Lowly Submission to High Standing | Sermon 06/12/2022

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The title of this sermon is Lowly Submission to High Standing.

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Lowly Submission to High Standing. After this sermon,

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I have to tell you, we only have five more in the book of James. It's been a glorious trek through the book of James.

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And I'm excited because after that, our deacon Andrew will be preaching two sermons after I finish this.

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So that's going to be really good. And I'm going to keep building the pressure every Sunday until then.

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I'm just kidding. So James chapter 4, starting in verse 7, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true

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God. Submit therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

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Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double -minded.

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Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.

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Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and he will exalt you. Thus ending the reading of God's holy and inspired word,

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I'm going to say a quick prayer. Lord, would you please speak through me today? Would you reach the hearts and minds of your people?

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Would you teach your people this evening? God, would you illuminate the scriptures in such a way that this is not just merely head knowledge, but this is something that impacts us and that we take with us during our weeks to help us in our walks with you,

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Jesus. So Lord, please be with us now and especially me. Let me decrease and you increase.

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Help me, Lord, to speak in a way that is clear and helpful and let it always be true. In Jesus' name, amen.

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So in 931 BC, just after the nation of Israel was taken from King Solomon and it was then split into the northern and southern kingdom, which was then called

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Israel and Judah, Israel and Judah, Jeroboam then became the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel, Jeroboam.

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And he was an exceedingly wicked king. He was an awful king.

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In fact, most of them were, whether in Israel or Judah. And at some point in his 22 -year reign, it doesn't give us a name, doesn't name a prophet, but it says a man of God came and gave

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Jeroboam a prophecy. It says in 1 Kings 13, this prophecy says,

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The man of God cried against the altar by the word of the Lord and said, O altar,

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O altar! Thus says the Lord, Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name.

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And on you, altar, He shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and He shall sacrifice human bones.

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They will be burned upon you. That is something that has never been done before.

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In fact, that would be something that would defile the altar, defile the temple, to have human bones, human bodies burned upon it.

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But this man of God came to Jeroboam and said, One day a king is coming,

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Josiah, and he will do this. And what is incredible about this prophecy of Josiah is that this was made 291 years before Josiah had become king of Judah at the age of 8 years old.

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Almost 300 years before Josiah, this man of God, came to Jeroboam.

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By this time that Josiah came on the scene, all 19 evil kings of Israel had finished their reign.

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Israel, the northern kingdom, was over. They were dispersed by Assyria.

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And 15 kings of Judah, again, mostly of the evil kind, they had taken their place and their reign in Judah, but they had not yet gone into Babylonian captivity.

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So you have northern Israel gone into captivity, gone from the

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Assyrians, and now you have 15 kings have passed by, Josiah's on the scene, that's where we're at.

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1 Kings chapter 22 records that Josiah did what was right in the sight of the

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Lord. He did not turn to the right nor to the left from following God.

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During a completely separate assignment, the high priest Hilkiah finds the book of the law.

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It's been lost. It's been lost this whole time for what time, we don't know.

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Probably since the time of Solomon almost. Hilkiah finds the book of the law.

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He finds what we know to be the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible.

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They find them lost, probably under a stack of other ancient books and scrolls.

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Then Shaphan reads it. He reads the book of the law in the presence of King Josiah, and it says when

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Josiah heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes.

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He ripped them open. He was in anguish. He was in complete, utter devastation.

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He considered all that he had heard to be truth. Oh my goodness, these are God's words. He believed it without hesitation.

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And in that moment, he understood the covenant that Israel had made, and he knew then, based off of God's word, that they deserved

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God's judgment and the curses that were listed in Deuteronomy.

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These should be upon us, is what Josiah thought. So he cries out, our fathers have failed to listen to the words of this law and to do what was written in it.

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We have failed. What have we done? So the king has the prophets of the

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Lord, that is Yahweh in the Hebrew, inquire to God concerning what they have found.

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And 2 Kings 22 quotes God saying this, but to the king of Judah, to Josiah who sent you, thus you shall say to Josiah, thus says the

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Lord God of Israel regarding the words which you have heard, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the

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Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants that they should become a desolation and a curse, and because you have torn your clothes and wept before me,

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I truly have heard you. God says, I heard you Josiah, I saw what you did.

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He says, therefore behold, I will gather you to your fathers and you will be gathered to your grave in peace and prosperity and your eyes will not see the evil which

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I will bring eventually upon this place. So they brought back word to Josiah.

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In God's grace, he told Josiah he would not pour out his wrath on Judah at this time during his reign.

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A peaceful reign, a righteous reign would be his. But not until they rid the land of evil.

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And now we can't read it all. I would really suggest to you after this, maybe go read 2 Kings chapter 23.

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It is such a detailed list of all that they had done. Honestly, read it and pray, God, may our country do what they're doing in 2

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Kings 23. May they tear down the high places. Because that's what it says.

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It says, Josiah ordered to tear down the high places of Baal and Asherah.

