The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Reliance - Humbling Ourselves

Episode Date: March 17, 2024

God bless the Menking Family!

Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and you do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity 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 he gives us more grace. Therefore he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Therefore, submit 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 to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up. Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.

There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another? Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell and make a profit. Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. But now you boast in your arrogance.

All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. Lord, thank you for your mercy, your blessing, your grace. Thank you for your life, your resurrection, your atonement. Thank you, Jesus, for being our high priest, for being a friend who sticks closer than a brother, for always being for us and for maintaining us. Thank you for transforming us from image to image and from glory to glory. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for your presence, for your guidance, for your keeping power. I pray, Lord, that you would redeem this time, that we would draw closer to you, that you would instruct us and inform our lives out of your word, and that

you would quicken our hearts. We love you, Lord, and we pray that your name would be glorified in everything that we do. In Jesus' name, amen. The book of James is one of my personal favorites, in part because the manner of teaching is extremely direct and forceful and powerful and convicting and touches upon a wide variety of pertinent topics that are still front and center in the church today. In part, we can apply the beginning of this chapter to the nature of the American church as divided as it is along so many different lines. And when James asked this question, where do wars and fights come from among you. He links it with prayer. He links it with a misordering of priorities. He links it with a lack of humility. And he calls our attention to the fact that God is jealous. And as we're looking at this, it may seem a bit strange because when we think of jealousy, we typically think of that as something that's negative.

It's not good to be jealous. And at the end of the day, there is a sense in which that's a fair interpretation. When we think of jealousy in our modern context, we usually think of coveting and envying. All of those things are described as undesirable and sinful, even here in this chapter. But when we think about God as jealous, how should we picture that? when we think about God as jealous, how should we picture that? For me, it is much easier now to understand this as a husband and as a father, in that I have a proper degree of jealousy over my own wife and my own children. This doesn't manifest itself as this sort of hyper protective, over aggressive nature of no one can say or do anything to my children or anything like that.

But it does mean that I prioritize my wife and my children above any other earthly relationship that I have. When it comes down to it, if there is something that is in the best interest of every single person involved, from the most dear to me to the outskirts, then fantastic. Those are the kinds of things that are win-win situations and they should be embraced. The goal here is clearly not to inspire a jealousy for the sake of establishing conflict for no reason. But when our priorities are improperly ordered, everything here can get out of whack. And there is the most important relationship, that is our relationship with God, that has to take preeminence because we can make an idol out of our spouse. We can make an idol out of our children.

Anything that is taking preeminence over God, God's will, God's word, God's calling on our lives is something that can become an idol. And so we have to understand that it's incumbent upon us to allow the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and to see if there are any ways in which we have prioritized others, even good and positive relationships that God has called us into, over and above our relationship with God himself. After all, when we think about it logically, when we understand who Jesus is, what he has done, the love that he has for us, there is no earthly relationship that can compare to what Jesus has done for us. And this is not to say that Jesus has not ordained these earthly relationships, that he does not bless them, that he does not desire them for us. But if anything gets in the way of our relationship with God, then that means things are not ordered properly.

Now, it is absolutely the case that in our pursuit of the Lord, in our desire to serve him, in our ministry callings, and in a variety of other ways, we are not to neglect these other relationships. And we cannot simply say that, okay, in all circumstances, I should be out of the house serving others. I need to do this additional research. our familial responsibilities, or if you don't have family, if we're neglecting others who are important in our lives, we have to understand that part of obedience to God is our responsibility to these other people and fulfilling it properly. So we can't simply use godly service as a way of an excuse of getting out of these relationships. And I have seen firsthand the potential damage that that can do in families and in a variety of other contexts. I'm familiar with this motif where we have situations where men of God, where women of God are earnestly pursuing the Lord, and they're doing so with their whole hearts, but their families can end up being neglected

