All the More Grace

All the More Grace

James 4:1-10

May 5, 2019 (Confirmation) • Mount Pleasant UMC

I don’t know if you’ve noticed—but we live in a divided world. Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, one religion against another, us and them—we divide ourselves into all sorts of “camps” and “parties” that don’t feel much like a party. We divide along racial lines, gender lines, political lines and even denominational lines. And while the noise is louder these days, it’s really nothing new. As I said last week, whenever you have more than one person, there is bound to be disagreement at some point. It wasn’t any different in the first century. In the Jerusalem church, there was a leader named James, the half-brother of Jesus (Acts 12:17). Of course, he didn’t always believe in Jesus. I’d imagine it’s a hard thing to believe that the kid you used to share a room with is the Savior of the world. I also imagine Jesus and James, being brothers, probably argued and fought amongst themselves, and I wonder if James remembers those childhood arguments as he writes to the church. Why do arguments happen? It’s because we want more, James says. We want what someone else has. We are filled with envy. We want more, we want what we want, and we’re not going to be content until we have exactly what we want, right now, even if we have to take it from someone else. That happens in families, in workplaces, between nations, and in churches. It happens because we’ve lost focus. We’ve forgotten what is important and what is not, and that’s what James has for us this morning. In the midst of any conflict, it’s important to step back, take a minute, and remember what really matters. For those who want to deal with conflict in a healthy manner, James gives us three principles in two verses—three things to help us remember what is important.

First, James says, “Submit yourselves to God” (4:7). “Submit” is a military word. It means to put yourself in right ranking, to arrange the troops under the command of a leader. Submitting ourselves to God means voluntarily giving in to God’s leadership, while still assuming responsibility for our part in the mission. Several of you have served in the military and most of us know someone who has. Think about what would happen if the chain of command wasn’t precise. What would happen if every soldier simply did whatever they wanted to do? What if a private said, “Yes, I know the General said to do this, but I’d rather do something else, something that draws attention to me”? The unit would fall apart, and the mission’s goals would never be accomplished. In any setting, there has to be an understanding of each person’s role in order for anything to be accomplished. If everyone’s trying to be in charge, nothing gets done. James says in the spiritual life, we have to understand our place in relationship to God. We are under God’s authority. God is in charge, and the symbol the church has for that is baptism which we are celebrating today. In every baptism, there is the assumption that we are placing ourselves under the authority of Jesus Christ, that we are God’s child and no longer our own. We are submitting ourselves to God. To be part of the church is to be under God’s command. That also means every one of us is equal to everyone else in God’s eyes. So, James asks, why do we fight for position so much? Why do we worry so much whether or not we get our way in every issue? James says God is in charge. We can trust him to work through us and others to accomplish the mission. “Submit yourselves to God,” James writes. Understand your position in relationship to God.

As we do that, James says, we will be able to “resist the devil” (4:7). Sometimes people say, “the devil made me do it.” We need to do away with that phrase. The devil doesn’t make us do anything, any more than God makes us do anything. We are responsible. God gives us choice, free will. There are many situations in our lives where we have the choice to give grace or give greater grief. Sometimes the enemy’s temptations aren’t big and flashy. Sometimes they’re more subtle, more pride-filled, more me-focused. Sometimes it’s just the desire to beat the other person down, to prove our “right-ness.” “Resist the devil,” James says. Resist those impulses that will not bring grace to the situation. The temptation is always to remove grace rather than give it; that’s what we’re called to resist.

The word “resist” means to be able to withstand an attack, to oppose an enemy, to not allow that enemy to have his way. A spiritual director of an earlier generation wrote, “We must be not be surprised that we are tempted. We are placed here to be proved by temptations. Everything is temptation to us. Crosses irritate our pride and prosperity flatters it; our life is a continual warfare, but Jesus Christ combats with us. We must let temptations, like a tempest, beat upon our heads, and still move on” (qtd. in Dunnam, The Workbook on Lessons from the Saints, pg. 139). James said our fights and quarrels begin when we place our desires ahead of someone else’s, especially if we’ve not taken time to align our desires with God’s desires. When we have all found our proper place under God, we will be able to resist the devil together, to stand against the powers of evil that threaten to undo us. When we do that, James says, the devil will flee from us.

