James #11

A Living Faith”
James #11
Pastor Ben Fleming
March 8th

“God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble. “ The key to you and me participating in the benefits of knowing God in our lives is humility……… God always responds to humility. In Isaiah 66:2 God says, “this is the one I will look at, to him who is humble and contrite in spirit and who trembles at My Word.” Who is the person that God looks at – “the one who is humble and contrite in spirit.” So ask yourself ---- “Do you want God to look at you?????’ The character of humility is difficult. In his book “True Greatness – Humility”, C.J. Maheny says when you think you are humble or you call yourself humble you are prideful. Humility is not something that you buy --- something that you find or something that you get by going to a special conference or reading a book. Humility is something that you are or be…… In Matthew 23:12 Jesus said, “whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.” That is exactly what we are going to find what James writes in chapter 4:10 “Humble yourself in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you.”

Open your bible this morning to the book of James…. In the world in which we live – humility is not a cherished value. Those who are humble are, considered weak. We think that humble people will never get anywhere – they will never be great. Jim Collins wrote that most sought after book on leadership in the last 10 years. The books question was “ can a good company become a great company?” To find out – he studies the CEO’s of 11 companies for 5 years. He identified 2 character traits of these men and women. First --- was that they were driven and willing to endure to make their company a success. Second --- and a surprise to him was that all of these good to great leaders were modest and self effacing. They pointed to others and never aspired to being a pedestal. People who worked for them described them as reserved – shy – gracious – mild mannered – quiet and humble.

(PHOTO) The great Christian philosopher and author CS. Lewis wrote, “Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.” Lewis obviously wrote his quote from the biblical definition of humility which means to make oneself low – not in a self put down in a kind of a way but a realization that one is unworthy and lost because of his or her sin. (PHOTO) Saint Augustine wrote, “Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.”…… In our text today – James is addressing humility. He begins by writing in vs. 6, “God is opposed to the proud but give grace to the humble and he closes in verse 10, “humble yourself before the Lord and He will lift you up.” STAND AS WE READ James 4.

James tells the believer in verse 6 – “God is opposed to the proud and He gives grace to the humble.” Godly humility opens up all of God to the person. Humility turns on the fullness of God’s grace to a believer. Godly humility means to come low or make oneself low.

It means to put others above yourself. It means to allow someone else before you. It means to consider others before you consider yourself. It means to shut your mouth when you feel justified in opening it and defending yourself. It means to give others the credit when you did all the work. Humility means to come to God and ask God to save you – it means seeing yourself as God sees you – it means seeing yourself in need of a Savior – humility means you see that you need to be rescued………. Most of us in this room are believers in Jesus Christ – we know we have been rescued – we have been called out by God and you have asked Him to saved you and reconcile you to Him. But, there is at least one person here that has not done that.

You have not done that because you are proud. You do not see yourself as God sees you. You think you are good enough or you believe your own way is sufficient enough – but that is only pride and God is in full battle gear opposed against pride…….

I tend to follow the exegetical work of Pastor John MacArthur and most the time he is right – but in these verses he says that James is only addressing a non believer – I disagree with him as do most other bible scholars in the commentaries. James is telling believers and non believers how to demonstrate and experience real humility in their life. Begin with me as we look at Godly Humility

1. Godly humility is demonstrated through submission to God. (Vs. 7a) “Submit yourselves to God.” No one can be saved without submitting himself to God. Submitting to God means that you obey the Word of God about Jesus Christ and the fullness of the gospel of God. It is what Paul said in Romans 10:8-9 “but what does it say? The word is near you: it is in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith that we are proclaiming – that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart you shall be saved.”……..

You cannot confess and you cannot believe unless you submit to God. That takes humility. On your outline: What does it mean to submit? To rank under. In the passive form it indicates that it is voluntary. You have to start there. If you have not come to Christ and confessed with your mouth and believed in your heart……. you have not submitted to God. You are in opposition to God and you can claim all you want that you are humble but you are actually fooling yourself – you are full of pride and God is in full opposition to you…..

In verse 7, James is also speaking to a believer. You are commanded to submit to God – you have to choose to do that every day and in every circumstance. If you are going to have victory over your tongue you have to submit your speech to God. When you do not – you are full of pride in your speech. You have to submit your conflicts to God. Your submission means that that you do not fight and quarrel. You pursue being a peacemaker. Submission is an authority issue. We say wives submit to your husbands, everyone submit to the government and submit to your spiritual leaders but really submission is the question… “Who is going to be Lord – you or God?” Godly humility submits. When you and I rebel… we demonstrate pride and not humility. How can you cultivate submission in your life? Cultivate obedience to God in your life. Obedience grows humility. Humility is a result of your growing friendship with God………. The more intimate your friendship with God grows…………. the deeper the foundation of humility. Godly humility……….

2. Godly humility is demonstrated by resisting Satan. (Vs. 7b) “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Satan knows that at as long as he can stimulate pride in you – he can delay God’s plan and blessing in your life. Satan blinds the eyes of the non believer from seeing the gospel of Jesus --- and by the way it is right and good for a believer to specifically ask God to open the eyes of a non believer and bind the power of Satan over their heart. But to the believer… satan tempts the believer. Our natural bent is not to resist Satan. We lean towards giving into the desires that battle within us. If that were not true…. we would not be commanded to resist the devil. Resisting Satan means that you the believer turn to God and ask God for help. Satan has only the power over the believer that he is allowed to have. He can be resisted because the believer has the power of the Holy Spirit living within him or her ---the scriptures tell us “greater is He who is within you than he who is in the world.” When you resist Satan ---- Satan flees. Humility and resisting Satan go together. Look on your outline at what Peter wrote about this:

1 Peter 5:6 - 9 “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. Be self controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, stand firm in your faith.” Underline what I did on the slide. In Matthew 4 when Jesus was tempted by the devil in the desert…. Look with me at the tools Satan used…. Look on your outline……….

Tools of the Devil
* He seduces you to self – sufficiency. Satan tried to get Jesus to meet his own needs and not depend upon God. Pride is self – sufficiency. It is says I do not need God. I do not need God’s people. I do not need to hear God’s Word and I do not need prayer.

* He seduces you to self – importance. Satan tried to get Jesus to test God. Pride puffs us up and makes us think we are the most important one. Satan wants you to think that it is all about you.

* He seduces you with power. Satan tried to get Jesus to submit to him in exchange for power. Power corrupts. The pursuit of power has no humility in it. How did Jesus resist the devil? With the Word of God. It is written. It is written. He did not argue with him. He did not speak his opinion or plead any blood over him – Jesus simply resisted the devil by speaking the Word of God. That is humility. That is submission to God the Father. Godly humility is resisting the devil –

3. Godly humility is demonstrated by coming near to God. (Vs.8) “Come near to God and He will come near to you.” To the non believer – Paul wrote about this “near aspect” in Romans 10 – “the Word is near you”. Salvation involves submitting and coming to God. God is not far from a non believer. It does not matter how far you think that person is from God --- God is not far from them. In the OT….. a priest’s job was to come near to the Lord for God’s people. Believers today do not need priests – Jesus Christ is their high priest. He is the one who brings a believer to God. Drawing near to God in the OT was a symbol of coming to God in humility and repentance – but there is more to it than just coming. in Isaiah, God said, “these people come near to Me with their words and honor me with lip service, but their hearts are far from Me.”

In the OT church – God was in the Temple in the Holy of Holies between the cherebium and seriphum on top of the ark of the covenant and the priest drew near to God for the people but he could only come near to God on the other side of a curtain. It was a barrier between God and man. When the priest went in, they would tie a rope around his leg as he walked up to the curtain that separated him from the Ark of Covenant on the other side. Can you imagine the fear of that priest?

The death and the resurrection of Jesus tore that curtain from top to bottom and the way to God has been made clear without any fear to all who submit and draw near to God. As we submit our will and desires to God.. we can taste fully His care and His closeness. The believer must continue to come and draw near to taste the closeness and care of God. The non - believer makes that step when they come to Christ for the first time. God enables them to come and they also have a responsibility to come.