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They burned the items dedicated to the false gods. The cult prostitutes' houses were destroyed.

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They had temple prostitutes. Their houses were destroyed. The images were burned. They destroyed the place of burning in the

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Valley of Hinnom, remember? Valley of Hinnom is Gehenna. That is where they would make children pass through the fires of Molech and sacrifice them to the demon

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Molech. They destroyed that. They said, never again shall a child go through the fires of Molech here.

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They destroyed it. The priests of these false gods were slain.

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They were killed. The false prophets slain, killed. The bones from graves of previously evil men were dug up.

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Remember, that's a way that you defile yourself. You don't touch dead things, according to the law. But they were ordered to dig up the bones of evil men.

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And so the slain prophets, these wicked prophets, these false scribes and evil priests, their bodies were taken.

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They were burned upon that altar, just like 300 years before it was prophesied that that would occur.

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They did it. Then they reinstituted the Passover. They celebrated it, just as the law of the covenant prescribed.

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All the abominations were removed from among them, and no king like Josiah had ever come before him, neither after him, until Jesus Christ.

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And I bring up this historical account to illustrate what our text in James has demonstrated.

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Josiah submitted to God. He recognized God's Word is powerful and binding on all humans.

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He drew near to God and sought the truth of God in the book of the law.

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God came near to him and spoke to him and reassured Josiah of his grace and blessing upon him.

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Josiah, the priests, the scribes, and the people were miserable, it says.

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They mourned and they wept when they learned what they had done. He tore his clothes in utter devastation of the soul.

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They thought to themselves, Oh Lord, what could appease your wrath? We know what we deserve. And they cleansed themselves.

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They cleansed the land and the temple of the Lord was purified. The people sought to be purified and to obey the statutes of the

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Lord. And so James says, humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and he will exalt you.

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Tear down the high places of sin and God will put you on a high place of security and peace.

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He will exalt you just like he exalted King Josiah. So the major themes of what we will find today in our text is that the safest place to be as a believer is in a place of submission to God, number one.

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Number two, he calls us to seek him with repentant attitudes.

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Number three, we are to pursue holiness and purity in all aspects of the deeds and heart.

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And number four, we need to treat sin seriously. Just like the Jews did when they found the book of the law.

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Do we treat sin seriously the way that they did? That's what we have to ask ourselves.

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So with that said, go to verse 7 of chapter 4. Submit therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

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And so in our short section of Scripture today, there are actually 10 different imperatives.

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Give it to James to have 10 imperatives within four verses in the

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Bible. And I told you imperatives are like commands. Commands. And they flow out of Proverbs 3 .34,

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the quotation from verse 6. We don't see it on the screen, but verse 6 of chapter 4.

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There's a quotation there. Essentially, those who receive greater grace from God, these verses will be characteristic of those recipients of that grace.

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Submit, or hupotasso in the Greek, is a plural imperative.

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It's a plural imperative. That means it's not just for one person. This command is for everyone.

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This command is for everyone. Submit to God. Submit to the orders of one in authority.

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This is the same Greek word used in these verses. Slaves, submit to masters,

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Titus 2 .9. Wives, submit to husbands, Colossians 3 .18.

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Angels and spiritual powers are to be subject to Christ, 1 Peter 3 .5. Submit to your elders as those in authority, 1

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Peter 5 .5. The church is to be subject to Christ, Ephesians 5 .24.

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And lastly, all things are to be subject or submitted to Christ now.

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All things, according to Philippians 3 .21. And submitting to God is submitting to His lordship.

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The imperative covers everything. Everything. There is not one thing we are not to submit to God.

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That's what the text shows, according to the Greek. It is all encompassing. Everything in your life you are to submit to God.

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Your salvation, your walk with Christ, your life. Your finances, your family, your health, your relationships.

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Everything you are to submit to the Lord. And to submit to Him is, in many ways, like a child to a good father.

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You see, you look to the Lord to instruct you on how to perform the tasks that go with each of these categories of life.

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Much like sometimes, again, in best case scenario, when a son looks to his father and says,

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Dad, how do I do this? You know, each new stage comes. It's like, Dad, how do I write a check? Dad, how do

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I, you know, do this? How do I plan a 401k or something like that? You know, we go to our dads.

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And so we go to the Lord in everything, every new stage of life.

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It's a recognition that His way to do things is vastly superior to the ways that we do things.

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The Lord's way is the best way. And it's not a one -time thing either.

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Every day, we will encounter opportunities to submit to God or, in essence, rebel against God.

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The question is, what are we not submitting to Him? What are you not submitting to God today?

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What are you not bringing to the Lord? It can be an area of sin in your life.

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It can be a concern, a worry, something you're going through, some sort of suffering, the hard news that you received this week.

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Did you give it to Him? And it's not this mystical process submitting to God.

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It's not just like laying down on the ground and being like, I submit to you, Lord. That reminds me of our cat.

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Our cat just kind of comes up and is like, you know, like just submission and wants a pet or something like that.

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You know, it's not this process where we just lay down, okay, God, I submit everything to You. No, there's action.

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There's participation on our part. Whatever it is, again, a health concern or a sin, we approach the

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Master, we look for comfort and grace. Then we find directives from Him regarding this issue.

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Whether it be looking at His promises or a way to conquer a sin in His Word, we then carry out

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His orders as He's listed. Just as He gave them to Josiah, we then carry it out.

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We make execution on what the Lord has ordered. We message to base.

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We check with the commander on the progress of our objective and ask him for more reinforcements, more supplies, and so forth.

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And it's also like submitting to a good father as a child in that you trust what he says.

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You trust God in your submission to Him. That He is a reliable source of information and He, the

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Lord, will never steer you wrong. One can expect if done our Father's way, it will be done the right way.

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That's true. It's also submitting like a child to a good father in that you know no matter what happens,

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God will take care of you in every one of those categories. Health, salvation, relationships, marriage, family.

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You trust that even if you fail in the submission, your Father, your Lord is there to help you, to pick you back up, that you continue to submit to Him.

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But unlike the relationship of a child with their earthly father, the outcome is determined by God.

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There is no way one can go wrong following the directives of Master Jesus Christ.

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No way. No way. So whatever happens as a result of submitting to Christ, it'll always be in line with His will and decree, no matter what happens.

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You see, sometimes you're going to obey the Lord, you're going to submit to the Lord, and there may be suffering that goes along with it.

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There may be things that we perceive in front of us as bad, but in God's economy and God's sovereign plan, they are good.

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They are bringing you on that path of sanctification to completion in Christ.

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His sovereignty is the guardrails that keep things on track. In submission to God is the safest place one can be, even if one is in the middle of a stormy sea, or in the midst of a cancer treatment, or in a recent job loss.

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Submission to God during the loss of a loved one, only submission to God will bring you to the other side of what you're going through.

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Only submission to God. It's a sure thing. Submitting to God beyond all that will, according to James, aid you to resist the devil and cause him to flee from you.

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Submitting and resisting are in full contrast to one another. So one could argue submitting to God is resisting

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Diabolos. Submitting to God is in the path of resisting the devil.

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Resisting the devil is never divorced from submitting to God. Okay? You can't submit both to God and the devil.

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As Jesus made it clear, no one can serve two masters. You can't submit to God and the devil. To oppose the devil is to submit to God, and to oppose

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God is to submit to the devil. One is our holy master, while the other is our damned enemy.

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Both, here though, are imperatives. Submit, therefore, and resist are commands.

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They are imperatives in the Greek. They go together. Submitting is taking the orders of one in authority.

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I told you that. While resisting someone is actively opposing them.

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Active in that it must be at all times. So if someone is coming at you, right, and someone seeks to attack me,

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I have to keep my arms extended. I have to keep them from getting near my vitals and from my face.

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I need to keep my distance if they intend to attack me or hurt me. That's what resisting the assailant is.

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We are not to allow him to close the gap between us. Without actively resisting the devil, you are susceptible to attack.

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That is true. That's the principle we see here. If you don't resist the devil, he will not flee.

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He will come near you. He will keep coming in that sense. Anastete in the

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Greek means resist by actively opposing pressure or power. So Ephesians 6 .13

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says, resist in the evil day. Put pressure on what is evil.

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Oppose with power. Ephesians 4 .27, do not give the devil an opportunity,

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Paul says. Do not give him an opportunity. When we don't submit to God, we let down our guard of opposition to the devil and we give him then an opportunity.

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1 Peter 5 .8 says, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

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Ecclesiastes talks about how two are better than one in a couple ways. You like Ecclesiastes?

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That's a good book. Ecclesiastes. I've been reading that lately. Ecclesiastes talks about how there are two men in some situations it says is better than one.

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He says this, and if one can overpower one who is alone, two then can resist.

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The attacker. Two can resist. There are two lessons to be sought there.

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One, when we try to do this alone and without our Lord, without submitting to Him and His Word, we will be overpowered.

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We will. You can't do this alone. You can't do this without God. You will be overpowered.

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And secondly, in a practical sense, you can't do this

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Christian life without the church, without the local church, without your brothers and sisters.

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It's too dangerous for you to be out there alone. If you find yourself lately overpowered by the devil and not resisting, know that two can work together to resist more easily sometimes.

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So maybe you need your brother or sister in Christ or maybe someone in the room or your pastor to know more about your current struggles so that we can help you.

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To take up arms with you. To send you supplies and aid in the battle. Because one man can be overcome, but two, as Ecclesiastes said, can overpower the attacker.

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We do this together. We do this together, church. What right now has been overpowering you for too long?

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What right now has been overpowering you for too long? What right now could use the help of your fellow

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Christian? And there's some of us who have been struggling for a long time. We've been trying to do it on our own.

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We need the Lord and we need our brothers and sisters. So think about that this week.

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But the good news is, is whatever power Satan has, it's very limited.

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It clearly isn't as powerful as the strength and power God has given the believer through Christ.

