James Session 10

Tom Shrader addresses the source of quarrels and conflicts within the church, identifying selfish ambition and worldly pleasures as the root cause. He contrasts worldly wisdom with godly wisdom, explaining how believers can become too friendly with the world's values and hostile toward God. The teaching concludes with ten commands for spiritual renewal, including submitting to God, resisting the devil, and humbling oneself before the Lord.

“There's nothing you can do to make God love you more, there's nothing you can do to make God love you less.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: James (2009)

Recorded: 2009 at Cannon Beach Conference Center

Duration: 50 min

Themes: conflict, wisdom, humility, worldliness, submission, peace, purity, selfishness, church conflict, struggling with pride, worldly compromise, new believer, pastor, church leader, navigating disagreements, spiritual dryness

Scripture: James 3:13-18, James 4:1-10, Galatians 5:16-26, Romans 5:1, Romans 13, Ephesians 5, Acts 17

Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual warfare, biblical wisdom, worldly wisdom, godly wisdom, spiritual renewal, submission to god, spiritual maturity

Full Transcript

Amen, oh good evening. You have no idea how exciting that dinner was tonight. The adults got their dinner while the kids got theirs. I thought that was really cool. We were sitting with Kristen, and our whole table was just talking. For whatever reason you just lost track of time and really drifted away in there. As your mind kind of got carried away, the last thing you were thinking about was coming over here for a Bible lesson.

You have no idea how exciting it is for me when Evan says this is our last song to have you all go "Yeah!" I mean that really jacked me up. I couldn't wait to get up here. That's cool, go get them tiger!

So I'm more than comfortable just playing one of my CDs and you can listen to that and go home. Or I'm afraid to say the next line because you'll clap - we could just sing more and skip all of this. But we do have a task to do, and that is to get back into the book of James. So let's do that.

Reviewing This Morning's Study

I left you this morning - by the way, if you were not here this morning because you're either staff or volunteers, I'm glad it's cool to see the staff and volunteers here who can't make the morning sessions but are here at night. This morning we left off looking in James chapter 3, verses 13 through 18.

What we looked at was a contrast that James gives us between wisdom. He's talking about wisdom - that's the topic - and then the wisdom that is in verse 15 "earthly, natural and demonic." He contrasts that with the wisdom that is from above, it's supernatural and it's godly.

He says that earthly, natural, demonic wisdom is driven by - and you see it in verse 14 and repeating in verse 16 - driven by jealousy and selfish ambition. The end result of that is disorder and every evil thing. If you can, and you all are really smart you can do this, let that idea for now hang there. I'm going to come right back to it.

Wisdom From Above: First Pure

This morning I left off in verse 17. The wisdom from above is first pure, and we said that there's a whole sequence there. It is first pure, and we said purity of thought, purity of habit, purity of motive, and purity of God's Word. We said that sets up the rest of our discussion.

But there's a continuation there, and I thought tonight it might be helpful to just say here's what we should see then. It is first pure and then peaceable.

The Nature of Biblical Peace

What should be a characteristic of our life as a follower of Christ is peace. Paul writes in Romans chapter 5 verse 1: "Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God." So now that I have peace with God, I can begin to experience what is the peace of God.

The world is searching for peace. Love kind of fits in that same category. We have all of these songs that you can go back and date them: "What the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love," "All You Need is Love." It seems to me that the composers of music, modern stuff that we would talk about, have this idea somewhere along the way where they're writing about love. What we want is this idea of peace: "Just Give Peace a Chance."

In one of the stores downtown, I don't know what store it is, there's a really cool-looking shirt. It doesn't fit necessarily my personality, but it's kind of a picture of Uncle Sam in a hat with a Hawaiian shirt and little beads around him saying "I Want Peace."

We want peace, but we don't understand what that is when God talks about peace. He is not talking about the absence of turmoil. When we think of peace we think of absolute quiet. Peace is not the absence of turmoil. It's peace with God. So I begin to experience the peace of God. It's not the absence of turmoil, it's the presence of God right in the midst of these circumstances. The only way I'm going to know that I have that peace of God is to be in trying circumstances. I don't know if I have peace until it's put to the test.

Gentle: Strength Under Control

And then it's not just peace. It's also gentle - that's a picture of strength under control. For me the word picture there is Jesus on the cross. When Jesus is hanging there and they're coming by and they begin to spit on Him and mock Him, and then one of them says, "He saved others, but He couldn't save Himself."

