Walking Down Victory Lane IV James 4
Walking Down Victory Lane IV James 4:6-8 EBC 3/16/08
Many times we’re amazed at some believers response to adversity. We call this “having the grace of God” on their lives. God calls it grace living, and when more grace is needed He gives it.
Intro:
V.4- Adulters and adulteresses- James is not talking about physical adultery but spiritual adultery. He condemns the inordinate love of things as spiritual adultery. God wants us to love Him first and foremost. When we love the passing things of this world, we are being untrue to Him. Worldliness is a system set up by man to satisfy his lust. In his system that is no room for God. William McDonald - It may be the world of art, culture, education, science, or even religion. But it is a sphere in which the name of Christ is unwelcome or even forbidden. Read notes by AFA. To be a friend of this system is to be an enemy of God.
V.5- Don’t you know that you are living proof that the spirit (the spirit of the old man) that dwells in you has a spirit of envy and is against God.
But God wants us to depend on His grace whereas Satan wants us to depend on ourselves.
I. Clean hands and Pure Hearts (4:8b)
A. Talking to Bro. Glass this week he had old fashioned flu- He’s a mechanic – mechanics are known for maybe greasy hands- Ellen Butler- He said you would never know now I’m a mechanic – I have washed my hands so many times so Bonnie wouldn’t get these germs that my hands are pure white. That’s what God is telling us in this verse.
B. I have found that conformity to God is the ground of fellowship. You know people don’t want to hear that today.
1. They want to be able to do their own thing – whatever they feel like- and still be able to call on God when they please.
C. Spiros Zodhiates - It is as if James were saying, “If you are to draw near to God and enjoy fellowship with Him, you had better cleanse your hands and purify your hearts.
1. Matt. 5:8-
2. When the word of God says cleanse your hands it is because your hands are dirty. Call it what it is. We tend to be like that elder of the church who, having fallen once, prayed, “O Lord, Thou knowest that Thy servant in a moment of unwatchfulness fell into a grievous mistake.…” Another brother interrupted him and said, “Why on earth don’t you tell the Lord you got drunk, that you sinned.
3. Not only do we need to cleanse our hands (be pure in appearance).
a. Prov. 4:23- The heart is an obscure place, which the world cannot see. We want to have clean hands because the world can see those, but when it comes to the heart, its thoughts and dispositions, no one can see that, so we tend to compartmentalize it, one room for the world and one room for God. Doubleminded- lit. 2 souls. Tom Constable- doubleminded is literally a divided heart. Our heart is divided between serving God and the world. We must remove sin from our hands and duplicity from our hearts. Single-mindedness involves singleness of purpose, namely, living for the glory of God rather than for both God’s glory and our own selfish desires.
b. Dr. A.W. Tozer- God graciously draws near to us when we deal with the sin in our lives that keeps Him at a distance. He will not share us with anyone else; He must have complete control. The double-minded Christian can never be close to God. Sin is the issue which causes spiritual uncleaness.
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