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You know that? Some people online, you see these TikToks, they're trying to attack

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Christianity. They're just complete trash. They're horrible. They're laughable.

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They really are. And they'll talk about Satan and Jesus or Satan and God as if it's some sort of yin and yang, darkness and light.

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It's just despicable. Satan has literally derivative power.

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You see in Job chapter 1, he has to come to God and say, can I do this? He is a devil on a leash.

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He's not equal with God. He's not equal with Christ. He's a vanquished foe. That's what the

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Bible demonstrates. And so we are given this power to resist the devil.

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Isn't that incredible? You have been given power to resist the devil and cause the devil to flee.

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Lucifer, the one who was covered in gems, and as the Bible says, and he rebelled against God and he wanted to be

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God. And he's been called kind of this prince of darkness and prince of the power of the earth.

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You in Christ have the power to resist him and he will flee. Unbelievable.

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Unbelievable. That is power in Christ. In Christ. It kind of reminds me of the seven sons of Siva or Sceva in Acts chapter 19.

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When someone truly isn't a believer and they think they have that power, this is what happens.

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Acts 19, it says, but also some of the Jewish exorcists who went from place to place attempted to name over those who had evil spirits the name of the

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Lord Jesus. And they would say to people with evil spirits, these sons of Sceva or Sceva, they would say to these evil demonic spirits,

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I adjure you by Jesus, the Jesus whom Paul preaches be out of this person.

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So they would command these demons, but they didn't know Jesus and Jesus didn't know them because it says this, the demon then responded to these seven sons and said to them,

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I recognize Jesus and I know Paul, but I don't know you.

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I don't know you. Those demons were not afraid of the seven sons of Sceva because God didn't know them.

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God didn't know them. And it says the man in whom was the evil spirit, the demon, leaped upon these seven sons, subdued all of them, overpowered them, and they fled out of the house that says naked and wounded.

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You see, if the devil knows your name, that means God has claimed you as His.

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You realize that? If the devil knows your name, then

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God has claimed you as His. Some say, well, I sure hope the devil doesn't know my name. No, no.

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Say it the other way. The devil knows me because I follow Jesus unashamedly. I am

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Jesus's and Jesus is mine. So they know you. The devil knows you.

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The demons know you if you are in Jesus Christ. The devil will take flight, it says.

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When one submits to God and resists the devil and his schemes, the devil will run away from a believer.

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And the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4 is a perfect illustration of this.

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Jesus essentially submitted to the Father. He proclaimed His Word. He demonstrated

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His loyalty to the Father as the eternal Son of God, and the devil could do nothing more than flee.

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Do you remember that? The temptation of Jesus, the devil fleed. I'm certain it brings the

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Lord much pleasure, much joy, when one of His saints displays such fidelity to Him and an unwavering commitment to the

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Scriptures that it causes Satan to flee. I think the Lord is pleased with that. And get this, it doesn't say, and He will flee from you forever, does it?

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It doesn't say that. He won't flee from you forever is not true.

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You know why? Because Luke 4 .13 says this, when the devil had finished every sort of temptation upon Jesus, he left

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Jesus, get this, until a more opportune time. Until a more opportune time.

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So if he had tempted our Lord and was planning to do it again, he will do the same with us.

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He will do the same with us. He will wait for a more opportune time. Now, I know some of you may be thinking, with post -millennial eschatology, if Satan is bound to not deceive the nations, what does that mean in his capacity to influence us or attack us?

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And I have to say, that'd be a whole other conversation, but we see at least in some way, the gospel has been able to go forth without hindrance.

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And yet, there's still demonic attack in some capacity and I don't think that's a physical binding.

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I think, essentially, God has locked up Satan in such a sense where, again, the gospel can go freely forth into the world and be successful to win the nations.

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And so, there is some sense in where we can expect attack.

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Again, that'd be a whole another conversation we could talk about another time, but I know some of you guys out there, my eschatology guys are like, but I thought

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Satan was locked up. So, I just wanted to address that real quick. So, this is probably why

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Paul likened the Christian life to that of a soldier. That we have to be on the offense and the defense.

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And know this, the opposite of submit to God, the opposite of resist the devil and the opposite is the devil fleeing from you is this, disobey the

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Lord and His commands, let down your guard with the prowling devil and the devil will attack.

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It's just clear as day. It's the opposite of what's being said here. So, the question for us church is, do you make the diabolos, the devil, the adversary run from you?

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Or does he run towards you? Does he find all your doors unlocked, the security system down, so to speak, and the barriers undefended?

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Or does he flee from you? Thankfully, again, focusing on submitting to God will be enough to resist the father of lies.

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And in the end, we pray like Jesus told us to pray. He said, your will be done, their submission.

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And then He said, pray, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

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There's the resistance. So, even Jesus gives us the formula, submit to God and His will and resist the devil.

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Go to verse 8. He says, draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

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Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double -minded. So, James makes a third imperative here.

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The command now is to draw near to God. As if at some moments in your life, you are at some sort of a distance from Him.

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You are to close the gap between you and God. And then an indicative is made right immediately after this.

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That is a statement of fact. When we draw near to God, it is fact.

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It is so certain and reliable to say, God will then draw near to us.

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Certain. Without question. He will do the same thing we are called to do.

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He will draw near to us. It's a future active indicative.

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Which means it takes out any possibility that He won't draw near. This is a promise.

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He will indeed draw near. He will most definitely and certainly draw near to you.

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So you are to resist the devil. We are to resist the devil, keep him away from you.

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But the opposite is with God. Don't keep God away from you. Don't resist

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God. Draw near to God. Resist the devil, but don't resist

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God. Draw near to God. Be close to God in every way. Exodus 19 talks about it.

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He says, let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves, or else the

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Lord will break out against them. Moses said to the Lord, the people cannot come up to you.

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The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai for you warned us saying, set bounds about the mountain and consecrate it.

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You see, during this time of the Exodus and the giving of the law, the people were not afforded the same privilege of the priests to draw near to God.

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They could not. The average person never went into the tabernacle or temple, let alone the

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Holy of Holies. We see when God gave His law on Mount Sinai, they were to keep away from even the slopes of the mountain, lest they be killed.

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They dared not even to look up at God. But now, the priesthood is fulfilled once and for all in the final

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High Priest, Jesus Christ. Through Christ, we are now a holy nation and a royal priesthood, the

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Scripture says. Not that we perform any temple duties or priesthood duties or any sacrifices, but this, now we can draw near to God.

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Only the priests and the High Priest could draw near to God, but now you, the average person, the regular believer in Jesus, you can draw near to God.

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You can approach God. You can look up at the mountain and you can see God and He will receive you.

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You can draw near to Him and He will draw near to you. There's no separation. The temple veil was torn.

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Nothing will keep you now from drawing near to God. You were afforded a privilege people never got to see back then.

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They saw it by faith. They looked forward. We can approach

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Him and come with an expectation that He will commune with us. We can come with not a fear of judgment, but a fear of reverence.

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Christ has consecrated us by His blood. He has made us holy so as to be able to approach the

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Lord. And if we understood the access that we have to God, some of these people, they wish they could come to God in such a way that we can.

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The access that we have now is unfathomable. You can pray to God.

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You can commune with God in ways that they only could dream of. Access to Christ, opportunity to read the

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Word. They had to go to synagogue. They had to go to the temple to hear the

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Word, proclaimed, you can grab one of your ten Bibles or your phone and receive the

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Word of God. The access we have to God is unfathomable.

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And based off of our text here, there is a confident expectation that we can all have that God will meet us there.

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The author of the book of Hebrews makes it clear the newness of the new covenant in Christ is a better hope, one through which we are able to draw near to God.

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Like the prodigal son. You know the story of the prodigal son? He had come to his senses.

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He says, what am I doing here? He had resolved, I'm going to go back to my father. The prodigal son drew near to his father for mercy.

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His father saw him at a distance and ran to him to close the gap, to embrace him.

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And so when the Lord sees you coming, He will eagerly come towards you with an even greater stride than you.

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If you walk to God, He will jog to you. If you jog to God, He will run to you.

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If you run to God, He will sprint towards you. He will come with even greater stride to you.

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2 Chronicles 15 -2, If you seek Him, He will let you find Him. Unbelievable.

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You know how many people search for lost relics and meanings to life?

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But He says, if you seek Me, I'll let you find Me. I'll let you find

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Me. Zechariah 1 -3, return to Me and I will return to you. The church as the holy nation can say this now with no hesitation.

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Deuteronomy 4 -7, For what great nation, the church, is there that has a

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God so near to it as the Lord our God whenever we call upon Him? And by the way, this is not a work -based righteousness situation.

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This isn't like, okay, if I'm obedient, then God will come to me. That's not what He's trying to portray here.

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This is saying that God responds to faith. God responds to faith. Come to Him in faith and He will be faithful to you.

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You say, it's been too long since I've drawn near to the Lord. Pastor Wade, you don't know.

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It's been too long. I haven't come to God in His Word. I haven't come to God in prayer. I haven't come to Him.

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I haven't drawn near to the Lord for some time. How can I look God in the face? How can

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I approach Him? And you know what? That's a lie from the devil himself. That's not resisting the devil.

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If you've been distant from God, know that He's not been distant from you, that today you can draw near to God with a promise that He will draw near to you.

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It's not contingent upon your performance. If you will do it today, even though you've failed for the last year,

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God will come to you. He will be faithful. He will draw near to you. So then he kind of changes his language here.

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Look at the second part of the verse. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double -minded.

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He said, James, whoa, you were really encouraging me. And then James just kind of throws these punches at us.

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So what is he saying here? Okay, let's talk about it. Because there's no soft, beloved brethren, brothers, sisters.

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He doesn't appeal to them in that way. Pastor James changes his tone. And these are, again, imperative statements.