I don't know why, but for me that's the point that gets me. If I was Jesus, that's where I'd say, "All right, that's enough. Come here, pop," and that would be about the end. I don't know why, but it's like that one phrase in that whole story that jumps off the page at me. But the reality is it's true, right? He saved others, but He couldn't save Himself from that experience and still save us.

When you think of gentleness, you think of the gentle giant. You think of a great big guy. There are these students that come on Sunday night and they are massive. They are huge. I have not the foggiest idea how big these guys are or what they weigh.

I have a friend who's lost weight, but he was six-eight, 415 pounds. That's big. I mean, that's just big. He's big framed, he's just big. His head is the biggest - his head is like the size of this drum. He has a dog - one of these little dogs, like a four-pound dog. To see him walking this dog just makes you laugh. His son was the 21st pick in the NFL Draft a year ago, just massive. But he's the sweetest, gentlest guy.

So gentle is strength under control.

Reasonable: Without Rancor

And then it is reasonable. That means literally without rancor or dispute - teachable, compliant, not stubborn. I've already talked about this, but...

I keep coming back to this phrase because it's so big with me: coachable. We talked a bit this morning in the Q&A time about mentors and mentoring. Well, as a mentor, one of the characteristics that I demand from a young person is that they're coachable.

I don't mind debate. I don't mind engaging. I'm open. I'll have all sorts of conversation. I'll talk it to death. But if we agree that you're going to do something, then you need to do it. And so when I follow up a week later, I'll say, "Have you done it?" "No." "Okay, well, we said you're going to do that. You're going to do it." "Yes, I'll do it this week." If we come back the next week and you haven't done it, I'm pretty much done with you. I'm done.

I mean, because I have a finite number of bullets in my gun. I'm not going to waste them on somebody who doesn't want to play the game. That's not to say that you're a failure. It's just that I'm not going to hang around with you. I'm not going to pour into you.

The Nature of Mercy

I want reasonableness. I love the teachable, compliant, not stubborn, and then full of mercy. Now, the thing about mercy that I've discovered—some people, there aren't many of them, some are just these gentle, compassionate people. When you have them around you, I mean, they cry at a Safeway opening. "We're opening a new Safeway! Oh man, that's so cool. Think of the people!" That's not me. I didn't get that gene.

But here's what I discovered about mercy: when you experience life, you tend to become more merciful. So I was at—you all should be—I was at Sun River, Oregon. Is that right? This place called Sun River, and there's a lodge and you can golf and hike and all this. We're up there, and I had heard about food poisoning. So people say, "I had food poisoning," and I'm going, "Geez, I've eaten—because I mean, in my old days I'm eating off the floor. I mean, I didn't care and I never got sick. Something, come on, suck it up."

Learning Mercy Through Experience

Well, I'm at Sun River and we're doing—I mean, here are the choices they gave us that day. You could hike, or go on a long bike ride, or go on rapids. And I said, "Jimmy, these are three lousy choices. What do I get? What do you think is the least?" I should be able to sit through a rafting thing. So I'm on this raft and you have white water and all this. I just get in the middle and hang on. I don't care.

Well, the next morning we discover it. All of a sudden, because in the middle, I didn't feel very well. And we're all in different condos and we're walking down to eat. And I said, "Man, I don't feel well." And that guy came out of his condo and he said, "You know, Bart's not going to make it. He's in there, he's puking his guts out. He's sick as can be, sick as a dog." And then the next guy, and they all came out. He said, "We're all sick." Well, we figured it out.

We get down to the lodge—Sun River Lodge or whatever the big thing is—and they're making Sunday morning and they're making your own omelets. And the guy ahead of me ordered a sausage, mushroom, and garlic omelet. Well, all of a sudden they put garlic on there. My stomach's kind of going, "Whoa, whoa, no, no. I'm going to be sick." So I went downstairs. It was like a movie. I went into the men's restroom, and—this might be a little more information than you're looking for now that I think about it. Whatever, I'm into the story now.

So every one of these urinals has somebody at it. The toilet had somebody in it, and both sinks have somebody in it, so I can't. So in the front of the Sun River Lodge, it spells out "Sun River" in flowers. Well, I'm right in the—you like this? It's not funny.

Pain Creates Compassion

So then I had to get—I get confused on towns. I don't know if we went to Bend from there. I don't know where we went. We went somewhere and they had to get a flight to San Francisco and then a flight to Phoenix, and I'm just sick as a dog. Now when you talk about food poisoning, I get it.

Chronic pain—any chronic pain, my head hurts. But I had this thing. It's inexplicable, and I had a little bit of it the other night. The whole left side of my—now, please don't come up to me if you got a cure. You're a doctor? Please don't email me. But I have this thing on the left side of my body. It starts on my elbow most of the time and will just go numb. Like, I have a little bit of it right now. I'm just totally numb on the left side. So it's all the classic symptoms of a stroke. So everyone's like, "I'm having a stroke! I want to call 911!" And I'm not—I've been through all this. I mean, there's just something neurological, and I wore out on the tests. I went through all these tests and I got bored with them, and they want to do more and I said, "I'm done."

But man, that's pain. It's so painful. When now you talk pain, I can relate. Those are all trivial. But now, here you go: now you lose a child. You can be the hardest person in the world. You go through an experience like that, now all of a sudden you get that phrase "full of mercy." You can begin to relate. You can hear somebody's story and it breaks your heart, even if you don't even know the people. Full of mercy.

Good Fruits and Sincerity

And then He just kind of rounds us out: good fruits. There's fruit in your life, there are good works. You're unwavering. He uses that same phrase, that same idea of unwavering. It means to not be divided, not multiple-souled. It's without hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is an interesting thing when you think about it, because we can really fool each other. And the classic example of this to me is Judas. Judas is walking with these guys for three years. These guys don't have a lot of scratch. They don't have much dough. So whoever they're going to give the money to is going to be the guy they trust with the money, and they give it to Judas. Judas is the treasurer of this group.

This is the thing that always blows my mind. They're sitting down the night that Jesus is going to...

The Source of Church Conflicts

He says to him, "One of you is going to betray me." Now in our context, because we got the end of the story, we would think 11 pairs of eyes would go right to Judas. But that's not what happens. They go, "I'm not! I'm not! I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!" For three years, He walked with these guys. He lived with them. He's hearing Jesus' words, and yet at the 11th hour when it's time to say what I'm going to do, they could not pick out who it was. Well, the wisdom that's from above has those characteristics.

Now the extension of that is where we pick up tonight, and that's chapter 4. In chapter 4 he poses a question: "What's the source of the quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?"

Apparently within this group—you remember context, context, context—he's writing to these tribes that are dispersed. Apparently there are conflicts, wars, battles among them. So it's a church setting really. And he says, "What's the reason for this?"

Universal Church Problems

We were talking about it at dinner tonight. I'm telling you it doesn't matter where I go. I can come to Cannon Beach. I can go south, you know, I go down to Forest Home. I can go down to San Diego, teach down there. I can go east. I can go over to Houston or to St. Louis, Chicago. It doesn't matter where I go. Once we start talking about church, I seem to hear about the same three or four types of people and the same three or four wars.

This is exactly the issue that James is addressing in chapter 4. What's the source of this? Why do we have these things? And he says here's the answer: the source is your pleasure that's waging war within you. You are living out what he's talked about before—selfish ambition and jealousy. You may not just name the name of Christ. You may in fact be His kid. But you're not living like it. There's no harmony there.

He says the conflict is not Republican or Democrat or black and white or rich or poor, educated or uneducated. That's not the problem. The problem is you have a group of people who are living in the flesh, and they're bringing it into the church. They're bringing it into the body of Christ.

Why the Church Isn't More Attractive

Right after, right before Christmas break, I'm walking out of one of my studies. It's one of the studies I do with all sorts of different people in it, meaning from all sorts of different churches, everything. The guy said, "Why do you think the church is not more attractive to the world?" And I'm sure in our righteousness we would go, "Oh, because we have truth and we have all that." And that's all part of it. But part of it would be: who would want to be part of an organization like this? We're arguing about the color of carpet. We're arguing about the seats.

I made this point the other night, but it drives me absolutely crazy. We put these new seats in our worship center and people are whining about—let me tell you, they are incredible. They're way more comfortable than these chairs. They're wonderful chairs, and they're whining about them. And this happened to me—this guy's complaining the sound is too loud. Well, the sound is not too loud. We measure decibels, so we're not arguing about this. It's less sound than we had before. It's better mixed. We have better acoustics.

