A New Beginning to the New Year: “Greater Grace"

James 4:6-10

1. in 1916 a young Swiss pastor by the name of Karl Barth gave an address in a small village. He was 30 years old & had been a pastor for 5 years. He was just beginning to discover the Bible. He entitled his address The Strange New World within the Bible.

2. Barth’s thesis – we do not read the Bible in order to find out how to get God into our lives. No. We open the Bible and find that page after page it takes us off guard, surprises us, draws us into its reality & pulls us into participation with God on his terms.

3. Barth describes what I desire for us as we continue to expose ourselves to James 4:6-10. To be pulled into participation with God on his terms.

Confess your sins to one another
1. I have a group of men from our church that I’ve been meeting with for years. Once a month we have a campfire, like we did this past Monday night. It was bitterly cold. It took the fire 1 hour to get hot enough to warm us up.

we sat around that fire & talked about James 4. I flipped out the question – what is your biggest sin, the sin you struggle with the most? Silence. Finally someone gathered up enough courage to share their besetting sin. Then someone else followed & someone else. It was one of those times that I will never forget – raw honesty & transparency before God & each other.

Now I know how to pray for my friends & them for me. I know what pointed questions to ask them. We can support each other.

2. wash your hands you sinners, says James. We are followers of Christ who have been redeemed by his death on the cross. But for as long as we live in this skin, we are going to sin. No big surprise.

3. James in chapter 5 exhorts us to confess our sins to one another. If we want to be a new people for a new building we absolutely have to name our sin. To God. At times to each other. We must become a confessing church.

resist the devil
1. these 5 verses begin with grace, are book-ended with humility, filled with 10 commandments & topped-off by 3 God-statements:
he gives us more grace – God gives grace to the humble (6)
(God) will come near to you (8)
(God) will lift you up (10)

2. the devil is held in contrast to God in this section. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (7). A few words about the devil.

3. 1st Satan/devil is real. He is a fallen angel who rebelled against God. He was kicked out of God’s presence. He took with him a company of like-minded angels who are called demons or evil spirits in the Scriptures.

4. 2nd Satan is God’s greatest enemy & ours as well. He is out to destroy the reputation & work of God. His mission is to get us to doubt the goodness of God & live for ourselves.

5. 3rd Satan was defeated by Christ’s work on the cross (Colossians 2:15). He’s the defeated foe who still carries limited power & influence until the 2nd coming of Christ.

6. 4th Satan can’t stand in the face of our faith (I Peter 5:8-9). Faith here is faith in Christ, which means we hang onto Christ & his work on the cross in our behalf.

God gives greater grace
1. Father Jeremy Discoll of Mt. Angel defines grace as, God’s life acting in me. By saving grace God redeems us from our sin. By sanctifying grace God transforms us into the image of Christ. What James has in mind here is sanctifying grace – God’s life acting in us to make us like Christ.

2. God gives us more grace. Greater grace is the literal translation. This is like saying God give us grace upon grace upon grace.

3. when? In moments of personal weakness. When anger, selfishness, impurity, stubbornness, greed, compulsiveness, fear – you name it – rear up their ugly heads & take over our thoughts, attitudes & choices. Greater grace.

4. when? In the face of insurmountable obstacles. A terminal disease. A loved one’s death. A business setback. A shattering divorce. The bitter ashes of failure. The sting of betrayal. Greater grace.

5. when? In moments when God is calling you to do what
seems impossible. To forgive. Share your faith. Begin giving. Stand up for evil or injustice. Confront the person who abused you. Greater grace.

6. humility is the pathway to greater grace for personal weakness, insurmountable obstacles & the seemingly impossible. God’s life acting in us.
God will come near you
1. come near to God and he will come near to you. How do we come near to God? This whole section tells us – get rid of our pride, humble ourselves, submit to God, resist the devil, wash our hands of sin, purify our hearts of double-mindedness & mourn over our sin.

2. God can be intimidating. I’m not sure we always want God to draw near to us. He’s the Almighty Creator. He hatches the 10 plagues against Pharaoh. He rolls back the Red Sea. He dwells on Mt. Sinai in clouds, thunder & lightening. He’s the supreme God of judgment in the book of Revelation. He’s simply invincible. He’s a consuming fire.

3. but he’s also our Abba. Galatians 4:4-7 –
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.

4. we’ve been redeemed from our sin. We are sons & daughters in God’s family. We can call God Abba, Father. Abba is a personal term of affection, means Daddy. No reason to be intimidated; only reason to seek intimacy with our Abba Daddy.

5. When Prince Charles of England is formally introduced at a state dinner, this is what is said: Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, Great Master of the Order of Bath, Knight of the Thistle, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland!

6. how’s that make you feel? His titles distance us from him. Do you think that’s what his sons Harry & William call him? No, they call him Father, Dad, Daddy. James calls us to come near to our Heavenly Daddy.

God will lift you up
1. humble yourself before the Lord and he will lift you up.

2. I’m not sure exactly what this means. I don’t think it means that if we humble ourselves before God that he will make us rich, powerful, happy, healthy, good looking or parents of trophy kids. Maybe. But that’s not the thrust of Scripture. Christ-likeness is.

3. I think it means that God will work in our lives in such a manner that will we bring honor to him on his terms. Remember Barth – the Bible is a book that pulls us into participation with God on his terms. Not my will but Thine be done. The lifting up is according to God’s kingdom purposes in Christ.

4. I think of Mother Teresa. At 12 she was called to be a missionary to spread the love of Christ. At the age of 18 she left her parental home in Macedonia and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India. After a few months' training in Dublin she was sent to India, where she took her initial vows as a nun. From 1931 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a deep impression on her that in 1948 she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. Although she had no funds, she depended on Divine Providence, and started an open-air school for slum children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and financial support was also forthcoming. This made it possible for her to extend the scope of her work.
On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission from the Holy See to start her own order, "The Missionaries of Charity", whose primary task was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look after. The rest is history. She humbled herself before God & he lifted her up.

5. I think of Morris Dirks. At 33 he became the Senior Pastor of Salem Alliance Church. Everything he touched seems to turn gold. The church grew from 800 to over 2000. A new sanctuary was built. The church moved into their community with compassion ministries.

Morris wanted a new challenge so he went to the Woodenville Alliance Church on the east side of Seattle – lots of money & power thanks to Microsoft & the 1st wave of the dot.com success. Morris encountered challenge after challenge. To make a long story short, Morris had a serious emotional crash – depression, anxiety, sleeplessness. Eventually he resigned.

He humbled himself before the Lord in the midst of his darkness. And God showed him that much of his success was motivated by Morris’ ego needs for approval. He had made ministry about him.

He humbled himself before God & God lifted him up. The old Morris is gone – the new Morris has come. He gives his time to meeting with pastors & leaders as their spiritual director – challenging them to take care of matters of the soul. I started meeting with Morris 3 weeks after our church fire. He has been an enormous help & encouragement to me.

6. greater grace; our Father Abba Daddy coming near to us; God lifting us up. May God reveal himself to each of us in the days ahead.