and forgotten. And lest we forget, God has called us into these positions, and we have responsibilities delineated in the Word of God to provide for our family, to bring up our children, to love our spouse. These are all primary duties. And so this is a challenging topic because it's not something that can be overly generalized because what's the priority in one person's situation may be different than another. It depends on where they are, what side of the road they're on, which guardrail they're tending towards, or which side, which ditch they're veering off into. And so I don't want to be in a position to speak into anyone's particular circumstance who I'm not directly familiar with. I just want to try to show as best as I can that we need to be sensitive to these different things. Because serving our family is serving the Lord in a concrete, important, and critical way, but we can, in so doing, make our family an idol. And serving the Lord outside of the context of our family is good

and worthwhile and altogether valuable, but everything has to be done in balance. Wherever there is the greatest need is where the Holy Spirit will call us. And many men and women of God have had to, for a time, even for an extended time, go forth in ways of serving the gospel because of the call of God that takes them away from their families. And Paul was sensitive to this because he is coming from a place of instructing the church and saying it would be better if everyone were single and did not have these familial attachments because then everyone could be fully devoted to the direct service of the Lord that people are called into. But he says he is well aware that that is not for everyone. God will provide the necessary giftings and callings for

people who are called into such a position. But we do have to understand that our families are an incredibly important priority and part of our core responsibilities. Now, when we circle around to the main topic again, think about the jealous nature of God. When we are spending time with things that are not just less profitable than the things of God, but things that go against what God wants for us, wouldn't it make sense that the love of God presents itself in a jealous way? God reaching out and saying, I have so much here for you. I have all of the blessings that you need. I have peace that the world cannot provide. I have strength for your weakness. I have answers for prayer. I have all of these things for you. And yet you are neglecting what riches are available

to you and spending your time on some frivolous pursuit. And wouldn't we think the same thing about our children if we have gifts for them, if we have rewards for them, if we have encouragement for them, if we have good things from them and they simply want to go off in a different direction and do things not just that are neutral, but that are downright negative. We would feel the same kind of jealousy, of love with respect to these other things taking away from what we know would and could and should be possible. Taking away from the potential to attain to a higher degree of relationship, a higher degree of connection, a higher degree of love, a higher degree of power, a higher degree of unity, and of agreement, and potency. And God, in some ways,

And God, in some ways, in an analogical sense, is feeling the same way when we prioritize other things over him. When we prioritize even things that we would look on as good, like our families. Even when we prioritize our families over him. So at the end of the day, we don't have enough information about anyone's specific situation to begin to parse where the emphasis needs to switch. But what we can say to everyone involved, to everyone listening, is that we need to make sure that our priorities are lined up correctly. Who is our ultimate priority? What is everything else going to be in service of? Because we are going to serve something or someone. And if everything is oriented, all of our relationships, all of our efforts, all of our pursuits, all of our actions, if all of those are oriented towards God, then the secondary priorities attain their proper place, the tertiary priorities attain

their proper place, and God as the primary priority obtains his proper place and orders everything else besides. If we do not have that structure properly ordered, then we will perpetually be in a state of double-mindedness, of disorder, of chaos internally and externally. These wars, these fights, this coveting, this lusting, this asking improperly so that we would get the rewards and spend them on our own pleasures. And James has strong words for this. He has strong words for this because he understands how potent this kind of disruption is to the work of God, to the preaching of the gospel, to the testimony of the church, to the well-being of the families and the

people who are part of the family of God. And in verse 7, the cure, the response, James is calling into play the idea that we need to submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you, implying that the forces of spiritual darkness would want nothing more than for our priorities to be realigned in an improper way, in a way that diminishes what the Holy Spirit can lead us into, diminishes what God can accomplish in our lives. And this is as much for myself as for anyone. We all need to be in a position to make sure that God is the focal point, that Jesus is the centerpiece, the cornerstone, the foundation. These images and these pictures from the Bible are not accidental. Everything else has to be subordinate to Jesus and constructed on

the firm foundation that he establishes. Otherwise, it will all burn up. It will all fall down. It will all be shaken. And so we need to understand that very well. And what I would encourage you with, brothers and sisters, is that this kind of spiritual reflection is something that the Holy Spirit appreciates, enjoys, responds to. He sees you in this moment as you purpose to figure out if your priorities are properly ordered, this is one of those things where when James says you do not have because you do not ask, and you ask and you do not receive because you ask amiss, if we are asking God to help us by showing us where our priorities are not aligned properly, then this is the kind of prayer of drawing closer to God that will be heard. It will be answered. We will be made better by submitting ourselves in humility to the correction of the Lord in this regard, because God has amazing, incredible, unfathomable things for

us. The kind of love and peace and joy in our hearts, the kind of hope and vivaciousness and genuine appreciation, the kind of things that people so desperately need because they are created with those desires, those needs. God has these all for us. And yet the day-to-day affairs of life tilt us in one direction or another. We end up speaking evil of each other. We end up quarreling and fighting and judging and all of these other things. As a brief aside, this doesn't mean in the context of James 4 even, where James is asking, who are you to judge another? Yes, it is true that we are not the judge, but we do have the

ability to decide and then handle properly, according to biblical principles, things that are wrong, things that need to be dealt with. After all, if we look at James 4 itself, isn't James, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, pronouncing judgment on these bad behaviors, pronouncing judgment on the dynamics that lead to these wars and fights and gossip and backbiting and all of these things. James is not sitting back and saying, well, everything's okay, but it would probably be better if you did something else. He is saying, this is adultery. This is enmity with God. You have forgotten the nature of God.

You are double-minded. You should lament and mourn and weep. This is not a time for laughter. This is a time to be sober and to be repentant and to come to God and to be clean. And so we should not take verse 12 out of context here in James 4 and then use it to say that there is no way that any Christian should be in judgment of behavior. We have been given the Holy Spirit and wisdom and discernment and the word of God and guidance and prayer, all of these things that allow us to discern and decide between right and wrong. Now, we have to handle it properly, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the situation. And there are many different principles of God. We have to take God's whole

counsel into hand when we are dealing with these sorts of things, but this should in no way, shape, or form be taken as a blanket statement that we cannot declare and decide that certain things are evil and that certain things are good. After all, James is doing that very thing in this very chapter, and we would not want to say that the Holy Spirit is being hypocritical and contradictory in this teaching. We simply have to understand it in the proper context and in the proper way. But note again the severity of the language that James is using, talking about adultery in this context, talking about enmity with God, and especially in the language about the world. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. Well, didn't Paul say that he wants to become all things to all people? Don't we want to, even according to the teachings of Jesus, make friends by virtue of the money that is entrusted

to us and the resources that are entrusted to us? And don't we want to be able to impact the world for the spread of the gospel? And here, I would say that the word friendship shouldn't be stretched too far. This is not intended to be condemning for anyone who has a friendship type of relationship with a person in the world who is not a believer, but it does say that we should not prioritize our relationships with worldly systems above our relationship with God, with our position in the kingdom of God, and with the goals of the kingdom of God. Because the systems of this world, in many ways, are oriented in exactly the opposite direction. They have different sets of wisdom, which in James 3 is referred to as demonic. It is not wisdom that comes from above. It's wisdom that

comes from below. And the ultimate test of this is, are we being self-serving? And that's what's being alluded to in James 4, verse 3. When we ask and do not receive because we ask amiss that we may spend it on our pleasures, We all understand what that means. Many people grew up in environments or even still in environments where God is essentially a static provider operating like a genie essentially to grant wishes. And that is certainly not the nature of the God who we serve. Obviously, that is not the case. God is a loving Father who has provided everything for us, understands what is best for us.

And in many cases, we understand that ultimately what we need is chastening. What we need is correction. What we need is to go through a sharpening and a refining process. And we may not desire that for its own sake, but at the very least, we should say that if God has promised that we will have difficulty and that we will have tribulation. And if we are commanded to take joy amidst these trials, then the Lord will give us the strength that we need to endure all of it. And if we are caught in this kind of shallow, wish-granting faith, then we will not be prepared to deal with the difficulties that can arise and are present in the lives of

many people, many believers included. And so we don't want to push the verse, yet you do not have because you do not ask, so far in the direction of saying you should ask for whatever you want and it will be given to you. Now, Jesus does command us. He does say that whatever you ask in my name, it will be given to you. And we need to understand here that the whole counsel of God says that we need to ask for the right things. We can't ask for our own enrichment to the point of spending it on our pleasures, as James says. But when our wills are oriented with the will of God, if we are asking God for his will to be done, if we are walking in the authority that the Holy Spirit gives us and that Jesus has won for us, then we should absolutely be going to the Lord. At the end of the day, what should our approach be?