Trivial Complaints in Light of Real Persecution

"The seats are too hard," and they go on and on and on. "Why is the wall blue? Why isn't it red? Why isn't it green?" Here's my favorite: "It's too hot in the room." Well, do you understand that's somewhat subjective and inevitable? And this guy's complaining about the seats, and then he gives me a book on the persecuted church and says, "Look what people are going through in China." And I'm thinking, "Are you kidding me? Do you see that?"

What's the source of these quarrels among you? The burden—no, we don't like this—the burden I think is really on the older generation, not the younger generation. The burden's on you. Don't like that, but it's true. Generally speaking, the most selfish generation I deal with are the old people, more than the junior high. Tom Brokaw told you guys you were the greatest generation, and you actually believed it.

The Challenge of Letting Go

It's amazing to me to be around, and I love your generation. Don't get me wrong. I hang around—I got friends. I got friends who fought in wars. One of my good friends led reconnaissance when the troops landed at Normandy on D-Day. But you got to do something way more difficult. Taking land was one thing. You got to do something more difficult. You got to give it away now.

That's what I tell them. Do you understand the next generation? They get the keys to this building. We're either going to give it to them in a peaceful way, or they're going to pry them out of our cold dead hands. But they get the keys either way. And it's time for us to think about something other than us. Yeah, it's kind of a hard message, isn't it?

The Right Attitude Toward Change

We have a guy that used to come to church—he's since died—and we used to play... there was a song, popular song when the praise songs, "Let the Walls Fall Down." You remember that song, "Let the Walls Fall Down"? And it used to drive him nuts that we would sing that song during a building campaign. And he'd sing it, and he'd sing it, and he'd sing it, and he'd sing it during a building campaign. Yeah, for whatever reason, you know, I said that was ironic. "Can I say why you may be missing the point?"

But he would say, "I can't stand the music. I can't stand your hair." This is when my hair was longer. "I can't stand your hair. I don't like the way we dress. I don't like anything about it. But I love seeing the young people and the young families here, so I'll put up with all of that so we can reach them." That's the right attitude.

The Fruit of the Spirit

Now there's a great contrast here. Mark, will you? In James, just keep your finger there and turn to the left to the book of Galatians. I mentioned it this morning, so let's hang there. You're going left is where you're going—Ephesians, Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5 verse 22 is that passage—it's the fruit of the Spirit.

James has said there's a problem among you because you're feeding your own pleasures. In James chapter 5 he says in verse 18, "Be led by the Spirit." Now he says that after he makes the point. Let's just go to verse 16. We'll just do it all the way through.

"For I say walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh, for the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. There's the war. That's the war you're in. But if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law."

The Fruit of the Flesh

Now if you were to drop down to verse 22, that's typically what we do there and we list the fruit of the Spirit. But in verse 19, 20, and 21 he gives us the fruit of the flesh. So if I'm living even as a follower of Christ, if I'm living fleshly in that earthly natural demonic wisdom, here's what I'm going to see in my life: immorality and impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery. Now we're into enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissension, envy.

All those same things - that's exactly the point that James is making. He said, "I'm writing to you in this church and here there are all these quarrels, all these arguments, all these conflicts. What's causing them? It's not the music. It's not the seats. What is it? Your hearts not right. Your hearts not right."

What Really Matters

It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. All of a sudden somebody will have a tragedy in their life and they'll say, "You know what? These other things don't matter anymore."

Every year, I mean, it's inevitable. It's every year, usually in the spring, we'll have a high school student that's killed in one of our two or three high schools. It's always in an automobile accident and usually at noon. It's almost always the same. And all these people will say, or they'll have a friend that dies suddenly, they'll say, "Oh that just reminds me of how fragile life is."

Why are you waiting for the end? Are you waiting for that reminder? Don't you understand it now? Can you get it now? The chairs don't matter. The music doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if they're shorts or pants or long hair or tattoos or piercings. It doesn't matter. Let it go. What matters is the gospel. That we hear the gospel. That's what matters. And all the other things, they get taken care of.

We're fighting and fighting and fighting about nothing. So when that guy said to me, "Why do you think we're not very appealing to the outside world?" I'm saying, "Why would you want to come into this? It's like being born into a screwed-up family. Except in this case you're voluntarily joining. Why would you join an organization like that? They don't even get along with each other. I don't want to be part of that." That's what the church is supposed to be.