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These are commands. Cleanse, purify. And these are what's called homiletic devices, okay?

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So what does that mean? I am a preacher and I'm giving a sermon, but another name for a sermon is a homily.

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A homily, it's an oration. I'm speaking to you, a homily. And often a preacher has what's called homiletic devices.

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And I will use language that the Lord has, of course, put on my heart to give to you in such a way to kind of wake us up.

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And that's what James is doing here. He knows that they are saved by grace, but he also knows they need to be jolted out of their sin.

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They need to wake up. Like the fiery preacher who knows his congregation is entangling themselves in a particular sin, he gives the wake -up call.

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Not to mention, no pastor truly knows who is absolutely saved or not in his congregation.

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So he's speaking in such a way to the general early Christian population called a repentance.

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You hear, because of course, you hear stories about people who say, I've been in church my whole life, and I've been in church for 20 years, 30 years, and last

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Tuesday, Jesus saved me. It's unbelievable. You've got to hear about Jesus. And those sort of things happen. They happen.

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So the preacher gives the word in such a way, and he's speaking to them in a similar way.

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You always give the gospel, always. So James is concerned and wants them to carefully examine their lives as Christians.

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This has been his aim from the beginning of this book. He doesn't want to sow seeds of doubt, but he wants to sow and grow faithfulness in each man, woman, and child listening.

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That's what James wants to do. And so these are the fourth and fifth imperatives.

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Cleanse and purify, catharsate, remove contamination or defilement.

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This is the word used in the Septuagint to describe the cleaning needed after ritual and cleanness.

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Like as if you touched a leper or something like that. This is the same word.

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Cleanse your hands. As if to say you've touched sin, wash your hands.

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You were adulteresses and friends of the world, as he said previously, now cleanse your hands.

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Keep away from the source that has defiled you. But boy, he doesn't mince words here.

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He says, you sinners, you sinners. James wants their attention.

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This is much like God's calling to the Israelites in Isaiah chapter 1. When God said to the

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Israelites, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your deeds from my sight.

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Cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, and plead the widow's cause.

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Very similar. So purify is hagnasate, which comes from the same word that holy comes from, haggios.

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Hagnasate means make holy your heart again. Make holy, purify it.

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You disukas, you two minds, two souls, you double -minded.

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Like the unstable fellow from chapter 1 who followed God, but he also followed other gods and other things.

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He was divided in his devotion to the Lord. It reminds me of those men in the

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Gospels. There was two men. Jesus said, come and follow me. And they wanted to follow him, but they were unwilling.

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Why? They were unwilling because they didn't want to let go of what was dear to them. One wanted to bury his father so as to gain his inheritance.

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His concern was money. And the other one was concerned about his family and what they would think.

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Jesus refused them as followers. No double -minded. He wants undivided devotion.

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And so this isn't a salvific cleansing as if we could accomplish this. This isn't like the

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Ezekiel 36 washing the waters of regeneration sort of cleansing.

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This is a repentance. These imperatives are to believers to rid themselves of the partiality, the wrong treatment of the poor, the friendship that they've made with the world, the hearing only and no doing of the

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Word of God. He is calling them to rid themselves of the things that he's been speaking about from chapter 1, day 1.

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John says in his first epistle, and everyone who has this hope fixed on Christ purifies himself just as Jesus is pure.

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He goes on to say, whoever practices sin is lawless. So church,

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Christ has eternally cleansed us with his blood. So we need to stop putting mud and filth on the righteous robe of Jesus Christ that he has placed upon our shoulders.

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You see, Jesus has saved you and he put his righteous robe upon you. And sometimes we try to take mud and filth and we put it back on.

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Wash it. Cleanse it. Be done with it. Now what should that look like?

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Go to verse 9. What should be our attitudes in the cleansing and purifying?

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Verse 9 tells us, be miserable and mourn and weep.

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Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. What does he mean here?

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What does he mean by this? These are the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th imperatives of our passage.

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Be miserable, mourn, weep and be turned. And so these represent a genuine repentance.

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This is contrition, a contrite heart. But to some of us, this may seem at odds with the

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Christian message. I thought Christ takes our weeping and brings us gladness.

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He turns our shame into glory. Our weeping, he turns to laughter.

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Paul, of course, says to rejoice always. Again, I say rejoice. And James says in chapter 1 here, to count all things joy.

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So what is occurring here? What is James commanding them to do? I thought the

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Christian message was about joy. We are to be, of course, joyful in the salvation that Christ has purchased for us, no doubt.

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But I believe that this is a different category of things, okay? This is a different category. We are to grieve and remember what

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He's done for us when we sin. That our mourning would bear the fruit of true repentance.

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He calls out to them like an Old Testament prophet almost. Turn from your sins, weep, wail, rip your clothes like Josiah, wear sackcloth and ashes.

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That's what James is almost doing here. Wear sackcloth and ashes, mourn, weep, be turned.

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Telepostorte, telepostate, be sorrowful or lament concerning your wretched circumstances.

