James 4:7-12 Sept 30, 2012 #1826 Pentecost 19 Page 1
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. 11 Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
Hi Kids,
[Show a hatchet.] You might have seen one of these. What is it called? It is a hatchet. Look at the metal part from the top. See how the blade edge is a sharp point. See how the blade gets wider and wider as you move back from the blade edge. If you set the sharp blade on a piece of wood and push, the hatchet pushes the two sides of wood apart. Let me show you.
On this piece of wood I wrote “God” on one half and “me” on the other half. We will pretend that the hatchet is the Devil tempting us to sin. [set the blade on the piece of wood between “God” and “Me.”] If we do what the devil tempts us to do and sin, look what happens [push the hatchet into the wood to cause it to start to split and separate “God” from “Me.”] The more we sin, [push the hatchet farther] the more we are split away from God until look what happens [push the hatchet until you have two separate pieces of wood]. We are not connected to God at all.
How can a person get reconnected to God? [take some red tape and fasten the two wood pieced back together with one piece that wraps around them. Then take another piece of tape and put it over the crack vertically.] What shape does this tape make? It is a cross. What did Jesus do on the cross? He removed our sins by paying for them. When a person believes that Jesus has taken away all our sins, that person is back together with God.
You will hear the command “resist the devil.” [Have the children say it.] When you hear “resist the devil,”God is telling you to say “no” whenever the devil or someone asks you to do something that is wrong. And, because we are connected to God [show the wood piece with the “God” and “me” connected with the red cross], the devil is going to try to be this hatchet and separated us from God by getting us to sin. [show a piece of metal that fits over the end of the wood] If I put this metal over the end of the wood, the hatchet can’t split the wood. What God teaches us in the Bible is like this metal. When we keep reading and obeying the Bible, we have the metal protecting us so that the devil can’t split us from God. Study and believe the Bible. That is how you “resist the devil.”
Grace be to all of us because we all are sinners and needed to be saved,
We begin today with an important grammar lesson. In v. 7-10James uses10 imperatives. He gives instructions in the form of 10 commands which he presents as timeless facts. They are true and never become obsolete in this life. But before we examine these imperatives, we need to take careful note of the word “then” at the beginning of v. 7. This word tells us that what it introduces is the result of something described before. We could correctly say, “therefore” or “consequently.”We can’t make full sense of today’s imperatives unless we knowwhy James gave them.
James had just quoted a Proverb (3:34) “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”It was his summary statement for a stern chastisement with God’s law against the fighting and quarreling that was going on among his flock. Why is there quarreling in Christian homes? Because people are letting selfishness rule their wants and their words. Why do husbands and wives fight? Because one or both hearts are not right with God. Because one or both like being proud more than being humble. Because loving themselves seems more satisfying then loving their partner. Because one or both feel powerful by criticizing their partner’s faults rather than by confessing their own. James quotes the proverb so that we are clear that the relationship-poison of envy is a fruit not from the Spirit, but from Satan.
James had warned, “Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?” We can make friends and enjoy things that are available to earthly life. But we dare not love evil things at all, or love good earthly things more than God. To choose to be “a friend of the world” in such a way makes us an “enemy of God.” But we don’t want to be such a person. So we ask “what should I do?” James points usto repentance in relation to the God who “gives grace to the humble.” All of this is behind the word “then.” For these reasons WE COME NEAR TO GOD WITH HUMBLE HEARTS.
The reason James tells us to “come near to God” is because by nature we are far from him. And if we keep sinning, we become even farther from him. And if we are separated from God, then we are separated from heaven. The more we disobey God, the more we do what is sinful, the father we stray from him. But how does a person ”come near to God?” How can our sins be removed so that we are connected with God once again? James answers with the command, “submit to God.” To “submit to God”means that we believe that we are accountable to him, that we “love him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength” as first in our life in every way, that his will always takes precedence over our will, that we obey everything the Bible teaches so that he steers our choices and decisions with his standard of right and wrong.If God is not first in our life, then we live in defiance of him.
We are able to submit because “he has come near to” you. Through the miracle of God’s grace a repentant sinner is never turned away. Through the blood of Jesus it is never too late for a soul living on earth to come to God. Through his Word, specifically through the gospel, God the Holy Spirit has made your heart his home by conceiving faith in Jesus there. He has told you all about Jesus, all about Jesus’ life of perfection, all about Jesus’ suffering and death as the innocent man and God’s Son to ransom you from hell, all about Jesus’ resurrection that will raise your body from the grave. The Spirit has changed your heart and mind to trust this so that you have eternal life. And Jesus will “come near you” in a miracle way in a few minutes through Communion to solidify that you are forgiven from all your sins.
