March 7, 2024 – Grace for the Humble

“Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it, so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it, so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.  Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  Or do you suppose that the scripture speaks to no purpose? Does the spirit that God caused to dwell in us desire envy?  But God gives all the more grace; therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” James 4:1-10

“When we do something wrong, we all tend to point outside ourselves for the cause: “This traffic makes me so angry”; “She gets me so upset”; or “My boss pulls the worst out of me.” It’s a comfortable, street-level heresy. It feels good to think that your biggest problems in life exist outside you and not inside you, but the problem is that it simply is not true. Jesus devastated the self-atoning perspective on human behavior in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder. . . .’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. . . . Sin is a matter of the heart before it is ever an issue of our behavior.” (“New Morning Mercies”, March; Paul David Tripp)

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God.”

I think it is safe to say that there will not be a submission of the proud and the powerful into G-d’s hands in wholesale acts of humility today. I am safe to say that there will be more sinning of pride, greed and selfishness today than there is people falling to their knees in confession to G-d. You see, your and my biggest problem in life exists inside us and not outside us. It’s the evil inside all of us that projects the evil outside of us all the time.

That means that all of us must confess that we are the greatest problem when it comes to sin in the world. And if we are willing to confess this, that we are all in desperate need of the grace of Jesus that is able to rescue us from ourselves, then perhaps we can begin the process of praying along with David in Psalm 51: that G-d begin to create in each one of us a clean heart.

Praying that G-d create in us a clean heart is the beginning of humility and wholesale change within each one of us. Will we ever reach a point where we will be able to “not” sin? Of course not. But with the Grace of G-d found in Jesus Christ, when we humbly confess our sins and ask for forgiveness, then we know that Grace does abound.

Pastor Dave