During General Stonewall Jackson found himself on the wrong side of a river. He commanded his engineers to plan and build a bridge so the army could cross, he then told his wagon master that it was urgent the wagon train cross the river as soon as possible. The wagon master started gathering all the logs, rocks and fence rails he could find and built a bridge. Long before day light General Jackson was told by his wagon master all the wagons and artillery had crossed the river safely. General Jackson asked where are the engineers and what are they doing? The wagon master’s reply was that they were in their tent drawing up plans for a bridge.
In the Christian life— there will be some who wish they could change their life but keep coping — then there are the ones who cure the problem by taking action. James exposes that the REAL life of a Christian is a life of action! 10 action words in our text. They are all actions but not the kind you think…
James 4.7 says— “Submit yourselves therefore to God…” Yield is our action. hoop-o-tasso is a military term meaning: ‘to rank under or yield as a servant’. Missionary Hudson Taylor was scheduled to speak at a Large Presbyterian church in Melbourne, Australia. The moderator of the service introduced the missionary in eloquent and glowing terms. He presented him as ‘our illustrious guest.‘ Taylor stood quietly for a moment, and then opened his message by saying, ‘Dear friends, I am the little servant of an illustrious Master.’ You have to yield your way, your ‘self’ the text indicates, in order to submit. We must place ourselves under Christ as his willing subjects. Not symbolically, but literally. We need to quit trying to rule our life. That is the first action you need to take, if you really want to change your life… yield.
Verse 7 continues with— “…Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Oppose is our next action. Resistance here is anthis-temi— to oppose, to stand against. Take a stand of action against the devil. Tell him no. Be strong about it. Oppose his advances. These two points in verse 7 go together. Let me explain… to properly yield to God you need to oppose the devil. To resist the devil you must yield to God, first. 1 Peter 5.8 clarifies— “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:” He’s your enemy, oppose his advances in your life and in your families life. Take a stand and courageously… say no.
In verse 8 we find our next action— “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.” Action point— Come close. Isn’t this the main thing anyway? Love God and come close to Him? The entire Bible is an appeal from God for us to come back and come close. Come close means to draw near. As the verse says— “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.” A true believer naturally longs to have closeness with God. Why wouldn’t you? But it is hard to have closeness when you aren’t opposing the devil. Something to think about folks. Come back simply means to repent. As the verse says— “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.” There is a town in a remote portion of Labrador, Canada, called Wabush. Recently a road was cut through the wilderness 8 hours in. It is one lane and direct in traffic, so there is only one way you could leave… by turning around. Each of us, constantly, arrives in a town called ‘Sin’. There is only one way out; you must turn around. That complete about-face is what the Bible calls ‘repentance’, and without it, there’s no way out of it.
Do you need a real change in your life? Take action and turn around. The text says— ‘hand cleansing’ which is external behavior. Then it says ‘heart purging’ which refers to internal thoughts, motives, and desires. Both have to take place or you’re leaving a back door for going right back where you came from. This is why James said “ye double minded”, because as long as we have divided loyalties, we will never come as close as we need to.
In Matthew 6.24 Jesus said— “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” The Romans sometimes compelled a captive to be joined face-to-face with a dead body, until the stench of death chocked the living victim. This is the cruelty of double mindedness. Life and death cannot coexist indefinitely. James is compelling for us to ‘come’ to God with abandonment.
Abandonment happens naturally if you take the next action in verse 9— “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.” Break, we need to break. We need brokenness— An action that comes from a heart condition. It says to be: afflicted, mourn, weep. It says our laughter should turn into mourning, and that our joy should turn into heaviness. What? I thought the christian life should be a life of happiness— not if its away from God!
What we need today are believers who display true brokenness— like Moses who climbed a mountain to intercede for his people with tears, or Jesus who wept over Jerusalem. Pride will not let you do this. This brings us to our last action and the key to the whole passage in verse 10. It is the culmination of all the actions we have discovered thus far— “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” Action— Get Low. Humble literally means to make oneself get low. Remember verse 6— “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” In the same way we should oppose and stand against the devil and sin in our life, God stands against and opposes us when we are prideful.
These actions will produce a sense of vulnerability. God in His wisdom, knows how we are, and has integrated promises with the actions:
- (7) Resisting the devil will make him flee— to run away as to vanish from sight.
- (8) When you come close and come back, you have His promise that He will come close to you!
- (10) Humble yourself and God shall lift you up.
“God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.” (Andrew Murray)