You Are Either All In or Not In At All

Welcome to the Oklahoma Panhandle, glad you made it. Things are quite this week, our kids are out for Thanksgiving Break and our daughter is still recovering from a case of the flu. I am looking at different Christmas series to get ideas for sermons for this Christmas season. Hard to believe Christmas is now less than a month away, we celebrate it on December 25^th. I know other cultures celebrate on different days if at all. But I am getting ahead of myself. We haven't even had Thanksgiving yet, only two days away now. I made my Grandma's famous Cranberry Salad - cranberries, oranges, apples, celery, pecans, and sugar to taste - last night, the longer it sets the juicier it gets and the better it taste. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it so maybe I had better change the subject.

Last time we met we looked at James 4:1-6. In these verses James rebuked so called Christians of their sinful ways and urged his readers to turn to God with repentance and purity. It seems that James’s readers claimed to be Christians, but they had the spirit of their unconverted neighbors in them. They were dominated by a self-will that pursued pleasures, power, and prominence rather than the will of God.

This week I pray you will see that this kind of self-centered living demands repentance. As Christ-followers you are to live a life obedient to His law and will. You must once and for all break from your “old” life and walk in a “new” life of submission to God. This is hard for some of us I know, we like to be in control of our lives and to let someone even God take control of our lives, well it just goes against our nature. However to live more freely then you ever have, to enjoy a peace greater than you have ever enjoyed, to have a restored relationship with the one true God, God the Father, God the Creator, God of all; you must submit. Today as you look at James 4:7-10 notice there are several verbs or commands to return to God.

There's little difference in ethical behavior between the churched and the unchurched. There's as much pilferage and dishonesty among the churched as the unchurched. And I'm afraid that applies pretty much across the board: religion, per se, is not really life changing. People cite it as important, for instance, in overcoming depression--but it doesn't have primacy in determining behavior.

(George H. Gallup, "Vital Signs," Leadership, Fall 1987, p. 17.)

Going to church does not change your “old-self” and even calling yourself a Christ-follower does not change anything unless you truly repent and submit to God.

James 4:7

7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

1. Submit and Resist (v. 7): Submit is a call to subject your will to God’s control. Another word for submit is obedient. God is a loving God yes, but He also knows what is best for each of us. If you want to please God then you must trust that He really does know what is best for you. Remember this and you will want to yield to what God considers necessary for your welfare.

By submitting to God you are saying that you will walk with Him day by day. He is the Lord—the Master, and you are the servant. There is no other way to be a Christian. I have recently read an article about “Cultural Christians.” These are people who know about Christ Jesus, who say that they are followers of Christ and yet there seems to be no evidence of that conversion. They talk a great game, but they live for self and not for Christ. Your will needs to be committed to knowing the will of God and to doing it.

You cannot submit until you recognize that God is greater and worthy of more honor than you are. And that is the hard part, to admit that there is someone who is more important than yourself. As hard as it is remember it is not about me,myself, and I, but about Christ Jesus who poured Himself out for you so that you could be saved from the consequence of sin – Death.

Resist the Devil (v. 7) – While you yield to God in all things, you are to yield to the devil in none. Resist is a military metaphor urging Christians to stand your ground against Satan’s attacks.

You are to resist and oppose Satan in whatever way he may approach you, whether by allurements, by flattering promises, by the fascinations of the world, by temptation, or by threats. (Barnes' Notes, Electronic Database.)

The best way of resisting the devil is by direct resistance, rather than by argument. By steadfastly refusing to yield in the slightest degree, rather than by a belief that you can convince Satan that he is wrong. You will not be safe if you yield in the least to the suggestions of the tempter. However you will be safe if you do not give in to the devils temptations. Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. (2 Timothy 2:22).

You cannot please God while you are playing games with Satan. You need to declare war on him. You need to resist him. So are you still playing games or are you ready to submit fully to God once and for all?

James 4:8

8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded

2. Draw Near, Cleanse Your Hands, Purify Your Hearts, Double Minded (v. 8). Draw near involves approaching God in worship and commitment. When you approach God in the obedience of worship you will find that He comes near to you. This declaration contains a great and important principle in you Christian walk. If you want a relationship with God, you must come to Him; you can not hope for His mercy, unless you come to Him with a broken heart and ask Him for it.

Now you cannot come literally any nearer to God than you always are, but you may come nearer in a spiritual sense. You can address Him directly in prayer; you can approach Him by meditation on His Word; you may draw near to Him in the observance of His ordinances.

However you can never hope for God’s mercy while you prefer to live a life that is distance from Him. But, 9 if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9-10). All who draw near to will find Him ready to give them the mercy which they so badly need, no-one who seeks God earnestly will be turned away.

Cleanse your hands uses the language of ceremonially washing your hands. And Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet thereat: when they go into the tent of meeting, they shall wash with water, that they die not; or when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire unto Jehovah. So they shall wash their hands and their feet, that they die not: and it shall be a statute for ever to them, even to him and to his seed throughout their generations. (Exodus 30:19-21).

The mere washing of your hands, in itself, does not make you clean in God’s sight; the washing of the hands is merely a representation, of making yourself acceptable in His sight. You cleanse your hands by withdrawing them from all evil actions and compromises. More than likely James is referring to the physical act of repentance here. You can think about repenting and submitting all you want, but until you do something about it, you have accomplished nothing.

Purify your heart calls for an inner purification. There must be a deeper work in your life; a work which reaches to your heart, and will purify your love. If your heart is wrong, nothing can be right. If, all you seek is an external improvement, and you still give indulgence to the secret corruptions of the heart you have accomplished nothing. You must be changed from the inside, out.

Double-minded people follow the practices of the world while they pretend to hold to God. Are you one whose heart is not decidedly fixed, and often find yourself wavering between good and evil? I am not talking about every once in awhile, but all the time. Then it is time to examine your heart. James said it is not right for Christians to have this kind of heart (Matthew 6:24). If you find yourself still undecided which you will serve God or the world know that you have decided already. You see even indecision is a decision not to follow God. You must be all in or you are all out. To pursue the things of the world is to serve Satan. A half-hearted person is a person wholly outside God’s will.

James 4:9

9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.

3. Be Miserable, Mourn, and Weep (v. 9): Miserable, grieve, afflicted – The word rendered "be afflicted" means, properly, to endure toil or hardship. To endure affliction or distress; means that James’s readers were to afflict themselves, not physically; but they were to feel distressed and sad on account of their transgressions.

To grieve calls for you and I and all sinners to experience a deep feeling of shame because of our disobedience. Mourning and weeping are the outward evidences of this sense of wretchedness. You must not only acknowledge the existence of your sins, but you must feel sorry that you have sinned against God. You need to weep spiritual and sometimes physical tears of repentance.

Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. This is a continuation of James’s call to godly repentance. James does not want you to forsake the joy of the Lord. Instead, he is asking you to depart from the shallow laughter and temporary joy that comes from the life of sin. That last night on the Titanic, people laughed and carried on not knowing that they were headed straight for an iceberg and death. When you fail to repent and submit to God you are heading for certain death and no amount of shallow laughter or temporary joy is going to change that fact.

God has so made us that we should feel sorrow when we are conscious that we have done wrong, and it is appropriate that we should do so. (Barnes' Notes, Electronic Database)

Friends it is time to take a good look at your life. If you seeking temporary pleasures from this world instead of the eternal rewards of God the Father it is time to recognize the folly of your actions.

James 4:9-10

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

4. Humble Yourself (v. 10) – This final appeal contains both a command and a promise. You are to be humble, to become humble before God you must voluntarily turn to Him. You must begin by emptying yourself of self and sin by resisting the devil. You must then fill that emptiness with the Holy Spirit as you draw near to God and you allow Him to draw near to you and to fill you to overflowing with Himself in the person of the Holy Spirit.

The thing is you cannot do this by your own strength. It is impossible for you to humble yourself by our own cleverness or ingenuity. You need the power of God Himself. The person who says, “I will get myself or my life straighten out and then I will come to God,” has it all wrong. You must go to God and then He will straighten out your life.

A person who is truly humble is the person who has turned from sin and Satan and is walking with God. When you look at yourself from your own perspective, more than likely you have a tendency to be flattering or hopelessly optimistic about yourself. Authentic humility comes from God. A humble person is one who has seen his or herself as they really are in the sight of God.

If you want to be truly humble you must repent of your sin, and submit to Christ Jesus as your Lord and Savior. The promise to you is clear. If you humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, “He will lift you up” (v. 10). It is never nor has it ever been God’s desire to “put you down.” It is sin that leads you to death and destruction, it is sin that holds you down. However remember what Christ Jesus said about Himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” John 14:6.

The point of all this teaching is simply that you need to quit playing games with Satan and with sin and become serious about rejecting sin. You need to resist Satan in every area of your life.

You cannot play with the fire of sin without being burned. You cannot please God while you are playing games with Satan. You need to declare war on Satan, you need to resist him.

Through Christ Jesus, you are assured victory over the Satan. You cannot resist Satan in the flesh, but you can do so as you live in the Spirit! Resist the devil—and he will flee from you! You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. 1 John 4:4-5

1. If you want to please God then you must trust what? Is being a “slave” to God a bad thing?
   
   
2. Resist is a military metaphor urging Christians to do what? Ephesians 6:10-18
   
   
3. You cannot please God while you are playing games with who? 
    
4. If you want a relationship with God, you must? How must you come? 
    
5. You can think about repenting and submitting all you want, but until you do something about it, what have you accomplished? Why?
   
   
6. A half-hearted person is a person wholly what?
   
   
7. Why is seeking temporary pleasures from this world instead of the eternal rewards of God the Father folly?
   
   
8. A person who is truly humble is the person who has what?