Blue Jean Theology Part 12
Tom Shrader examines James 4:1-10, addressing the root cause of conflict among believers: selfish pride and friendship with the world. He emphasizes that true transformation begins with submitting to God, resisting Satan in God's strength, and drawing near to God through genuine repentance. Shrader warns against self-reliance and calls for authentic humility that leads to God's exaltation.
“You cannot be a friend of the world's value systems and the world's philosophies and a friend of God's.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Blue Jean Theology (2011)
Recorded: 1996
Duration: 42 min
Themes: humility, pride, conflict, worldliness, submission, prayer, repentance, selfishness, struggling with pride, church conflict, new believer, feeling spiritually dry, pastor, christian leader, parent, young adult
Scripture: James 4:1-10, James 1, James 3, Exodus 20, Matthew 5, Ephesians 5, Ephesians 6, Romans 13, Isaiah 6, 2 Corinthians 7:9-10
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual warfare, biblical authority, genuine repentance, divine sovereignty, christian maturity, submission to god, resist satan
Full Transcript
We're navigating our way through the book of James, and a couple of surprises have come up. Last week we did not cover near the material I thought we would, and the same thing happened this week. Yesterday morning we took a couple of side trips, so we didn't get some material covered that needs to get covered. We'll see what happens today. I don't want to bore you and I don't want to take you through a lot of repetitious stuff, but some of this needs to be repeated, and very honestly I need to say it every week.
If we go around the room, this is a pretty steady group, but even in this, quite a few of you were not here last week. Today at noon it's literally 40% turnover, and that's why we have to do some of the repetition.
The Purpose of James
Here's what you need to remember: In the book of James, as James writes, he's writing for a purpose. The purpose is not to tell us how or what we need to do to be a Christian. He's not saying do this, do this, do this, do this and you will be saved. That's not what he's saying.
What he's saying is, if you are a Christian, then these are the things you should see in your life. He's writing to this specific group because there's a problem, and the problem is they are hearers of the word, but not doers. They hear this stuff, but there's no action. As we look and navigate our way through the book, James is dealing with the remedies as well as the manifestation of those problems.
Two Ways of Life
Last week he got into this idea of worldliness. He said there's all sorts of quarrels among you, there's all sorts of problems here, and they flow out of one particular thing: you are really selfish.
The idea was introduced at the end of chapter 3 when James says there are two types of ways to approach life. One's natural, one's supernatural. One's earthly, one's heavenly. One's demonic and one's godly. We spent a great deal of time on this. He said the natural, earthly, demonic way of life will produce jealousy and selfish ambition.
Now he's not just talking about those people out there in the stinking rotten world. He's talking now to Christians, and boom, here he comes in verse 1 of chapter 4. He says there are quarrels and there's strife and there's conflicts among you, and here's the reason why: You are pursuing your own pleasure. You have become arrogant.
The Supreme Act of Arrogance
The supreme act of arrogance is right there in verse 2. I bet you don't see it. Boy are they arrogant people. They've got things they need and they don't even ask. They don't even think to go to God.
There's something about prayer, and when we start talking about prayer, oftentimes we forget that our approach there is not to try to manipulate or to maneuver God. It's for us to begin by acknowledging who He is and who we are. That's how prayer begins. That's why I'm in an act of constant prayer as I'm continually going to Him.
The guy that doesn't pray is the guy that says, "I don't need anybody, I don't need anything. I'm a self-made person. I'll pull myself up by my own bootstraps." Those are the guys that at the end of their life usually come up short.
Here is another problem: Even when you do ask, you ask with the wrong motives because you're out for yourself. That's all you care about. You're selfish.
The Thread of Selfishness
See how that links together? See that thread that started all the way in chapter 1 and it runs all the way to the end of the book? Even in the midst of this, here's the problem: When you do ask, you're asking for your own good, for your own self, not for God's motive.
Then he says, "You whore, you adulteress." If you are—and here's the principle that we looked at last week—if you are a friend of the world, you're an enemy of God. It is so important to understand that these things are mutually exclusive. You cannot be a friend of the world's value systems and the world's philosophies and a friend of God's. They are in opposition to one another. The world hates God.
Spirituality Versus Godliness
Now they may cling—that's what Paul said in 1 Timothy 3—in the last days people will be lovers of self, but they'll cling to a form of godliness. There'll be lots of spirituality. That's the new buzzword.
