Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Please turn with me in your Bibles to and let’s take a look at the passage we studied the last time we were here in James.

(NKJV)

4 Where do wars and fights come from among you?

Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have.

You murder and covet and cannot obtain.

You fight and war.

Yet you do not have because you do not ask.

3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

4 Adulterers and adulteresses!

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?

6 But He gives more grace.

Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”

4 Where do wars and fights come from among you?

Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have.

You murder and covet and cannot obtain.

You fight and war.

Yet you do not have because you do not ask.

3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

4 Adulterers and adulteresses!

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?

James 4:1-6

6 But He gives more grace.

Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”

There are many commentators who believe that James is warning believers to turn from sin.

And in a sense it can look that way.

There is one commentator/ pastor that has given the view that these are not true believers within the body of Christ but more like apostates.

The language within this letter to Jewish believers seems to be addressing that issue.

The wheat and the tares!

Those who profess and those who possess.

“God resists the proud,

As you all know from the scriptures we are studying in the Gospel of John that this is a real battle that our Lord is addressing.

James, who by the way if you didn’t know already is the Lord’s half brother through Mary, is addressing the same issue here in his letter.

There are two things to consider here.

1) If these are sinning believers the call is to repentance and to stop sinning that they would not continue in defiling the blessed name of Christ and 2) If these are professing but not true believers this is a call to repentance and to turn from a superficial belief, a false belief that is not saving faith.

Now your question to me is going to be, “what do you believe?”

Given the evidences of the attitudes and the constant addressing of these attitudes and ungodly actions I have come to the conclusion that these are not true Christians.

I tell you beloved not what I think, but because I have seen this attitude at work within the church by experience and it is pride without repentance and it’s evil and does not belong to God and this is what James is confronting.

But gives grace to the humble.”

This is none other than the call to “examine yourselves to see whether or not you are in the faith” given by Paul.

When you go home today go home and read chapter 1-4 and really pay attention to the evils that James is addressing.

If you have a pen and paper handy write these passages down that helped guide my decision.

; ; ; and 3:11-18.

Take this home with you and see for yourselves.

As we move forward we move into a portion of Scripture that solidifies the fact that James is addressing unbelievers.

One thing we have to understand before we get started is the heights of grace that God gives to even those who are not possessors of the saving faith that God is willing to give if a person who comes humbly to our great God who is Savior by nature and I believe that if we see it from this perspective we see just how great God’s grace is.

If that is even possible.

God has made Himself known to all humanity by all of conscience and all of creation read Romans 1:18-20.

(NKJV)

19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.

20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,

Today we come across 10 commands directed at these unbelievers to respond to God’s divine call.

These 10 commands are to submit, to resist, to draw near, to cleanse, to purify, to be miserable, to mourn, to weep, to earnestness, and finally to humility.

Let’s begin here.

This comes from an Old Testament passage.

(NKJV)

34 Surely He scorns the scornful, But gives grace to the humble.

“God resists the proud, We need to understand the severity of this verse.

This is much worse than saying God resists us by not giving us what we want because we don’t listen to Him.

But gives grace to the humble.

The original word, antitassetai, signifies, God’s setting himself as in battle array against them; (Matthew Henry asks the question) and can there be a greater disgrace than for God to proclaim a man a rebel, an enemy, a traitor to his crown and dignity, and to proceed against him as such?

Henry, M. (1994).

Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p.

2416).

Peabody: Hendrickson.

Henry, M. (1994).

Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p.

2416).

Peabody: Hendrickson.

This is God suited in battle array prepared for battle against the sinner.

Do you see the significance here?

But gives grace to the humble.”

How great is God’s grace?

Without going into great detail, we are going to let the Scriptures speak to us this morning about the length, the height, the depth of God’s great grace.

1) To Submit

James 4:6

.

Therefore submit to God.

hupotassō (submit)

hupotassō (submit) means to be obedient, obey, bring under control, put in subjection as a soldier submits to his superiors.

Just to give you an example of how its used.

Luke uses it when Jesus was a boy He submitted to His parents ().

Paul uses it in submitting to human government and in when he told wive’s to be submissive to their husbands just as the church is subject to Christ and etc.

What does this mean?

A person cannot come to God without submitting himself to God, to Christ in obedience to His Lordship.

It’s a change of allegiance whereas a believer was once under the control of the world system, under the lordship of Satan, his child, now that person has given God full ownership over him.

With that an exchange of loyalties from friends, family, and world to God alone.

2) To Resist

.

Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Why must there be this submission to God, this change of allegiance, this exchange of loyalty?

Because to submit to one is to resist the other.

(NKJV)

24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.

(NKJV)

16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

The word resist translates from the Greek word anthisētmi which means to oppose, to set one’s self against or to stand against.

You have to understand either you are for God or for the devil and if you surrender to the Lordship of Christ you resist the devil, you oppose him, he is no longer master over you and the command to resist him brings along the promise that he will flee from you.

What does this mean?

This means that the doors are left open wide for demonic activity without submission to God.

(NKJV)

13 Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.”

14 Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so.

15 And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”