“The Cure for Worldliness”
(James 4:7-10)
Series: Living the Faith (James)
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson
•I invite you to take your Bibles and join me in James, chapter 4 (page 813; YV).
We are studying a passage of Scripture where God warns us about worldliness. Worldliness. To be worldly is to allow oneself to love the things of this fallen world more than we love the things of the Lord. A simple definition of worldliness, according to the opening verses of chapter 4—especially verse 4—might be, “Friendship with the non-Christian world such that it makes one an, ‘enemy of God.’” And so we spoke last week of the ease of becoming God’s enemy. Worldliness makes one an enemy of God.
We noted three warning signs of worldliness. James teaches that worldliness is marked by unhealthy cravings (self-centeredness), ungodly conduct (divisiveness), and unholy compromise (unfaithfulness).
So if verses 1-6 provide for us the cause of worldliness, then verses 7 and following this morning provide for us the cure for worldliness. The cure for worldliness. That’s what we’re studying this morning, the cure for worldliness.
There are in this small paragraph, verses 7-10, no less than 10 commands; 10 imperatives in the original Greek text. I never really learned English grammar until I studied Greek. I’m not sure I knew what an imperative was until I had to translate the Greek New Testament in seminary. The imperative is the mood of command. It’s like an order with an exclamation mark at the end. Go! Stop! Sit! Run! So there are 10 of these in the passage this morning. Listen for them as I read the text and as we consider the cure for worldliness.
•Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
7 Therefore submit 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 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
•Pray.
Introduction:
If you were here last week you will recall that we opened our study with the popular metaphor of the boiling frog. By way of review, no one cooks a frog successfully by throwing a live frog into a pot of boiling water. The sudden heat causes the frog to kick violently and jump out of that water. Rather, you place the frog into a pot of lukewarm water and the slowly and gradually turn up the heat little by little over time. This way the frog is unaware of the temperature change. It adjusts to the more gradual changes in its environment and so, being exposed to these smaller, more subtle changes over time, the frog is unaware that he is actually being cooked to death.
And we noted that this business of the frog’s becoming comfortable in a pot of water whose temperature rises gradually is a fitting description of the danger of the Christian’s comfort in a world that may be changing us more than we may realize or would like to admit. Few Christians would plunge right into sinful living knowing that it would lead to death or destruction but—by dint of more subtle and gradual compromises over time—the Christian becomes increasingly comfortable with his or her environment, falling into greater love with the things of the world and so, before he knows it, has brought complete ruin upon his life.
James warns us about the danger of worldliness and provides for us this morning the cure for worldly living. We may summarize the cure for worldly living by three actions and I want to share these with you in our time remaining. The cure for worldly living, first is:
I. Allegiance to the Right Person (Faithfulness) [7-8a]
Allegiance to the right person. In a word: faithfulness; faithfulness to God. It picks up on James’ teaching from last time in verse 4 and 5; don’t be an adulterer, being unfaithful to God by being intimate with the world. Be faithful. Look at verse 7:
7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Each year at Christmastime Brother Alan gives our family a daily Scripture calendar. Each day you read a verse of Scripture. I got up early this morning to read the Scripture for this day, June 7, and the Scripture is this very verse, James chapter 4 and verse 7. I always find it fascinating when something like that happens! Verse 7, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
To “submit” means “to arrange under,” as in, “to arrange ourselves under the authority of another,” and the idea is best understood here as that of enlistment. We enlist in God’s service. It speaks of our desire. I want to enlist; I want to serve in God’s army. And so in context it is that we not enlist in the service of the enemy, namely the devil. We are to take sides. Submit to God; resist the devil. See that your allegiance is to the right person, and be faithful to Him.
The cure for worldly living is first allegiance to the right Person, to God; faithfulness to God.
John teaches the same idea in 1 John, chapter 2. You need not turn there; I’ll simply read it. It’s 1 John 2:15-17:
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
Don’t love the world; love the Lord. Or Romans 12: 2, “Do not be conformed to this world,” as one translation puts it, “Don’t allow the world to squeeze you into its mold,” becoming increasingly comfortable with the world like a comfortable frog in a pot of gradually heated water.
We may show that we love the world more than we love the Lord by the way we think, speak, and live. Our idle thoughts may lead us into sinful thinking, lustful thoughts, thoughts of anger, resentment, and bitterness. What is inside the heart comes out. We’ve noted this the last several times in James. If we have issues on the inside they’ll show up on the outside—a self-centered person is generally a judgmental person, a critical person. Wrong thinking leads to wrong speaking.
