Submit

Good Morning everyone! Today we are continuing our series through the book of Chapters that could change your life. Today we are looking at the topic of submission.

Last night, a dear friend to many of us passed away. Peter Brown has been part of Follow since day one, serving on the music team and as an Elder. He was an incredibly strong man who leaves a legacy of faith. I had the pleasure to spend some time with Peter recently and was truly blessed to be able to sit with him and chat. We talked about my decision to resign and move on from Follow. We talked about his family - he loved to tell me about his grandkids especially. We talked about Buddy Holly and music in general. The thing that hit me though, was that as he sat there in his hospital bed receiving treatment, he made a great effort to talk to everyone who came into the room. Even there, he was filled with joy and wanted to share it. Even though Peter was going through a very tough situation, he had submitted himself to God. That was the situation he was in and he was going to use it to glorify God as much as he possible could. I never heard Peter use his words to tear anyone down, but only to build them up. He was a tremendous encouragement to me, personally, and I will always be grateful that I had the opportunity to know him.

Please join me in prayer before we get stuck in to today’s message.

Our glorious, loving Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning, with sadness in our hearts. While we are saddened by Peter’s passing, we don’t grieve because we know that he is with you in paradise. Lord, this morning, prepare us to hear your word and give me strength and wisdom as I speak. By my own strength I have nothing to say. I ask that you use me this morning, give me the words to speak so that your message is shared with your people. Give us all strength to reflect on our lives and apply your word to build us up to be the people you have called us to be. Amen.

As Luke mentioned at the start of this series, James is a very rich book with a great deal of information for each of us. We simply can’t cover all of it in detail in 5 weeks. I encourage everyone to spend some time, if you haven’t already, going through the rest of the passage. We will be jumping around a little bit in chapter 4 today, but hopefully we won’t get lost along the way. Let’s get stuck in!

As Christians, the Bible instructs us to submit in a variety of ways. We are to submit to God, to the Scriptures, to Church Leaders, to Governments. Wives are instructed to submit to husbands, children to parents, slaves to masters and the young to the old. In every one of those situations, there is a great deal of responsibility placed on the person to whom we are to submit. For today, we will be looking at what it means to submit to God.

James begins with a few questions:

James 4:1–5 NIV

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?

James 4:1–2 NIV

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.

I don’t want to get bogged down in these verses, but I don’t want to gloss over them too lightly either. This is a stern and serious warning from James. He is setting the scene of a Christian Community that is deeply divided, made up of groups of people who are seeking their own desires and ambitions. They each have their own agendas that they are chasing, and have convinced themselves that they know what is best. In response to verse 2, one commentator states that:

Prayer that is consistent with true faith will not make selfish requests. Desire-filled, envious believers do not make requests of God but instead are driven by their self-sufficiency in that they do not really trust in God for his provision and shame in that they do not correct themselves once they become aware of how bad their attitudes really are. Only God can bestow the good gifts they need and should truly desire; but they will not ask him. In this refusal to humble themselves in prayer, they only show how lacking they are in the most basic traits of Christian wisdom and how driven they are by worldly wisdom.

There is a great deal going on here at Follow, and it is a time when we can easily allow ourselves to become divided if we’re not careful. I implore everyone to heed James’ warning in this season at Follow. As there are discussions about changing the constitution, appointing new leaders and generally about the vision of the church: speak to the Pastors and Elders about anything you may be concerned about, but don’t talk about them. Luke’s message last week encouraged us all to use our words to build up and not to tear down. James continues that theme in

There is a great deal going on here at Follow, and it is a time when we can easily allow ourselves to become divided if we’re not careful. I implore everyone to heed James’ warning in this season at Follow. As there are discussions about changing the constitution, appointing new leaders and generally about the vision of the church: speak to the Pastors and Elders about anything you may be concerned about, but don’t talk about them. Luke’s message last week encouraged us all to use our words to build up and not to tear down. James continues that theme in

James 4:11–12 NIV

Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

So please, don’t slander each other. If you are unsure or concerned, ask. Luke, Dave and the Elders will all happily make a time to talk with you openly about everything that is happening. They are all determined that the entire process will be a transparent one. There is no desire for personal gain in the changes that are being made, the only desire is to see God’s Kingdom continue to grow. The changes that are being proposed come from a place of submission to God, through a great deal of prayer. So join in the process, become part of the constructive discussion that is happening, but don’t tear people down. And ultimately, remember that says:

Hebrews 13:17 NIV

Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you.

Do you ever feel like you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders? Do you sometimes wish that someone else would just see everything that you have to do and how much you could use some help? There is a song that we sing here at Follow, called I Will Look Up. It begins with some great advice for you if you are someone who resonates with what I just asked: “All the worries of this world, I will lay them at Your feet, surrender every anxious thought, for perfect peace”. This is the heart of James’ message in chapter 4. In fact, James quotes when he says in verse 6 ():

James 4:6 NIV

But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

“God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.”

This

But, let’s be honest. To lay all of our problems at the feet of Jesus is one of those things that is sometimes easier said than done. How do we actually go about it? For some people it does seem to be that easy, but for others, it takes a bit of practice.

says:

James 4:7–10 NIV

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

In bringing up the song I Will Look Up, it is actually the chorus that I want us to be thinking about today.

I will look up for there is none above You

I will bow down and tell You that I need You

I will look back and see that You are faithful

I look ahead believing You are able

This is a great model for how we can submit to God, and we’re going to work our way through the chorus today.

I Will Look Up

I will look up, for there is none above you! I would be willing to hazard a guess that we are all happy with these words. There is nothing ambiguous about this statement. There is none above our Lord. This is exactly why we are called to submit to God. He is our creator. He created everything that we know.

James’ words in verse 4 () are incredibly strong.

James 4:4 NIV

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

Friendship with the world makes us an enemy of God.

David Nystrom, in his commentary on James, discusses friendship with the world, explaining what it looked like in the church that James was writing to:

In his church, leaders had advocated that the sin of favouritism was not, in fact, sin, but that certain cultural norms were fully commensurate with the gospel. This position James attacked. (page 241)

He goes on to say that:

The bane and blindness of liberal Christianity includes the assumption that there should be a warm joining of hands between culture and Christianity. But the Bible often compels us to stand for values radically at odds with those of our culture. To suppose otherwise is to misunderstand Scripture at the most basic level. As James says, “friendship with the world is hatred towards God”.

Nystrom goes on to warn against going too far the other way, though:

Evangelicals are also guilty of a blanket excoriation of the world. “Friendship with the world” refers to embracing the standards of the world. But there are not infrequent points of correspondence. Christians should affirm what is true and worthwhile in our culture instead of offering churlish blanket condemnations.

We are called to live in the world but not be of the world. We are called to refer back to God in all situations. Rather than try and do everything by our own power, we must seek God’s wisdom and submit to His will.

So, we look up. We remember that God is above all things. He created us and everything else in this world. He has a plan for this world, and we are part of that plan. We must acknowledge that we are deeply flawed individuals, and it is only by His grace that we are righteous. It is only by acknowledging God’s incredibly might and power, His total authority, that we can truly come before God in submission. We must humble ourselves before Him, and he will lift us up.

says:

I Will Bow Down

James 4:7–10 NIV

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

I will bow down and tell you that I need you!

There are some things that we can do without God’s help. All day every day, we do things under our own strength. But, the big things are the things that we need help with. The big decisions. This is where prayer comes in. But, just as I talked about earlier, the way we pray is important. instructs us:

This is all part of looking up. It is only by acknowledging God’s incredibly might and power, His total authority, that we can truly come before God in submission. We must humble ourselves before Him, and he will lift us up.

Prayer that is consistent with true faith will not make selfish requests. Desire-filled, envious believers do not make requests of God but instead are driven by their self-sufficiency in that they do not really trust in God for his provision and shame in that they do not correct themselves once they become aware of how bad their attitudes really are. Only God can bestow the good gifts they need and should truly desire; but they will not ask him. In this refusal to humble themselves in prayer, they only show how lacking they are in the most basic traits of Christian wisdom and how driven they are by worldly wisdom.

James 4:3 NIV

When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

One commentary states that: “In Jesus gave an unconditional promise that prayer would be answered. James, in verse 3 makes explicit what Jesus left implicit: You do not receive because you ask God not for wisdom, but for selfish pleasures that by definition are not in the interests of the Christian community.

Matthew 7:7 NIV

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

When you pray, what do you pray for? Do you pray for happiness, for wealth, for health? Or do you pray to ask God for wisdom? Do you make a decision about something and then ask God to bless your decision? Or do you ask for his wisdom and guidance as you make the decision?

Do you make a decision about something and then ask God to bless your decision? Or do you ask for his wisdom and guidance as you make the decision?

I have heard many people say, over the years: Can you pray for me? I quit my job, so please ask God to give me a new job!

The reason for quitting the job may have felt like a good one, but the prayer is coming at the wrong point in the process. I am sure that you all know by know that I have recently resigned from my position here at Follow, and will be finishing up next Sunday. I can assure you that there was no shortage of prayer in my decision making process. Every step of the way I prayed. I felt that my time here at Follow was coming to an end, but I was certain that I wasn’t going to make that decision on my own. I ask God for wisdom and guidance. I asked him to speak through other people as I discerned whether it was the right direction to be taking. I asked for further wisdom as I processed what I heard from the people he was speaking through. Ultimately, I reached a point where I could not deny, even if I wanted to, that God was calling me out of this place.

Recently, I’ve also been talking with a friend who is going through a rough time at work. She is in a new workplace, in a role that she doesn’t enjoy, and has been struggling with it. She has had debilitating anxiety as a result, and when looked at through the lens of what she has been through over the last few years, anyone would encourage her and congratulate her if she walked away from her job. But, she has shown incredible strength of character and, instead of walking away, she has prayed about it, asked others to pray with and for her, and rather than asking God for a way out, is seeking his wisdom to understand why she is there. Whether it is that she is going to have an impact on someone else’s life or someone there is going to speak into her life in some way, she is asking for strength and perseverance to get through her current struggles and endure for God’s glory.