The Source of the Problem

He says here's the problem. Back to James, here's the problem: you're just following your own instincts. You have lust - again, that's not a sexual thing. That's this desire, this own personal desire. You have this desire. You lust and do not have, so you commit murder. You're not talking about physical murder here. You begin that character assassination. You begin this idea of just talking, tearing people apart. And you're envious and you can't obtain it, so you fight and you quarrel.

And you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasure. This is very strong language: "You adulterous! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."

He said here's the problem: it's totally selfish.

Prayer and Motives

It sounds a lot to me like when Jesus is talking about prayer. Prayer's one of those things that to me is very confusing. If you say to somebody, "Are you happy with your prayer life?" no one says yes. We have this idea when we pray. We read verses like "You have not because you ask not." Okay. But then you also say, "You ask and you don't get it." Why? You have the wrong motives. Or you ask and you don't ask in line with God's will. I find that whole topic, if I sit and dwell on it, to be really confusing.

My prayer life, I happen to think, is pretty good. I'm not sure you would agree. Honestly, if you would, I'm not a person who spends a whole bunch of time necessarily on my knees. I think I'm praying pretty continually. I'm walking down Hemlock today, and I'm praying while I'm walking. And I'm asking God, "I need wisdom in this. I'm trying to figure this out. I'm over here, God. God, you're an incredible God. Look at the creation all around you."

I keep coming back - Susan's not here tonight, so again I'll talk about her again, and I try not to wear that out, but it's so real to me. I pray - the appropriate thing to say is I pray every day. I don't, but I pray most days for her, and I pray for her healing. But I don't get those words out of my mouth or out of my mind before I'm saying, "But God, you may not want her healed. If you know this is - if you want her dead, I want her dead."

Can you handle that? I don't want her dead. My preference is that she would be like the Susan that was there five years ago. Physically she's not, and she's never going to be. But that's my preference. My preference is that she would live a long and healthy and fruitful life. But you know what, God? If you want her to suffer and die, then I want her to suffer and die. Not in a vindictive way, but God, ultimately what I want is what you want.

You pray like that? That's what He's saying. Somewhere I've got to get beyond me.

Looking at Yourself

Here's what he says: when you and I are acting this way in this frivolous way that has all sorts of discord around you, if you're one of those people that all the relationships just seem to have tension in them - there's tension at work, there's tension in the family, there's tension at church, there's tension everywhere - you've got to look at you and ask, "Are you the source of that tension? Is it you that's causing that?" Because if you are, you need to confess it as sin.

The Dangers of Worldly Thinking

You need to understand you're living for yourself. You're thinking just like the world. You're right back—see how this connects? I think that when this letter was written, there weren't chapters and verses attached to it. We've added those. So these thoughts can appear somewhat disconnected simply because we break them by headings and chapters and verses.

Well, he's exactly carrying out what he said in chapter 3 verse 14 and 16. You are an adulterous of the world. You're thinking natural, earthly, demonic. You're not thinking supernatural here. You're thinking naturally, and you've become a friend of the world.

You better understand something. Verse 5: "The scripture speaks to no purpose. He jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us." God is a jealous God. God wants us to be friend—the word that's translated friend there means close interpersonal relationship. Are you a friend of the world or a friend of God? You can't be both.

No Neutrality with Jesus

Jesus said it this way: "You can't serve two masters. Love one, hate the other." Get it? Black and white, either-or. Jesus is not got a lot of gray in His teaching. You're either for me or against me. There's no spiritual Switzerland here. There's not a neutrality option. There's not the option to say maybe, if, or sort of, maybe, perhaps.

When He comes back in verse 6 and He says, "But he gives a greater grace. Therefore it says God is opposed to the proud and gives grace to the humble." God isn't neutral either. He's opposed to the proud. He's drawing this distinction.

Here you go. We'll do the old junior high, high school. If we were to say here's where the world was in their view in 1950, and here's where the church was, they were in our culture and pretty close. We kind of agree to that sort of, for discussion purposes. Though the world has moved way over here, and I would suggest to you the church is right there with them. What has happened is that the world has become a little churchy, but the church has become very worldly.

Cultural Relevance vs. Worldliness

Now I'm all for—somebody asked the question this morning, "You seem to really be into cultural relevance." I'm all for relevant. Oh my golly, somebody came to me because one of our core values is relevance, and somebody came to me and said, "I object to that core value." I said, "Okay, I understand that. What's the alternative? Irrelevant?" I mean, you want us to put here—how about that core value number seven: "We desire to be irrelevant."

