We return this evening to the letter of James, the letter of James to conclude what we began last time from chapter 4. You'll find that in the New Testament between Hebrews and 1 Peter. In the Pew Bible that's on page 1290. Now leading up to this text, James would have us convinced that the Word of God, the wisdom that comes down from above reveals both truth to be believed, things to know and understand and believe, and the way of holiness to be lived, how to live our lives as His people. Therefore, He urges believers to more and more be doers of the word, not just hearers. He's very concerned with how we live the Christian life. This wisdom is according to chapter 3, verse 17, first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. All of those relational terms for how this wisdom impacts our lives and how we live with one another. And it will produce a harvest of righteousness, he says, when it is sown in peace by those who make peace. And that sets the stage for our text this evening, which has to deal with the church that is involved with quarrels and fights. this harvest of righteousness will not grow in that kind of environment. Why? Why does this come to us? Because we, like his first readers, are too often ready to rumble, ready to fight and quarrel, rather than to promote peace. We've been hearing that strongly from 1 Corinthians 8 and 9. Sometimes even when we're right, we're more ready to fight about it than to be at peace with our brethren. In verses 1 through 10 of chapter 4, James presses hard. He presses hard on us to, first of all, realize what makes us ready to rumble. Secondly, to recognize our cheating hearts. And third, to repent. To repent and to cling to Christ. So we hear again from God's Word this evening, chapter 4 of James, beginning at verse 1 through verse 10. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and you do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says he yearns jealousy over the Spirit that he has made to dwell in us? But he gives more grace. Therefore, it says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. Here ends the reading of God's Word. As you can see from your outline, we're going to focus on the third point of this sermon tonight, but I don't want to neglect the first two. We focused on those last time, and I want to touch on them briefly. In verses 1 through 3, James intended for us to realize what makes us ready to rumble. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he said that all of our rumblings, all of our quarrels and our fights, whether they be verbal squabbles or fights with weapons or outright murder, they are manifestations of a murderous heart. They come from within. Every circumstance, every interaction with another person is an opportunity for us to rumble, an opportunity for our hearts to be laid bare. And we seize these opportunities so easily, so quickly. We don't often realize what we're doing unless someone points it out to us. And then, even when they come to restore us in a spirit of gentleness to try to help us see what we need to see, even then we're ready to rumble. We don't like to be told that we're murderous, that we're contentious. And James asks, why is this so? What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Why is this so? He says the answer is not found out there. It's not found in your circumstances. It's not found in other people. It's found within you. You covet. You want what you want. And you want it now. And you want it your way. and you want what you want rather than what God wants you to want. And when you don't have it and when you cannot obtain it, you go to war to get it. Whether that be a hot war with venom or whether that be a cold war with a cold shoulder, you go to war to get it. And he pointed out that the taproot of this murderous strife is a lack of trust in God. At least we don't trust God at least as much as we trust ourselves or we trust other people. We often trust our own ability to get what we want or in someone else to give us what we expect from them rather than trust in God. He says you don't ask. You don't ask, so you don't have. And even when you ask, you don't get because you ask to serve yourself. You ask as though God's your butler to give you what you want. And so when you do not receive, you blame Him and you justify yourself and you go after it yet again. And we hear this and we have to remember that James is speaking to the church. He's speaking to believers. He's speaking to Christians. And he'll not let us deceive ourselves and justify ourselves in our murderous ways. And so he moves on. He presses even deeper in verses 4 through 6. He presses on us to recognize that this murderous propensity we have reveals that we have adulterous hearts. You adulterous people, You adulterous people. How can that be? All of us who believe are saved once and for all. We've been saved by grace through faith. This is the gift of God so that no one can boast and it can never be taken away. Through faith in Jesus Christ, we are joined to him. We are his bride. He is our bridegroom. We are married to him for eternity. But even in Christ, James reminds us, even in Christ, I continue to be prone to wander Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the one I love. When we trust in ourselves, in others instead of in Christ, we turn our backs on our husbands. That's what James is saying. When we're trusting in ourselves or other people, we're turning our back on our husbands. We're denying his sufficiency, his ability to provide all that we need. We're denying his faithfulness and his love, his willingness to provide all that we need for life and for