Sermon Tone Analysis

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:

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

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:

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 ():

“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:

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.

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: