Sin and its Source (James 4:1-6)

as we continue our study through the book of james we finally made it to chapter four so if you turn there the first six verses i don't know if you follow either myself or the church on instagram that we often post little tidbits just to stimulate uh your thinking process and i posted this week a picture of the volcano that's been erupting on the island of la palma out there in the canary islands and sometimes people will you know it's kind of well why is that volcano erupting and why is that one not you know we have some dormant ones here in the state of california mount lassen mount shasta mammoth mountain are all dormant volcanoes are not erupting there's nothing coming out of them currently but they're all still active in the sense that they could erupt at any time what is the reason why is it that you have magma flowing to the surface for instance just began again today on kilauea on the big island of hawaii why why is that well the answer is actually internal pressure it's internal pressure the magma column which is attached to the core of the earth ultimately this superheated rock that sitting there at 21 2200 degrees has found a fissure there's a place that that magma can reach the surface and sufficient pressure exists so that that magma flows out onto the surface we call that a volcano sin inside of the life of every believer is a volcano waiting to erupt that pressure is in you it's there it lurks just below the surface and so tonight sin and its source james chapter 4 the first six verses would you join me let's pray and we'll dig into this wonderful passage that helps us understand really what it is that we're faced with as we live our lives as believers on this earth father we thank you this incredible book the lord jesus your half-brother authored this by the power of the holy spirit and speaks truth to us tonight and we pray that you'd instruct us from heaven lord sometimes we think sin happens because of our circumstance or sin happens because of our upbringing or our country or our neighborhood or somebody pushed our buttons too hard but the truth the fact is sin's source is internal it's a pressure within us we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god and each one of us there's not one of us tonight that's righteous in and of ourselves it is only your righteousness lord jesus that makes us right before god the father and so we pray that you'd instruct us from heaven in jesus name amen verse 1 very simple but very pointed question where do wars and fights come from among you in other words what is their source why is there anger why literally is there warring why is there open combat do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members another question but purposed as a statement the answer is [Music] yeah you lust and do not have you murder and covet and cannot obtain you fight in war yet you have not because you do not ask you ask and do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures just advising you verse 4 is not how you should address anyone in the body of christ and yet this is written to christians adulterers and adulteresses james speaking to the church and says oh unfaithful ones do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with god open declaration of war with god whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of god or do you think that the scripture says in vain the spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously but and please circle that because after verses one through five you're kind of going uh-oh i'm in trouble but he the lord god who is gracious gives more grace abundant grace greater grace all sufficient grace gives more grace and therefore he says god resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble now it's pretty obvious that james did not go to the robert schuller institute for church growth because had you ever gone to that which is now defunct but you would go there and you would learn how not to offend anyone in preaching the word of god in other words i would never say to you adulterers or adulteresses i would never challenge you about whether your life is on par with what god wants i would never say to you you know that's actually sin i wouldn't actually speak anything that might disturb you in any way shape or form because you might leave the church over it james would have flunked out of the robert schuler institute for church growth some pastors avoid sin altogether this is one of those passages that if you understand it you will be immeasurably helped in understanding where sin comes from in the first place what is its source and it's not immediately obvious in the words that are in this text and so let me just tell you i'm not trying to attract seekers too often the church is almost like a business trying to attract customers oh i mean congregants the pastor's job is to not make believers comfortable it's to say what's necessary so that our lives are like christ and so when someone comes to church hopefully they'll hear the truth this passage is filled with truth and to some degree it's uncomfortable truth but it is truth nonetheless and it's truth that will help you with your walk with the lord we almost have an idyllic picture of the early church it's kind of like this whole group we almost picture them like a bunch of hippies that kind of all got together and it's like they're going to have a a love fest and they all get together and everybody puts on their tie dyes and their bell bottoms and there's flowers in their hair and wear bandanas and yes that's exactly how it used to look i know it's hard to imagine but it's true but during that time the early churches almost seemed like well they lived a communal living and they all got together and everybody was nice no there's a question here where do wars and fights come from among you and he's talking to the church you mean there's fighting and wars in the church you mean there's people speaking evil of one another in the church you mean stuff is going on in the church that shouldn't go on the church why does that happen we find out in this passage that it is actually and the easiest way to describe it spiritual adultery it's spiritual adultery what do i mean people often misunderstand this particular phrase spiritual adultery is not thinking about adulterous things in your mind spiritual adultery is being married to god being the bride of christ and having another god as your lover it's having another god and very often that other god is a three-letter word beginning with why it's you you're the reason that you're not being faithful to god you've begun to worship yourself your own thoughts you've moved from worshiping the lord and him alone to worshiping some other god and very often that god is your own desires that god is your own thinking that god might be your own direction or way your own will and the problem with that is there's only room for one god jesus actually made that very clear and in fact as he spoke to the disciples he said man cannot love two gods he said you're gonna love one or you're gonna hate that one or you're gonna love the other and hate you there's only room for one you cannot love god and what jesus said was mammon money possessions there's only room on the throne of your heart for one god and so anytime another god gets placed on your heart you're going to have a problem with sin hence the reason that james uses this phraseology that seems rather odd to us when he calls out the church in jerusalem as adulterers and adulteresses he was not speaking of sexual sin he was speaking spiritually you guys are being unfaithful to the lord you've got another god every relational conflict you will ever ever have every spiritual problem that exists in your life everything that pops up can ultimately be traced back to you have substituted whether momentarily or preemptively or preeminently you have substituted for the real the true and the living god your relationship with the lord for a moment you have stuck another god on the throne of your heart and as i said very often that is you you want to please yourself you might want to please the world and occasionally you may even want to please the devil as he's planted some thought in your head that triunity of evil the world the flesh and the devil the world that we live in the you that is unredeemed and the devil who stimulates all those thoughts in your mind that are not of the lord and each time those things come up that is an issue of the lordship of jesus christ in your life you are choosing in that moment to either let jesus be your lord or you're allowing someone else temporarily to occupy that place you see a vast majority of christendom wants jesus as savior but they're really not all that concerned with jesus being lord there's only room for one god on the throne of your heart and it needs to be jesus all day every day that's the picture you see the primary source of your sin is that spiritual adultery whether it's resolving conflicts you see you can put band-aids on conflicts and i want to be very careful here because sometimes talking to a counselor and you know using some helpful hints on how to deal with things with regard to interpersonal relationships can be a good thing but if you do not get to the source of the problem and every good counselor will tell you this we can put a band-aid on your relationship so you don't beat each other up today but we're not fixing the problem unless we get to the root of it amen that's true physically that's true mentally that's true emotionally and it's very true spiritually band-aids often overlook the problem if you came in and you know i saw you i have medical experience i've been an emt and so if i saw you and you're squirting blood out of your carotid artery if i pull out a band-aid and put it over that oh you may live i may slow the flow of blood down sufficiently to where you're not going to bleed out but it doesn't fix the hole in your neck that's going to take some surgery there's going to need to be some additional things done and very much the same thing with not recognizing that we can from time to time put another god on the throne of our hearts we're actually putting a band-aid on it well say well i really don't worship that sinful behavior in my life or i really don't worship the world system i'm really not worshiping money or i'm not worshiping power i'm not worshiping passion or possessions i'm really not worshiping that the truth of the matter is actually you're just putting a band-aid on it because not recognizing the problem is not dealing with the problem and the problem is that jesus isn't completely lord he might be lord 82 percent of the time but he's not lord 100 of the time and consequently sin problems pop up because the moment jesus is not lord the power of the holy spirit is absent in you and all of a sudden those things creep in you're like oh well how did i end up with that thought process and you look back on the situations that led up to it you're going to find that at some point in time you opened the door by saying i really don't want the lordship of jesus over this area of my life i'm just going to kind of i'm going to kind of let off on the gas on that part and so the lord i believe is speaking to us tonight as the church in a way that i believe will be very helpful you see james wasn't addressing sexual sin he wasn't you know worrying about these people whether they were you know engaged in some type of misdeed in their relationship with between husband and wife he's saying look you you guys have a problem here and it's a deep-seated problem and matter of fact it could have been that one of the symptoms of it was actually adultery but the real problem was their hearts were far from jesus they they were wandering everywhere in their mind and so in order to flee sin effectively in order to deal with sin effectively you you have to get away from spiritual adultery you have to stop entertaining a deep friendship with the world i have met so many christians and they'll come and they'll confess that you know they're struggling in some area of sin and i don't even need to name one you can all think of 50 or 60 of them but i could give you almost any example of some sinful behavior and i can tell you that at some point in time if you're engaged in that behavior jesus is not lord in that area of your life you have stopped allowing him to be the one who is the master of that area maybe it's your anger maybe it's bitterness or hatred it could be some things that we kind of learn to live with in our lives especially in marriage if you want to resolve conflict which is the issue here in this passage then jesus has to be lord he we are married to christ amen he's the bridegroom we're the bride we're hitched okay you you all are betrothed and one day jesus is going to come back for his bride and in the meantime he expects us to be faithful and by faithful he doesn't mean just sexually pure he means not being wed to someone else while he's gone not jumping on board with some relationship with the world the flesh and the devil and you can see that of course in marital infidelity in actual adultery that is this very serious sin but in a very similar way friendship with the world is a very serious sin it's an issue it's a big deal because it will allow you to think in ways that you shouldn't think it'll allow you to be places you shouldn't be it will cause you to engage in things you shouldn't engage in and pretty soon you will have behaviors that don't belong in the life of a child of god you can't be a friend of the world and be the friend of god at the same time they're mutually exclusive that may be momentary it may be temporary but during the time that you're engaged in friendship with the world you're an enemy of god the bible is very clear on this now because of god's grace doesn't mean you're out of the kingdom but it does mean you and god are not squared up at that moment there's an issue between you and god and it's produced in animosity because god is a jealous god and rightly so you see friendship with the world when you seek to please yourself when you're not following the lord then ultimately god's standing there going aren't we married now let me put this into practice for you for those of you that are married and if you want to be married this is going to be very useful to you if you are married to someone you are not an independent agent free to do whatever you want i would not ever think of going to the bank and going you know i would really like a new car i think i'm just going to buy one for myself know my truck's six years old now so yeah it's kind of like got a few dings on it i mean we live here in l.a i've been to home depot a few times got some scratch i want a new one how do you think my wife my beautiful bride connie would react if she came home and jeff where did the money in her bank go well you obviously don't care about me honey you see i would be acting independent of her and she would immediately get jealous that i don't think of her the same is true for the lord you are wed to the lord as a believer and he is a jealous husband over you he wants you to consult him on everything and you need to consider him in every single decision you're not a free moral agent to do whatever you want to do you must consider the impact that it has on your relationship with god that's how we determine where the lordship of jesus fits in our lives it's like if i wouldn't do that without talking to my bride i certainly shouldn't do it without talking to god because that is actually a superior relationship and so when you think about all the things that might get you into a hot water with your spouse or maybe with your boyfriend girlfriend fiance or maybe even your parents if you wanted to take it to another relationship would certainly apply you know you don't set your own rules when you're 12. i would think you would consider talking to your parents before you you know brought your boyfriend your girlfriend home to stay the night at 12. probably going to get you a beating it's not going to be good in the same way god is watching over our lives he's saying well why didn't you talk to me about that the reason you're having that problem in your life is i'm not lord in that area reason that sin behavior keeps coming back is you won't let me have it you keep doing your own thing and so the source is really this intense desire that we have to please ourselves and so four things one we're married to jesus we owe him allegiance we can't just do our own thing you can't do it in marriage you certainly can't do it with the lord that when we break our vows in that sense second point just as it would be in your marital relationship that's a serious effect that it's going to have on your relationship with the lord people often well you know i just don't feel close to god and you go through the where they're at in their life and it's really easy to see why no i don't know about you all but sometimes i kind of need the holy two by four to hit me in the head for me to you know actually get it sometimes but i'm glad that god does that and so how does he do that by allowing things to deteriorate to such a state that we go this isn't working i need to change my behavior it's not because god isn't sufficient it's because i'm not listening i have to be very careful and can i just tell you that god's word though is always loving is not always nice there's a difference between those two words it's always loving because it points to the love of god so when god corrects he corrects with the point being he loves you but just like jesus called the pharisees broods of vipers spawn of satan so god sometimes has to say things to us that we don't want to hear and this passage is kind of one of those passages where it's just like man god's being serious here this is the real deal he's trying to prevent us from going places we shouldn't go doing things we shouldn't do there's a there's a measure of boldness to this passage but the beauty is this boldness is the love of god being poured out upon us it's like lord you