godliness, body and soul. Through faith in Jesus Christ, we're justified. And he reminds us that like Abraham, we're called friends of God. We're brought near and we're held dear. But when we trust ourselves or in others instead of in God, we're living in friendship with the world, he said. And whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. These are strong words. These are strong warnings. And James is pressing believers, the beloved of Christ, the friends of God, to wake up and smell the coffee. To convince us that our fights and our quarrels, those little things and those big things between husbands and wives and parents and children and neighbors and friends and co-workers and bosses and brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. These are not trivial things. These are grievous sins that betray murderous hearts and adulterous relationships with our own desires. He presses us. He presses us to cry out like Paul, Oh, what wretches we are! Who will rescue us from this body of sin? And James answers those who cry out with this assurance. He says that God will never share his bride with another. He will never lose his bride to another. Christ has already bought us with his own life. He's given his life for his bride and he's given his Holy Spirit to his bride and he will not abandon us in our adultery. James pulls no punches. When we're contentious and we are involved in quarrels and fights, we are adulterous. But the promise is God will not leave us in that adulterous relationship. He will come to us. He will come after us. We've heard it over and over in Genesis. He pursues us relentlessly. And you'll remember the prophet Hosea was appointed by God to live out this very reality in front of the people of Israel. He was told to marry an adulterous wife and he was told to go get her and redeem her and to bring her back. To not let her go. To not let her be lost. And so James reminds us that he, that is God, yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us. He yearns jealously for us. His spirit who is working to fulfill in us all that Christ has accomplished for us is jealous. God is jealous for us. He's jealous so that he might prepare us for glory. He might present us to himself spotless, without wrinkle, without spot. That's the assurance that James brings to the table when He presses us for our sin. And to this assurance, He adds this promise. But God gives more grace. God gives more grace. Grace to whom? To the saints. He gives grace for us to realize that it is our murderous hearts that drive our quarrels and our fights. He gives us grace to recognize that we trust in ourselves and in other people more than we trust Christ. that we are betraying our husbands. He gives us grace to hear this word, understand this word, and believe this word. And he reminds us from Proverbs 3.34, Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Grace for what? Grace to repent. Grace to come back again. In verses 7 through 10, James shows us the way of repentance. A way to be well known by us, believers. A way to be often traveled by every saint. If we are not often traveling this road, we are self-deceived. We think of ourselves too highly, James says. By the grace of God alone, we're saved. And by the grace of God alone, we repent. And he gives more grace. Now, if James has convicted you of sin, which is what verses 1 through 6 are intended to do, none of us should be comfortable with these verses. He directs you to a posture of repentance in verses 7 through 10, which bind this section together. If we look at the beginning of this section, verse 7, the end of this section, verse 10, we see parallel commandments with similar meaning. He says, Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Humble yourselves before the Lord. That's the posture of repentance. The posture of humble submission before the God who is holy because we're not. For the God who will judge sin. And as we find ourselves in this posture, humbled by the charges that are brought, we find ourselves willing and ready to exert ourselves in the way of repentance that He sets before us this evening. In verses 7 through 9, which are captured in this envelope, if you will, James presents three images to illustrate three radical changes involved in our repentance. As we discussed from the Heidelberg, it's an either-or. We put off and we put on. The dying away and the coming to life. And that's what he sets before us here tonight. Three radical changes. First of all, the reversal of our allegiance. The renewal of obedience and the recalibration, the fine-tuning of our conscience. So in verses 7 through 8, James illustrates the radical reversal of our allegiances. And he does it with an illustration of a stiff arm to the devil and an embrace of God our Father. He says, resist the devil and he'll flee from you. Draw near to God, and he'll draw near to you. Murderous and adulterous ways are ways that follow after the devil. They show an allegiance to the devil. An allegiance that we do not owe. Jesus Christ has shed his blood to set us free from the tyranny of the devil. He doesn't own us anymore. In Christ we've been set free from that to obey, to follow, To hold fast to our husband. But like the prodigal son, we find ourselves deceived into thinking that as we are living after our own desires, we're living for what we want, when we give in to this selfish way of living, we find that we're serving a tyrant. The prodigal son woke up one day and realized where he was and who he was serving. And he repented, and we repent, and we turn, and we run home to the Father who has promised to run to meet us. Change of allegiance. Clearly, we