to our ultimate authority, and that is our Heavenly Father. Every decision should be done in submission and worship to God.
The word "submission" has somewhat of a military flair to it as well. It means being under the authority of another, and the word "resist" also has a military component. The word "resist" used here literally means to stand against or oppose. We must note that there is no middle ground when it comes to following God. We must submit to the Lord and resist the enemy of our souls.
There is no straddling of the fence here.
As we will discuss in a few moments, James reminds us again in verse 8 that you cannot be double-minded and follow Christ. We must be single-mindedly following our Lord and Savior.
Interestingly, we are told that if we resist the devil, then he will flee from us.
We must note that this isn't a statement of power within ourselves. Some may read a statement like this and feel powerful in and of themselves. They can become like the sons of Sceva, who were beaten down by the very demons that they attempted to cast out by their own power, as we mentioned before in Acts 19:13-16.
It is important to understand that the devil does not flee from us because of any power we inherently have. The devil only flees because He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4). The context here speaks of the Spirit of Christ being far greater than the enemy of our souls - namely Satan.
How do we practically obey this command? Peter has some further teaching on this for us in 1 Peter 5:8-9:
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
First…
1 - We must be alert and watchful.
Peter tells us that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Know that Satan is not passive in his pursuit of us who follow Jesus. He is actively seeking to destroy you. You must be alert and watchful and aware of his cunning and his tricks.
And second…
2 - We must actively resist Him by remaining firm in the faith.
We must give no opportunity for attack. We must shore up our weaknesses by the power of the Word. Ephesians 4:27 states…
and give no opportunity to the devil.
In context, Paul is speaking about the pitfalls of anger, bitterness, falsehood, corrupt talk, among other issues in which we may struggle. Where we identify areas of weakness within us - we must be sure to be studied and prayed up and prepared for the battles each day through the power of the Holy Spirit.
We must be sure that we are walking in the truth. And we must also be sure that we are armed correctly.
Ephesians 6:11 states:
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Brothers and sisters, the Word of God is our firm foundation. We are in a spiritual battle, and we have one offensive weapon - and that is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17). The Scriptures are the only way to demolish worldly arguments and captive philosophies that seek to devour our minds and hearts.
We must show our submission to the Lord by regularly reading the Word of God. We must memorize it and read it regularly.
I heard a pastor recently quote an unnamed person who spoke about reading the Word of God. Many people who read the Word, even daily, struggle by afternoon to recall or remember what they read that morning. They start to wonder if it is really that important to be reading the Word daily after all.
He then asked, "Can you remember every single thing that you ate and drank at each meal for the past week or two?" Many of us would say we don't know exactly what we ate and drank at each meal. His final statement was, "You may not remember what you ate or drank, but you would know if you didn't eat or drink multiple days in a row, because you would be in starvation mode." Your body would near to death if you didn’t eat any food or drink anything for a week or so.
The same is true about our Bible reading. We may not be able to actively recall everything that we read, but it will become apparent that we haven't read by our lack of spiritual growth and our anemic spiritual life.
How are we to actively war against the enemy of our soul if we are underfed and unarmed?
Brothers and sisters, be sure that we understand that drawing near to God requires submitting to Him and resisting the enemy of our soul.
Next, we see that…
Scripture References: Romans 3, John 6:44, James 4:8, Acts 19:13-16, 1 John 4:4, 1 Peter 5:8-9, Ephesians 4:27, Ephesians 6:11, Ephesians 6:17
II. Drawing Near to God Requires Seeking Him (8)
II. Drawing Near to God Requires Seeking Him (8)
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
After telling us to resist the devil, we are told to draw near to God.
As theologian David Nystrom asserts, seeking the Lord involves both of these concepts:
One must renounce all the practices and teachings that come from the devil.
One must draw near to God in humble repentance.
Following Jesus Christ requires renouncement and repentance of your former ways as you seek God.
Unfortunately, instead many people seem to resist God's working in their lives. They don't like the feeling of conviction, so they seek to avoid the Bible, church, or anything that reminds them of their sin.
Yet there is such healing from the Word of God and from drawing near to God, as we learned last week. He gives more grace to the humble. When we humble ourselves before our Almighty Savior, we can be given grace and forgiveness and can live at peace with God.
When we draw near God, we are told that He cleanses us and purifies us. Note that we are unable to do this ourselves. We are sinners, and we can be double-minded at times, but Jesus is perfect, and His grace is sufficient to cover all of our sin.
Listen to Psalm 24:3-5:
Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
My friends, the Lord is holy and perfect. How are we to approach Him with filthiness upon us? He requires clean hands and a pure heart. He requires a single-minded devotion to Him. And how do we get to this point?
It requires us to understand and believe the Gospel.
We are not good, but Christ is perfect. The best of our works pierced His hands and His feet, as we sing in the song, “Jesus, Your Mercy.”
Yet, because of His great mercy, He has washed us clean by the blood that He poured out on the cross.
And for us who have placed our faith and trust in Jesus Christ and repented of our sins, He has given us clean hands and a pure heart.
Friends, we cannot clean up our own lives.