Submit to God; resist the devil. Then James gives a series of instructions that culminate in verse 10. Coming near to God, purifying your hearts and all the rest are really summed up in this: “humble yourselves before the Lord” (4:10). Humbling ourselves means we give the credit and glory back to God, not to ourselves. God is the only one who has done anything that’s worth doing. Paul puts it this way: “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment” (Romans 12:3). That means to think of yourself clearly, objectively. This will take much prayer, learning to see ourselves as God sees us. In fact, prayer must undergird everything we do in resolving conflict. We instinctively know that, but it’s hard, because when we pray, we give up our fame: “Hallowed be thy name” (not my name). When we pray, we’re resisting the devil: “Deliver us from evil.” And when we pray, we’re humbling ourselves before God: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”

Prayer is not a natural thing; if someone tells you it’s easy, they’re probably not doing it right! It’s hard to focus, hard to shut everything else out in order to connect with God. We learn prayer not by reading books about it, or taking a class about it, but by doing it. We learn by watching those who have walked with Jesus for a long time; we ask them to pray with and for us. That’s the sort of practice Paul saw in his young friend Timothy, and he reminded him of it in one of his letters: “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also” (2 Timothy 1:5). Come to God in prayer as you learn from those who have gone before you. The goal is to have a heart that prays continuously (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:17), because that kind of heart seeks God’s glory and not our own.

Humble yourself before the Lord, James says, because then we begin to sort out which desires are ours and which desires are God’s. God’s desires are worth going all out for; our desires often are not. Prayer is not about getting what we want; it’s about aligning our will with God’s will. So when a church is a praying church, and when a Christian is a praying Christian, when the will of each person is being conformed and shaped to God’s will, when we’re together seeking God’s glory rather than our own, fights and quarrels fall away. They’ll no longer seem so important because we’ll be focusing on what really matters. Paul directs our focus this way: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Philippians 4:8).

As other things are left behind, we’ll find our hearts begin to be molded into what they need to be so that we can pursue forgiveness and true reconciliation toward the other person. There have been times in my life when I believe I can’t forgive that other person for what they said about me or did to me. The reality isn’t that I can’t; it’s that I don’t want to. When I submit myself to God, when I resist the devil and humble myself before God, I begin to realize that I shouldn’t be one who is forgiven, either. I’ve done some awful things. And yet the Bible says that those who trust in and seek  to follow Jesus find everything they have ever done wrong is, in fact, forgiven. How can I withhold from someone else the same thing God has given me?

To those who give themselves first and foremost to God’s calling and mission, who set aside their pride and envy and selfishness, James says God gives “more grace” (4:6). Can you imagine getting more grace than you know what to do with? Can you envision a church or a world where pride in God’s work takes precedence over pride in our own work? That’s the effect of grace given and grace received, of forgiveness given and forgiveness received. God calls us to lay aside our own agendas so we can show and share grace with others. So who needs grace from you? Who do you need grace from? Maybe this morning, you’re thinking that you’ve tried everything and nothing seems to work. Then we still extend grace, because that’s what Jesus does. To those who nailed him to the cross, he offered grace and the hope of forgiveness—even for those who did him the most harm. That’s what we’re going to celebrate in a little bit when we come to the table. But, before we do, let’s consider: in what ways do you need to pray this coming week for those who have hurt you, for those whom you are arguing with, for those you disagree with? Can you continue to pray for blessings for those persons, even if you never find complete reconciliation? Do you want to be a healing presence in your community, in your home, in your church, in your world? Submit yourself to God, resist the devil, humble yourself before God, and James says God will lift you up by giving you all the more grace…grace we can then give to others.