The believer has to choose to keep drawing near to God. We are told in Hebrews “be careful lest you drift away”. “Do not give up meeting together”. To help us keep coming near to God – really requires some physical act. We come where God’s people gather – we participate in worship – we open our mouths and sing or we clap or we pray and join others in prayer. We choose to open the bible and read. You and I have a choice to humble ourselves and draw near to God. God does not make it hard and when you come you---- do not have far to go. The writer of Hebrews put it this way……………

Hebrews 10:22” Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” What act of humility is God calling you to make in your life to demonstrate your drawing near to Him?

4. Godly humility is demonstrated through repentance (Vs. 8b – 9) “ Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.”

Notice the words that James uses – grieve – mourn and wail. They capture the struggle of drawing near to God as the believer repents and comes with a clean heart. It is impossible to draw near to God and you do not repent. Every teacher and every doctor and nurse will tell you that the best defense against illness is washing your hands. A nurse will tell you that there is a proper way to wash your hands. You have to sing happy birthday all the way through and wash the tops and fingers while you are singing.

There is a connect between submission and washing. The command to wash your hands and purify your hearts is a symbol that can be seen in the Last Supper – do you remember what Jesus did to his disciples before they took the cup and the bread???? He washed their feet. That is an exterior picture of what happens when we submit to God. The way we live matters to God. James says to purify your hearts you double minded ---- he is talking about someone who is trying to keep a relationship with the world and with God --- stop being double minded.
To God, our hands say something about us. In 1 Timothy 2:8 Paul said to Timothy – “I want men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without anger and disputing.” He is talking about men in a church service – He is talking about Godly men --- men who have nothing on their hands --- they have washed them and come to God in humility – worship and prayer.

We wash our hands when we confess our sins. 1 John 1:9 says “if we confess our sins – He is faithful and just to cleanse from all unrighteousness.” Confession of sin is a demonstration of humility. James is even going to take it further and he tell us in chapter 5 – “confess your sins to one another that you might be healed.” So --- as Jesus washed the disciples feet in front of the other disciples ---- confession of sin is both private between God and the believer and it is both public between one believer to another believer.

It is pride to say that you only confess your sin to God and to no one else --- that is weak humility. But confession of sin and repentance is not the same thing. Confession of sin is agreeing with God or saying the same thing to God that God says about you and you breaking His law. Repentance means to turn away – it means to have a change of mind and that change of mind has a change of actions and lifestyle. Speaking to non believers in Acts 3:19 Peter said to the religious people “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, 20and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus.” Listen to that --- that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”….. In Acts 26:20 Paul said about his preaching “I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.” And Jesus said in Matthew 3:8, produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” So what can we conclude about repentance? Three of my thoughts………

* A non believer must repent – turn from their sin and turn to God for salvation. It is God who allows that repentance and causes it. To repent and be saved requires humility.

* Once a person becomes a believer they must continue to repent. We do not wash our hands once – but we continue to wash our hands and turn from sin. For some – repentance from some sin is an on going journey….. continue to bear fruit and continue to produce deeds….

* I can say that I have repented all I want but if there are no deeds or fruit as a result of my repentance I am only fooling myself ---- and most likely it is because there has really been no grieving – mourning and wailing as a result of my sin. My false humility has really been pride. Godly humility is demonstrated through repentance.

5. The result of a humility in a believers life is abundant grace. (Vs 10) “Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up.” Humility is really a starting point for us – is it not? You come to God for salvation. You either reject God and your need for Him or you submit and come to Him and draw near. God always honors those who are spiritually humble. To a nation God said in

2 Chronicles 7:14 “If My people who are called by name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal their land.” God always responds to humility. God always is ready and waiting to pour out His grace upon His children.

J.A. Moyer writes this about verse 10 – LISTEN……. “tirelessly on the side of His children. He never falters in respect of our needs, He always has more grace at hand for us. He is never less than sufficient, he always has more and yet more to give. Whatever we may forfeit when we put self first, we cannot forfeit our salvation, for there is always more grace. No matter what we do to Him, He is never beaten. Even if we were to turn to Him and say, “what I have received so far is much less than enough, He would say, Well you may have more”. His resources are never at end, His patience is never exhausted, his initiative never stops, His generosity knows no limit: He gives more grace.”…… Humility affects our lives and it affects the lives of those around you. When you chose humility – God not only sees it and pours out His grace upon you but man sees humility as well. Watch this short video clip with me. ------ let us pray…………..