cannot resist the devil in our own strength. We cannot resist the devil in our own strength. We must rely on the strength of another, and that's Jesus Christ, who in every respect resisted the devil, resisted every temptation, never sinning. He did that for us, not only once upon a time to have eternal consequences, but once upon a time to have lifelong consequences for us. In our place, he resisted the devil's temptation, not only making the devil flee in the wilderness, you remember the story, but also crushing his head at the cross, and even now by the power of his spirit working in us to resist the devil. He's at work in us to will and to do what's pleasing to God rather than to give in to what would be pleasing to the devil. A change of allegiance. Peter says, resist the devil. How? Firm in your faith. Resist the devil, firm in your faith. Through faith in Jesus Christ, Paul says, put on the whole armor of God. That you may be able to withstand the evil day and having done all, to stand firm. To resist the devil is not an affrontal attack. It's not an assault like a military assault. It is standing firm, holding to Christ, resisting the devil in his strength, through faith in Jesus. He's fought the battle. He's won the fight. He's the victor, and in him we stand. At the same time and in the same way, that is, through faith in Jesus Christ, we draw near to God. One and the same act, faith in Christ, resists the devil and draws us near to God. And this reality is manifest nowhere more clearly than when we joined together here in the body of Christ in this place. When we come together as the body of Christ through faith in Jesus Christ, we draw near to God at the throne of grace. And he draws near to us through the means of grace. We have communion with our Heavenly Father. We have communion with our husband, Jesus Christ. Through faith in Christ, we resist the devil and we draw near to God. And as we resist the devil and draw near to God through this faith, we are renewed, we find ourselves empowered and renewed in obedience. We change our ways. We change our ways because by faith in Christ we come more and more to want what God wants us to want, rather than insisting on what we want. And this obedience to God accomplishes two things at the same time, as by faith we present our lives as living sacrifices to God. By that very act, we give the devil no foothold. You've heard those commands. Give the devil no foothold. Submit your lives as living sacrifices to God. Those are one and the same thing. You do one, you do the other. You give the devil a foothold, you're not submitting to God. And in verse 8, James illustrates this radical renewal of obedience, this change of behavior, this change of activity with the image of washing hands. he does this, this is an Old Testament picture the washing of hands is an illustration of a purified heart so he says, cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double minded again like the prodigal son James wants us to wake up and find ourselves in the pig pen and realize we are filthy we're filthy we have given in to a way of living a way of wanting, a way of striving with other people to have what we want, we need to realize we're filthy cleanse your hands you sinners purify your minds you double minded clean up your act we might say today pursue a life that looks like who you are children of God as I said in the Old Testament this outward washing of hands symbolized an inner cleansing of heart and so we hear from David in Psalm 24 he asked the question who shall ascend the hill of the Lord who shall stand in his holy place The answer, he who has clean hands and a pure heart. Now, we know that only Jesus has clean hands and a pure heart, but in Christ, we ascend his holy hill. We ascend and draw near to God. Apart from Jesus, our hearts are impure. He said so. He said, from within, out of the heart of man come evil things, and they defile a person. And even as believers, these things can bubble out to defile us, and we need to be washed. We need to wash our hands and cleanse and purify our spirit. Through faith in Christ, Peter says that our souls are already pure. This is a fact. We've been purified. He says that in Christ you have been born again, made willing and able to love one another earnestly from a pure heart. It's a done deal. It's already true for our saints. But as we all know, it's not yet our experience all the time. We practice all sorts of impurities. John says that in Christ we are God's children now, already. It's true. It's done. What we will be has not yet appeared. The fullness of that reality hasn't yet appeared and it won't appear until Christ comes in glory. And when He appears, we'll be like Him. We'll be transformed. All this impurity will be left behind. And it's this reality, John says, that motivates us and empowers us to repent. To repent. To repent. While we wait for Christ to return. John says, everyone who thus hopes in Him, that hopes in Christ, who looks for that day, purifies himself as Him, He is pure. So how do we purify our hearts? Well, for starters, we purify our hearts when we renounce our double-minded allegiance. When we realize we're trusting God and the world, we want to be friends with both. We purify our hearts when we pursue allegiance to Christ alone. That's our purpose. That's our goal. That's what we strive for more and more. And we cleanse our hands when, among other things, and the focus of this text here tonight is that we refuse to quarrel and fight. And instead of quarreling and fighting, we pursue the royal law. The royal law, remember, is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. That's