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Joel 2 says, return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. God desires that.

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You see that in the Old Testament, the weeping, the mourning. He sees true repentance and He is glad.

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This is the same mourning that Paul did in 2 Corinthians 12, when some among the churches there would not repent from sin.

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To weep here is to weep or wail with an emphasis upon even the severity of the weeping.

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This is not merely regular crying. This word for weep is a bitter and painful cry.

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This is the same word used when Peter had denied Christ three times and it says that he wept bitterly.

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Same word. And I guess what my concern is for me and for you all, is this my attitude?

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Is this my posture when I am engrossed in sin? And sometimes it is.

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Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes we desensitize ourselves to it.

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Repentance carries grief because it means we have committed sins against others and against God and it should grieve us when we do so.

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It's kind of like when a child has no remorse for the wrong they've done. The parent kind of wonders in their mind if they don't understand what they did, are they truly sorry?

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Are they truly repentant? Like Paul in Romans 7 who understands who he is.

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He says, O wretched man that I am, I do what I don't want to do and I don't do the things that I should do.

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Paul says in this sort of sorrow, struggle, godly frustration, the psalmist says that he floods his pillow with tears every night over his disobedience.

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2 Corinthians 7 .10 summarizes this well as it states, For the sorrow that is according to the will of God, you hear that?

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There is sorrow that is according to the will of God and it produces a repentance without regret, but the sorrow of the world produces death.

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So that's the difference. Godly sorrow over sin leads to repentance.

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Sorrow of the world produces guilt and shame that you will never be forgiven.

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Don't get in that place as a believer. Don't take on the sorrow of the world that says now

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I'm unforgivable. The godly sorrow that is according to the will of God leads to repentance.

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Godly sorrow leads to repentance. Think about the context that James was into in the first century.

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He had an expectation of the coming day of the Lord was near. Christ was soon going to judge

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Judea and destroy Jerusalem in 70 AD. James was concerned about everyone being right with the

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Lord even if they weren't physically in Judea but dispersed abroad. And so look, the fact is all will mourn.

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All will mourn. Either one will mourn when it's too late and they're under judgment or they will mourn now their sins and enjoy the peace of the

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Lord forever. You will mourn in one way or the other because we mourn our sin. You often see that in mature men and women of God.

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You know, we think the more we get sanctified, the less sin we're going to be participating in.

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But you read men like Jonathan Edwards or Charles Spurgeon or any of these godly men.

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They've been in this Christian life for a long time. Godly pastors, John MacArthur, Sproul, whatever, you name it.

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And they say the longer I've been in this, the more I realize I sin in so many ways, right?

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It's not this general decrease. It's this continuing knowledge or increase of, boy,

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I need the grace of Jesus Christ every day. Every day. So again, you'll either mourn when it's too late, under judgment, or mourn your sin now and repent.

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And so what he's saying is, stop acting confident in your folly and prostrate yourself.

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Realize the danger you are in. Why are you laughing and carefree?

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He says, get right with the Lord. Get right with the Lord. And the warning is for us too.

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Don't be like the pleasure -seeking hedonists from verses 1 -5 who say things like, let's eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.

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This isn't a loving and rejoicing laughter. This is a foolish and reckless laughing that feels happy for a time due to fleeting pleasure of sin.

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But grief, grief precedes proper joy. Turn your joy to gloom so that you can experience the peace and delight that Christ gives us in his reassuring forgiveness.

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Mourn your sins so that you can find peace in Christ is what he's saying, that you can find joy in Christ.

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So the question is, how do we react to our sin? Are you desensitized to it?

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Do you get to the point of worldly sorrow where you think you're unsavable? Or do you get to the place where you can mourn and weep over your sin, but then find joy in the morning in Christ?

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So James gives the final call. He essentially reiterates verse 6, now in verse 10.

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He says, "...Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you."

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This is the tenth imperative. Humble yourselves.

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He says, do it in God's sight. Do it in the presence of the Lord. Show Him how low you've been brought, essentially.

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Show your dependence on Him. Almost like a shamed son, hang your head low before your father, and he will take his hand to your chin, and he will lift you up, and your father will smile at you and be glad with you.

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He will be pleased. Because again, God will always accept the one who humbles himself before Him.

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He will not cast out any who are like the tax collector in the parable that Jesus gave where the tax collector said, have mercy on me,

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O Lord, a sinner. And Jesus said, that man is justified. But let's not lose the spirit of James' warning.

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Again, are you one who is typically not mourning over your sin? Then you won't see the necessity to humble yourself before Him and repent.

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If you don't mourn over your sin, you won't see the need to humble yourself before God. And if you don't humble yourself before God, then you won't receive the exaltation that he's talking about here, this lifting you high.

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We must see our sin for what it is. We must understand what it costs Jesus to rid us of our sin.

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And let that give us godly grief to beg the Lord for renewal and the ability to abstain from such sin.

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This promise is so very sweet. If you come to the Lord, He will be faithful to lift you up.