Our approach should certainly not be to overthink things so much that we end up not going to God because we weren't sure if we were asking amiss, we should go to God regardless and we should pray that the Holy Spirit would help us in our prayers that we wouldn't ask amiss, that God would change the desires of our hearts, that he would reorient us in a proper direction so that we can receive the wisdom and the discernment that we need so that we can ask properly, so that we can see the will of God accomplished in our lives. If we ask for help from God in this way, God is loving. God is just.

He is good. His mercy endures forever. If one of your kids came to you and said, Dad or Mom, what do I have to do to make sure that things are better? What do I have to do to make sure that I can improve myself? What do I have to do to make sure that I am doing the things that you need me to do, that you want me to do? What parent in that situation would spurn that kind of request, that kind of humility, that kind of devotion, that kind of love? It is a profoundly mature request. Mature in the sense not of elevation of our own strength and power, but mature in the sense of an understanding of humility that is only logical.

How could we possibly not be humble before God? Do we know who God is? Do we understand in the slightest that God is the creator, that God's love is endless and perfect, that he has all knowledge and all power, that he made us, that he called us, that he has given us his word, that he has given us his Holy Spirit, that he sent Jesus to die for us? What more does God need to do in order for us to understand that we should be humble before him and we should desire that? It is altogether fitting and proper that our attitude towards God is one of humility. Anything else is just completely preposterous. And it's a testament to the power of our own pride and sin that we would ever be in a position that does not

bring forth the utmost degree of humility. That is proper, altogether fitting and proper in relationship to God, seeing even through a glass darkly who he is, what he has done, his power, his love. And in principle, if we have God at the center, if we have our foundation built on the Lord Jesus, if he is at the top of the food chain, our highest priority, then we can be humble and we should love that kind of circumstance. It's in that mode of operations, in that mode of being where we can hear from the Lord better. We can make more progress. Our prayers are more effective because we know that they are aligned with the will of God. So brothers and sisters, let us understand these words. Let us understand the stakes that James is establishing. Let us understand that it really does matter. Our attitude in prayer, our attitude of humility, our ordering of our priorities,

it really does matter. It impacts our lives in every single way. It impacts our walk with the Lord. We need to be submitted to God and we need to be resisting the devil. We need to be drawing near to God, understanding that he will draw near to us. When our children draw near to us, we, by nature, by necessity, by reflex, we draw near to them. And God calls us evil in the sense of us being parents. Jesus says, if you, being evil, us being parents. Jesus says, if you being evil are asked for a gift, we're not going to give our children scorpions. We're not going to give them rocks to eat. We are going to provide. And God is better than us. He knows what we need. He has the power to provide everything that we need. We must strip ourselves through falling at the foot of the cross and throwing ourselves on the grace and mercy of Jesus and seeking his forgiveness and repenting.

his forgiveness and repenting, when we draw near in that state of humility, God will not spurn us. It is us in obedience to what he has called us to do, seeking his desires, knowing that his desires are good and that our desires are evil in their orientation. They will take us away from the good things of God. And so, brothers and sisters, this is absolutely what we need to do. We need to understand that God needs to be first and foremost in our lives. We need to understand that the nature of God implies directly that our proper attitude is humility. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and to help us in prayer so that we are not falling afoul of this instruction of asking amiss. We need to pray because we need to ask for these things. We need to submit to God. We need to

humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, knowing that he will lift us up. That's what James says in verse 10, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up. That means it is a guarantee. This is the Holy Spirit inspiring this. If we want God to lift us up, and he will, we humble ourselves in his sight. We also shouldn't be boasting about what we are going to accomplish. Every single breath, every single day, every single thing that we have is from the Lord, every single opportunity. What we bring to the table are our imperfections, our sins, and our problems. But thank God that he is just and righteous, that he has provided a way for us to be cleansed of these

things and to give us hearts full of love for others that will avoid the temptation of judging in the way that James decries. Yes, we must keep our heads about us. We must keep wisdom and discernment, and we must be able to declare right from wrong. But can we do that while in our hearts understanding the nature of evil, the nature of God, and the dynamics of man where people can end up in circumstances and situations where they are stuck, where they have been digging themselves a tremendous hole, where they've been fleeing from God, where they have not been oriented properly. And this can happen even in the church, even in a body of believers. But to wrap this up, let us remember all of these things. And let us look at the final verse in this chapter in James 4. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is a sin.

