Reviving the Saints, Part 2

This is Paul saying, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this corrupt self? I thank God through Jesus Christ. This is the apostle Peter standing on the threshold, the genuine deep growth, maybe in this way for the first time in his experience with Christ, just outside the garden as he is weeping bitter tears.

He's never been in a better place in his spiritual life than that. In James chapter 4, we have what seems to be a rather strange command. James says, Be miserable, mourn and weep. Has anyone ever told you that before?

Well, what is he talking about? Why would it possibly be good to be miserable? Well, the answer is that we should be grieved and deeply troubled over our sin. Many people are flippant about sin, and that's the wrong approach. This is wisdom for the heart. And today, Stephen Davey is going to open his Bible to James 4 and explain this passage in more detail. So grab your Bible, if you're able, and let's get started. Look at verse seven again.

Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Again, James uses a military term. Resist means to take a stand. Eyes open, armor on, and you're taking your stand. Well, the enemy is going to come and accuse God to you and say, Are you are you serious? When's the last time you saw him? Never have. When's the last time you heard his voice? Never have. You mean you're submitting to an invisible, inaudible God?

You've got to be kidding. See, he'll accuse God to you. He doesn't know what you're going through.

You're on your own. Stand strong against the accuser. It is his chief desire to subvert worship away that God deserves.

It is worship that Satan most envies. And that means you're in his way. So stand strong. Resist him. Which isn't, by the way, some call that has been so mystically defined here that you engage in name calling and in blustering and statements of authority and incantations and special prayers known only by the Christians who went to the seminar or read the book.

Most of that is mumbo jumbo. In fact, the greatest way to resist him is to follow the next imperative, draw near to God. We'll get to that in a minute, so slow down.

Just a moment. The Puritan pastor and author, I think, illustrated well our foe when he reminded us, the devil cannot force you. He can only persuade you. Thomas Manton wrote, he is like a dog that stands looking and waving his tail, ready to receive something from those who sit at the table. But if nothing is thrown to him, an angry word, an unclean glance, gestures of wrath, discontent, without any of that being thrown to him by those seated at the table, he goes away.

He'll be back, then he'll go away. Listen, he cannot lead you into sin without the consent of your will. He is a defeated foe who has no power over the Christian except the power of seduction. And he and his demons are relentless with it, returning again and again and again.

So be on the alert. We stand firm against his schemes. Methodius is the word from which we get our word methods. We stand against, alerted to, not ignorant of his methods, his schemes, his strategies. He is a student of you. I like the way one author put it. I referenced it several sermons ago.

I'll mention it again. Satan studies us. He has game film on us, one author said in this analogy. He studies it like a football or a basketball coach along with his players. He knows what he's up against. He knows your weaknesses. He knows your strengths.

It's as if he has a playbook. He knows what you like to do. He knows the buttons to push. He knows how you respond to certain things. They've studied you. They know what you like to talk about. They know the places you like to go. They know the people you like to hang around. So what you do as you submit to God, standing firm, you get up to the line of scrimmage and the coach calls a different play and you carry it out and that messes the enemy up.

They weren't expecting that. You take the call in from the coach. You dribble the ball. You take a shot the enemy had not planned on.

Fall in. Stand strong. Third, draw near.

Look again. James writes, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. This is the positive side. He isn't just saying stand there all by yourself and resist. You resist the devil. You relish God. This is David who wrote, when you said to me, oh Lord, seek my face, I said, thy face, oh God, will I seek. This is David who wrote, this one thing I desire of the Lord that is above all other desires that I may dwell in the house of the Lord forever that I may behold the beauty of thy face. See, this is the deliberate action of the believer to worship God.

It's the verb and the Jewish audience would have immediately picked up on it. Draw near is the same verb used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. For the priest who is approaching God with sacrifices, the priest is drawing near, following the prescription of God. By the way, this verse places the initiative on us, doesn't it?

Did you notice that? Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Somebody might say, well, look, if God wanted me to be closer, why doesn't he draw near to me and then I'll draw near to him?

I like that way. You see, James here is emphasizing the actions of a reviving believer who wants to live a satisfied life. God will not pull you out of bed, open the Bible, put it under your nose and say, right there is where you left off two and a half weeks ago. He isn't going to keep your computer turned off until you've talked with him.