the outward expression, cleansing our hands. Now in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, Paul makes an important distinction when he says that worldly grief produces death and godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation. Paul's pointing us to an inner compass, an inner working of grief that's required for repentance. This godly grief involves a radical recalibration of our conscience. And that's what James illustrates in verse 9 with the change of tune. He writes, Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. We need to know that James is not being a killjoy here, saying that there's no room for joy in the Christian life. That's not his point. Some have taken this verse that way, to live a somber life with no joy. Remember how he opened this letter. He says, count it all joy, my brothers. Even when you encounter trials, count it all joy because God's at work in you. But he's not calling us to a joyless life. He's calling us to recalibrate what we rejoice in. You see, we think too lightly of our sin. And we're quick to give ourselves a break. Everybody quarrels and fights. It's unavoidable. It's natural. It's just the way I am. Some say it's healthy, it's cathartic. It's good to get it off your chest. What's the big deal, James? If that thought hasn't crossed your mind tonight or last time, what's the big deal, James? I had to ask that question. What's the big deal? It's a big deal. You see, like the prodigal son, we are prone to amuse ourselves to death. We like this wide and easy way that leads to destruction. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. We're believers, and we shouldn't believe that lie, but we find ourselves living it too often. And James has pressed us hard to bring us to our senses, to realize that we are rejoicing over what we have, what we obtain, at the expense of other people, at murdering others in our quarrels and our fights. We rejoice in winning. We like to win. We like to have our way. He's pressed us hard to recognize that we are laughing in the arms of lovers. The things we love. The things we must have. We laugh in the arms of our lovers as Jesus, our husband, weeps over us as he wept over Jerusalem. If and when James succeeds through the working of the Spirit, I'll change my tune. Instead of rejoicing in my accomplishments, instead of laughing with my lovers, my sin will grieve me. I will lament and mourn and weep with King David in Psalm 51. Have mercy on me, O God. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. Purge me. Wash me. My joy will turn to mourning. My laughter will turn to lament. And I will turn again to Christ and cling to Him to rescue me from this body of death that I keep stepping into. With David, I will ask God for the joy that only He can give. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that have been broken rejoice. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of my salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. This has been James' purpose in these ten verses. To lead believers like you and like me into humble submission before our Lord to repentance for our murderous and our adulterous ways. And he leads us through that humble submission, true repentance back to the healing balm of the gospel that he promises to the close of verse 10. And we must not miss it because this is where he leads us. He says, humble yourselves before the Lord and what? What's the promise? And he will lift you up. He will restore your soul. He will grant you the joy of your salvation. He will give you a sense of his sufficiency and gratitude and thankfulness. That's His work for you when you come to Him in repentance and in faith. The Scripture says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. And Jesus says everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted. James has pulled no punches. in having us see that when we are ready to rumble, we are ready to exalt ourselves. We are ready to murder our neighbors. And we are ready to commit adultery to Christ. And these are not small things for which He calls us to repent. And as we repent, we are reminded, He giveth more grace. He giveth more grace. His love has no limits. His grace has no measure. His power has no boundary known unto men. For out of His infinite riches in Jesus, He giveth and giveth and giveth again. Let's praise Him for that. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, through Your Word tonight, by the power of Your Spirit, You have opened up our hearts and laid them bare. You have shown us what is real and what is true about our sin. even as your people that in our quarrels and fights we are given to see what drives us what motivates us what is our pleasure what we rejoice in what we must have in our denial of you and our murder of our neighbors Lord we ask for your forgiveness for these things and we ask that you would bring us to that posture of submission humble submission and brought through to repentance that you would work in us by Your Spirit to have our allegiance changed and focused on Christ. To have us renewed in obedience to You. And to have our consciences rightly calibrated to what is pleasing to You and what is not. We like to dial it down and bring it into conformity to our own view of things. We thank You, Father, that true repentance, which is the work of Your Spirit by grace through faith, You bring us back to the balm of the gospel that tells us that you give us grace. More grace. Abounding grace. And that you'll lead us home. You'll never leave us in our sin. You will lead us home to glory. Prepared as you want us to be. Thank you for that. In Jesus' name. Amen.