Draw Near.

We are continuing in our series through James, as we have been all summer. Just a few things, if you're jumping in with us: we have a sheet of paper over at the welcome table with a guide through James, a reading plan, different resources, historical context, things like that. We love to do this when we start a series, because our hope is that when we come here on Sundays, we're continuing to grow throughout the week, continuing to study these passages and have conversations with one another and with the Lord about what he's teaching us, and how we're practicing the ways of Jesus in response to these texts. Today we're starting James chapter four, and I'm going to go ahead and read our passage.

Just to anchor us this morning, verse one says this:

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says, God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you, who are you to judge your neighbor?

James 4:1-12

Let's pray again this morning. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much today for your word. We thank you for this moment of pause within the busyness of our lives and our worlds.

God, I thank you that we get these moments where we get to focus on hearing your voice. I want to invite all of us right now, would you in your own way invite the Holy Spirit to speak to you? God's presence is with us. God's presence and voice is speaking to us. Would you just say, God, I give you permission.

Would you speak? Holy Spirit, I want to hear from you. Would you invite him to speak? God, that is our desire today, because we know that an encounter with you changes things, that you're the one who transforms, who heals, who sets us free. So Lord, as we listen to your word, as we respond today, as we encounter your presence, would you do just that?

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Okay, so before we continue diving into James, I want to give us a few reminders, since we're already in chapter four, that we may easily forget. There's some uncertainty about the author of James, but most people, and I tend to lean this way, given some of the historical context we have and the way James talks, and some outside historical documents like the writings of Josephus, believe the author of James was the half-brother of Jesus. So this is someone who not only walked with Jesus and later became a leader of the church, but someone who grew up with Jesus, someone who watched Jesus respond, saw sides of Jesus that nobody else really saw.

I think that gives us a little context for some of the passion James is speaking with, as he comes in so strong with things like, why aren't you getting this? Another thing I think is interesting is that James is different from Paul's letters, because Paul, when he wrote to the church, was writing to specific churches about specific problems. There's historical context for the people James was writing to, but he's giving this broad letter, these broad instructions to the church, in ways we can apply pretty quickly to ourselves as we read. We see him hitting on these themes over and over, the ones Jesus hit on in the Sermon on the Mount: humility over pride, peacemaking over conflict, mercy over judgment, submission to God rather than to self. He's writing to people who at the time were scattered, scattered Jewish Christians being oppressed by the Roman Empire.

So they're experiencing hardship, experiencing pressure, and he's still, even in the midst of that, saying, we have to live like Jesus. We have to continue to walk in his ways. There are a few different movements in this passage we're going to follow today, where we see James addressing divisions within the church. The first is the division within us. The first few verses say, what causes fights and quarrels among you?

The division within us

Don't they come from your desires, the battle within you? You want something, but you don't get it. You kill, you covet, but you cannot have what you want. Now, these words are pretty strong, but I love how James starts, not by talking about the battle being against other people or with other people, but doesn't it start within us, within the coveting, within the wants, within the desires. It starts within us.

Now, he's naming some things here, don't you kill, and it's thought, if you read different commentaries on this text, that there were people in the church who were getting to the point of conflict where they were killing each other. So that was happening. But he's pointing to the desires within. Are we fighting the right battle? When we feel like we're in conflict, are we fighting the right battle?

Are we fighting the right enemy? Because a lot of times when we find ourselves unsatisfied, when we find ourselves in conflict, we start to think, oh, it might be my spouse, my coworkers, my friends, my neighbors, or it's the church, it's their problem. If they would just change this or do this, then everything would be at peace. But oftentimes the conflict is actually within. And James is going to emphasize over and over again in this passage, ending with this invitation to be peacemakers once again, this theme of peacemaking, because what we all know, living in the world we live in, is that conflict creates collateral damage. Anytime there's war, there's damage and harm and killing of people who aren't out there fighting and had nothing to do with the war. We all understand the evils and the realities of that in this world. And the same thing happens on smaller scales.

We might think, in the beginning, oh, we're just fighting with one person, we just have unforgiveness and bitterness toward one person. But where there's conflict, there's collateral damage. So James is saying, start with the conflict within. Start with the ways the devil is desiring and trying to tempt you to be conflicted within.

As we talk about, and this is a continuation of last week, so much of wisdom, and living out wisdom, Proverbs, I'm going to reference a lot of Proverbs today:

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

Proverbs 4:23

This is again an invitation for us to say, not, don't let other people say these things or harm you or hurt you, but no, you guard it. You protect it. You learn how to guard your heart. This echoes the words of Jesus, where he says, blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Jesus is addressing first the desires within, the conflict within. But then he continues: you do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives.