He isn't going to set your radio dial to Christian programming. These are your decisions. That's the mystery of sanctification where your surrendered will collabors with the divine will. And James is emphasizing our will, that side of the coin.

These are your decisions. Do you really want to be close to God? Do you want to draw near to him? Well, how long?

For how long? In what way? This is the one who is reviving while serving as a missionary in Paraguay. Stuart Sacks, a missionary, wrote of an Indian named Raphael who came one day to sit on his porch. Stuart wrote, I was eating at the time, went out to the porch to see what he wanted. He responded in his native tongue, Ham hanachmet. Again, I asked him, what can I do for you? The answer was the same, Ham hanachmet. I knew what the words were, but I didn't understand them until later when I talked to a veteran missionary. He explained this was Raphael's way of honoring me.

The words he said, Ham hanachmet, mean I don't want anything from you. I have just come near. I've just come near.

How convicting is that? Divine satisfaction just being near. How many times do I go to God only because I want God to do something, or I need something, or I want him to fix something, I want him to step in and act upon something, and so I go, okay, I'm here, but here's my list, and I want to check off how well you do against what I've written down. See, that's the temptation. I'm ready to line up for my miracle.

In other words, there's got to be quid pro quo. No, this is someone who just draws near. I love this story I came across just the other day. A man by the name of Ed, Big Ed, they called him, went to a local tent revival, not the guy that runs the restaurant downtown Raleigh. He went to a revival, listened intently to the preacher, this big tent revival. After a while, the preacher asked anybody with needs to come forward to be prayed over for their miracle. Big Ed got in line. When it was his turn, the preacher said, what's your name? Well, folks call me Big Ed. He responded, well, Big Ed, what do you want me to pray for?

What do you want me to pray about? Big Ed said, well, I need you to pray about my hearing. So the preacher put one hand on Big Ed's ear and the other hand on top of his head and began to pray and holler and eventually shake, and after a few minutes of that, he removed his hands, stuck a microphone up to Big Ed and said, how's your hearing now? And Big Ed said, well, I don't know, preacher, it's not until next Wednesday at the courthouse.

I love that on so many levels, but I don't have time to go there, but I love it. So where's the lineup for people who just want to draw near? And what's the line look for people who want the miracle, who want stuff? A reviving believer cares more for the company of Christ than anything else.

And before we leave this particular imperative, I want you to notice what's easy to miss. He's actually giving us a wonderful promise. At your first reaction, it might sound like, well, this is one-sided, but no, James is giving us a promise. Whenever you want to draw close to him, guess what?

What does he do? He responds. We're not that way. If somebody wants to get close to me, I may not want to get close to them. I may not want company. I may want to be alone. I might be in a bad mood. You've got to use your imagination for this illustration. I may not want to respond in like kind.

If somebody's interested, I may not be. If you want to worship God, he's ready. That's the idea. You never have to get out of bed and wonder if it's too early for them. You never have to pray wondering if he's saying, I heard that already. You never have to offer to him a challenge that you do have and wonder, I've already, that's like number 27. Maybe I ought to hold back. Draw near to God and God responds in kind. Fall in, stand strong, draw near. Here is the fourth imperative and the fourth point of five. Clean it up, okay?

Clean it up. Look at verse eight. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned in the morning and your joy to gloom. You're probably thinking, what kind of Christianity is that?

That'll sell. See, the fool mocks at sin, Proverbs tells us. The world laughs at sin.

He says, turn it into mourning and weeping. See, to the Jewish reader, James knew they would have immediately picked up on these concepts of ceremonial cleansing. To cleanse your hands was the washing with water whereby a man could be ceremonially fit to approach both the worship and service to God. Exodus 30 and Leviticus 16. In fact, you remember, perhaps in Mark 7, they are ceremonially washing their hands before they eat.

But James is going to take it further. He's not just talking about rituals, he's talking about morals. To cleanse your hands is a reference to external behavior, action. To purify your heart is a reference to cleansing internal attitudes.

So he's covering it all. In other words, and I think these follow well, if you're drawing near to God, more than likely you'll discover sin. Don't brush it off. Don't say, well, that's really not sin. That's an issue, an excuse, a bad choice, a problem, a weakness. It's sin. Mourn over it. This is the daily cleansing by means of daily confession.

This is the way we live. In fact, Martin Luther, the reformer, said, we live lives of continual confession. And that is upon the basis of our redemption, not in order to be redeemed. You can't approach God with your hands behind your back, is the idea.

You can't hold on to things you shouldn't be holding on to and be revived, experience the satisfaction of your walk with Christ. James is saying, come on, he already knows what's in your hands. He knows what's there. He knows who you are. You might be one of his sheep, but you cannot pull the wool over his eyes.

Clean it up. You could say it this way, come clean. My wife and I were in Nashville this past week at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. The final night was a banquet for broadcasters and partners, and it was such a delight for us to be able to hear Chuck Swindoll preach. He shared 15, 16, 17 points of lessons he'd learned in his 50 years of ministry. He's 77 years old now. One of the funniest moments, and it came back to me as I was studying this idea of coming clean, was when he pulled out an article, and I'll share it with you.

It's the best I can remember. He pulled out an article about a tough old woman. I mean, she was tough. She snarled in court from one side to the next, and she was in court for breaking the law. The court appointed a defense attorney, put her on the stand, and then asked her, do you know who I am? She said, of course I know who you are. You're John Morrison. I know you're a no-good lawyer who's cheated on his taxes and cheated with his clients. In fact, you've cheated on your wife two different times.

I wouldn't trust you if you were the last person alive. He was shocked. He didn't know what to say. He pointed over to the prosecuting attorney and said, well, do you know who he is?

She snarled and said, I sure do. He said, that's Billy Beckett. He's a no-good lazy loafer.

Never amounted to anything. He doesn't take care of his business or his wife and three kids. In fact, he's having an affair right now with your wife. Both lawyers were beside themselves at this point.

The judge called both of them to approach the bench. When they got up there, he said in a low voice, if either one of you asks her if she knows who I am, I'm sending you both to the electric chair. You want to appear before God as if he doesn't know? Do you want to know him?

No, he already knows you. Little wonder then that James says, if you want to get serious about your relationship with God, you will get serious about every other relationship as well. He writes, be miserable and mourn and weep. Those are three imperatives, one after another.

It really just revealed genuine confession and repentance as believers repent of their sin and come back into full and satisfying relationship and fellowship with God. Be miserable and mourn and weep. These are not crocodile tears. These are not the tears of a criminal caught in a crime. These are not the tears of a politician or a preacher caught on tape. These are not the tears of investors who've been caught at insider trading.

These are for real. Be miserable. That word means to grieve. It means to be wretched. Surely this isn't for Christians.

I mean, we're supposed to get up in the morning and claim our victory and have happy thoughts and go out and get our miracle. Be wretched. Think about your wretchedness. Yes, this is Paul saying, oh, wretched man that I am.

Not was, am. Who shall deliver me from this body of death, this corrupt self? I thank God through Jesus Christ. This is the apostle Peter standing on the threshold to genuine deep growth, maybe in this way for the first time in his experience with Christ, just outside the garden as he is weeping bitter tears. He's never been in a better place in his spiritual life than there. This is George MacDonald, the Scottish pastor who wrote in the 1800s this prayer, Lord, in thy spirits, hurricane, I pray, strip my soul naked, dress it then thy way. This is mourning and weeping, an understanding of who we are that fully embraces the grace of Christ.

And in that comes satisfaction. Tim Chally's new book published this year, the next story, writes in 2006, America Online made an epic misjudgment. As part of a research project, the search history of 650,000 users over a three-month period was released to the public.

Think about that. They changed all the usernames into anonymous user numbers, but it didn't take long before those numbers were linked to real names. They tried to withdraw the data, but the search histories had already been copied and uploaded on the Internet. 650,000 users with their search history for three months. Chally's wrote it was now possible to reconstruct a person's life, at least in part, from what they had searched for over a period of time. One of the things he commented on was the disparity of the searching. One user went from searching for preteen pornography to searching for games appropriate for a church youth group. Others, spurned by their advances, searched ways of exacting revenge.

Others dealt with how to cheat in a number of different ways. He writes, their searches became a window into their hearts. James knew nothing about Internet search engines, but he knew about the divine searcher and the transparency of heart and mind and soul that says, as we seek to walk with him, Lord, we know that you know everything about us, and that means that everything about us must be cleansed so that we can resist the evil ones, so that we can draw near to you, so that we can cleanse our hands and purify our hearts. This is David who is saying, search me, O God.

Just track the trail of my life and heart. Try me. See if there be any hurtful way in me. And I love that expression, because he gets sin. It's hurtful. It's destructive.

One of the speakers we had a privilege of hearing this past week as well was Ravi Zacharias. One of the things he said that struck me is he said, you do not break God's commandments. God's commandments break you. And validate the fact that they are truly from God.

See if there be any hurtful way in me. I'm going to land in a field and not on the airstrip, because I'm outside the spotlights of your divine truth. Bring me back.

These are commands for those who want to find, not trivial or shallow, but deep and lasting satisfaction in Christ. Fall in. Stand strong. Draw near.

Come clean or clean it up. One more for today. One more point.

Keep low. He writes in verse 10, look there, humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you. And you have to smile and say, James, after what you put us through, could we do anything other than humble ourselves? In fact, we are humbled. Good.

Good. The words humble yourself come from a Greek word, typhonotheti, which simply means to keep low, to make one's self low. It's the idea of prostrating yourself before a monarch who sits upon his throne, your body in the dirt, your face in the dust. And then James says, and he will exalt you. What that refers to is that monarch getting off his throne and coming over and lifting your face out of the dirt and standing you up.

We all want that. Will we prostrate ourselves before the monarch who is Christ? I'll close with this. Stuart Briscoe writes of traveling many years ago to Poland for several weeks of ministry. One winter day he wrote, my host drove me in the dead of night to what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. I walked into a dilapidated building crammed full with young people for this meeting. Through an interpreter I preached from John 15 on our need to walk closely with Christ. Ten minutes into my message, for no reason we knew of, the lights went completely out and it was pitch black. I didn't know what to do. My interpreter urged me to keep preaching. Unable to see my notes or read my Bible, I continued on. After I had preached in the dark for at least 20 minutes, the light suddenly, without any explanation, came back on and what I saw startled me.

Everyone in the audience was on their knees. The next day I commented on this to someone who was there and he said, well, after you left we stayed on our knees most of the night in prayer. You see, your message challenged us and we wanted to make sure we were walking with Christ.

Wow. This is the passion and the commitment and the growth and the walk that leads you wherever you are, wherever you begin, toward deep, genuine satisfaction in Jesus Christ. James knew we would need to hear them, all nine of them, and there's more to come as we seek to follow after Christ.

For this we have come, right? To sing together, to hear the Word taught, to pray, to fellowship, to rejoice in the grace of God, to be edified, and edified I always like to think of as a verb that doesn't mean that we feel better, but it means we live better. And so, perhaps in just a moment or two before we wrap things up, the Spirit of God is touched in one of these areas, something you need to deal with. It may be resisting the devil, the accuser, and his lies. It may be taking the initiative toward God.

It may be cleansing your hands or your heart. It may be falling into rank under his authority with the decision you need to make. Whatever it is, talk to him now. Do business with him right now. And let me speak to the unbeliever. Not only is it tragic and self-defeating to walk through life without Christ, our Advocate, who would be yours, eventually the plane you're flying will crash, and there will be judgment. For his word has lit the runway, and you have refused time and time again.

Would you believe today? We sure are glad you joined us here on Wisdom for the Heart. We're working our way through a series entitled, Satisfied. It's a series that comes from James chapter 4. If you'd like to dive deeper into the entire book of James, Stephen has a book in his wisdom commentary series entitled, James. Stephen goes through the entire book in a practical, pastoral way.

This volume can be yours during this series at a very special price. You'll find this resource on our website, wisdomonline.org. Or you can call us at 866-48-BIBLE and we can help you over the phone. We'll have the next lesson in this series next time. So join us for that here on Wisdom for the Hearts. Thank you.