And wrong thinking leads to wrong living. You may love the world more than the Lord if you find yourself too busy for Bible reading. You may love the world more than you love the Lord if you don’t tithe or give generously. You may love the world more than you love the Lord if you are too tired for public worship Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening. Usually, Christians miss public worship for love of the world; because they have allowed the things of the world to choke out their first love. I think sometimes it would be refreshing to just hear an honest response to the question, “Hey, where have you been? We haven’t seen you in worship?” Just to respond, “Well, truth is I love the world more than I love the Lord.”
1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
You may love the world more than you love the Lord if it’s easier to gossip than it is to witness. You find it easier to talk to others about others than to talk to others about Jesus. You love the world more than you love the Lord if it’s easier to look at pornography than it is to look at the Bible.
See that your allegiance is not to the world, but to the Lord. Follow the right person. Verse 7, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
And note the first part of verse 8:
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
So the call to “resist the devil” is sandwiched between the two positive commands “Submit to God” and “Draw near to God.” Do you see that in your Bible? Verse 7, “Therefore submit to God,” and verse 8, “Draw near to God,” and right between the those two commands is the command to, “resist the devil.”
So the real key to resisting Satan is not merely to rebuke him, though I do believe that is fitting and proper. I will, during times I sense the power of Satan and his minions at work in my life, I will rebuke demons and say something like, “Demon of fear I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ. Flee. You have no business here.” I believe in doing that and I think it is helpful to do so. When Jesus sensed the work of the temper in his life, He said, “Get thee behind me, Satan (Matthew 16:23).”
But note how this matter of resisting the devil is sandwiched between the two great commands of submitting to God and drawing near to God. It’s as though James is showing us the best way to resist the devil and ensure that he flees from us is by submitting to God and drawing near to Him. I love that promise in the first part of verse 8, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”
One commentator writes, “We shall, of course, find a tendency in ourselves to want to reverse this order. How easy it would be to keep a daily time with God if only we had, to begin with, a more vivid sense of his presence—in other words, we want the promise to come before the command!”—J.A. Motyer.
You want to feel the power of God’s presence in your life? How much time did you spend last week drawing near to Him? How much time did you spend last week goofing off with your friends, watching movies, or surfing the internet? You want to feel the power of God’s presence? How much time did you spend last week drawing near to God in prayer and the reading of His Word? How faithful have you been in worship? We worshiped the Lord earlier in the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. Communion is about communing with God. We draw near to Him and He draws near to us.
So if you want the feel the power of God’s presence every day in your life, the answer is right here in James 4, verse 8: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”
And don’t reverse the order. The promise does not come before the command. You must first draw near to God and, He will draw near to you.
The first cure for worldliness is allegiance to the right Person (faithfulness). Number two, second cure for worldliness:
II. Applying the Right Practice (Holiness) [8b-9]
You may recall from last week, verse 6, Verse 6 says that God, “Gives more grace.” God gives us necessary grace to walk in holiness; to practice holiness. See, grace is not only the source of our salvation, but grace is also the source of our sanctification. In truth we can’t have salvation apart from sanctification. But I just stress this because, especially as Baptists, we are quick to quote Ephesians 2:8-9, for example, “By grace are we saved through faith and not of works.” It’s true that we cannot earn our salvation. We are saved not by our works, but by grace.
But grace not only saves us from a life in hell, grace sanctifies us for a life of holiness. Grace not only saves from hell, grace sanctifies for holiness.
Our series is entitled, “Living the faith.” There is a faith that leads to salvation and a faith that leads to sanctification. Growing in sanctification means growing in holiness. And there is no holiness without effort. So we read in the second part of verse 8 these commands:
Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
These terms “cleanse” and “purify” recall the Old Testament priests washing their hands before entering the tabernacle (Exodus 30:17-21). Used here by James the terms express the idea of purity before God and others and call for holiness and sanctified living. The practice of holiness in our daily lives.
Purify your hearts, you “double-minded.” The be “double-minded” is to have a loyalty divided between God and the world. You can’t have it both ways. As Jesus says in Matthew 6:24, “You can’t serve two masters.” You can’t love both God and the things of the world.
Brother Bryan Bennett made this point when he led our Wednesday intergenerational study from Proverbs. By the way, some of you may not know we are doing this study. It is intergenerational, meaning all generations together in the same room. We do this during the summer months and all learn from one another. Children have much to offer grown ups and senior adults have much to offer little ones. You have a joyful opportunity to be involved with your entire church family in this intergenerational study. If you haven’t been yet, don’t worry. There’s nothing for you to make up. Just come Wednesday! Our staff are taking turns leading. I’ll be leading this Wednesday so I’ll be looking for you to come.