So do we know that these are the things that we should do to make sure that God is in the highest position of authority in our lives, to submit to God, to be humble before him, to ask him to seek the help of the Holy Spirit for the sake of the effectiveness of our prayers, to avoid passing judgment, to avoid speaking evil of one another, to avoid getting into these wars and fights. If we know these things, if we've been instructed in them from James, and we don't do that, that is a sin. We've been told what we should do, and the Holy Spirit, God willing, will help us understand what it is and what it means in our own lives. And then to not go forward with it, it's not a neutral thing. It's not like, oh,

it would be good if I did all these things, but I can kind of shrug it off. No, now that we know that this is what we are supposed to be doing, now that we know that we are supposed to be drawing near to God, submitting to God, resisting the devil, if we don't do it, we're in sin. But even if we find ourselves in that position, let that be a motivation for us to go further in repentance, to change our ways, to receive help from the Holy Spirit so that we would change our behavior, so that the Lord would lead us, so that we wouldn't be asking amiss, so that we wouldn't be found in a situation of enmity with God, so that we wouldn't fall into the category of spiritual adulterers and adulteresses in this chapter. So let's think about the stakes here as

we close. There's nothing more important than prioritizing God. Everything has to come into balance. But when we prioritize God and we receive the wisdom and the discernment and the instruction and the understanding that only he can provide, then everything else will become rightly ordered. Everything else will. And if we understand that and we choose not to do it, then that is a sin that we have committed. It is the sin of disobedience. It is the sin of disobedience. It is a sin of rebellion. But thanks be to God that Jesus Christ is available for us, that he is alive, that his reservoir of mercy and forgiveness and cleansing never runs dry, that it gives his name glory to receive us

when we humble ourselves and submit ourselves to him. It gives him glory to receive us and to forgive us and to cleanse us and to bolster us and to strengthen us. It shows forth his goodness and his love and his might and his majesty and his righteousness and his glory. So let us glorify God in so doing, in approaching him with humility, in asking him and praying that he would restore our right relationships, that he would lead us, that the Holy Spirit would guide us, that our ears would be unstopped, that our would lead us, that the Holy Spirit would guide us, that our ears would be unstopped, that our eyes would be opened to see what he would have us to see in his word and let it be written on our hearts. Brothers and sisters, this is an incredibly important priority for us

in today's world. And I believe it always has been. But let us take it upon ourselves to draw near to God, to understand these lessons from James 4, to seek him with our whole hearts, to seek his glory in his kingdom, to approach him in humility, to allow the Holy Spirit to guide our prayers, and to be receptive to the things of God. God will answer. God will provide. He loves you. He loves you in all of the best and perfect ways. Even if you have never experienced in any earthly relationship any kind of love like this, any kind of love like this. God has it for you. That is where we need to be. Jesus, thank you for this time. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your mercy and your grace.

Help us, Lord, to come to you, to receive everything that you have for us. Change our hearts, Lord. Transform us. Move us from one place to another. Reorder our priorities however you see fit, Lord. We know that your will is perfect. And so in humility, we submit ourselves to you. Bless the work of our hands that you have called us into. Bless our relationships with you first and foremost, and then in our homes and everywhere else give us the grace that we need to see others as you see them help us to find the balance between

understanding right and wrong and showing love for others and providing them a path to forgiveness and healing and cleansing show us how to submit to you and to resist the devil. Give us the right attitude, God, and give us the right priorities in this day. Establish our faith on a firm foundation that we would be found strong in your might and because of your presence in the days ahead. Lord, bless my brothers and sisters who are listening.

Bless their families. Most of all, Lord, bless their relationships with you. Draw them to yourself. Let them draw near to you and let your restoration, your power, and your healing flow. In Jesus' name, amen.