love me you don't want my life a wreck you don't want me to be miserable you don't want me to be in that behavioral problem that's going to wreck the existence of my life but sometimes we just don't want to listen i was 16 years old and the church that connie and i met in and we were eventually married in i was pretty involved in the youth ministry there and there was an opportunity to go to a bill bright basic youth concept thing that was at forest home same place that billy graham had his life changed and for someone who was working at the time which i was taking three days off that i normally worked and paying the 35 dollars that the conference cost for the weekend seemed like a lot of money and our youth pastor at the time just looked me in the eye and he said if you're really committed to christ what's the decision here just go god will take care of it he's got all kinds of money and i was i remember just agonizing over that decision i was like i i i gave all the reasons why well you know i'll miss work and blah blah blah and finally he convinced me to go and sure enough the conference was paid for by somebody to this day i don't know who paid for it but my life's trajectory was altered in that moment of submitting to the lordship of jesus christ my flesh said go to work get money my spirit said that's not what i need you to do right now jeff it was a matter of lordship and to this day as non-linear as my path has been in following christ at times i can look back on that moment and go that was a lordship issue that was me submitting a third thing friendship with the world and friendship with god are mutually excuse exclusive look at verse four do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility towards god i love the niv there it's hostility friendship with the world is hostility towards god they're antithetical it's the antithesis it's the opposite mutually exclusive terms can't happen like the the definition of understanding truth two truths if they compete with one one another cannot be both true one has to be alive the other has to be truth you can't have two competing truths that are both true so you can't be a friend of god and at the same time a friend of the world if you love god you're going to be an enemy of the world it doesn't mean you're going to be obnoxious doesn't mean you're going to be mean-spirited it just simply means that the things of this world are not going to be your primary friendship you're going to look at this world and go my world just doesn't have anything for me that's not that's not where i want to hang my hat and i think too much of the church tries to make nice with the world i just tell you you can't make nice with the world it doesn't mean that you can't be nice in the world but you can't make nice with the world officer chet and i were talking back in the green room and it's like we're talking about our experiences and how things have shaped his life and things have shaped my life and we happen to be talking about going to europe and you know visited dachau the concentration camp and when you when i went there it's just like it's like man there's heaviness i couldn't imagine ever accepting what the nazis did and he was talking about being in liberia and places he still goes to and he remembers i can't imagine ever putting myself willingly in that situation and it's the same thing with friendship with the world it should be so repulsive to us it should cause our skin we should be getting chicken skin the hair should stand up on the back of your neck the moment you start getting close to the world something should go off in your spirit and you're like man get me out of here what am i doing this is not a place that believers belong that is a lordship issue that is a spiritual adultery issue you have to flee that why do i say that because when we think of worldliness it's not just places that are pretty easy to identify it's not hard for most believers to go i really shouldn't hang out in las vegas and again forgive me if your parents live in las vegas or if you have friends that go there or live there i'm not trying to make this evil wicked case against everyone who's ever been to las vegas but let's just suffice to say that's pretty worldly most people when they go there it's like i don't want to see that no i'm not you know i mean christians need blinders like they put on racehorses to drive through las vegas on the way to utah you know what's crazy oh we'll sit down and have a conversation with someone that's filled with things that shouldn't come out of the mouth of a child of god that's still friendship with the world it's easy to pick on las vegas that's not hard it's pretty fleshy it's pretty carnal it's kind of out there but what about that gossip and the slander the innuendo the tail-bearing the deep-seated hatred towards somebody you see that's still friendship with the world and that's still an affront to god you see well i don't go to bars anymore praise the lord i haven't smoked dope in like three days hallelujah i stopped shooting up glory to god but are you still a liar you have a tough time with the truth you still think evil thoughts towards your neighbor you see that's all friendship with the world because that type of stuff draws no one near to the heart of god it won't get you there and it certainly won't help your neighbor so the source is internal do you see what i'm saying it's internal it's that pressure it's the magma of sin that's in that deep well that is the core of the earth that's molten and it lies under the surface and if you give it a crack if there is a crevice in your life if there is a slight weakening of the rock layers above that pool of sin that is in us because of who we are if you take the pressure of being a friend of the world it will push that stuff right to the surface and all of a sudden there'll be a little eruption may not be a massive volcanic eruption of some sin behavior but it will be something that's going to cause destruction in your life we have to flee that we have to let god have those areas of our life let me be really clear here the bible is not against pleasure the bible is very pro-pleasure but the right kind of pleasure things that are actually pleasurable according to god's standards god loves the fact that we can enjoy things he's actually given us all things richly to enjoy his plans and purpose include this beautiful thing we call the stewardship of creation we're supposed to enjoy this world we're supposed to take care of it it should provide joy for us but we have to do that we have to enjoy it in a way that is joyful because it pleases god in that sense the focus here adultery the reason that that's not enjoyable is it's outside of god's desire for the sexual relationship between a man and a woman it will it will cause damage instead of beauty just because somebody else has something and you take it you might now have it but it's not going to be good because it's not in the context of how god wants you to enjoy things he doesn't want you to take other people's stuff that's stealing it's stevery so it's not joyful god can give you those things the gold and silver in every mine the sheep and the cattle on a thousand hills the earth and the fullness of it are actually god's he's easily able to give you everything that you will ever need so the bible's not against us having things or having pleasure or enjoying wonderful things but the system that is on this earth is not designed to allow those things to happen in a way that are going to be beneficial the child of god so we have things that are attractive that are twisted and bent god gave you a desire to be successful but the world says oh you measure success by taking advantage of other people the world says that that riches is you having way more than what you need you see god has a plan for all those things we have to get on board with his plan he's not against you being pleased with your life but if you try and find these things apart from god you will not find what you're looking for it's that simple psalm 16 says you will make known to me the path of life and in your presence of fullness of joy and at your right hand or pleasures forevermore to walk with god is to have a measure of the things that god wants for us and it will be good i have met people with nothing i was just conversing with the pastor friend in nicaragua i actually have mentioned pastor manfredo's story to you from the pulpit and i was thinking of him this is a man when i first met him he didn't have matching shoes he didn't have matching shoes we go drop 150 bucks on a new pair of kicks he didn't have matching shoes they were mismatched and talking to him he's talking about this joyful experience of pastoring this church to where the people would come none of them had any money and so they'd give him some bananas or a chicken and then when he got done preaching at that church he would walk five miles to another village to preach in that church and then when he got done with that one he would walk another five or six miles to another village to preach another church service and he would get home at nine o'clock on sunday having taught three times and by the way walked about 20 miles he died four days ago from coven and so i was emailing back and forth with his wife who happens to share the same name as my wife connie and ask if there was anything that we could do for them and she said you know miraculously the lord took care of all of his hospital bills and his coffin and the memorial service and our bills taking care of everything we don't have any needs you can't buy that kind of joy it's not for sale but it isn't the joy of having everything it's the joy of having the one thing that matters and that's jesus in the proper place in your life amen [Applause] it's one of the reasons we have to be careful with where we garner our council and again this is absolutely not a slam on people who are engaged in psychology especially not psychiatry which is a medical degree but as believers we're to turn our eyes into jesus and look full in his wonderful face and then the things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace amen and so if we're getting worldly counsel if it's not pointing you back to who you are in christ if it doesn't direct you to scripture if it isn't inviting you to seek the counsel of the king of kings and lord of lords if you ultimately are being pointed back to you and away from him even counsel can be a bad thing so be careful what you fill your heart and your mind with things can be beneficial for a time especially if you're dealing with something that's very severe some kind of mental illness but be careful because for the child of god we have to be pointed back to god need to know that the source of my strength is my savior that the root of who i am is found in jesus it will never be the things of this world and so in that sense you have to be aware of the danger of leaving god out in that sense of your counsel of your thinking too often we turn to the world we begin to be friends with the world even in the way that we approach solutions to life's problems you know one of my questions that i often ask when people come and they you know they'll the first thing that happens is they're so burdened with their problems and rightly so i might add and they've begun to talk through all that stuff and and there's been 10 minutes of just spewing the problem and i go can we stop and pray and it's like oh yeah why is that important because i don't have any answers god does well i might have some wisdom i may have some life experience or something i can share from the past or things that other people have gone through or maybe i've gone through i might be able to help you but if the end we haven't sought the counsel of the king of kings and lord of lords then we are committing spiritual adultery by making the solution one of our own i want god's solution i want him to be first i don't want him to be the last one we talk to i don't want him to be the one that we well we can't figure it out god so what do you think