I want to talk about this. In this passage, it feels like there's a lot going on. And I feel like this is a passage that's famous for picking and choosing one or two verses to quote: you have because you do not ask God, period, and we stop there, and think, so just ask God for whatever you want, and bam, it magically appears. No, there's more going on. He's saying, you ask because you ask with wrong motives. Wrong desires lead us to wrong prayers.

And then we wonder why they're not being answered. It's because, well, if they were, they'd probably cause more damage than good, and they're not going to get us where we ever wanted to go. So again, we have to look at the conflict within. What are we truly longing for?

And are these prayers, are the prayers we're praying leading us to that? If you're taking notes today, this is one of those things worth a mental note: what have I been praying for the most, and what is that telling me about my desires? What am I praying for the most, and what is that revealing about maybe a conflict within? So we see this, that the devil desires, the devil longs for us to have division within ourselves, for us to be so focused on pride, so focused on fulfilling our desires, so focused on even blame-shifting everything onto everyone else, that we don't address and don't hold ourselves responsible and accountable for the conflict within.

Division from God

And then we move to the devil wanting us to have division from God.

You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why scripture says, God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble.

James 4:4-6

Now this sounds a little shocking until we understand the Old Testament background. Throughout scripture, God describes his relationship with his people a lot like a marital covenant. So often, when the people of Israel were unfaithful to God, he would say, you adulterous people, you're being unfaithful to me. So this isn't just about those of you who have literally committed adultery, but all of us, when we're unfaithful to God, that's what it's addressing here. When we pursue other idols, when we leave our covenant relationship with God.

But there's this warning about friendship with the world. I want to lean in here for a moment, because I think this is where we can have a hard time, as followers of Jesus, understanding what it means to be in the world and not of the world. What does it mean for us to be people who are holy and set apart, yet not live like the Gnostics we talk about in Colossians, in the church at Colossae, where it's like, everything in the world is evil, evil, evil, and if we touch it we're going to die, because that's not living with the power of the Holy Spirit in us. So what does it mean for us not to be friends with the world?

Because it's saying this is going to lead to bad things. I think this is less about physical things and more about, again, within. Are we friends of pride? Are we friends of status? Are we friends of self-sufficiency and selfish ambition?

Not just, are we only surrounding ourselves with Christians, but who are our friends? And again, it looks first within, and then at how that separates us from God. Because this is a strategy of the enemy all the way back in Genesis, that disobedience leads to division. When they started to question if God was for them, if God had good things for them, meanwhile God had given Adam and Eve everything they needed in the garden, and they were still longing for it somewhere else.

This idea of friendship with the world, and learning to have nothing to do with that, is us learning to continue to die to that part of ourselves, so that our true selves and our identity with Jesus can live.

Draw near, and he will draw near to you

But here's what I love about this, as we continue through it: the next movement is almost like the antidote for this. The devil's after many things, lots of division within ourselves, conflict within ourselves, division from God. And then Jesus is saying, I want you to draw near. I want you to draw near.

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning, your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

James 4:7-10

James is starting, he's saying, I see what's happening here, there's all this division. And if you want that shalom peace, that wholeness, where there's no room for anything to get in between, because you're whole, you're complete, you're who you're created to be, then this is what you do. You draw near to God and he will draw near to you. But look, it's active participation here. Wash your hands. Purify your hearts.

Grieve, mourn, wail. Change your laughter to mourning. That feels a little different here. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and then he will lift you up. Then we will experience that joy and that delight in its purest form, how we were created to experience it, because it won't just be these happy things we're trying to do to numb the pain, but when we truly grieve the pain and release it, we're able to experience that healing and freedom and true joy of the Lord that starts to come. But it starts with, again, our favorite word James loves to use, submit. Come under alignment.

Place ourselves under God's authority. This is not forced obedience, this is our voluntary surrender, that we get to participate and say, God, I surrender. This is where we see the peace start to come. We submit, and then we resist. We resist. But after it says resist the devil and he will flee from you, it doesn't say, then obsess over the devil. Then talk all the time about how awful the devil is, how evil the devil is. No, because the devil wants us to talk about him all the time.

He wants us to be obsessed with him, because we illuminate what we fixate on. And then all of a sudden we're focused on our sin, focused on our shame. He wants us stuck there, thinking, oh, but I once was a sinner, I once did this, I once did that. That's where the devil wants us stuck.

But Jesus says, get up, run toward me, draw near, and I'm going to draw near to you. That's the movement we see happening here. So it goes from, don't just resist and stay stuck there, but run to Jesus, run to the cross and the freedom that comes. But so much of this goes back to that movement, the division we're feeling within, the conflict within, the division we feel from God, then drawing near. And so much of that is going to be us learning to take accountability.

In my early twenties I had a situation happen, between three of us, we're all Christians, and it was, and I'm not just saying this, obviously everyone always has parts to play in a situation, but two people did something to me that was pretty clearly, oh, that was really bad, I can't believe they just did that. And they knew it, and they immediately said, oh my gosh, I feel so bad, I can't believe we just did that, that was bad. And I was like, wow, I can't believe they just did that, because they really love the Lord, they're great people, all of that.

And then all of a sudden I'm getting ready to preach, because I started ministry in my young twenties, so I'm still newer at this. I remember when I was really young and started out leading worship, my foot used to shake the whole time I played, I was so nervous. And later, in my early twenties, when I first started preaching, my hands would shake the whole time, because I just wasn't used to the rhythm of speaking yet. So that's the phase of my preaching I'm in. I'm already nervous and shaking. And at that time I was pretty stubborn, I was like, no digital notes.

I only handwrote my notes in my Bible. Then I realized it's not practical, I'd forget what I was saying. So that's the phase I'm in. As worship is happening, I'm in the back, kind of nervous, and one of the girls who had caused this harm and hurt in my life comes up and hugs me, and she's in my arms, and we're on like the third song, so I'm going to have to go up and preach soon, and she's saying, I'm so sorry, but this is the devil, the devil's just trying to divide us, and we can't let the devil, the devil, the devil, the devil. And I was thinking, yeah, but you did it, that's all I could think in that moment, but you still did it. And I think we do that as Christians so often, where it's easy to minimize our own role, and we'd rather lack accountability and just say, the devil's out to destroy, which, yes, he is. And we participate when we submit to the deeds of the devil, when we do bad things and cause harm to each other. We have to be people willing to look at the conflict within and say, what is my role, and who am I submitting to? And I'll say, fast forward six months later, we all sat down and laughed about it, like, that was wild, we can't believe that happened.

It's all good. But we can at times be so quick to just put it on the devil and not take accountability for how we participate in the deeds and the actions. I don't want to lean into this today to shame us, but to help us be people who say, we're willing to do what it takes to resist. That's an active thing, to resist the devil and then return and draw near to God. That's repentance in its simplest form, that we turn from the devil and turn back toward Jesus.

We say, we're done with that. And we're not just going to blame the devil, because when we do that, we're acting as if the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is not alive and active in us. And it is, if you didn't know that this morning. So we don't have to, when the bitterness comes up, submit to that. We can submit to Jesus.

When we still feel hurt from things that happened in the past, we don't have to submit to that. We can submit to Jesus. But it is an active thing, we have to resist and return over and over again. He's giving us the antidote: draw near, and I'm coming.

We know that Jesus came, he left heaven to come down to earth to dwell with us. So we don't have to talk about it as if it's some far-off thing. Jesus says it in his own words:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:28

Not, rest up, get pretty, get it all together, then come to me. So if you're here today, and you're in a place where people have hurt you, betrayed you, you're feeling that brokenness, that exhaustion, this is the perfect place to be and the perfect time to draw near to Jesus, because as you do, he draws near to you.

Now I want to hit on a few more of these phrases, where it says resist and then repent, wash your hands, purify your hearts. We've talked about this a lot the past couple of weeks. Again, it's this active thing, and repentance shouldn't be something we're afraid of, but really a daily practice, every single night when we're praying, saying, God, just show me.

Can I be more familiar with how I hear your voice, with how I hear conviction, with how we're people who are quick to not let any roots of bitterness and unforgiveness grow, but instead say, I'm going to repent and own my stuff over and over again. But then here's where I love the words, where it goes into grieve, mourn, wail. James is teaching us something many Christians forget: that faith is not about pretending. It's not about just being happy all the time, but about trusting God enough to bring our whole selves, every piece of what we're walking through, to him.

In this context, specifically, he's talking about quarreling, about taking responsibility for those things, when he says, submit yourselves to God, resist, flee, and then he goes into grieve, mourn, change your laughter to mourning, your joy to gloom. It's recognizing that it's okay for us to sit sometimes in those feelings. We don't have to stay there, but we need to be reminded always that God wants our honesty.

He wants our grief, our disappointment, our anger, our failures, our doubts, our questions, our regrets. James continues to remind us of that. And I love that at the end of all this, it says, he will lift you up. Another translation says, he will give you rest. As we continue to humble ourselves before the Lord, he gives that rest, that's not something we can bring on our own, but he does that.

Division between people

And then the final movement James brings up is that the devil wants division between people. He wants us as a church, as a family, as people, to be divided. So even though he already did a whole section on taming the tongue, he goes again: don't slander one another, anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you're not keeping it, you're sitting in judgment on it. There's only one lawgiver and judge, the one who's able to save and destroy, but you, who are you to judge your neighbor? So he's bringing it back to relationships. The enemy loves gossip and slander and criticism and judgment, and when we're suspicious of one another.