I mean, the lady whose daughter and husband were killed in the plane crash—your heart has to break for her—she is a very spiritual person. But I watched her for a half hour yesterday and she is wacko. I mean, this lady is goofy. I grieve for her and I feel sorry for her. Having said that, here's what she would say: "Well, he chooses to live in that and I choose to not live there." I don't even know what we're talking about, but that's how she's talking. She's steeped in spirituality. She wouldn't know Christ if He walked in the door today.
But the whole world is becoming very spiritual. There's a big difference between being spiritual and being godly. Most spirituality that you see around you is actually just a form of worldliness, kind of cleaned up so you feel good about it.
God's Jealousy
Once I am a friend of the world, I'm an enemy of God, and I need to know something. Number one: God is a jealous God. We hear that and we're not always comfortable with that because we tend to think of jealousy in a bad way.
Years ago, when Susan and I were dating—I am pretty good, I think, at giving dating advice. I'm really lousy as a date, which shouldn't surprise anybody. But we're dating and this was probably in my worst time. I was drinking a lot and we were dating, and all of a sudden, I think Susan saw that perhaps I was not the ticket to happiness and peace. So she started dating this other guy. He graduated from Notre Dame and he did his master's work at SCS. This guy was just a loser.
So we're dating and she's dating, and I said to her the very things—in fact, there may even be someone in this room that I have advised you to not...
do this. I said to her, "This is killing me. It's either him or me. You got to make a decision." Really stupid - I've got no leverage here. It's a dumb thing. In retrospect, it's a pretty easy call, and she said, "Tom, I don't think you want me to make that decision." I said, "I can't handle this. I am insecure as can be and this is killing me. I'm going nuts."
Well, at the time, I lived in an apartment - that's how I met her. I lived in apartment 202, then it was like a rec room, and then she lived in apartment 201. So we go out, we have an awful time. It's just the date from hell - everything is wrong, everything is lousy. At the end, the next day when I see her, I said, "Okay, that is it. It's either me or this other guy." So I came home and she said, "Okay, that's fine. I'll make a decision tomorrow."
So I came home Monday night at 5 o'clock and the loser's car is over there, and I'm thinking, "Uh-oh." So then it's 5:30, then it's 6 o'clock, then it's 6:30, then it's 7. I'm thinking, how long can it take to say, "You lose, get out"? I don't understand. And now it's 7:15, 7:30, 7:45, and it's clear to me that my worst nightmare is coming true.
And then I hear this at the door - this is in the old days in the apartments when they had that thumb push, that ding-ding, that cheap little bell. So I hear this and I open it up and she's there. I said, "Oh, well, how are you doing?" She said, "Fine. I've made a decision." I said, "Okay." And she said, "I've decided not to date him anymore and I'm going to date you." I said, "Hey, who didn't know that? I mean, like that was a big decision." And that was it for me - I haven't had a date since then, and God has spared me from that hell. But I was riddled with jealousy.
God's Righteous Jealousy
So when I say God is a jealous God, I tend to flash back to that experience, that awful experience. That's not - I was jealous only because I was afraid this guy would get something that I wanted. I was jealous in a selfish position. God is jealous in a righteous way.
We're first introduced to this concept in Exodus 20 when Moses receives the Ten Commandments and He's told, "I am the Lord your God. I want no other gods ahead of you, ahead of Me. I am a jealous God." God is saying, "I want what is best for you, and what's best for you is for Me to be your God." That's what He says.
And then it introduces us to the object we looked at last week. He said this: "Listen, God gives grace. God is opposed to the proud and gives grace to the humble." There is the issue right there. The bottom line core issue with these people, and the reason that their life is in the condition it is, is because they are selfish, proud people.
The Path from Worldliness to Peace
So now here's the situation. James talks about worldliness, then he talks about its characteristics or how it starts to look. Here's what you see around you: strife and conflict and jealousy and selfish ambition. But what we said last week is, I want to know how to fix this. I want to know how to move from a position of strife and jealousy and selfish ambition, and I want to be a man or a woman of God. I want to know how to live in peace and harmony. How does that happen?
Here's the answer right here in the next four verses: "Submit therefore to God, resist the devil and he'll flee you. Draw near to God and He'll draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, you double-minded." Here's the process that He gives you right there, and it begins with submitting to God.
