2019-08-18 James 4:1, 7-10 STOP FIGHTING (3): ATTEND TO YOURSELF

STOP FIGHTING (3): ATTEND TO YOURSELF (James 4:1, 7-10) August 18, 2019 Read James 4:1, 7-10 -- “What causes fights among you?” We’ve seen 2 causes – the flesh inside and the world outside. Now Jas give another – insufficient humility. We think too much of ourselves and too little of God. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was asked on his 90th birthday how he’d done all he’d done – Civil War veteran, Supreme Court Justice and all. “What’s the secret of your success?” Holmes replied, “The secret to my success is that at a very early age I discovered that I’m not God.” That’s a discovery we all need. God needs a lot less help and a lot more trust than most of us think. Jas’ question in 4:1-12 is, “Why the fights?” 4:1-6 deal with the problem -the Attack From Within – the flesh (1-3); and II. Attack From Without – the World (4-6). Today we see the first of a two-part solution: III. Attend to Yourself (7-10). How can I manage myself to avoid church battles. Jas answers with ten commandments in 4 verses! The Ten Commandments of unity! The primary one is his summary statement in v. 10: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” Humble yourselves. Most fights are about someone defending their opinions, are they not? It’s true. So Jas says, “Humble yourselves – let God do the exalting.” But that’s a tough command, right? The harder you try, the more you’re not. Soon as you think you’ve arrived, you haven’t! True humility comes in not thinking of self at all. So Jas gives two subordinate commands to help us – I. Reach for God. II. Resist Satan. Do that and humility will happen while you’re not watching. This is what humility looks like – Reach for the Lord; resist the devil. Humility will be a by-product of focusing there. I. Reach for God Jas gives 2 ways to reach for God. “Submit yourselves therefor to God.” “Submit” (ὑποτάσσω) “to arrange under” – a military term meaning to rank under. It highlights the authority of God and the surrender of us -- voluntarily. “Submit yourselves.” Live out the commitment you made to Jesus as Lord. Then v. 8: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” Draw near to God. Treasure Him. Seek Him out. Prov 8:17: “I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.” Isa 55:6: “Seek the Lord while he may 1 be found; call upon him while he is near.” You get the point. God treasures those who treasure Him – shown by seeking Him out in His Word and prayer. It’s hard to give control over. But that’s God’s rightful demand. It doesn’t leave us out, but it gets the order right. Like when I used to “drive” the tractor at age 5. Dad didn’t just hand me the keys and say “Back by 7:00.” He sat behind me, let me steer wherever he pointed – finding joy in cooperating with his will. So with God. So how exactly do we submit and draw near? A. In Attitude Jas says, “Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” That’s commitment, both inward and outward. But it starts inside – with the heart -- where we really live. Prov 4:23: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” Keep it. Be careful what it is exposed to – what it is seeing, thinking, reading, contemplating. Watch your heart. What is inside will eventually come out. An impure heart is double-minded. We want God’s benefits, but we don’t want God. We want His blessings, but we don’t want His restrictions. We want Him when we need Him, but we want to be left alone the rest of the time. We’re double-minded. But Jesus doesn’t allow for split loyalties. Mt 6:24: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” or ambition, or a hobby, or another person, or any other idol you could name. Rom 10:9: “Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” If you are a Xn this morning, and I trust you are, at some point in your life, you disavowed all Lords except one. You committed to follow Jesus exclusively. But the old self is still there, isn’t it? Warring against the Spirit: Gal 5:17: “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other.” The temptation to double-mindedness is constant – never relenting. Which is why Jesus also said in Lu 9:23: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself (once for all) and take up his cross daily and follow me.” The once for all death to self and living for Christ requires daily renewal – not bc we lost our salvation, but to live it out. We need a pure heart. You get that by being with God – all the time – the devotional times, yes, but also the work and play times – always conscious of Him and how He would view things. 2 An example. An old prof of mine now teaches SS at church we attended in CA. A few months ago I got an email he put out to many friends. “Thanks to those who love me, who meant things so kindly. However, I was fine Sunday, just had my head bowed, eyes closed, praying on the parking lot when I thought I was alone, as I got my breath a bit better from climbing the hill. I checked in with Him about the class I just had taught. I often lean against something in my laziness, so I was leaning against the back of a car as I prayed, and when I pray sometimes I become pretty emotional and deep in concentration. Some dear person misread, and before I knew it people were everywhere. I learned Paramedics had been called. It was very difficult to bear. Of course, I was okay, and answered all questions and did the gestures they are trained to go through. I went to my doctor Mon. as I promised Paramedics (they are trained to ask for that), though I did not need to. I went out for lunch with people, drove the 30 min. home, have felt fine, and today a wonderful day in special study and helping friends. God bless you; let us all thank Him.” Do we live with God in such intensity that people might call the Paramedics?! What a challenge. Not double-minded, but living with God, always seeking His desire. In constant touch. B. In Actions So, get Jas’ instruction. Purify your hearts = stop thinking evil. And Cleanse your hands = stop doing evil. What our purified heart is urging, our hands must do. Follow through. We’ve confessed our sin, now show the confession was real. Turn away from the sin and toward Christ. We must let our actions follow the devotion of our heart. “Cleanse your hands, you sinners.” You say, “Surely it is God who must cleanse me. I cannot cleanse myself.” And that is true. That is the new covenant, promised by God and delivered to every believer. Ezek 36: 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” God gives us the new purified heart, and God gives us the Spirit who causes us to walk in His statutes and rules. None of this will happen without Him, and if we ask, He will do His part. Phil 2:13: “For it is God who works in you, both to will [pure heart] and to work [clean hands] for his good pleasure.” There is God in the background, the ultimate cause. 