And Bryan, one of our pastoral interns, led last week’s study. So Bryan was teaching and he said that it’s not possible to walk on two roads at the same time. I mean if one road is going this direction and the other road going in the complete opposite direction, it is physically impossible to walk on both roads. It’s just not possible, but that doesn’t stop many of us from trying. We are not to be of two minds, but of one mind, a mind faithful to the Lord our God. Holiness involves right thinking. And holiness involves right living. Verse 9, James says:
9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Well, this is not a very popular verse, is it?! Is this anyone’s favorite memory verse or life verse? Someone asks, “What’s your favorite verse in the Bible?” And a guy says, “Lament and mourn and weep!” You know, “Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.”
Doesn’t immediately encourage us, does it? By the way, you want encouragement, come tonight! There is and encouraging word from the life of Elijah we’re going to be looking at tonight in our study from 1 Kings. For now, “Lament and mourn and weep!”
Why is James saying this? Well, he’s addressing those times in our lives when we are so in love with the world that we find ourselves laughing when we ought to be mourning.
Imagine attending a funeral where some guy sitting on the front row is laughing the entire time. You say, “That’s inappropriate behavior. He should be mourning, not laughing.” James says, “Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. There are times in your life where your behavior is such you should be mourning rather than laughing.”
Let me give you an example. This morning when I got up to read my devotion, and I’m reading a daily devotion for men entitled, “31 Days of Purity—thirty-one days of thinking about and praying for sexual purity.” Here is today’s, day 7, a reflection upon 2 Timothy 2:22, “Flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness…” The devotion writer says:
Flee, my brother. Learn how and when to run and do not be ashamed to do so. Do not toy with sexual sin. Do not make light of sexual sin. Do not laugh or joke about the very sins Christ died for. Do not allow yourself even the smallest taste or the briefest glimpse of what God forbids. There is no shame in running, but you may well know the shame of falling.—Source: Tim Challies.
Did you catch that? He says, “Do not laugh or joke about the very sins for which Christ died.” It’s easy to laugh at a sitcom on TV or a movie that contains some sexual innuendo. Someone tells an off-color joke and you laugh. James says, “Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.”
There are times in our lives where laughter is inappropriate. And it’s not as though God doesn’t want us ever to laugh or have joy. We know better than that. There is joy throughout the Bible! No one has more joy in life than a Christian! The thing is: we can’t really know the joy of the Lord until we mourn for our sin. We can’t really have joy without holiness.
The cure for worldly living: allegiance to the right person (faithfulness), applying the right practice (holiness), and thirdly:
III. Assuming the Right Posture (Lowliness) [10]
Look at verse 10:
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord. I like JB Phillips here. Listen to the Phillips paraphrase of verse 10: “You will have to feel very small in the sight of God before He will set you on your feet once more.”
We are sinners. We have no cause to strut. James returns to this theme he introduced in verse 6 from last time: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Once again, James sounds like his big brother Jesus:
Matthew 23:12, “And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
To humble oneself means, “To make oneself low.”
Tony Evans is helpful here. He says:
In football, they tell the offensive line, no matter how big you are, stay low. So that you can have leverage, stay low. [So] No matter how big you get in life, stay low. No matter what title you have in front of your name, how much money you have in the bank, or how many people know who you are, stay low. The moment you use your knowledge, prestige, power, or resources to attempt to be like God, it will be made very clear, very soon, there is only one God. Humble yourself beneath His mighty hand.
The cure for worldly living: allegiance to the right person (faithfulness), applying the right practice (holiness), and assuming the right posture (lowliness).
Conclusion:
Church: Remember the promise follows the command: “Draw near to God and He will—what?—draw near to you.” We draw near to God and He promises to draw near to us.
Remember Jesus’ teaching of the Prodigal Son?
The younger brother rebells against his father and runs away to live a life of sin; amusement, self-gratification, and worldliness. And when the money runs out and he comes to his senses he says to himself, “I’m going to return to my father and confess my sins to him and ask him to treat me as one of his hired servants.”
And the Bible says that, as the prodigal son is came to his father—and while he was still a great way off—who saw him drawing near? “His father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him” and joyfully received him into his home.
The prodigal son drew near to the father and the father drew near to him.
That’s what God wants you to do this morning. And that’s what He’ll do in return.
•Stand for prayer.
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