And again, it's easy to think, well, do I do those in big ways? But even in the small ways we use our words to influence how people see someone, or talk about someone. Jesus is coming back to say, I desire peace, when he says, blessed are the peacemakers. He wants peace. He wants wholeness.

Our words reveal our heart. James starts, in the beginning of this, talking about the division within, and then how our words represent where our heart is:

The tongue has the power of life and death.

Proverbs 18:21

The tongue of the wise brings healing.

Proverbs 12:18

Our words can heal. This is powerful. When we think more about how we continue to live into the ways of Jesus, when it's hard, when we're getting hurt, when we don't understand what's happening, that's where we need community, to continue to use words to heal. So what is James saying here? Our so-what today?

Is that the devil wants division, but Jesus desires to draw near. The devil wants us divided, divided from who we were created to be, division and chaos within us. The devil wants us divided from God, distant from God. He wants us to keep us in the cycles of harm and shame and everything that comes with it.

He wants us so caught up in our pride that we're not willing to confess and come before the Lord. He wants us divided from one another. But Jesus wants us to draw near. He wants us to draw near to who he created us to be, as image bearers, our true selves. He wants us to draw nearer to him, so that our relationships can be ones people look at and say, that represents the love of God, the way they love each other, forgive each other, serve each other, talk to one another, and lift one another up.

Closing: peace within, with God, and with others

That is what Jesus desires for us. I'm going to invite Elena to come up as we get ready to close today. So now what do we do with this? What do we do with this? We need to be people who continue to practice drawing near to Jesus, which is why as a church we talk about our rule of life, our daily practices, our daily rhythms, saying, what does it look like for us every single day to be people who wake up and say, Lord, I'm going to draw near to you?

I'm not going to draw near to you based on what I'm feeling in the moment, but because I know that as I do, you're coming closer, and I'm becoming more like you in that process. So how do we pursue that intimacy with Jesus when we're still feeling that division? Because peace is not simply the absence of conflict, it's us drawing near to God so he can make us whole over and over again. So when something shatters, we come right back and say, Jesus, heal it, restore it, make me whole again. I have a few ways I want us to reflect today.

I want us to start by looking at the peace within. Some questions: what is competing for first place in my heart right now? Where am I holding on to pride, control, fear, or resentment? Words we don't always want to think about or acknowledge within ourselves, but if we look closely they could be there. Then look at peace with God.

Am I spending time with God to be with him, or just to get something from him? Because he's saying, in some ways, I don't really trust to give you things, because you're just going to use it and spend it on your pleasures. And sometimes we're like, God, what are you doing, can God trust us with what he's giving us to flow freely through our hands? Can he trust us? Am I coming, am I praying just for things to get from God, or truly to be with him and delight in his presence? What emotions or struggles do I need to bring honestly before God? This is a huge one for us to keep reminding ourselves of.

If you need a reminder, open up almost any Psalm, and you'll see the raw emotions people lamented before God. Maybe this week, for some of you, that's the practice of lament and grieving with the Lord. Peace with others: do my words bring healing or hurt? Is there someone I need to forgive, encourage, or reconcile with?

Am I contributing to peace or division? When we speak, is it healing or is it hurt? And how can we be present with Jesus in a way that we're listening, able to prophetically speak into things, and even see, oh, this person's hurting, Lord, is there any way I can bring life and lift them up and encourage them with my words? Our words can bring healing.

So I want to invite you to stand, and we're going to close in a time of worship and prayer and reflection. I want you to take a moment and process these with the Lord. See what the Holy Spirit may highlight for you. And as you do, continue with this posture of saying, God, I want to submit to your ways, trusting that as we draw near, he draws near to us, and he's going to meet us.

God, we thank you for your word that continues to draw us closer. We thank you that we can hear your voice through this text. We thank you that you long to dwell with us, to be with us. You long for us to come to you with these postures of humility and submission, saying, God, let us not be people who pray empty prayers filled with selfish ambition, leading only to our own possessions and feeding our pride. But let us be people whose eyes are so fixed on you, Jesus, and your kingdom, that we trust you.

That we're willing to acknowledge the conflict within. Prince of Peace, would you come, and would you bring peace? Holy Spirit, would you speak, would you show us any conflict we may have with other people, unforgiveness, bitterness, or people we need to encourage, people whose words we need to go and speak, words of encouragement and healing? Lord, would you show us ways we need to draw near to you? Would you show us any ways the devil has been trying to cause distance and division? Maybe feeling like we don't have the right words, or our feelings, our grief, our pain, is too much. Would that just be gone, in the name of Jesus?

Would we be able to come humbly before you in these moments and say, come, Holy Spirit, you are welcome here? Would you speak to us? And as we surrender, would you draw near to us? Thank you, Jesus.