A New Beginning to the New Year: “To Do in Order To Be”

James 4:6-10

1. this morning I want to draw our attention once again to James 4:6-10. As I shared last week, I have lived the last 3 months in the grip of these words. I’ve wrestled with them & them with me. And now its time for us as a community to wrestle with them.

2. James is writing to a group of churches as Eugene Peterson brought to our attention last week:

The letter of James shows one of the church’s early pastors skillfully going about his work of confronting, diagnosing, and dealing with areas of misbelief and misbehavior that had turned up in congregations committed to his care. Deep and living wisdom is on display here, wisdom both rare and essential. According to church traditions, James carried the nickname “Old Camel Knees” because of thick calluses built up on his knees from many years of determined prayer. The prayer is foundational to the wisdom. Prayer is always foundational to wisdom.

3. in 4:6-10 Old Camel Knees tells us how to restore our relationship with God when we’ve let it go. There’s nothing superficial here. Old Camel Knees lays down the hard and deep work of soul restoration.

4. the passage breaks down like this:
§ begins with grace (6)
§ book-ended with humility (6 & 10)
§ filled with 10 commands – submit, resist, come, wash, purify, grieve, mourn, wail, change, humble
§ topped off by 3 God-statements – he gives grace (6), comes near to us (8), lifts us up (10)

5. last week I pointed out how humility is the pathway to grace. Humility comes from the Latin root humus. Humus is rich organic soil. Tim Gilmer, our own organic farmer, emailed me this:

I was struck by the connections between humility and humus, of course, being an organic farmer. The decaying and death of matter is so important to healthy growth that some organic farmers need only use compost, and nothing else, to supply everything a plant needs. Compost (humus) is a living entity, an interwoven tapestry of bacteria, fungi, worms, insects, minerals and all kinds of essential elements that eventually become plant food, entering the roots and spreading throughout the entire plant. It not only promotes health but helps the plant RESIST the decaying forces of nature. It is anything but dead, yet it is birthed by the death process. Compost is rich in organic matter, breathes, has an earthy odor, good tilth, and excellent aeration and ability to absorb and hold water.

6. our humility before God is like rich organic compost. It promotes healthy spiritual growth. It enters the deep roots of our hearts & spreads throughout our entire lives. It helps us to resist the forces of evil & sin. Humility is life-giving. Is the pathway to God’s life-giving grace.

10 commands
1. the heart of this passage is filled with 10 commands. These are not nice suggestions or ideas for discussion. They are flat out God saying, “do this!” They speak to our human responsibility in our relationship with God.

2. remember these commands are surrounded by God’s grace = God’s life at work in us – and our humility = the pathway to God’s grace. As we humble ourselves before God grace is given to put these commands into play in our lives!
3. 3 of the commandments have to do with God – submit, come near, humble yourselves. 1 has to do with the devil – resist. And the remaining 6 have to do with ourselves – wash, purify, grieve, mourn, wail, change.

4. the 6 that have to do directly with us can be summed up with one word - repentance. Old Camel Knees is calling us to deal with our sin. The stuff in our lives that hurts our relationship with God & others.

5. to repent means (according to Brian McLaren) that you rethink every facet of your life from God’s perspective – from the way you think about God to the way you treat your spouse, from your political affiliations to your spending habits, from what makes you angry to what makes you happy. It doesn’t mean that everything changes at once, but it means you open up the possibility that everything may change over time. It involves a deep sense that you may be wrong, wrong about so much, along with a sincere desire to realign around what is good and true (and pleasing to God).

6. sin & repentance are not popular topics for today’s culture. They are not easy to deal with for a number of reasons. One, we have an imperfect understanding of God’s holiness. Of his anger toward sin. The closer God moves to us, the greater his holiness & the greater our sin.

7. two, we have an enormous capacity to deny or minimize our sin. Euphemisms proliferate our vocabulary – mistake, bad call, poor judgment, negligent, slip, oversight, misstep, screw-up, bungle – and so on BUT rarely sin (Eugene H Peterson). When’s the last time you went to somebody & said, I have sinned against you?

8. I love how Eugene Peterson describes sin – sin is basically a depersonalizing word or act. It is not, in essence, breaking a rule, but breaking a relationship. Sin is a refused relationship with God that spills over into a wrong relationship with others. Sin is relational.

9. third, we have a spiritually & morally skewed compass. Moral absolutes are up for grabs in our postmodern times. “The self” has become the determiner of right or wrong. What is right is what works for me.

10. we desperately need to hear Old Camel Knees when he exhorts us to wash, purify, grieve, mourn, wail, change. For these are the stuff of our health & healing & holness – hear holiness. James is calling us to a healthy brokenness & a necessary humility.

11. when something is wrong with our bodies we try to address it – why not our souls?

12. the summer of my 10th year was a disaster. I was running, tripped, fell & scrapped my right arm just above my elbow. It was a deep scrap. I can remember sitting on the dining room table while my mom poured hydrogen peroxide on my scrap & then scrapped out the dirt & sand with cotton balls. Before the summer was over I fell & re-opened that wound 2 more times. More peroxide, more cotton balls, more pain. No swimming for the whole summer!

13. when I was 13 I was playing tackle football with friends after school. I imagined myself to be the Chicago Bears running back Gale Sayers. I burst through the line, dodged to the left, cut back to the right, headed down the sidelines to what I was sure would be a touchdown when John Robinson tackled me from behind. We both fell down & I landed on a irrigation head. I felt a sharp stab of pain on my right arm, looked down, and saw a huge cut that had been opened up, blood oozing out. It was obvious that I couldn’t keep playing. My mom took me to the hospital. Our family doctor met us there. I watched Dr. Hoopengardner insert a needle into the cut – ouch – to deaden my arm so he could clean it out & sew it up.

14. we scrape our souls with sin & cut open our spirits with moral, spiritual falls. Can’t we see that we need a physician for our souls as badly as we do our bodies? Old Camel Knees is that physician. His wisdom gained on bended knees is invaluable:
§ turn your life over to God, all of it, all the time
§ yell a loud no to the devil & watch him run
§ say a quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time
§ quit dabbling in sin
§ purify your inner life
§ quit playing the field
§ hit bottom, and cry your eyes out
§ get serious, really serious – the fun & games are over
§ get down on your knees before God
§ he’s the only One who’ll get you back up on your feet

15. of these 5 verses, 4:9 is the one I know the least of as far as experience – grieve, mourn, wail, change your laughter to mourning & your joy to gloom. Grieve refers to an ache in your heart that brings tears to your eyes. Inner sorrow over our sin that so grips us that we are moved to tears.

16. I’ve talked for over a year about rebuilding what was lost in the fire. And more importantly, the rebuilding of our lives before God and each other. A new people for a new building.

17. the “new people” will be birthed out of 4:9 – grieving, mourning, wailing, changing. Coming to grips with our sin that we work so hard at trying to hide from ourselves, each other & even God. We are masters at it.


the pursuit of happiness….God
1. Will Smith & his son Jaden star in the movie The Pursuit of Happiness, based on the true story of a now very successful man named Chris Gardner. Set in San Francisco in the early 80s, Chris Gardner goes through an unbelievably tough streak. He loses his wife, his savings & his apartment. The movie centers around how Chris Gardner pursues his dream of becoming a stockbroker while he & his son live on the streets.

2. Chris Gardner never gives up against some incredible odds. He fights & fights & fights. He’s knocked down & gets back up, knocked down & gets back up.

3. the spirit & tenacity he personifies is a picture of how we live with Old Camel Knees’ 10 commandments. We humble ourselves before God. He grants us grace. And with humility & grace we go at these 10 commandments with all that we are & all that we have.

4. and its hard, very hard, often hard. The grace is God’s part. The effort is ours.

5. submit yourselves then to God
resist the devil and he will flee from you
come near to God and he will come near to you
wash your hands you sinners
purify your hearts you double-minded
grieve mourn and wail
change your laugher to mourning & your joy to gloom
humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up