What they're afraid of is that to be relevant, you walk away from the doctrine and become just like the world. I don't think Paul did that, did he? We don't have to give up the gospel.

When Paul came into Athens—it's really an interesting time. Paul's actually, if you read through Acts chapter 17, Paul's killing time basically. He's waiting for the guys to come and get him. He's walking through town, and he gets invited down to speak to the best and the brightest minds in Athens.

Paul's Example of Cultural Relevance

He says to them, "You know what? You are a spiritual people. I was walking through your town today, and I saw a statue to the unknown God. That God that you've worshipped in ignorance—that's the God I want to talk to you about."

Now I want you to see something that drips with cultural relevance. See how relevant that is? He didn't say, "You come up to my level." He said, "Hey, I understand your culture enough to know that you got a statue to an unknown God, and my connection point to you is your culture, your God that you worship, that unknown God. That's the God I want to talk about." He didn't come in and give him some big old sermon about Jesus that wouldn't mean anything to him.

The world and church have become—I'm not saying make the church like the world, but I'm saying you better understand the culture you live in, or you're totally irrelevant. You're absolutely irrelevant. You're answering a bunch of questions that nobody's asking.

Understanding a Hurting World

This world is screaming for hope. I was talking this morning with Brandon, and we were talking about—I don't know if you all like Johnny Cash or not. I like Johnny Cash. Right before he died, Johnny Cash took a Nine Inch Nails song, the song "Hurt." Johnny Cash took the song "Hurt" and Johnny Cash did it. If you're a computer person, YouTube "Johnny Cash Hurt," and that video is awesome.

Well, that video—those words are written by a rock group, and they will tell you what this—in fact, they said, "I cut myself just to see if I can hurt anymore. Do I have any feelings left at all?" That's the world you're in now. You bring Jesus into that culture. To be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God, but to understand the world for the cause of Christ, we have no problem with it.

I'm sorry, but this just drives me nuts. If you're sending somebody to Zimbabwe, you spend six months preparing them culturally to go to Zimbabwe: do this, don't do this, move this over here, don't do that. But now we come to the church, and it's like we're afraid. Don't be afraid of the world. You've got the truth. They don't. Their ideas will just fall away. Take God, take the gospel to the marketplace.

God's Opposition to Pride

Now understand this in the context of what he's talking about. You guys in this body—he's talking about you're arguing. What's the source of that argument? You're selfish. You're prideful. God is opposed to the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.

So obviously the answer to that is to respond in verses 7, 8, 9, and 10. There are 10 commands in there. I'll read them to you with a little emphasis on them: Submit 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 sinner, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable. Mourn, weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He'll exalt you.

There's ten commands in there that he gives you in those four verses, and the first one is submit.

The Problem with Teaching Hard Words

I know this firsthand. One day I was teaching Ephesians 5, and it has in it this verse you most of you know. In fact, I'll just start and then you finish: "Wives..." What is it? "Submit to your husbands."

So I'm teaching along and I'm rocking and rolling and I'm moving along pretty well. I get home and Susan said, "How'd the study go today?" I said, "Kind of weird really." She said, "Well, what was it?" I said, "Well, it's Ephesians 5 and wives submit to your husbands." She said, "What do you mean weird?" I said, "Well the women didn't respond very well." She said, "Well, how did you teach it?" I said, "Well I said what part of submit don't you understand? Listen, submit is what it says." She said, "Did you teach it like that?" I said, "Yeah." She said, "Do you think maybe that's the problem?" I said, "No, I just think they have hard hearts." She said, "I think it's you, slick. I think there's a better way to teach it."

Looking for Loopholes

The next week I go to a Bible study and they're teaching Romans 13 for us to submit to the government. All of a sudden I saw the comparison. Because when I said wives submit to your husbands, this is exactly how it goes: "Wives submit to your husbands." "I have a question." "What's the question?" "What if my husband is stupid and he doesn't make right decisions?" "Well, you married the guy didn't you?" "Yeah." "Well, okay. That's what you're gonna get—stupid and wrong decisions." "I have a question." Well, I mean they're looking for the loophole and this is not it.

Then I saw with the government: "Submit to the government." "I have a question." "What if the government is wasting our money?" Really, there's a brain teaser for you. "What if they're doing things I disagree with?"

