Submission and Exultation
Introduction:
1. The key verse for this text is James 4:10.
2. The main thought is through humility we are exulted.
3. We are obligated to do our duty so we may have grace abounding to our need.
4. We submit not to a mere mechanical obedience but submit by conforming our will to God's will.
5. We must recognize the difficulty in allowing God to strengthen us by our submission to God.
6. Holding to the ground owned by God's will we are humbled in the sight of the Lord and our obedience pleases Him.
7. We may think of our obedience as submission and exultation.
8. As we submit to God more and more we are exulted by God more and more.
I) Submission by Cleansing Your Hands
A) Resist and he will flee.
1. Two instances of military terms expresses our life and death struggles.
a. Submit - to array one's self under God.
b. Resisteth - to turn from
(i) A military term used for fighting the enemy and holding ground.
(ii) We must face Satan on the fields of battle.
2. Putting one's self in position of serving God pleases God.
a. Our choice is far more than a simple choice of God or the world.
b. You must choose between our proud spirits domination or God's will.
c. You must require your heart to choose God be enthroned in your heart and dominating your life.
d. Only, and I stress only, by yielding wholly to God's will do we fulfill our duty to God.
3. As we face Satan we must resist his influence in our lives.
a. Recognizing he is a formidable enemy we must refuse to yield to his allurements.
b. Fighting of his advances we repel and oppose his temptations.
c. Granting no armistice, no treaty, no amnesty, and no appeasement we totally reject his efforts.
d. As a result he will flee from us.
(i) Satan is not as brave as you might think.
(ii) In confrontation with the saints he takes flight at least for a little while.
(iii) Consequently, we have not need to fear our eternal outcome if we continually resist the Devil.
B) Draw Near and God will Draw Near too.
1. Get close to God.
a. Get close now and forever.
b. Do not loiter or hesitate.
c. God demands that his act be a once and for all commitment.
d. For our decision to submit come what may is done completely even if one does not recognize immediately certain characteristics about himself.
2. If we get close to God, then He will get close to us.
a. Those remaining at a distance cannot expect God's blessings.
b. Romans 11:22 - Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
c. To continue in a relationship with God provides you with goodness.
d. That goodness abounds in the spiritual blessings of eternal life in heaven, joy, peace, love, grace, and mercy.
e. How much better will your lives be if you submit to God?
C) Cleanse your hands ye sinners.
1. Submission requires a cleansing.
a. "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners" is an example of priestly worship.
b. As the priest entering into the temple must wash their soiled hands, every person trying to submit to God must also wash his hands.
c. This of course is not a physical cleansing but a spiritual one.
2. Your hands represent you actions.
a. In other words, to clean your hands is to clean up your act or actions.
b. James' readers were sinners even though they had submitted to God.
(i) This admonishment by James to cleanse your hands encourages you to examine your life and your actions.
(ii) It is possible for one to have obeyed the Gospel and fall from it by soiling one's actions.
c. By cleansing the performance of sin you show to God your willingness to submit to God.
II) Submission by Purifying Your Hearts
A) Be Afflicted
1. Purification of your moral character goes beyond the example of a ceremonial cleansing.
a. Purity is the elimination of all sin from your heart.
b. To purify the heart is to purify the seat and source of sin.
2. The double-minded man has two minds.
a. These double-minded men tolerate the influences tugging at them and by allowing sin to continue find themselves vacillating in their loyalties, influenced by conflicting interests and divided allegiances.
b. They lack any unity of thought or singleness of purpose which ought, implying can, to characterize them.
c. These men are religious in part and worldly in part.
d. They believe that they can love the world and live with God at the same time.
3. James teaches us the remedy for such double-mindedness.
a. You must be afflicted by the sins of the heart.
(i) You must be painfully aware of the heavy load you carry about.
(ii) This recognition of sin reveals the wretchedness of your heart.
(iii) Romans 7:24 - O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
(iv) This is the cry of the hopeless man both sinner and double-minded.
b. Properly felt wretchedness and affliction will result in mourning.
B) Mourn and Weep
1. We cannot regard lightly the sinful life both by action and heart condition.
a. Brushing off your guilt as trivial and inconsequential prevents repentance.
b. Mourning over your guilt should make you painfully conscious of the weight of God's displeasure toward all sin and double-mindedness.
c. Remember grief is there to give evidence of a convicted conscience.
2. James' readers recognized the burden of their sin not with grief but with joy and laughter.
a. They evidently felt like the burden of their sins was a burden to bear and thus considered it joyous to bear such burdens hoping that God's grace could satisfy both their lives with God and their love for the world.
b. It is painfully obvious, then, that the command to mourn and have heaviness was covered from them by their sins.
3. Mourning and weeping represent what God sees in the contrite and grieving heart.
a. He sees the outward character of one's actions.
b. He recognizes the appearance of the heart by its disposition toward sin.
c. One cannot upon realizing the burden of his sins pretend or fool God.
d.
Luke 18:13 - And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon
his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
e. He could not look up to heaven nor to himself only smote his chest because of the burden he held in his sins.
III) And God Will Life You Up
A) Requires humility in the sight of God.
1. Humility requires a voluntary acceptance of a place of lowliness in order to be pleasing to God.
a. James' theme is humility in the act of repentance.
b. This humility is a requirement for the purpose of pleasing God rather than the applause of man.
c. Repentance cannot be for the appeasement of wrong doing for someone else.
(i) One who seeks repentance for the approval or forgiveness of another is not humility in repentance.
(ii) Rather is a desire to receive a stamp of approval not from God but from man.
2. God must see your repentance.
a. As God sees the cleansing of your hands and purification of your heart then God will forgive you.
b. The example of the prodigal son is a splendid example of humility in repentance.
(i) When this young man came to his senses he recognized the need to return to his father's house.
(ii) Yet he was willing to accept a place of lowliness as his father's servant.
(iii) He humbled himself and returned to his father.
(iv) What a perfect commentary on James' writing.
B) You go down, and then you go up.
1. In continuing the story of the prodigal son we find that true humility results in being exalted by God.
a. As the father rejoiced to have his lost son return, so God will gladly receive and restore and exalt his returning prodigals.
b. No one can be humble for another; by its very nature, humility is an individual trait that must be cultivated and expressed.
2. Clothed in humility is to tie on the servant's apron.
a. Only for the humble is God willing to open the pearly gates an allow one to enter in.
b. We can rest assured that God according to his promise offers this hope alone.
c. Remember Paul's words in Romans 7:24 - O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
d. We need to see what else Paul said in the following verse; Romans 7:25 - I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
Conclusion:
1. The road to greatness is the way of complete submission.
2. Cleansing your hands and purifying your hearts begins the means of repentance.
3. Yet, without humility one cannot expect God to exalt him to God's pleasure.
4. Blessed assurance provides us with hope in the sacrifices we must make.
5. Psalm 51:17 - The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
6. How is your spirit, broken, contrite, and humble?
7. If so then here is what you must do.
Posted in: Book of James, Sermon Outlines