Trying to clean our own hands and our own hearts is like Pig Pen trying to use his dirty hands to wipe dirt off his face. You cannot take something dirty and clean something with it.
May we not be double-minded, as James warned us earlier in James 1:8.
May we be solely devoted to Jesus Christ and draw near to Him in the power of the Holy Spirit who works in and through us.
James has reminded us in this verse that we are sinners apart from the wonder-working power of Jesus Christ in our lives.
Though we still battle against the sinful flesh, for those who are in Christ, we are seen as righteous because of Christ's imputed righteousness upon us.
As Romans 8:1 states...
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
And because of this we see in Hebrews 4:16
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Brothers and sisters, we can draw near because we know that God is for us.
If we are in Christ, we are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). We have been born again (John 3).
We don't have to fear like Esther did when she approached King Ahasuerus. After hearing of a plot from one of the king’s advisors to kill all of the Jews, Queen Esther was asked to approach the king and ask for mercy. The problem was that no one could approach the king unless they were invited by him to approach him. Queen Esther had not been called to come to the king within the last 30 days. Knowing that she would be put to death unless he held out his golden scepter, she boldly approached the throne of the king. That brings us to Esther 5:1-2.
Listen to the following…
On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king’s palace, in front of the king’s quarters, while the king was sitting on his royal throne inside the throne room opposite the entrance to the palace. And when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, she won favor in his sight, and he held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. Then Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter.
Note that she put her royal robes on. When we approach God, we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. The Father sees His beloved Son and sees His righteousness, and hears and accepts our prayers.
As she approached, the king held out his golden scepter showing that he welcomed her into his presence
Friends, unlike Esther, we have no need to fear approaching our Heavenly Father. Though we may at times not feel like we can approach Him because we aren’t good enough, we need not fear approaching Him.
The fact of the matter is that our feelings are true: we are not worthy or good enough, but our minds are wrong on this matter. We approach the throne of grace with confidence not because of any goodness within ourselves, but because we approach it robed in the righteousness of Christ.
The king was pleased that his queen sought after him.
The command to draw near does not mean that God is reluctantly waiting for us to make the first move. The God who commands us to draw near is the God who has already drawn near to us in Christ.
Church, we are the bride of Christ, and our Savior is pleased when we seek Him.
May we draw near to God and seek Him.
As Jeremiah 29:13 states:
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
Next we see that…
Scripture References: Psalm 24:3-5, James 1:8, Romans 8:1, Hebrews 4:16, 2 Corinthians 5:17, John 3, Esther 5:1-2, Jeremiah 29:13
III. Drawing Near to God Requires Sorrow for Sinning Against Him (9)
III. Drawing Near to God Requires Sorrow for Sinning Against Him (9)
Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
This is probably one of the tougher verses in the Bible. It appears extremely depressing on first read, but what this is describing is the proper attitude needed for repentance.
James tells us to be wretched, mourn, and weep. Next he tells us that our laughter should be turned to mourning and our joy to gloom.
Note the order of these commands. It starts on the inside. Being wretched and morning are internal. It involves a deep grief and remorse over the sinfulness within us. We should mourn over our sinfulness like we mourn the loss of a loved one. It should hurt us to sin. Weeping is the outward sign of this inward remorse.
Then James goes on to tell us to avoid the foolish laughter and temporal worldly joy that the world exudes. He likely has in mind the pagan party culture. He is not saying that all laughter is sin. In fact, true joy is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). But James is warning believers to avoid worldliness.
James is telling us that we need to be brokenhearted over our sin, not boast in ourselves, and not take our sin lightly.
We saw Paul actually teach this in Romans 6:1-2:
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
We are not to keep on sinning so that grace may abound. Jesus had to die on the cross for our sins. We need to realize the great cost that went into paying for our sins and understand that our sin necessitated the greatest sacrifice from Jesus.
Again, James is referring to godly sorrow that leads to repentance. There are many out there who have remorse, but not true godly sorrow that leads to repentance. Remorse is feeling bad about what you have done. True godly sorrow is understanding the weight of your sin in light of the goodness and kindness of God: namely that He would send His son to die on the cross for your sins and forgive you.
Godly sorrow leads to repentance, while remorse and worldly sorrow lead to guilt and shame. Worldly sorrow often leads to reformation, not regeneration. Many people with remorse and worldly sorrow seek to better themselves.
You can go to a bookstore and see hundreds, if not thousands, of books that speak of bettering yourself.
I love this picture. Self-help: get better or get beaten. People sure love to focus on themselves. There are many authors that have made millions of dollars trying to tell people how to better themselves.
However, if these books were so helpful, why are there so many of them, and why are there so many of them at yard sales and thrift stores being resold? If they worked as well as they say they did, people would keep them and continue to read them over and over again so they could continue getting better.
Brothers and sisters…
True godly sorrow recognizes that we cannot better ourselves.
True godly sorrow recognizes that we are not good, but God is (Romans 3). Godly sorrow leads to repentance, regeneration, and eternal life. As 2 Corinthians 7:10 states…
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
Just feeling bad doesn't save you. Actually, as Paul has just stated - we see that worldly grief only produces death.