We're always—here's the deal. Submission reveals our heart. It means line up under. Wives submit to your husbands. "What if he's a jerk?" Doesn't say anything about that. "What if he's stupid?" You picked him. I mean, I don't know how to get around this. You keep looking for the exception to this thing. You're supposed to line up under him. Submit to the government. "Well, what if they're a lousy government?" A lousy government is better than no government at all.

The rule of thumb on this is: unless they're asking you to do something God commands you not to do, or they command you to do something God forbids, unless it's one of those, you submit to them.

Submit to God

Submit. That's what I said: "Submit therefore to God." Now when you just read that hanging there by itself, it doesn't sound so bad. But when you put it in the context of pride, you begin to see what He's saying here. Submit to God—it's the one true authority. Submit to Him in all things. He knows what's best. He knows what's best for you. Submit to God.

But that's only the beginning: "Submit therefore to God and then also resist the devil." Resist that—and we've talked about it already—that angel of light, that subtle serpent, that roaring lion, that evil one. The word literally means slanderer or accuser.

The Devil as Accuser

I give you what to me is kind of an insight that came to me this week—or actually a while ago and I just reread my notes again this week. This idea of the devil is the accuser. It's not just Him accusing us before God. It's him accusing us to ourselves, and it's him accusing God before us. "Your God doesn't really—if your God really loved you, do you think He'd let you suffer like this?" See that kind of thing? "You think you can sin like that and God's still gonna love you?"

I cannot say this to you enough. I say this almost every week in church: There's nothing you can do to make God love you more. There's nothing you can do to make God love you less. Don't you let the evil one get in there and start playing that game with you.

Resist and Draw Near

Resist him. It connotes to me a battle, warfare, an enemy that's out to destroy you. Resist him, flee from him, run from him. "Resist the devil and he'll flee from you." But like we said this morning, you don't leave a vacuum—you draw near to God. You begin to immerse yourself in the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then He just talks about a process here: "Cleanse your hands, you sinners! Purify your hearts, you double-minded!"

The Problem with Avoiding Sin

I haven't been to a testimonial dinner or breakfast or outreach in a long time, but I went through a stretch where I went to 13 consecutive testimonies, and of the 13, 12 times the speaker never mentioned the word sin. Now, how can I communicate a gospel of good news to you if I don't first communicate to you the bad news that you're a sinner? You're lost, helpless, but not hopeless.

Submit to God, resist the devil, flee, run. "Purify yourselves, you double-minded!"

Be Miserable and Mourn

And then when He gets to verse 9—I've never once seen verse 9 on a screensaver: "Be miserable and mourn and weep." Be miserable. It's used here the only time in the New Testament. In the New Testament it has this idea of brokenness.

Charles Spurgeon wrote this: "There is a vital connection between soul distress and sound doctrine. Sovereign grace is dear to those who have groaned deeply because they see the grievous sinners they are."

Doctrine Matters

I'm a big doctrine guy. Doctrine has got a bad rap. You say "doctrine" and people have one of two reactions. They'll kind of go, "Ugh," or they'll go, "Oh, it doesn't matter." Well yes, it matters—not for the sake of knowing it, but for the sake of the practical application.

When I understand the sovereignty of God, which is what this whole book is about, when I understand the sovereignty of God, I can endure a trial because I know He's in control. I know it's not an accident. When we say God causes or allows everything, it puts Him on the throne. This really matters.

This is not about—I couldn't care less about a doctrinal argument for the sake of a doctrinal argument. If it doesn't have a practical ramification to it, then I don't care. That's where I am on it sometimes, and I know some of you are really into that. I'm not putting that down.

It just doesn't float my boat at all. So you'll say when you think He's coming again. Don't know, don't care. But when you start to talk about certain doctrinal truths that really matters. Not to win an argument about a doctrinal truth, but because it makes a difference in how I live.

If you don't think God is in control, if you think everything is just chance, if you think somehow in your own brilliance and intuition and all this stuff you figured out the gospel and came to Him, if you think you produce on your own that mustard seed, your God is not as big as you're going to need Him to be. He's too small. You'll see you're not that big a sinner at that point. If your sin isn't very big then you don't need a very big Savior.

But when you understand that we are utterly, totally, completely lost—we are dead in our sins and trespasses—and in spite of us, not because of us, He chose us to be safe, when all of a sudden I get that truth drilled in my brain, my God gets bigger and bigger and bigger and I get smaller and smaller and smaller. That's why the doctrine matters. That's why the doctrine matters on a day-to-day basis.

When Life Gets Real

When all of a sudden you're screaming because somebody stuck you like a pig out here, and you've got some real problem in your life, the size of your God is going to matter a ton. I can give you all sorts of instances, but might I? We get a call one night. I'm going to give you all the details—we got five minutes. Susan and I are out of town, separate places. My daughter's been in a car wreck. She's having brain seizures and she's in critical, critical condition in intensive care. Gut-wrenching.

But I never once went, "Oh my, where's God?" That's like 9-eleven. Where's God on 9-eleven? Same place He was on 9-10 and 9-12—on the throne. I'm not minimizing that event. We have 9-elevens every day, we just don't have them corporately. That doesn't mean God's distracted. He's a mighty God, an awesome God, an omnipresent God, an all-powerful God, a God who loves and cares and is in control.

You know what that is? It's all doctrine. It's all doctrine. It matters. That's what He's saying.

The Call to Mourning

He said, "Listen, I want you to be miserable and to mourn and to weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom." Well, I'm not sure I want that. What is it? What's He talking about? Are we supposed to just be these sorrowful people that walk around?

I think some churches have, by the way, taken James chapter 4 verse 9 and made it their church verse. He's not saying we walk around and never laugh. I mean, I love having fun. I love messing around. I love joking. I love all of these things. He's not saying that. He's saying I want you to see yourself as you really are—how hopeless and helpless you are on your own. I want you to be broken.

Those are powerful words: "I want you to be miserable and mourn and weep." I don't want you skipping through life in some frivolous way, laughing away through it—"it's no big deal, boys will be boys, that's just the way it is." That is not what God wants. He wants a heart that's broken and contrite over our sin. Yet in the midst of that there's joy. Why? Because in spite of us He's delivered us.

Living Differently

Now He's saying, and we close now, He's saying live that way. Don't go acting like the old guy. Don't act like the old Tom. What's the old Tom like? Bitter jealousy, selfish ambition. I want my way. So we're going to argue, we're going to fight, we're going to battle, we're going to have these little turf wars. It doesn't matter.

Be broken over your own sin. Understand that what drives so much of that in your life—those battles in your life—what drives so much of that is jealousy, selfish ambition. I want my way. But now I let go. It doesn't matter. All that is, is my sin. All that is, is me wanting what I want when I want it, just like a little kid.

He's saying you know what? God's opposed to that behavior—not neutral. But you come running to Him, He'll give grace to you. Humble yourself, yield, submit to Him, and He'll exalt you at just the proper time. Pretty cool how He ties all that together, pretty amazing how He begins to bring all of those together.

Life as Vapor

Then it is not coincidental that He goes right from this—and we'll pick up tomorrow—we have two more sessions as a group together, tomorrow morning, tomorrow night. But in verse 13, He says listen, "We'll go to such-and-such a city, make a profit there." Verse 14: "Your life is but a vapor."

That's what it is. So you're fighting these battles, you're digging your heels in, you are resisting, you're warring and arguing, and none of it matters. Now we have to identify those things that we never compromise—the gospel, never compromise the truth. Never in a million years do we change the guts of the message, but the methods change moment by moment, really depending upon who I'm with.

I'll talk about that. That's very heavy. That's heavy tonight. You seem very quiet tonight. That's heavy stuff, isn't it? That's right in my—I don't know about you—that's right in my face because I want my way. My tendency is to try to put, bathe it in prayer and all this other stuff. "Well, I've prayed about this and I think the chairs stink." That kind of thing. That's silly when we say it out loud. If we could just listen to ourselves, we'd go "really?" Well, let's not do that.

The Need for Eternal Perspective

Here's a key for us, and that's to somehow get an eternal perspective on our life. We'll pick up—and then obviously tomorrow we'll finish up chapter 4 and chapter 5 in our time tomorrow.

Father, thank You for these amazing truths, God. That is for me kind of right in my face. Remind us there's nothing wrong with...

Father, help us understand that it better be the truth that we're standing up for, not our own preference. God, the gospel is what we care about. Now let me personalize it: break my heart, humble me before You. Let me be Your kid who serves You Your way. Ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Have a great night.