SERIES: A New Beginning to the New Year

James 4:6-10

1. I like the new beginning to the new year. I usually spend some time looking backwards at the year that just was. I spent Wednesday morning at the Urban Grind coffee shop in Portland pouring over my 2006 journals. I was encouraged by the God-prints I found scattered throughout my scribblings.

2. I like the new beginning to the new year. I usually spend some time thinking ahead to the year that will be. I spent a good part of Wednesday afternoon at the church in one of the Sunday School classrooms writing down my vision, my thoughts, my dreams for the coming year.

3. part of how the year that was & the year that will be converge is in the area of Scripture. There is 1 passage of 2006 Scripture that clearly stood out above all the others in my pursuit of God last year.

4. James 4:6-10 1st appeared in my journal on October 16 & never disappeared. I have lived the last 3 months in the grip of these words. I’ve written them over & over again in my journal. I’ve turned them into prayers. I’ve memorized them. I’ve meditated on them. I’ve been examined by them. I wrote them on the wall of our prayer room @ 1:30am Friday morning while I listened to Chris Tomlin sing Amazing Grace over & over on my ipod.

5. there is no way I could not not preach them to start the year AS MUCH as I wanted to jump back into Mark’s gospel.

6. I read this in Ian Morgan Cron’s book Chasing Francis, Years ago in Silesia (present day Poland), they built pulpits in the shape of a whale standing on its tail. In order to get to the area for preaching, the pastor climbed a ladder through the whale’s body until he emerged in the opening that represented its mouth, and from there he’d preach his sermon. The implication was that a pastor didn’t have the right to preach until he’d spent time wrestling with God, like Jonah did.

7. I feel like I have been in the whale’s belly for 3 months wrestling with God in this passage. James 4 still has me in its grip and it’s a good thing.

8. now I want to place you in its grip. I want God to grab you
like he has grabbed me.

intro to James
1. I want to read to you Eugene Peterson’s introduction to the book of James from The Message. Listen closely:

When Christian believers gather in churches, everything that can go wrong sooner or later does. Outsiders, on observing this, conclude that there is nothing to the religion business except, perhaps, business – and dishonest business at that. Insiders see it differently. Just as a hospital collects the sick under one roof and labels them as such, the church collects sinners. Many of the people outside the hospital are every bit as sick as the ones inside, but their illnesses are either undiagnosed or disguised. It’s similar with sinners outside the church.

So Christian churches are not, as a rule, model communities of good behavior. They are, rather, places where human misbehavior is brought out in the open, faced, and dealt with.

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. Wisdom is not primarily knowing the truth, although it certainly includes that; it is skill in living. For, what good is truth if we don’t know how to live it? What good is an intention if we can’t sustain it?

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.

2. Old Camel Knees has much to teach us. In 4:6-10, James tells us how to restore our relationship with God when we’ve let it go. There’s nothing superficial here. Old Camel Knees lays out some hard work.

3. I spoke a few weeks ago about the 3 tenses of salvation:
§ Past – I was saved (salvation)
§ Present – I am being saved (sanctification)
§ Future – I will be saved (glorification)
James is speaking of the present tense – I am being saved, our sanctification, our becoming more like Christ.

4. let me give you a simple layout of the passage:
§ it begins with grace (6)
§ is book-ended with humility (6 & 10)
§ contains 10 commands – submit, resist, come, wash, purify, grieve, mourn, wail, change, humble
§ states 3 things about God – he gives grace (6), comes near to us (8), lifts us up (10)

5. this is a picture of how we cooperate with God, participate in his life, kingdom, story.

Grace
1. not grace that saved us in salvation but grace that is saving us in sanctification

2. this is grace for the follower of Christ. Grace to keep following Chrsit. Grace for staying close to God, his will & his ways. Grace as a prescription for self & sin. Not the grace that saved us but the grace that is saving us.

3. I came across this description of grace that I really like - Grace. It is not what I do that will be significant and lasting but what I allow to be done in me by grace, by God's life acting in me. What grace can do in me and through me is limitless, coextensive with what God is doing in the world. (Father Jeremy Driscoll, O.S.B., A Monk's Alphabet)

4. grace is God’s life acting in & through me & you. Grace is God’s Divine enablement. And we are dead in the water without it.

Humility
1. God’s grace is limited, stifled, shut off by our pride & arrogance. God opposes the proud. He is on the side of the humble.

2. humility comes the the Latin root humus. Humus is rich organic soil. Formed from the decomposing of plant & animal matter. This rich soil is needed for life & growth. Yet it comes from the death of other matter.

3. humility means death, dying to our self-sufficiency, pride, independence.

4. here are some contrasts between the proud & the humble:
§ focus on the failure of others – overwhelmed with their own spiritual need
§ are self-righteous, have a critical, fault-finding spirit, look at own life/faults with a telescope but others with a microscope – are compassionate, forgiving spirit, look for the best in others
§ are independent, self-sufficient spirit – dependent spirit
§ maintain control, must have their own way, have to prove they are right – surrender control, willing to yield to the right to be right
§ claim rights – yield rights
§ demanding spirit – giving spirit
§ desire to be served – motivated to serve others
§ feel confident in how much they know – humbled by how much they have to learn
§ quick to blame others – accept personal responsibility, can see where they were wrong
§ work to maintain image & protect reputation – die to own reputation
§ defensive when criticized – receive criticism with a humble, open heart
§ wants to be sure no one finds out about their sin – quick to admit fault & seek forgiveness
§ blind to true heart condition – walk in the light

5. humility is the pathway to grace, leads to grace, releases God’s grace in our lives!

6. 2 ½ months ago Ken Barnes left Newport Beach, California to sail around the world. He’d planned this trip for 10 years. He was an experienced sailor. This past Tuesday he ran into a low pressure system 500 miles off the coast of Chile. He was hit was winds of 35-40 miles an hour that created swells 25 feet high. A 50 mile gust of wind hit him, his sailboat was carried up the swell, it tipped over, broke off his mask, he lost his sails, lost everything on board, flooded the cabin, came to rest up right after doing a 360 degree flip.

He lost all his power, was dead in the water. At the mercy of the wind & waves.
Friday he was rescued by a fishing boat commissioned by the Chilean coast guard to pick him up.

7. God’s grace is the wind in our sails & our sails are our humility. Humility is how we pick up the wind of God’s grace.

8. God’s grace is sometime violent, stormy, tips us over, breaks off our mask, makes us totally dependent upon God & others. This humbles us.

9. but sometimes God’s grace is beautiful, fast, smooth-sailing.

10. this week let James 4:6-10 grip you. Let it set you in the belly of the whale where you wrestle with God. Let is humble you & take you into the hands of God’s grace.