James commanded, “resist the devil and he will flee from you.” So Why is the devil still tempting me, a Christian? The devil’s power has been defeated by Jesus. But the devil still spews out propaganda that his evil ways will eventually get us, or that they are good, are harmless, are satisfying. He keeps trying to lure us away from God to spite God and ruin us. But the Holy Spirit assures us that armed with God’s Word you are stronger than Satan. Fight against the Devil. Say “no” to temptation and he will flee just as the demons fled when Jesus opposed them. But stay alert because the devil keeps trying different temptations until we are in heaven.
You “come near to God” when you “wash our hands… and purify your hearts”through repentance. Your “hands” and your mouth and your eyes and your whole body does the evil that people can observe. And soap and water can’t clean us of our sins. Only a change of “heart”can make us pure by God’s standard. David wrote (Ps 24:3-4), “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.” Only when we present ourselves before God humble in heart, admitting our sorrow for defying him because we have sinned, admitting that we don’t deserve heaven, asking him to keep his promise to forgive us through Jesus, seeking his help to resist the devil and temptation, then is our heart right with him.
James commands “be miserable. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom.” This may seem peculiar since James had begun his letter urging us to rejoice in trials that test our faith. Our life as a Christian is not characterized by constant grief. But when we have been finding joy in sinning, when we choose to do what God says is wrong because our natural self is pleased with doing it, then we need a change of attitude. It isn’t holy people that need to be washed. We “sinners,” we who have missed the target of what God tells us is right are the dirty ones. We “double-minded” people, we who pledge our faithfulness to God and then talk and act the opposite in our daily life have the polluted heart. The verb “change” is passive because God’s word is the power that turns us to him and turns us away from sinning. The gospel works repentance in our heart. That is why people who absent themselves from hearing God’s word keep their backs to God and continue in their sinful ways. Jesus promises, “blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep their full attention on it at all times doing what it says.”
In v. 11James commands his readers to stop right now what has been ongoing, namely saying defamatory things about fellow members and sinful judging of others. WE COME NEAR TO GOD WITH HUMBLE HEARTS when We “stop slandering one another” (v. 11-12).James’ words are reminiscent of Jesus’ teaching on the mountainside. And unfortunately they are so often misunderstood as well. God does not forbid all criticism of another Christian. The Bible is full of admonitions for us to get involved in other people’s lives, to call them back from lives of sin. We are to rebuke, correct and encourage. In his next chapter James says, (5:19–20) “19My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.” What James forbids is the loveless criticisms, the putdowns, the “slander” spoken in envy, or vengeance, or in gossip, or for personal gain.
Humbling ourselves before the Lord will lead to a humble attitude as we interact with our neighbor. Sinful “judging”claims to be able to read the heart. Someone says to you “I am sorry,” and you snap back, “no you’re not.” Sinful judging has the attitude “I am better than you.” Sinful judging goes beyond exposing sin to the point of making the person feel worthless even to God. Sinful judging doesn’t offer the healing gospel to restore the person to life in Jesus Christ. And such sinful actions James labels as “judging the law.” The personsinfully judgingdoes not “love your neighbor as yourself.” This condemns God’s law as wrong by following the attitude that I can treat you in whatever way I want.
But when WE COME NEAR TO GOD WITH HUMBLE HEARTS, we are promised “and he will come near to you…and he will lift you up.” We can have no spiritual health and life until we acknowledge our sinful failures and ask for his mercy instead of demanding what we have earned. This brings to mind Jesus’ parable of the Lost Son (Lk 15:11f). The son demanded his inheritance from his father right now, then promptly went out and squandered it with wild sinful living. When he is competing with the pigs for food, he remembers what it would be like if he were home again. So with a very different attitude, one that was humble, he returns home willing to be a lowly servant instead of a son. His father sees him coming and runs to him with arms out to hug him and welcome back this son who was dead. When our hearts are turned to God in repentance, God is there with out-stretched arm of forgiveness to welcome us. Think of Communion this morning as God’s arms welcoming you with the forgiveness of all you sins. Know that you wear Jesus’ blood and righteousness through faith. God has raised you up from eternal death and when your time on earth is complete he will “lift you up” to his heaven. There you will enjoy living in his glory for eternity. Amen.