Two different situations with different outcomes, but both centred around prayer, looking for God’s wisdom.

Let’s be honest. It’s all well and good for me to stand here and say this. Just look up and look down… but the fact is that we all go through times when we are discouraged in our faith. We all go through times when we feel distant from God and start wondering whether he is still listening to us. It may be that we have been praying for a while but don’t seem to be getting an answer. At those times, it is helpful to move on to the next step.

I Will Look Back

I will look back and see that you are faithful!

If you look back at your life, honestly, what do you see? Do you see God hanging you out to dry? Or do you see the tough times in life were when you had walked away from God.

Some, or all, of you will know the poem Footprints:

One night I dreamed a dream. As I was walking along the beach with my Lord. Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me, I looked back at the footprints in the sand. I noticed that at many times along the path of my life, especially at the very lowest and saddest times, there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it. "Lord, you said once I decided to follow you, You'd walk with me all the way. But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life, there was only one set of footprints. I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."

He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you Never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you."

God will never leave you or forsake you.

I endeavour to live my life by faith. I know that God is always faithful, and if I follow where he is leading, he will always provide. This is not something that I have always done, but something that I have learned to do. In all honesty, trying to figure out every little detail of my life just got tiring… For those of you who know me well, you will know that I tend to have a rather short attention span. I get bored easily…

On our wedding day, while waiting for Christine to arrive at the church, I was getting impatient and, to be honest, bored. Plenty of people mistook it for being anxious, but that wasn’t it. I had just had enough of waiting. I was telling my best man to entertain me, asking people in the congregation if they knew any good jokes… My mum was sitting in the front row and completely understood what was going on… She just rolled her eyes at me.

So, realistically, if I can’t even get through my own wedding day without getting bored - and just to clarify, once Christine entered the church the rest of the day was incredible. Absolutely engaging and definitely no boredom… - how can I be expected to get through planning out every single detail of my life… I gave up on it. I looked back and could clearly see that God was faithful in everything.

Hindsight is 20/20 isn’t it. I can honestly say that, when I look back on my life, I see times when God was faithful and things were going well, and times when I, or others around me, were not faithful, which caused a deviation in the direction of my life.

God has got this in control! So, Look Up because there is none above Him. Look Down and tell Him and that you need Him. Look Back to remind yourself that He is faithful. And…

I Look Ahead

I look ahead believing You are able!

Submitting to God doesn’t mean never planning again. It doesn’t mean that we can’t think about the things that we want to do with our lives. God has given us all gifts and talents. We are expected to use them, but we are called to use them for His glory, not our own.

As we look ahead, let’s return to James’ writing ():

James 4:13–15 NIV

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

James is specifically referring to merchants here, but it is a message that is applicable for all of us. When we make plans for the future, what are our priorities? What are we planning to get out of it? Is money the end goal? Happiness? Are we dressing up selfish desires with good intentions to look after our family and friends so that people won’t think bad about us?

The Bible does not command us to live a life of poverty. But it does command us to live a life of worship to God, using all of our gifts and talents, our abilities, to glorify Him in everything we do.

During the week I read the following:

This entire passage is one of the most important biblical sources for a Christian ethic of business. There is nothing evil or wrong per se about anything God has made and put at our disposal. But God is not at our disposal. Neither are his standards for faith. Nothing in a person’s life lies outside of faith and the good deeds that must flow from faith. Life is lived, but only if God wills, just as assuredly as deeds are done only if God wills. Their actions had been based on the earlier stated problem: “You do not have, because you do not ask God” (v. 2). What kind of faith was theirs? They did not make their plans in a devout way, acknowledging God in all their plans and expectations. The question of an active versus a permissive will of God is not at issue here. No believer should test God by acting apart from the norm of faith. Indeed, if believers will say, “God willing,” their prayers will result in their receiving from God.

If you are a gifted business person, seek God’s will for your life and use your skills to glorify Him.

If you are a talented musician, seek God’s calling and pursue opportunities to glorify Him using your music.

If you are a skilled tradesperson, seek God’s will for your business and use it to glorify Him.

If you are a student, seek God first before worldly knowledge, think critically about everything you learn and glorify God by using the intellect He has given you.

Submitting to God begins when we stop resisting God. As the music team comes up, I invite you to think about the areas of your life in which you need to submit to God. Last month we looked at Change for Growth. Is God calling you to make a change in one or more areas of your life? Are you resisting God in that? Or are you submitting those areas to God? Maybe the act of submission is the change that you need to make.

I will look up for there is none above You

I will bow down and tell You that I need You

I will look back and see that You are faithful

I look ahead believing You are able

Think about the words on the screen. We are going to sing this song together now. Let the words wash over you and soak into your heart and mind. Sing them to the Lord as your personal prayer today.

I want to close with James’ words in verse 17 ():

I will bow down and tell You that I need You

I want to close with James’ words in verse 17 ():

I will look back and see that You are faithful

James 4:17 NIV

If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

I look ahead believing You are able

Let’s pray!