The Problem with Submission
Now whenever we hit this word "submit," we have to take just a little time because the word in and of itself is problematic. I learned this kind of the hard way. I was teaching Ephesians 5, that has, to me, a verse that makes an awful lot of sense in it, that goes like this - it's interesting, all the laughs are high-pitched - "Wives submit to your husbands."
So I remember I'm teaching through a study, and so I teach, "Wives submit to your husbands." I just teach it. I mean, it's kind of obvious, and I spent a lot of time on it because it seemed like a very important verse. So when I was done and went home, I said to Susan, "These women are really uptight. Holy cow, are they uptight." She said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, I talked to them about submission, and whew, are they uptight!" And she said, "Well, how did you present it?" I said, "You know, it's kind of the way it says. I mean, how would you present it? Wives submit to your husbands. It's not like we need to have a discussion question."
She said, "Well, maybe the way you presented it was the problem." I said, "I doubt that. I don't think so. I think women are just uptight about this." Well, then I was in another study not long after that teaching "submit to your government." Here's what I found out: everybody's uptight about that. Then in an extraordinary act of intellectual power, I said, "Maybe the problem is submission." And that's exactly what the problem is.
When I teach "wives submit to your husband," by the way, we never have backed off from that. We will when God does, but to this point, He has not. And I know, especially in a culture that we live, many of you, men and women, and both to your shame, have said, "We've got to get rid of it." And I have friends who are pastors that talk about this submission as though it were archaic.
You cannot take it out of there. "Wives submit to your husband." If you want to erase that and say, "Well, that's a cultural thing," then I think the next thing is cultural: "Husbands, love your wives." Let's throw them all out. We're going to start throwing them out. Let's throw them all out of there. "Wives submit to your husbands." What it says is, God's got an order for the family, and here's the way it goes: husband, wife. It's not a matter here of equality. It's a matter of role.
And the fundamental problem is, I don't want to submit to anybody. So the same thing happens over here in Romans 13: "Submit to your government."
If I say, "Wives submit to your husbands," the first thing is, I've got a question. What if he's not—what if I shouldn't submit to him? What if he's not good? What if he's not holy? What if he's not a righteous man? What if he's not a Christian? What if this guy's not a good guy? I would say, "Well, I have a question. Why would you have married him?" But that's kind of a side issue.
And now that you've got this guy, here's what it says: "Wives submit to your husbands." It doesn't say "if." Submit to your government. I've got a question. What's the question? What if they're spending money on nuclear weapons that I think are immoral? Let me see what it says: "Submit to your government."
The Heart Issue with Submission
See, the problem here is we don't want to submit to anything, because I don't want anybody to tell me what to do. And this whole thing of submission only comes into play when I've got somebody over me in authority who's making decisions I don't want him to make.
I will tell you what I think about submission in terms of what it truly is, because when I taught "Wives Submit to Your Husbands," I got a question I really didn't anticipate. One of the ladies said, "Give me an example of the way Susan is submitted to you." Good question. And I said, "Wow, let me think about it. I can't think of one." Because I think, although it ends up eventually being an action, submission is really an attitude. It's really something that I know.
I know that when we're in the midst of making two or three decisions right now, we're trying to figure out a car thing, and we're trying to figure out about eight of these deals. And I know that right, wrong, or indifferent, she's going to give me all her input. We're going to get all the facts together. And then she's going to say, "You're the head of the house, it's your decision." It's an attitude. She understands that. And I accept that.
I would rather have her make the decisions, because then when it doesn't work, I can go, "I told you so. I told you that wasn't going to work." By the way, submission says I don't do that either. I've made a lot of lousy decisions. Never once has she said, "I told you so." Now she does have a little look that is kind of the equivalent of that "I told you so."
Divine Order Flows from Submission to God
So same thing with the government. Well, all of that submission—wife submit to husband, submit to this, submit all these. And it's the same thing: employees submit to the employers. I mean, all that submission flows out of and is based on submitting to God, lining up.
That word "submit" means to line up under. This is not a Tarzan-Jane thing. This is a proper godly, divine order of things. And it starts with you and I submitting to God. It is not natural; it is supernatural.
How do I know it's not natural? Look at all of these religions. Look at this New Age stuff. How good a deal, and if you think about this, cost-benefit selling, how good a deal is this New Age thing? They don't come to you and say, "You're a sinner and you're a mess." Here's what they do: they come and say, "You are God." And they think it appeals to pride. That's all that New Age thing is. It's just pure, unadulterated pride. You get to be God. You're the captain of your ship. You're the master of your fate. You're in control here.
