{"id":280,"date":"2014-01-05T18:39:04","date_gmt":"2014-01-05T17:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=280"},"modified":"2014-01-05T18:39:04","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T17:39:04","slug":"draw-near-to-god-james-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=280","title":{"rendered":"Draw Near to God – James 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can\u2019t remember which of the kids it was asked me one year, \u201cDaddy, have you made any New Year\u2019s REVOLUTIONS this year? The whole world makes New Year\u2019s Resolutions and they are generally a good thing for as long as they last, which is generally not very long at all. Many people will already have abandoned this year\u2019s resolutions as impossible ideals which we just don\u2019t have enough willpower to stick to.
\nAs Christians we know better than to make New Year\u2019s resolutions which rely on our own determination and effort. We know our own weaknesses too well. But the New Year is an excellent time to look back on the last year and seek God\u2019s forgiveness for the ways we failed. And it is great time to recommit our lives to God and seek His strength to live a new life in 2014. God\u2019s grace can indeed bring a New Year\u2019s REVOLUTION. And at the beginning of this New Year a Bible passage which can really help focus our thoughts and prayers in James chapter 4.
\nAs we seek to draw close to God we still have to battle with
\nTHE PULL OF SIN (vv 1-5)
\nLooking back on 2013 I am sure we all recognise our failings and will want to begin the New Year with a conscious determination to turn our backs on sin.
\nAnd the first sin this passage challenges us with is
\nFIGHTS and QUARRELS
\n4\tWhat causes fights and quarrels among you? Don\u2019t they come from your desires that battle within you?
\nIf we want to draw close to God, the biggest battle for many Christians is fighting with other people. Battles within our family, or with neighbours, or with other Christians in the church. Unkind words, spiteful actions. We cannot draw close to God if we are at war with other people!
\n4\tWhat causes fights and quarrels among you? Don\u2019t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You want something but don\u2019t get it.
\nBATTLING DESIRES
\nThe struggle between the right thing we know we should do and the wrong thing we end up doing through ignorance, through weakness and sometimes we have to admit, through our own deliberate fault.
\nCOVETING
\n2 You want something but don\u2019t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.
\nOf all the ten commandments, the tenth is surely the hardest to obey. \u201cYou shall not covet.\u201d Wasting our lives longing after things we should not have. Do not covet. That\u2019s about changing out attitudes which involves an even deeper repentance than changing our actions. James says, \u201cYou kill and covet.\u201d Is that too strong? No! Jesus said hating somebody is as bad as murdering them. If murderous thoughts really did kill there would be very few people left on the earth by now, if any!
\nUSELESS PRAYERS
\nYou do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
\nFailing to ask \u2013 the post office has rooms and rooms of parcels \u201cawaiting collection.\u201d And heaven is full of rooms of answers to prayers \u201cawaiting collection\u201d because Christians have simply not asked for the blessings God is waiting to pour out on them.
\nFailing to ask, and asking with wrong motives. Selfish, greedy prayers do not bring us closer to God \u2013 they keep us away from Him.
\nFRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD
\n4 You adulterous people, don\u2019t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?
\nThere are so many ways in which it is easy to compromise our standards. The television programmes we watch or the internet pages we visit, the books we read or the conversations we are drawn into. Friendship with the world stops us drawing near to God. We cannot say, \u201cLead us not into temptation\u201d if we deliberately put ourselves in places where we can be tempted!
\nAs we look back on 2013 we might well ask, \u201cCan things really be any different in 2014?\u201d Can there be a New Year\u2019s REVOLUTION?
\nWell the answer James gives is definitely yes, there can! And the secret is there in verses 6 to 10
\nSUBMIT YOURSELVES TO GOD
\n6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
\n\u201cGod opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.\u201d
\nLife can be different, if we will only throw ourselves on God\u2019s mercy revealed in Christ and trust in the strength which comes from God the Holy Spirit living inside us. God can help us to live a new life!
\nGod gives us GRACE. And that grace has two aspects.
\nForgiveness for the sins of the past \u2013 God\u2019s riches at Christ\u2019s expense. AND
\nStrength to serve God in the future. We thought about this in our Christmas communion service.
\nHebrews 4 14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are\u2014yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
\nJesus understands the battles we face, the challenges we need to overcome. Jesus understands and He is able to help us when we are tempted. What we need to do is learn to find ways to draw on God\u2019s grace and strength in our times of need, and in the next four verses James gives us four ways to do just that.
\nRESIST THE DEVIL
\n7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
\nIn order to submit to God we need to resist the devil who is opposed to God. The devil likes to deceive and con Christians. The devil tries to fool us into believing that he is too powerful for us to resist him. The devil tells us lies like, \u201cIt is impossible to resist temptation.\u201d That is rubbish! The Bible tells us that Jesus gives us all the grace we need to stand up against the devil. God promises us that there is always a way of escape when we are tempted.
\n1 Corinthians 10 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don\u2019t fall! 13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
\nGod provides us with a way to overcome temptation \u2013 so we are obliged to rest on His grace and take it!
\nThe devil tries to fool us into thinking that \u201ca little sin won\u2019t hurt anybody.\u201d But that\u2019s another lie. Our sins nailed Christ to the cross. We need to treat all sins like deadly poisonous snakes, not like cream cakes, \u201cnaughty but nice.\u201d James urges us, \u201cResist the devil and he will flee from you.\u201d
\nCOME NEAR TO GOD
\nV 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you.
\nWhat a wonderful promise! We submit to God and the more we seek to come close to Him, the more God will come close to us. Draw near to God.
\nThat is what we are going to be doing in our new midweek prayer meetings here at the church on Tuesday evenings starting the week after next. Listening to God in prayer. Opening ourselves to the power and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Drawing close to God.
\nBut of course that is also something each of us should be doing individually every day in our own times of prayer and Bible reading. We should want to take every opportunity to draw near to God, in services and prayer meetings and prayer triplets as well as on our own. As we draw close to God, He WILL draw close to us. Of course that will take time. And the amount of time we give to prayer is a fair indication of how serious we are about drawing close to God. How important it is for us to meet with God \u2013 or how unimportant.
\nSo we submit ourselves to God by resisting the devil and by drawing near to God. And the third way of submitting James gives us is this.
\nREPENT
\nWash 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.
\nWe need to take repentance seriously. To wash our hands and live clean upright Holy lives. And to purify our hearts and let God transform our thinking. There is a place for us to grieve, mourn and wail over our manifold sins and weaknesses. A place for true Godly sorrow and tears of repentance which show that we take the battle with sin seriously! And then James says
\nHUMBLE YOURSELVES
\n10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
\nSubmitting ourselves to God. It makes me sad as I look around at some of the very \u201csuccessful\u201d churches growing up today. Because it seems to me that some have completely missed this aspect of humility before God. Everything is about success. When the truth we must never forget is that we are nothing but miserable sinners and without God\u2019s grace and transforming power we are all doomed! We need to humble ourselves and turn away from the pride which says, \u201cI did it my way\u201d and set our faces to living our lives God\u2019s way.
\nGO ON WITH GOD (verses 11-17)
\nThere are so many things we could talk about here. The Holy Spirit will bring to each individual\u2019s minds areas where our own lives need to change if there is to be a New Year\u2019s REVOLUTION. But James points to three areas where we all need God\u2019s grace to be different.
\nDO NOT JUDGE EACH OTHER
\n11 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\u2014who are you to judge your neighbor?
\nWe need to learn to accept one another in the same way as God in Christ has accepted us and to love each other as Christ has loved us. Do not judge each other.
\nDEPEND ON GOD
\n13 Now listen, you who say, \u201cToday or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.\u201d 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, \u201cIf it is the Lord\u2019s will, we will live and do this or that.\u201d 16 As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.
\nNone of us know what 2014 will hold for us. What new adventures. What new tragedies. What new opportunities. What new battles. What new delights. But we need to approach that unknown future with faith in God. We need the humility to recognise that our lives are in God\u2019s hands, not our own. We need to put our trust in God to lead us forward, to depend on God and his mercy and grace. \u201cThrough many dangers, toils and snares, we have already come.
\nTis grace has brought us safe thus far. And grace will lead us home.\u201d
\nAnd the last thing James calls us to do in this chapter is this.
\nDOING THE GOOD WE KNOW WE SHOULD DO
\n17 Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn\u2019t do it, sins.
\nI have a suspicion that many people will get a rude awakening when they approach the pearly gates and God will ask them, \u201cWhy should I let you into my heaven?\u201d Some people will say, \u201cI\u2019ve never done any harm.\u201d But God will say to them, \u201cBut you\u2019ve never done anybody any good either!\u201d The Bible teaches us that sins of omission are as serious as sins of commission. We will all be accountable before God for the good deeds which we could have done, but left undone!
\nGalatians 6 encourages us to commit ourselves to a life of good deeds.
\n9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
\nSo Happy New Year everybody \u2013 a time for a New Year\u2019s REVOLUTION. We should resist the pull of sin, submit ourselves to God, and go on with God in every area of our lives. Not just turning over a new leaf but for living our new life to the full! A time for drawing near to God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can\u2019t remember which of the kids it was asked me one year, \u201cDaddy, have you made any New Year\u2019s REVOLUTIONS this year? The…<\/span><\/p>\n

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