Submit, Resist, Draw Near (James 4:7-8)

All right. So, there we go. So, welcome everyone to 915 devotional. I guess I have to throw that in there, too. All right. So, today we're going to be uh we're going to be in James again, but I know we spent uh most of last week in James. And today we're going to be in chapter 4 verse 7 and part of verse 8. And so James as he's talking here uh is actually referencing the first part of the chapter where uh the church has gone is going a little arai. It's fighting with each other. Um it's it's battling with temptation with the world. And so James isn't condemning them in these these this verse and a half.

He's giving them the way back. And so let me read this. And so it says verse 7 says, "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." So that last part was section A of verse 8. And so let's talk about this. So he says in here, some of the translations will say, "Therefore, submit yourselves." And so when you see that, we know that he's referencing previous scripture. Here in the NIV, it says, "Submit yourselves then." And so it just we're just putting it in a different spot, but he's referencing the first part of this chapter.

And so he says and he uses the term submit. Sub when you submit to God, that's not a sign of weakness. That's um that's a sign of formation. That's a sign of getting in line. That's a sign of saying, "I know you are sovereign and I need to come up under you right now." Maybe we don't want to submit to our little brother. Um, and I don't know if Ken's on the call or not. Maybe there's some other people that we don't want to submit to, but but God's the authority. And so James starts off with how do we get back from falling away? Because that's what he's talking about.

They were fighting with each other and suing each other and and and and jumping back into the world. And so he says, "How do I get back?" And so he says, "The first thing you have to do is you have to submit." And so he's talking about getting in line, getting in formation, knowing where your where your place is, that God is God is on top. And he says, then the next line is, well, why are we fighting and why are why are we tempting with the world? And that's because that's what the enemy wants us to do. And so the next order of this is to resist the devil.

And so that's what it says, resist the devil. That means to take a stand. That means that you now have the authority of Christ in you that you can withstand the enemy and all of his schemes. And so we submit first. We come under we come under authority. We come under formation. God gives us that power, that ability. And then we resist the devil. We stand firm. We stand on the word of God because his his word never doesn't come back void. And then what it says here is what happens when we do these first two things. It says he will flee from you.

It doesn't say uh it doesn't say he's going to think about it. It doesn't say that uh he's not quite sure yet. Uh it doesn't say he's going to hang around the corner. It says literally he will flee from you. And so when you when you submit, you come under the authority of Christ, you stand firm in that, the enemy has no place. he will flee. We don't use that word today. We don't we don't talk about flee, right? Other than I guess if you got dogs, you might talk about we've got fleas. Um but this term of flee of of running away, that's what we would say.

He ran away. This says flee. I mean, he he ran. The devil's going to run with a with a conviction. He's running. He's out. He's he can't stand. He knows his place and he knows he's just been beat. And so when we've fallen off, what do we do? The first thing we have to do is we have to we have to come back in line, but to submit to God's authority. When we do that, we get the ability and the power to resist the devil. It says here that he will flee from us. And then the next thing that I love is it says here in verse 8, the first part, section A of verse 8 says, "Come near to God and he will come near to you." And so what does that tell us?

God is not standing there with his arm crossed going are you I'm waiting where what what let me see what happen no he's he's ready and wanting and what he's saying is is that all you have to do is take that one step and he's already prepared to take a step with you he's right there for you he wants to be a part of your life and your world but he wants you to make that decision he doesn't want to force you into submission he doesn't want to force you into loving who he is That's not the God we serve. He wants you to make that call. He wants you to make that choice.

And so he simply says, "You take a step toward me and then I take a step toward you." And that's in reality is that's the way that love should be, right? If you were if you were wanting to date someone, you would want to know that for every step that you did, for everything that you did, that there was an equal and opposite reaction on that side. That they didn't force you. you weren't they weren't forcing you to love them or you weren't forcing them to love you that it was a mutual relationship and this is what God is saying here. So when we slip when we fall away when we when we and that's a good point.

The text says come near to God and then he will come near to you. So take a step toward him. He'll take a step toward you. Usually when we fall away it's not like flipping a switch. You didn't just wake up one day and go ah I'm done with this whole thing. What ends up happening is we drift away and we and we do it in a in a manner which the enemy likes because we don't recognize that we're drifting away. It's little pieces at a time. And so God says here, "Come near to me. You don't you don't have to come all the way back. It that may not happen.

You you may have drifted to a point where making that entire leap back uh is is too hard. It's too difficult." And he's okay with that. He's like, "Just take a step. That's all I want. just just show me that you remember me. Take that one step. Come near to me and then he'll start moving back toward you. And that's usually what happens when we start to fall away is we didn't wake up in the morning and make a decision we were going to go that direction. We just started to drift. And so here's a perfect uh uh scripture and a half that talks about and gives us the direction for when we have started to slide.