Orthodox Christianity doesn't say that. Orthodox Christianity says, "If God helps those who help themselves, then you just go ahead. God doesn't get involved." God doesn't help those who help themselves. God says, "You want to help yourself? Godspeed, John Glenn. Go ahead. Go get them, buddy. Go get them, tiger. Right down the toilet you go." I start by submitting to Him.
Resisting the Devil Requires Submission to God
Then I resist the devil. We are at two poles in the Christian world. One is the pole that says, "The devil is everywhere. He's in the overhead. He's in the slide. He's in the thing." And if everything—all of a sudden, the escalator is broken—"Satan is trying to keep people from the study." The escalator broke. Get a life. And all of a sudden, we've got all these—no.
So you've got that one side, but you have equally dangerous the other side. Last Gallup poll said that among evangelical Christians, 72% said that they did not believe Satan existed, but that there was a force of evil, but not a person called Satan. Well, how easy a victim are you if you're fighting a war against somebody that you don't even think exists? I mean, it's one thing if you know the burglar's out there, and you're locking the doors and turning on the alarm and getting a gun because you know he's there. But how easy pickings are you if the windows are open to get the late night breeze, and you don't even think he's there?
I am to resist the devil. Now, here's the key: I can't resist him. I think there's some sequence here. I can't resist him until I submit to God.
Fighting in God's Strength, Not Our Own
While the devil is not God, he's not omnipresent, he's not all-powerful, he's not omniscient, he's a lot stronger than you, and he will beat your brains out every time. So the way that I resist the devil is to cover myself in God's strength and to obey Him.
He didn't leave us alone. He gave us, Ephesians 6, a full armor to put on: breastplate of righteousness, and the helmet of salvation, all of those different elements. And the only offensive element He gave us was a sword, which Paul says in Ephesians 6 is the Word of God.
So when now I'm going to resist the devil, I'm coming at him with all the force that God can muster. I'm standing in God's strength, not mine. I've submitted myself to God, and I've put on the helmet of salvation, and I've got the Word of God, and now as Satan comes at me, and evil comes at me, and his demons come at me—and they will—I'm armed, not in my own strength, but in God's armor.
And when I resist him, ultimately he will flee. He'll come back again, but he'll flee, because the war is never over. What are the stakes? They're pretty serious. Here's how Jesus described Satan: He said he is a liar, and a murderer, and a thief, and he's out to destroy.
What's interesting is Satan oftentimes comes under the spirit of love. "I love you, man." That's what Satan says. "I love you. I love you so much that I'd never put silly, goofy restrictions on you. You're 40 years old, so you're single. Why shouldn't you enjoy the pleasures of sex? I love you. I want you to enjoy that."
And he's robbing you of the greatest pleasure that you'll ever know, which is being right in the middle of God's will physically. He's a liar. He tells you, "Just work hard. Bust your pick. Get this stuff. Close this deal. Come over there, and then you'll be happy." And then the deal closes, and you go, "You know what? This wasn't so good."
We had a guy, a young salesman. Every person in here has been down this road. He came in two weeks ago. He said, "Well, you need to be praying for me today, because today I'm making my presentation, and I think I've got a shot at making my first sale." So I said—and here's what I've done, because I know I won't pray for him later—I'll pray right then. So he's gone. I said, "Okay, Father, now he really needs help today. Give him wisdom. Give him the right thing."
And he came in the other day. I saw him. I said, "How'd it go?" He said, "I got the sale." "Well, you don't seem very enthused about it." He said, "My manager was with me, and here's what he said: 'One sale does not a career make.'" I've had so many of those meetings, it isn't even funny. Which, by the way, is a great example of how not to manage. That's the style that went out in 1950, by the way. Rather than build this guy up and edify him, what you've just convinced him is the rest of his time with your company is going to be awful, because even if he makes the deal, there's no end to it. There's no satisfaction.
See, that's that lie from the pit of hell that says there's an end to this, and you'll find meaning there. You can't get it. He'll flee you.
Drawing Near to God
Now, He says, "Draw near to God, and He'll draw near to you." Then becomes this process. I'm going to take all of verse 8 at the same time. Then becomes this process of "cleanse your hands and purify your heart. You're double-minded." The problem is this: You and I are sinners, and we draw near to God, and there's a process involved, and it all starts with understanding who He is and who we are.
Matthew 5, at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does the Beatitudes, and in the Beatitudes, you will see a sequential build there. It's a microcosm, really, of the qualities you see in the person of Christ, but they're the qualities that need to be present in your life. The first one is, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." That's where this whole thing begins.
Now, when we talk about poor in spirit in that culture, important to understand, these were people who were real beggars. They weren't standing on the island with a cardboard sign and 50 cents, saying, "Hey, make eye contact," and then working you for a buck. They weren't even going, "You got any spare change, man?" There's a certain sense, it seems to me, of boldness in that. These were people that would sit in the corner, kind of off out of the way, and they would beg. But as they begged, they would not even look at the people that they were begging from. They were so humbled by their circumstance, and their understanding of who they were, that they were literally bankrupt.
God says that our relationship with Him begins when we understand that in and of ourselves, we are spiritually bankrupt. You bring nothing to the party.
The Problem with Denying Sin
I'm going to read you a quote. And every time I do this, I always get mixed emotions, because should I tell you who it is or not tell you who it is? And if I tell you who it is, am I slandering that person? And I certainly don't want to do that, but I'm going to tell you who it is. And the reason is, I want you to see how foolish this thought process is, even among people that you might deem respectable.
Here's the quote: "I don't think anything has been done in the name of Christ or under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to the human personality, and hence, more counterproductive to the evangelical enterprise." So you got all that part? That was easy. "Then the often crude, uncouth, and unchristian strategy of attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition."
Do you get that? Here's what he's saying: I don't think there's been anything done in all of Christendom that's been more harmful to the human personality, and therefore, here's his phrase, "counterproductive to the evangelical enterprise" than—and here's what he says—"crude, uncouth, and unchristian strategy of saying you're lost in sinful condition." Thus says Robert Schuller.
Now here's the problem, and I'm not beating up Robert Schuller, and you're going to come running up there afterwards and telling me that your grandfather, your brother, your sister, and maybe you have just had your life massively impacted by Robert Schuller. I'm only saying to you, God can use anybody. That's how I would say it. That is not only bad teaching, that is anti-the gospel. That isn't neutral. That is anti-gospel.
The gospel, good news, begins with the bad news. The last—and I know it's 13 because I've counted them—the last 13 times I've been to a lunch or been to a breakfast to listen to somebody share their testimony. They were there to tell others how they came to Christ. 12 of the 13 never used the word sin. Now how can I tell someone who's lost and separated from God by their sin, how can I say here's the remedy if I don't—it all starts with understanding that you're a sinner. You don't need a savior if you don't understand you're lost.
And I'm not beating up—I'm sure Bob Schuller's done a lot of great things. Builds a mean building. But this is awful. This isn't—and I cannot be strong enough, and I can tell by some of your faces we're dealing with one of your icons here. This is not out of context. I have a lot of people that say, "Well, Tom, you don't—"
The gospel isn't meant to make people feel better about themselves through compromise. There's a great thing that goes on at the Crystal Cathedral, and what goes on up front is just appeal to the national audience and all the other things. Why do I have to appeal to somebody by taking the gospel and taking it away? What good does it do for some guy in Pratt, Kansas, to hear this message if in fact it's a wrong message? The guy that hears this message is further from Christ rather than closer to Him because he doesn't understand how sinful he is.
The Foundation of True Transformation
That's the problem. This whole thing starts right here. I cannot submit, and I cannot draw near, and I will not resist the devil under God's strength as long as I think I can do it. I've got to be stripped away. I have to understand that I am a lost, wretched, pond scum.
Now, some of you are here and haven't been here for a while and go, you have bad self-esteem. Let me introduce you to all my friends that say, I have too much self-esteem. I've got a real healthy self-esteem. I know exactly what I am. Without Him, I can do nothing. With Him, I can do a whole bucketload of things because it's not me, it's Him. When I understand who I am, now I can see this process of cleansing and purifying begin.
The Problem with Comparison
As long as I'm clinging to, you know what, see, here's how this works, here's how you get away with it. Your tendency is to look around and you go, well, I'm pretty bad, I'm pretty bad, but look at Him. Look at her. Look over there.
I remember a point. I was at a real low point in my life. This was when I was probably drinking pretty close to a quart of gin a day and pretty well messed up. Everybody wants to feel like you've got some value. I remember saying to a guy, you know, life stinks. I said, I don't think I have any value. I will never forget this. He said, Tom, don't ever think that. You have great value. You can always be used as a bad example. I thought, yeah, I've got value. Bad example. Look at that.
Well, even in that context, I could look around and find so many worse. Carlos is involved in the prison. Frank is dealing with these delinquent youths. If I go to the prison, I've got all these guys that have slashed and cut and killed a bunch of people, and they're standing in the corner going, well, at least I'm not a child molester. At least I'm not. Isn't that what they do? I'm not one of those guys. I might have done something. I might have robbed a bank, some corporate thing, but I never really stuck a knife in anybody's heart. Look at those killers over there. They're all going around the yard talking about how bad everybody else is.
See, as long as my vision is this way, I'm never going to come to grips with who I am. That's why the whole process runs circular. That's why the whole process goes back up to submit to God.
Isaiah's Revelation
It's Isaiah six, when all of a sudden, Isaiah, who's a prophet and a pretty good guy, he's got to be up there. He doesn't say it proudly, he just says, that's a fact. He's feeling pretty good about himself, and then he sees God. The first thing he says, remember what he says? The very first thing he says, woe to me, for I am undone. In other words, I thought I had my act together, I'm nowhere.
Now how did he get it? He didn't get it by looking around the community, he got it by looking up, and understanding who God was. In this, I get a whole cycle that never breaks.
True Repentance, Not Superficial Sorrow
Verse nine, now it's interesting, I've been in a lot of offices of men and women who love God and love the Word, I've never seen verse nine all typewritten, through the word processor, laminated, and on somebody's wall. Here it goes, be miserable and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
I've seen some churches that have adopted this as a life verse, but I've never seen an individual. Here's what he's saying, he's not saying that you should walk around and never laugh and never have fun. Good grief, have fun, lighten up, most of you are too serious anyway. Unfortunately, you don't take what you're supposed to be doing very seriously, but you take yourselves very seriously, which is not real good. But this will put it in perspective. He's talking here about real repentance, and you can see the flow here. When he's talking about cleanse and purify, he's talking about real repentance.
It's the same issue, very important verse, 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 10. Paul was dealing there with a church that had problems with morality. They had people, they had all sorts of problems. They were going to them and they were saying, listen, you got to knock that off. And they were wailing, we're so sorry.
Paul writes to them in 2 Corinthians 7, actually 9 and 10, and he says this, I'm glad that you're filled with sorrow. I only pray that it's the sorrow that leads to repentance in life.
Distinguishing Genuine Sorrow from Self-Pity
There's lots of people, and I've sat with lots of guys, and man, they can shed these crocodile tears. That's why being a judge would be a hard thing. Because you're kind of sitting there and you got this person, and they're crying all over, and you got to figure out, are they crying because they're really sorry, or are they crying because they got caught?
Even if they're really sorry, they still need to be punished. You still need to deal with them in a punitive way. The minute you take the judicial system and you make it sociological instead of punitive, you screw the whole thing up. So you need to punish them. But God says, I need to look at this, and I need to figure out here, am I dealing with sorrow that's earthly, or am I dealing with true repentance? The only way you're going to know is time. Time's going to reveal that.
So He puts a bow on it with this. He says, humble yourselves in the
presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. The whole thing continues, and it starts to feed on itself.
At the end of chapter one of his classic work on pursuit of God, A. W. Tozer ends every chapter, but this one obviously as well, with a prayer. Listen to his prayer. He said, "O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I'm ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the triune God, I want to want Thee. I long to be filled with longing. I thirst to be made more thirsty. Show me Thy glory, I pray, so that I may know Thee indeed."
The Progressive Nature of Sanctification
That's what he's saying here. This whole idea: there is a point in time in which I come into the family of God. It's a one-time act at which I'm converted and I'm saved. But this process of coming back and continually submitting and continually humbling myself and continually cleansing myself is exactly that. It's a continual sense. It's a progressive sense.
The closer I get to Him, the more sinful I see myself. That's why some of you - interesting phenomena, and if you haven't had a chance to talk it through, you're a little puzzled by it - because a couple of years ago, you came out of this stinking wretched life you were in, and you became a Christian. Now, you in your quiet, honest moments see yourself more sinful now as you develop in faith. A lot of these things are gone out of your life. What's happened?
Here's what's happening. The closer you draw to Him, the more light He lets shine in your life. The more He lets you see just how evil you really are, just how wretched you really are. Rather than drive you to despair, that drives you back to the foot of the cross. I humble myself again. I say, "Father, it's only by Your grace and only Your strength."
