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Grace to the Humble

James: Faith Works
Sunday, August 4, 2024
Pastor Jojo Ma

 

6 But He gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

In vv6-10, James mentions these words: grace, humble, submit, resist, draw near, cleanse, purify, mourn, weep, and humble yourselves. This is real Christianity. This is what true believers and children of God feel and think and do.

No one comes to Christ with an unbowed heart and no one can live the Christian life with an unbowed heart.

There’s actually a kind of spiritual law of gravity as well. We might call it the gravity of God’s grace. His grace comes down from on high…to the lowly.

6 But He gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

I.          Submit to God [v7]
II.        Draw near to God [vv8-9]
III.       Humble yourself before God [v10]

I.         Submit to God [v7]
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

That’s the biblical idea of submission: to arrange your life under God’s will, to surrender and yield everything to Him. Submission to Christ is part of what it means to confess “Jesus is Lord”.

Yielding and surrendering is normal Christianity; rebellion is abnormal and wrong.

James is calling us to a humble submission, to bow our heads and our hearts to Christ in all of life, especially when life isn’t going the way we would like.

Puritan Richard Baxter’s prayer: “Lord Jesus, what you will, where you will, when you will.”

7…Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

When Jesus came some two thousand years ago, Satan’s power over this world was severely reduced. Mark 3 tells us that Jesus came and bound the strong man and plundered his house.

Build your life on the Word of God, build your family on the Word of God, and make sure the church you commit to is centered on the Word of God. Everything else is sinking sand and gives the devil a foothold.

II.        Draw near to God [vv8-9]
8 Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

“God loves more than you love and before you love at all.”

8 Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Martin Luther: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said ‘Repent,’ he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.” [The First of the 95 Theses]

9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

What James is saying is this: There is a place for serious grieving and mourning over sin. Actually the biblical portrait is that the more serious you take sin, the more joy you have in salvation.

Matt 5:2-4 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

III.      Humble yourself before God [v10]
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

Ps 8:3-4 When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him?

“Self-abasement is a decisive act which James bids them to do at once…[Self-humbling] is the necessary condition of spiritual exaltation and victory, not the vanity of the world’s glory.”

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.