we need to consider who he is in our counsel i want to be bearing down on the answers that scripture would speak to us if they exist there look let me be very very candid with you the bible doesn't speak about every situation it just simply doesn't you know you're not going to go and find the verse on what to do with technology okay it's not there it's not going to tell you how you should respond when your children don't understand advanced mathematics there's no verses for that but there is a holy spirit that is in that bible that does have the answer that will speak to you but you can't be going to the world for the solutions you need to go to god for the solutions you leave god out of the mix you're effectively going home after spending all the money in your bank account and asking for your spouse to go well i just wasn't thinking of you it's okay right of course it's not amen none of you would be okay with that you should consult your spouse and in the same way you should consult the lord jesus on everything part of the thing that i think most christians struggle with fairly consistently is this very hard in this world to stop the the pressure of how fast life moves long enough for us to go oh hey i forgot to talk to god i actually didn't ask him about this situation i didn't even consider him oh we saw you know some internet post and that directed our attention some person that we know gave us some counsel which was from the pit of hell again your friends can give you godly counsel i'm not denying that but we need to be very very very careful that we're actually interjecting god in the front of the conversation so that everything is filtered through his lordship his mastery over our lives that prevents sin from bubbling to the surface that's how that happens people don't explain how the holy spirit can work in your life you probably need some additional counsel if they're not seeking the scriptures with you you probably need some other counsel if your walk with the lord isn't being considered you probably need some other counsel and again please don't misunderstand what i'm saying here do not put on me you know some false thinking about people who are trying their very best to help i'm simply saying don't leave god out of the mix don't leave god out of the mix if you do you're going to end up fostering a relationship that isn't going to be fruitful and god hates that god is jealous over his people when we do that it provokes god's jealousy verse 5 says this quite plainly to me this may be one of the most difficult verses here but when you really look at what's being said here god jealously desires for the spirit really to work in us that's his desire he's actually a jealous god that way and so when you think about the way this kind of plays out in our lives in a godly marriage where both husband and wife are christians there is a good kind of jealousy amen think on that for a second there's a good kind of jealousy i would hope that there isn't a marriage in here and it doesn't matter whether you use the husband or the wife as an example but if either one of them were to be contacted by an old boyfriend or an old girlfriend that you would go well that's okay you know there's room for both of us i would hope that you as the spouse would be offended by that that it would cause you to go oh no you don't you need to cancel your facebook account you just stop making contact loses if i catch you texting back and forth there's going to be a problem you should actually be jealous if you really love your spouse now if you don't love your spouse you're probably going to be okay with that you're trying to get rid of them right so yeah go ahead and call them all you want you know you're you're okay do you see that's the right kind of jealousy isn't it if you love your spouse you are not going to let somebody mess around with them so you got to go through me i catch you doing that there's going to be a price to pay it's not going to be a good one god's the same way he is literally jealous over you and he will not allow competing affections he's not going to let you go your own way and do your own thing without confronting that you're not going to be comfortable it's not you're not just going oh yeah well you know i kind of have this other thing going on over here now god's going to come into that situation and as a jealous god who loves you with an undying love he's going to say oh no that's not happening we would all actually be offended if there wasn't a measure of jealousy if we found that happening in just a human relationship right most of us would go dude what are you doing what in the world's wrong with you don't you love your spouse don't you think god is even more jealous for you for me so when he sees those cracks opening up in your character when he sees the text message from the devil when that old flame posts on facebook in your heart when something's going on behind the scenes and it's actually got a little tiny bit of magma boiling up over there somewhere the lord's going no we're not leaving that in place we're going to deal with that right now and he's going to deal with it in righteousness and so back to the actual context here james is basically saying in these conflicts they were having in the church the problem is jesus wasn't lord and in that jealous love for his church he allowed some things to happen so that those things were visible you know there's a reason you're at conflict with your spouse there's a reason there's conflict with that person in the church there's a reason you don't feel good about that situation there is a reason for those things because the god who is jealous over you and loves you deeply is allowing those things to fester it's allowing the pressure to boil up underneath the surface he's letting things get that way so you go there's something wrong he's trying to help you deal with it i love how this passage ends it's very simple and yet unbelievably profound notice what it says do you not think that the scriptures say in vain the spirit who dwells