The Promise of Exaltation
Here's how He ends this section. He said, "Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you." I get real excited about the last part of that verse.
I have a theory. Again, ladies, I'll let you figure out your own deal. But for guys, I think there's a huge thing with guys where they really, truly want to leave this earth with people thinking that they've been here.
I have a friend who runs a small group over in Southern California. He runs a great small group. When you come in, every week there's a pop quiz. The quiz isn't some biblical thing, or it's not something to get you frustrated or to prove what you don't know. It's all these different questions.
I was over there one evening, and he said, "You want to go to the small group with me?" I said, "Not really." He said, "Come on. Let's go. You'll have a good time." I said, "Okay."
A Revealing Question About Fear
So we get in, and we sit down, and the pop quiz was, "When you were a kid, what were you afraid of?" That was a great question. They went around the room, and they got some high-powered developers and big-time lawyers and some insurance guys. Big hitters in this thing. These guys laid their guts out on the table. It was a terrific question.
Then he said, "Boy, that's really good. That's what you're afraid of. Now, what are you afraid of as an adult?" Already the guts were on the table, so they just threw it all out everywhere. I remember, because I'm thinking, "Wow, this is pretty interesting. I'll take some notes."
Then they said, "Tom, what are you afraid of?" I said, "I was afraid you were going to ask." I just can't stop it sometimes. I said, "I'll tell you what I was afraid of when I was a kid, and I don't remember a lot of different things, probably the standard things. But from the time that I can remember in a conscious way about seventh or eighth grade from then on, I've been afraid that I would make no difference in this world, that I would just pass through life, and one day they'd go, 'Oh, His grave's over there somewhere.'"
Now, that was driven by selfish arrogance for a long time. Here's what I've learned, and this is what we're going to talk about next week: you can be truly significant. You will not be significant just by making a lot of money or having a nice house. I'm not putting those things down. Those are fine. Good for you. I mean, I'm a big money guy. I love it. It's a good deal. We wouldn't be here today if people weren't writing checks for this to happen. So money's a big part. I'm against materialism, but not material things. That's a big distinction.
True Significance
But I will tell you this. If you want to be significant in life, truly significant, the only way you can be is to be a significant part of a significant work.
Here's the Amplified Translation. We'll let you go with verse 10: "Humble yourselves, feeling very insignificant in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. He will lift you up, and He will make your lives significant."
I believe that's what people want in a desperate way. I believe, and I think there's a growth, especially as we get older. Every seven and a half seconds, someone in this country turns 50. That's a big statistic. Every seven and a half seconds, somebody in this country turns 50.
I'm convinced these people are turning 50, and you know what they're saying? "This has been interesting for us, because we slept with and smoked with and snorted and shot everything we could in college. Then we went out and said, 'You know what? Maybe they're right. We'll put on the coat, we'll put on the tie, we'll be the corporate execs.' So now we're running all these businesses, and we're empty on both ends. Still a vacuum."
The Opportunity for Mission
See, if there is a - and there is. Let me back up. There is. There's a gigantic spiritual renewal going on. I don't think it's Christian revival, but there's a spiritual renewal going on.
If you want to be a missionary, I want to encourage you, and God's calling you to Zimbabwe, go. But I'll tell you, if you want to be a missionary, you got a mission field right here.
A Ripe Mission Field
There's a ripe mission field right down there in the high-rise corridor. These people are ready. They're sitting in the corporate towers going, "Hey, this isn't so great. This is no great deal."
You want to be significant? You have to be a significant part of the only thing that's truly significant on the planet. The only things truly significant are God, His Word, and people.
Living It Out
Next week we're going to look, as James tells us now, okay, since these things are true, how do we begin to live them out? How do they begin to affect our lives? We look at that next week.
Prayer
Father, help us see the world as You see it. Help us resist the temptation to be a friend of this world, and therefore be an enemy of Yours. But God, help us, draw us to love You and You alone. Let us find our meaning and our direction in life from You.
God, we pray that You would bring every person in this room to a point of understanding that we are wretched, lost, bankrupt people apart from Your Son. Help us see that until we understand that bad news, we can never come to the good news of the Gospel.
God, in our hearts, most of us really do want to be significant and really do want to play a significant role in this world. God, show us how. Use us. Give us the wisdom to understand what we're to do and the guts to do it. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.
See you next week.