What do we need to do? And it's crystal clear right here. Simple as that. All right. Thoughts, comments, suggestions? You have I have a question. You mentioned that that God doesn't force you. Now, when chastisement comes in, that's realigning. So, that's that's a little help from God to come back to me. Say it to me one more time, Agie. I'm trying to understand. So you said that God doesn't force but when he chest chastise you when he gives you a lesson because you you were disobedient then Yeah. Yeah. So the so the Holy Spirit's if the Holy Spirit's living inside of you, you're going to get convicted.

It's not condemnation. He's going to convict you. It's it's the voice in your ear that goes, "I probably shouldn't have done that." It doesn't mean that you have to be obedient. He's not telling you you must go do that. He's just showing you what you did and what you could do and how much better that can be. It's still your call. It's still your choice. I got that. It's just just with the chastisement that with the with the consequences. It's like you're coming back to me like Yeah. Well, and that and that's and of course he he wants you to see he wants you he wants your love.

He wants you to be here. It's no different than a parent, right? We're going to we're going to reprimand our child, not so that they'll go love the neighbor next door, but so that they'll love us. So that they'll recognize and understand that I'm doing these things for you and for your benefit, not for me and mine. And when I do those things and I show you that air and I chastise you, I want you to come back and love me. I don't want you to go run to the god of ball or the next door neighbor. He wants you to come back to him. That's the reason why he does that, right?

Anybody else? I don't I don't know if I like the word chastise. It has a negative connotation to it and I don't think God is and I told you so. Well, the the text does talk about chastising, right? And it's not a word that we use today, right? So the the the filler the word that we use today is he convicts us, right? He convicts us of that and then be and and but Aggie is absolutely right. There are consequences to actions. And it's and it's interesting that when when we talk about God giving us a consequence, for some reason, it's very different than when man gives us one.

When man gives us one, we're like, "All right, yeah, I got I got to pay a price." When God gives us one, we're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought you loved me." Of course, he does. That's why you're getting chastised. That's how you learn. If I didn't do that, I would be enabling you left, right, and center. And God says, "I don't want to do that. I love you too much." Man says, "I'm going to punish you." when we go, "Ah, you're right. I blew it. I messed up. Give me my punishment." God does it and we're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

What do you punish me for?" Because he loves us. As a parent, you you you chastised your children. You did it for their benefit, for their good, not for yours. Not because you got well, you shouldn't get excited about that. If you are a parent and you are getting excited about chastising your child, let's talk afterwards. Um, so that that's not the goal or the reason for it. It's because we want to show that person that we love them. Anybody else thoughts? 30 more seconds. I mean, just quickly to say, I think that um there's a defining line that, you know, the consequence of sin isn't necessarily God forcing us back to him in the sense that, you know, you put your hand on a hot oven burner, your hand gets burned.

You know, there's a lesson to be learned and we don't necessarily blame the stove because the burner was hot, but yet we learned the lesson. So, there's a corrective action there. Oh, I like that. Very good. I like the stove and burning and not blaming the oven. Yeah, it's a consequence. This is what happens. Anybody else? All right. Well, let's uh let's bow our heads. Let's pray out and uh and we'll get our day going. Father, thank you so much for today. Uh thank you for a simple instruction like this. Thank you for, you know, when we when we know as we drift away what, you know, what does it take to come back?

And then to have James just lay it out in a in a in a verse and a half to give us the exact instruction of exactly what we need to do step by step. I mean, this is like better than IKEA directions. Father, we thank you for that. We just know this. These are the processes. This is the formula by which we come back and by which we can be corrected and by which we can fall in line and be submissive and under you, under your formation, under your guidance, under your authority, Lord. And so we thank you for that. I pray that today that before we before we open up the inbox that we would think about the things that have caused us to drift and what that looks like and how we come back under authority that we would think about those things that are maybe drawing our attention away that maybe have drawn our attention away.

identify what those those things are or that thing is and and let's Father, I just pray that you would put it on our heart to to to to know to to put this formula in place to be able to come back to let those things go so that we we fall uh under your love and under your grace, Father. So, I just pray that you do that for each and every one of us today. Walk with us, guide us as always. uh uh give us an opportunity to change from the inside out that we we we feel that Holy Spirit inside of us and it it forces a renewing of our minds and how we speak and how we act and how we treat other people and how we treat ourselves.

Father, we love you. We praise you. We thank you. And as always, in your son Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, all we'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a peaceful day. Tomorrow. Thanks, Dwayne. Have a blessed day,

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability.