James - James 4:6-10

"Blessed are the peacemakers," said the Lord Jesus, "for they shall be called the children of God." And David wrote, "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." Not just to travel together for a week in unity, or to meet in a convention for three days in unity, but to dwell together in unity. 

It’s unfortunate but it’s true, the Bible and church history bear witness to the fact that God’s people have not always gotten along in unity and in harmony. There have been arguments and disputes, and sometimes there has been outright war. When you read the Bible, you find that Abraham and Lot didn’t get along with each other. Esau wanted to kill Jacob. Joseph’s brothers hated him, sold him for a slave, would have killed him. Even the apostles had their disagreements, fighting over which of them was the greatest. And of course, when you read the church epistles, you discover that from Corinth to Philippi to Ephesus to Colossae, you did not have unity among God's people. 

Well, the believers that James wrote to were not in unity. They were at war with each other because they were at war with themselves, and they were at war with themselves because they were at war with God. They were suffering from selfishness, James 4:1-2, prayerlessness, James 4:3, and worldliness, James 4:4-5. 

Well, what's the solution to this problem? It seems that everywhere we look, we see division, dissension. By the way, there's just as much of this out in the world. It's when the world gets into the church that the church gets like the world. The world is competitive, the world is divided, the world likes to fight and argue, the world is selfish. And when this worldly spirit gets into the church and the Holy Spirit of God is grieved, we can certainly expect to have division, dissension, competition, wrangling, wars, fights. It's because of the worldly spirit in the church. 

In James 4:6-10, James gives us the remedy, the cure for this malady. "But he gives more grace. Therefore he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Therefore, now here is the prescription. And by the way, in James 4:7-10 you have 10 admonitions, like ten commandments. "Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep, and let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up." 

This remedy begins with humility, James 4:6, and it ends with humility, James 4:10. Now, to summarize all of these admonitions that James has given to us, we find in them five changes that we must experience before God can bring peace, harmony, unity, and blessing. Five changes. Now, we are the ones who initiate these changes. We aren’t asking God to do something for us, we are doing something ourselves. You see, too often when there is trouble in the church, we pray and say, "Oh God, do something." God says, "Here, I've told you. I've already done something. I've told you what you need to do." 

Some people are like patients that go to a doctor and the doctor diagnoses the case and says, "You need surgery." And so they read a medical book. That's not surgery. They watch a medical movie. No, that's not surgery. They have to go in and experience the surgery. They have to do something. We're not going to have revival, unity, life, power, joy, blessing in our churches until we do what God tells us to do. We can preach about it, we can sing about it, we can talk about it, we can conduct conferences and seminars about it, but here is the prescription. 

Number one: There has to be a change from resisting to submitting. These people were resisting God and submitting to the devil. Now he says, "Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you." God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. What’s it mean to submit to God? The word submit is a military term that means to be in proper rank. Now, in the military, rank is not necessarily a mark of character or even of great ability. You meet certain standards, you are promoted, ordinarily, this is the way it works. We like to think that a sergeant has more ability than a raw recruit, a buck private. That may not always be the case in terms of character or intelligence. 

Now, there’s a rank for each of us in God’s army. God calls some to be five-star generals, He calls some of us to be buck privates. He calls some of us to minister on KP. He gives each of us a specific rank. Now, when we rebel against that rank, we’re out of step, we’re out of place, and we’re working for the enemy. Imagine what kind of a war you would have fighting against the enemy if each soldier, sailor, marine, whatever, decided what his own rank was going to be. You see James in James 3:1 says, some of you want to get a higher rank, you want to be teachers. You don't know what you're asking for, and as a result, you're creating problems. Submit to God in love. We are children in His family. Submit to God in obedience. We are soldiers in His army. Submit to God in faith. He knows what is best for us. Submit to God through the word of God and prayer. From resisting to submitting. 

Now we’ve got to resist the devil. There’s no middle ground here. If you’re resisting God, you’re submitting to the devil, and if you’re submitting to God, you’re resisting the devil. The devil’s a liar, let’s resist all lying. He talks about deceitfulness and lying back in James 3:14. These people were lying to each other. Satan is a slanderer, they were out slandering one another, James 4:11. "Do not speak evil of one another, brethren." There’s so much of that going on in print these days. Slander. Let’s resist that. He’s a murderer. Well, these people were murdering one another. James 4:2, "You lust and do not have, so you murder and covet and cannot obtain." Now, they were not literally murdering one another, but Jesus says that hatred of your brother is the moral equivalent of murder. 

Satan's a liar, resist him. Don't spread lies. Satan's a slanderer, resist him. Don't believe and spread slander. Satan's a murderer, don't believe him, don't follow him. Don't murder somebody’s reputation, somebody’s witness or ministry. Satan's a destroyer, resist him. He'll destroy your church, your home, your marriage. We’ve got to be changed from resisting to submitting, and we have to do that. It’s time for us to say, "Lord, I’m sorry. I have been resisting You. I’m going to submit to You, give You my body, my mind, my will, my all. Here I am." 

Secondly, we have to go from distance to nearness. James 4:8, "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you." Now, obviously, God is not far from any of us. In Him we live and move and have our being. He isn’t talking about geography. He’s talking about character. A.W. Tozer said it beautifully when he said, "Nearness is likeness." You know, you go home from work and the dog meets you, and the dog comes jumping and barking and licking your hand, and then your children meet you. Now, to which of these are you the closer, the nearer? Well, obviously to your children. Nearness is likeness. 

Now, to draw near to God in the Old Testament meant to do what the priests do, to come to the altar to offer sacrifices. It was a serious thing to draw near to God. Sin is what distances the believer from God. The Word of God makes it clear that we are the ones who are to blame. Isaiah 59:1-2, "Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor His ear heavy that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear." Distanced from God by our sins. 

We have to draw near to God. We have to sense that emptiness in our lives that God is far from us in terms of blessing and fellowship. We aren’t walking with Him, we aren’t talking with Him. Our prayers are not being answered. We must go from resisting to submitting and from distance to nearness. Oh, I pray that God will draw us near to Himself, for if we draw nigh unto God, He will draw nigh unto us. Remember, nearness is likeness. The more we become like Him, the closer He will be to us.

We must go from resisting to submitting and from distance to nearness. There’s a third change we have to make in our lives: we must go from unfaithfulness to faithfulness, to loyalty. James 4:8, "Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded." Now this word purify is an interesting word. It means to make chaste. To make chaste, to be loyal to your mate. Now you recall back in James 4:4, James talked about adultery, spiritual adultery. "Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?" We are engaged to be married to the Lord Jesus Christ. The church is His bride. One day the church will be His wife. We are looking forward to the coming of the Bridegroom. 

Now, meanwhile, we must be faithful to Him. We must be loyal to Him in our hearts. Paul writes about this in 2 Corinthians 11:2, "For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy, for I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." Paul looked upon the church at Corinth as his daughter. He is the spiritual father, and he wanted to keep them faithful because there’s always somebody coming along to seduce them into the ways of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. We need to come and ask God to forgive us for having left our first love, for not being as close to Him as we ought to be. We must cleanse ourselves. Notice he doesn’t say, pray for God’s cleansing. He says, you cleanse yourself. 2 Corinthians 7:1, "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." Once again, we are engaged to the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s be faithful to Him. 

We must go from resisting to submitting, and from remoteness to nearness, and from unfaithfulness to loyalty, and from laughter to weeping. Notice James 4:9, "Lament and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom." Now, nobody appreciates humor more than I do. I thank God for a sense of humor. A missionary executive told me one day he would never appoint a missionary to the foreign field if that missionary did not have a sense of humor. You cannot make it without a sense of humor. God has a sense of humor. God has put humorous things even into the Word of God. You’ll find satirical humor in the Word of God. 

But there is a right humor and there is a wrong humor. There’s a proper place for laughter, but I fear laughter has invaded the church to the point where we are now entertaining the goats, we are not edifying the sheep. A former Archbishop of Canterbury made that statement, and I totally agree with it. I was chatting just recently with a dear missionary worker, a national worker from Kenya, a dear man of God, and he said, "As I travel in America"—he’s an African—"as I travel in America, the one word I keep hearing is fun." Christians have to have fun. We can’t study the Word of God in our churches anymore; we have to go out and have fun. 

It seems that many preachers, when they get up to preach, have to tell a joke. Musicians take some of the serious things of the Word of God, and preachers do too, and make jokes out of them. Now, we’re not serious about sin, we’re not serious about God. We aren’t like Jeremiah. Jeremiah 9:1, he prays, "Oh, that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people." Here’s a man who said, "God, don’t take away my tears; give me more tears." 

Are you weeping over the sins of the church? When you come home from church and there’s been backbiting and slander, does it hurt you down inside? James is saying to me and to you, there’s a place for laughter, there’s a place for joy. You can’t play with your grandchildren and be a good grandfather without some laughter and some joy, but there is a place for sobriety, not solemnity that is false, but a true soberness, a seriousness about the things of God. Too many of our meetings are marked by laughter and not by tears and mourning. Why, if a Christian breaks down and weeps today, people think he’s neurotic. 

A friend of mine went to a denominational convention and kept count of how many Bible verses were quoted and how many jokes were told, and would you believe that there were more jokes told than there were Bible verses quoted. This is interesting. From laughter to weeping. 

And finally, from pride to humility. James 4:10, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up." That’s the promise also of James 4:6, "God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble." If we’re going to resist God, we’re going to be proud. If we’re going to submit to God, then He’s going to give us grace. From pride to humility. What are the evidences of pride in my life? Well, I resist God. He tells me something’s wrong in my life and I argue about it. I think these people were doing the same thing. James 1:19, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear"—that means hearing the Word of God—"slow to speak"—don’t argue about it—"slow to wrath"—don’t get angry over it. Sometimes people hear the Word of God and they get angry instead of submitting to God. 

Oh, if I’m resisting the Word of God, resisting the Spirit of God, I’m proud. If I won’t draw near to God, cleanse my heart and get chaste before God, I’m proud. If I’m double-minded—notice James 4:8—"Purify your hearts, you double-minded." I’m trying to please the world on one side and the Lord Jesus on the other side, and He made it very clear: no man can serve two masters. If I refuse to repent, if I’m all wrapped up in entertainment and fun and escape, I don’t weep before God anymore; I’m proud. I don’t submit to His Word. His Word does not make me tremble; then I’m proud. Isaiah 66:2, "But on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word." We don’t find people trembling at God’s word anymore. We laugh about God’s word. Is it any wonder there is division and dissension and lack of power in the church today? Here’s what we have to do. James tells us, and if we don’t do it, God cannot bless. If we do it, He promises to give grace to the humble.