Worldly grief leaves a person trapped in guilt, shame, and despair because it does not lead them to repentance and reconciliation with God.
After reading this verse, the Christian life seems like it may be somewhat doom and gloom. Is that really what it means to be a believer? Are we to walk around sullen and depressed all the time?
Are we to be like the monks of old and seek to harm ourselves and try to do good works in order to earn favor from God and show more and more contrition for our sin?
Absolutely not. Though our sins should bring us godly sorrow that leads to repentance, we know that after we repent, there is everlasting joy.
Which brings us to our final point found in verse 10…
Scripture References: Galatians 5:22, Romans 6:1-2, Romans 3, 2 Corinthians 7:10
IV. Drawing Near to God Requires Surrendering to Him (10)
IV. Drawing Near to God Requires Surrendering to Him (10)
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Brothers and sisters, we should be the most joyous people on the planet. We have a promise here: if we humble ourselves before the Lord, repent of our sins, and turn to God in complete surrender, He will exalt us.
This is an incredible statement.
To exalt someone means to lift them up to a high place of honor. It is to place someone in a high position.
James isn't promising that if we humble ourselves, God will make us important. He's promising that God Himself will lift up the humble. Ultimately, that lifting finds its fulfillment in our final salvation and glorification with Christ.
We need to note the important reality taught here.
James is saying that the way up in the kingdom of God is by humbly laying your life down at the throne of God.
Humbling ourselves before the Lord means that we recognize our sinfulness. We recognize our desperate need for our Savior.
Humbling oneself means to make oneself low. It does not mean to put oneself down. Many people make self-demeaning statements that seek to have others build them up. James isn't talking about this. He is saying that you need to have an accurate view of yourself. You need to realize the vast chasm between the glory of God and your own sinfulness.
CS Lewis in Mere Christianity taught that true humility means freedom from self-absorption.
A paraphrased quote has been made from his writings that states:
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.”
CS Lewis (paraphrased quote from Mere Christianity)
That is a powerful statement. Most of us struggle constantly thinking about ourselves. Sometimes it may be pride. Yet other times it can be depression or lowly thoughts about ourselves. Either way, we are focused on ourselves and not the Lord.
May our focus be on seeking to bring Him glory, as we know He works everything out for our good (Romans 8:28). If our focus is on our good, then we won't be doing things for His glory.
Listen to this wonderful example of humility that Jesus laid out for us in Luke 18:9-14:
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
What an amazing teaching by Jesus. The Pharisee was outwardly clean. He seemed to do all the right things, yet he was puffed up with conceit and pride. After praying, the Pharisee left unjustified. As we saw in James 4:6 last week, God opposes the proud.
Instead, it is this tax collector, a sinner, who humbled himself before the Lord and threw himself upon the mercy of God that receives forgiveness. Jesus lets us know that it was the tax collector who was justified. James has likely quoted Jesus Himself as we see Jesus teach us that everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
Why would God ever lift us up to a high position? Why would we ever be honored? It is not because of our own goodness or any righteousness within ourselves, but only because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
When we humble ourselves and place our faith and trust in Jesus, we are told that His righteousness is credited to our account so that we can be joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). We will obviously never be equal to Him. He is always God, and He always will be God. We will always be inferior to Him, but He has blessed us to be able to spend eternity with Him in heaven based on His finished work on the cross.
One other beautiful reference to our exaltation is found in Revelation 3:21. Writing to the Church in Laodicea Jesus says:
The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.
How do we conquer? We conquer by the blood of the Lamb. We conquer by overcoming sin and death through salvation found only in Christ. And we finish this race of life by fully depending on the power of Christ working in and through us.
Brothers and sisters, I don't know what this looks like in heaven, but I do know that God has promised to exalt us there and bless us with eternal life, where sin and death no longer exist.
There is only one way that we receive this wonderful gift, and that is by surrendering our lives to Jesus Christ.
This surrender involves repentance, which is turning from our sins, and faith and trust in Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross.
I pray that each one of you has done that already. If you haven't, I'd love to talk to you about what it means to fully surrender to Christ.
To surrender means to submit yourself to the authority of God. It means to yield your will to Him alone.
There is no one more trustworthy than our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Scripture References: Romans 8:28, Luke 18:9-14, James 4:6, Romans 8:17, Revelation 3:21, John 3:16, Luke 15:32
Conclusion:
As we come to a close, we have seen four incredible teachings here.
We have learned that we need to make sure that we fully surrender our lives, as we just discussed.
We discussed the godly sorrow that we should have regarding our sin.
We discussed our need to regularly seek him.
And we discussed our need to fully submit to His Lordship.
Isn't it beautiful that our heavenly Father wants us to draw near to Him?
He loved us so much that He sent His one and only Son to die on the cross in order to give us eternal life (John 3:16). But don’t miss that part of that was also to give us a right relationship with Him. God desires to spend eternity with you. Never miss the beauty of that loving kindness of our perfect Heavenly Father who desires to have a relationship with His fallen creation.
Like the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), may we always run back into our Father's arms, no matter what. And as we discussed last week, He always gives more grace. Praise be to God for His grace and mercy and love.