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He will be faithful to lift you up. The prodigal son, again, let me bring him up. He had nothing left.

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He probably almost lost his standing, his ability to stand before his father.

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He confessed his sin. Father, I've sinned against heaven, I've sinned against earth,

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I've sinned against you. How could you forgive me, Father? He told his father of his unworthiness to be a son.

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I am unworthy to be called your son. But the son was then exalted.

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The best robe was placed upon that son, the prodigal son. A ring was taken off of his father and the father gave him his ring upon his finger.

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He saw that his son had no shoes, his feet were dirty, and he took off his own sandals and he gave his son sandals.

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He did this. He then ordered that the fatted calf to be slaughtered and that they would rejoice.

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He rejoiced then that this son of mine, he says, who was once lost has now been found.

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An amazing story. And that's the thing, you could look at these verses and think,

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God just wants us to be depressed ascetics. God just wants us to be depressed and mourn and in a perpetual state of weeping.

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That's how someone could look at these, but that's not what he's saying. God doesn't want to leave you in that state.

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Those who enter into godly sorrow over their sin before their God and Father will be lifted high.

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If you bring yourselves low, that word humble, low is in the

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Greek, it is the root word. If you bring yourself low, he will exalt you and in the root word there, that means high, it will take you high.

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They will be exalted. Jesus said, of course, something very similar. James following his half -brother, now

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Lord, whoever exalts himself shall be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

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Peter echoes this statement in his first epistle as well. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you at the proper time.

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We're reminded with this passage that we don't create our own spiritual strength and vigor, but we find it humbling ourselves before the

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Lord, submitting to his will and he will exalt us, he will lift us high. We come before him and say,

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God, that sin that I've been dealing with, I can't do it by myself.

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I can't beat this on my own. I can't stop doing this on my own without you or without my brothers and sisters.

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I humble myself before you, God. I can't do this without you. And he will be faithful to lift you up.

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He'll be faithful to say, I will equip you. I will equip you and help you to overcome this.

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This suffering, this death, this job loss, this health scare, this family issue.

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This marriage, this salvation, this life, the sin you're entangled with.

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I will help you. I will equip you. Just humble yourself before the Lord. So some final words.

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Wrapping up. We're not talking about white knuckling your sanctification.

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I want to get that point across as I just did. This is talking about genuine repentance, a genuine humbling ourselves before the

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Lord. And James said that we do it by asking for greater grace and strength to submit in this area, that area, this area.

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God, help me to resist the devil, as he said. And so James mentioned the head and the hands to purify them.

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In the revelation, it mentions the mark of the beast was on the head and the hands, the head and the hands.

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This really all points back to God's word in Deuteronomy 11, 18. It says, you shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart, on your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and on the frontals of your head.

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Take this word, put it in your hands, your head, your heart, and your soul. You see, our head, our hearts, and our hands are never inert.

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They're never inactive. They're never static. Our heart, hands, our head, they're always doing something.

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Excuse me. They are either impressing the words of God upon them, or they're impressing upon them your own words, your own inner monologue, or you're impressing upon them the devil's words.

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They are never empty. What is occupying your head, hands, and heart, church?

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That's the question we have to ask ourselves. We will never be able to resist until we submit.

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Resist sin, resist the devil. And many people have tried, but the key element is again, humbling yourself before the

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Lord, yielding to Him and His will. And so if you remember, the main ideas

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I wanted you to take away from this, I said them at the beginning, I'll say them again. Submission to God is the constant posture of a believer.

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Okay? God wants us to seek Him repentantly with a contrite heart, a heart that knows you've done wrong, and only

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He can remedy it. Number three, He desires for us to pursue purity in the head, heart, and hands.

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Number four, He wants us to treat our sin seriously, like Josiah did, like the Israelites did.

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To treat it seriously and understand what we've done, and turn away from it, knowing again what

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Jesus has purchased for us. And we pray that the Spirit make us more sensitive to it.

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And lastly, to humble ourselves before Him, knowing only He can exalt us. And the devil, my friends, can't stand these truths.

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The devil can't stand this truth, that Jesus justified the ungodly.

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That Jesus came and He loved you, and in while you were still yet sinners,

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Christ died for you. He can't stand that. And He's going to make it seem like you have to earn this, that you have to work for it.

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It's a free gift. And just know that that old devil, that old serpent,

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He is vanquished. The Word says this, and this is the final word here.

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I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ has come.

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For the accuser of the brethren, the devil, has been thrown down. And they overcame the devil because of the blood of the

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Lamb and because of the word of their testimony. You and me, we have the blood of the

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Lamb. We have the blood of the Lamb. So let's live in that reality, church.

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Amen. Let's pray. Lord, please bless the message that went out.

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Please use it for the good of your people and your glory. God, help us, help me, help all of us to submit these areas, these strongholds, these worries, these concerns, these things that continue to pop up,

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Lord, help us to submit them to you, to trust in you regarding them, to humble ourselves before you, to have the right attitude towards our sin, knowing what