3 But note the previous v. Phi 2:12: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Work it out. God’s work doesn’t take us off the hook – not to gain God, but to live up to the position He’s already given us. We do this because we want to, not because we have to, but it is on us! Jn 14:15: “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” Those are everywhere in the NT. Jn 13:34, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Eph 4:26b: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” Eph 4:29: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth.” Eph 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives.” Eph 5:33b: Let the wife see that she respects her husband.” Eph 6:1: “Children, obey your parents.” Eph 6:5: “Obey your earthly masters . . . as you would Christ.” I Thess 5:15: “See that no one repays anyone evil for evil.” I Thess 5:16, “Rejoice always.” 5:17: “Pray without ceasing.” Jn 15:12: “Love one another.” I Thess 4:7: “Abstain from fornication.” Col 3:23: “Work heartily as for the Lord.” Rom 12:10: “Love one another.” Col 4:9: “Do not lie to one another.” Phil 2:3: “Do nothing from selfish ambition.” Eph 5:4: “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking.” Rom 12:21: “Overcome evil with good.” I Pet 1:22: “Love one another.” These are commands, Beloved. Anyone who tells you it’s just “Let go and let God,” has missed something. We’re not off the hook. Yes, God has done and is doing His part. But we have a part to play as well. And we will answer for how we did! A ruthless businessman once told Mark Twain, “Before I die, I’m going to do a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb Mt. Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud at the top.” Twain replied, “I have a better idea. You should stay home in Boston and keep them.” That is the privilege we have as those who claim Jesus as Lord. Great, He says, now act like it! II. Resist the Devil Now, the second part of humility. 7b: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Give an inch and he’ll be in the tent. Resist and he’ll go elsewhere. A. In Attitude -- 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.” Jas borrows from Jesus’ again. Lu 6:21b: “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.” So what are we to weep and be wretched about? Our penchant to sin, Beloved. We resist the devil by developing a true hatred of sin. We have rose-colored glasses when it comes to this. We don’t see reality and there is a reason. 4 II Cor 11:14b: “for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” We think it’ll be easy to resist Satan. We’d never rob a bank, commit murder, commit adultery, embezzle from the company or betray a friend. We’d just never do such things. Now would the devil ask you to! Satan comes as an angel of light. He doesn’t do ugly; he looks good! How’d he tempt Jesus – with bread, with the kingdoms, with spectacular success. He doesn’t tempt to murder but to hold a grudge at a legit wrong. He comes in the form of a seductive billboard, a TV set that promotes violence and immorality, the temptation to puts kids above spouse; hobbies above worship, worldly advantage above wisdom from above. He starts small and builds from there until the trap is sprung. So we must learn to hate the small things – to mourn and weep over our vulnerability – to hate sin in any and all forms. We live on the edges, searching how close we can come to temptation without getting burned, rather than seeking the safety of the center of God’s commands. How much do I have to? How far can I push this flirtation without sin? How much can I participate in the bawdy humor and nonsense of the crowd without penalty? Too often that’s our mindset. And it’s a red flag. We’re like the guy working under his house who suddenly yelled and shot out. His wife asked, “What’s wrong?” He said, “I reached to pick up the crowbar – and it slithered out of my hands.” That’s just how sin works. It looks good – until the trap is sprung and it is revealed for the devil who promotes it. We need to occasionally weep over sin – living a life of repentance and reflection. B. In Actions – So, the heart of resistance is developing such a sensitivity to Satan that we smell sin out, and hate it enough to turn away even as we love it? But how do we do that? 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” We’ve come full circle. You resist the devil by drawing near to God. Same formula it’s always been. Time in the Word and prayer, right? The Xn disciplines. Living in the word that knows us better than we know ourselves – that is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword . . . discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12). We must get that Word into us. And we must “in confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16). When Satan hit Jesus head on, where’d he go? Deuteronomy – all three recorded times. You don’t do that unless you’ve spent some time in 5 Deuteronomy, right? It is the Word that Satan hates and the Word that will send him away with his tail between his legs. And remember how Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Mt 6:13) – Literally, “deliver us from the evil one.” Ask the Lord to deliver you. And don’t be give up when it doesn’t happen overnight, Beloved. We spend years building up questionable habits and resistance to God. Turning that around is a process, not a one-time event. But the more we work at it, the easier becomes, the more we grow, and the more we begin to love God and hate the devil and all he represents. Meantime humility grow automatically. Conc – So how do we stop fighting? By cultivating humility as we reach for God and resist the devil. Fights involve someone protecting their turf. Humility has left the building when that happens. Jas is urging, “Let’s bring humility back, developing a rich devotional life, focused on Him.” Let me give you a picture of what this looks like by a quote from Francois Fenelon, a 17th century theologian. He said: “Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them; talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self–love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself as to others.” Tell God – not the other person! Do you see how that kind of devotion removes virtually any cause for fighting among brothers and sisters? So, together, let’s reach for God and resist the devil. Let’s pray. 6