in you yearns jealously but circle it but oh yeah god is very jealous over you and yes he wants to be first place he doesn't want any competing loves he does not want spiritual jealousy to be in your life but he gives more grace but he gives more grace it actually is greater grace or abundant grace or the inference is here in the original language it's more grace than you will ever need for that situation but god gives more grace and therefore the reasoning behind him giving that greater grace god resists the proud plain statement you don't need an interpretation of it god is literally against when you were against him if you are pridefully standing with your arms crossed you know how your kids do to you they're kind of like i dare you you know you i don't know if your boys ever did that you know our boys kind of have that little two-year-old thing to where it's just like you know i don't have to listen to you you know i can drive myself i'm only two they kind of cross their arms and stump their feet and look at you from god's perspective every time we say no to him that's kind of what we're doing it's an inferior addressing is superior and it will always be that way but god gives greater grace but don't make him resist your proud arrogant spirit because he's gonna win our boys never won they didn't get the candy bar they didn't get the toy and i think all of you that have children can identify with exactly what i'm saying here your kids are like throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of walmart and you're going well that's not gonna get you anywhere right the same is true with the lord you resisting him arrogantly saying i know better he's going to resist you and you don't have the power to resist god so do you want greater grace that's the inference you can have greater grace notice the default positioning here greater grace is available it's the first thing said but therefore god resists the proud he's going to come against you that's what he wants to do because he doesn't want you to trust you but gives grace that the humble the bowed knee the person that says you know what lord you're right i'm so sorry i'm being a knucklehead i had another god i was unfaithful in that moment in my mind in my actions i was going the wrong direction i know that's not what you want i should have never gone there when you say lord i'm sorry i agree with you that should be a different way there is infinite grace in that moment just great grace annie johnson flint love that hymn grace grace god's grace grace that is greater than all of my sin you see god wants to give us great grace but he gives us great grace when we stop resisting him when we stop proudly crossing our arms and stomping our feet that's when great grace is visible it's always there it's always available but it becomes visible when we stop telling god no like lord no i'm not going to do that when i agree with god man grace just pours out in my life the freedom of forgiveness comes to my life the sin is tamped down in my life the junk that wants to bubble to the surface is pushed back where it belongs and so church as you think on this passage this week if you're in conflict if you have an issue in your life there's something going on to where you've been living for self or there's worldliness or something's crept into where jesus is not lord know this there is great grace waiting for the bowed humbled knee there's great grace god is waiting for that he's agonizing over that he wants that that is what he wants to have with you he wants to have great grace and all it takes is you agreeing with them it's like lord would you please intercede in this particular situation because i made friends with the world and i'm renouncing that relationship i'm turning from it i'm going to resist i i'm going to flee that situation which by the way we'll see in the next five verses that follow these how to have victory in those areas but that great grace is there for you all you got to do is want it say yes to his lordship and you'll have it so let christ be that grace-filled peace that comes when you have conflict at any time just ask him to restore your soul your mind and he'll do it amen would you stand and we'll close in prayer amen we'll have some pastors up front maybe you've got something going on you you need to pray for it you need to get rid of it you need to leave it with the lord tonight before you go home don't miss that opportunity just simply come up and grab one of the pastors and say hey i've got this going on can you pray for me father we thank you lord i thank you for that great grace in my life lord those areas to where lord i created the crack that allowed the magma to come to the surface and you were so gracious to pack it full of earth and stomp it down and jealously guard our relationship and you reminded me of what needed to be done lord i thank you for those times i want to pray that if there's anyone that's struggling tonight with some area it's difficult it's been hard maybe it's something that they didn't even really believe was an issue but it's bubbled up from time to time god would you please send your great grace upon this place tonight and convince us of the value of you being right there in the center of all the things that we think and all the things that we do lord would you be the great bridegroom that jealously watches over us so god we give you our lives of fresh and anew and order areas of weakness and struggle that you would be kind and gentle with us help us lord we cry out to you with bended knee and just say god we need you so lord bless us touch us anoint us lord thanks for loving us thank you for that great grace in jesus name amen

Channel: Calvary Chapel South Bay

Views: 76

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Bible, Calvary Chapel South Bay, God, Jeff Gill, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Lord, Pastor Jeff Gill, Scriptures, South Bay, ccsb, ccsouthbay

Id: MfrAV8aPnqU

Length: 59min 6sec (3546 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021