Six Steps To Get Back To God Sermon - James 4:5-10 - Dr. Joel Gregory

0:58 Oh, bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me. Well, to give honor to whom honor is due, your founder, pastor, my friend of the decade, Reverend Dr. Ralph Douglas West, Sr., and especially for him and the First Lady on this very special day and week. It's an honor to be back here yet once again at the Church Without Walls. It's been a while. And to those of you listening beyond here, you are joining with Houston's Church Without Wall. Welcome. As by the thousands all over the world, you join in this service. What an honor to be here. Would you open the word of God with me to the letter of James, that practical letter that I call Christianity in real shoe leather written by the younger half sibling of Jesus who grew up in that same Nazarene home in the carpenter shop with his older brother and who became pastor of the first church in Jerusalem and a Christian martyr.

2:21 In chapter 4, you read six steps for coming back to God. Before we read this, would you say out loud with me, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Please give heed to that word as I read it into your hearing.

2:51 James 4 verse 5. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us. but he 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 and let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection.

3:56 Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. Eternal God, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we adore you, we worship you, we magnify your name. And now we wait that your Holy Spirit might make these words leap from the pages of Scripture and be to us the very Word of God. In Jesus' name, amen. Would you be seated in the presence of the Lord. It won't be long in October when they will leave and fly 6,000 miles to Argentina. and then like clockwork, as if they see an invisible calendar or hear an inaudible voice, they'll fly back 6,000 miles where they came from. If you haven't caught on, I'm talking about the swallows, the birds that leave the mission San Juan de Capistrano on the west coast in California and fly 6,000 miles to spend the winter in Argentina. And then some divine alarm clock goes back and they fly back and land on the cliffs at San Juan Capistrano. These are birds, bird brain. And yet by some majestic reason, they want to get back home. You don't like birds.

5:55 Well, what about fish? Salmon up high in some mountain stream or hatched. They go from that stream to a rivulet, to a tributary, to a river and swim out into the Atlantic for three years, thousands of miles eating and then after three years they lose their appetite they go back to that very river up the stream up the tributary up the rivulet to where they came from because that fish who has a brain the size of a nickel knows it needs to get home now church if god did that with birds and fish on a lower lesser lighter level how much on a higher holier heavier level does you does he want you made in his image fashioned in his likeness to come back to him Now this morning, just like James, the practical, simple, straightforward book of the Lord, I want to give you the six steps to come back to God in quick order.

7:21 All of us can understand these. They're around some commands. Do you see the first one? Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. step one submit the word in the language of scripture literally means to arrange your life under God to place it at his disposal the reason we don't do that is what's right before that and what it was at the end of my passage what does it say God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble. The reason we do not submit roots in the taproot of everything called sin, and that is pride. I know when some people hear that, they say, well, I may have a lot of other sins, but I don't worry about pride. The moment you said that you're proud of not being proud.

8:19 Dante in his poem The Inferno, the Italian poet who took immortally a tour through the circles of hell itself, down at the lowest level on circle number one, he puts the proud as the root of all others, not submitting to God. If you read Dante's Inferno, he has the proud forever and ever middle with a rock on their back saying, must we bow so? Must we bow so? Those who would not bow to God in time, he'll be sure bow in eternity. God stands in full battle array against pride in the face of God. A month ago, I was leading some preachers on a tour in Paris, and we visited Napoleon's tomb.

9:19 The tomb of the arrogant French emperor who was emperor over a vast empire and then lost it all. His sarcophagus is the size of this platform. And you can look at this enormous thing and remember this man who stood in the face of God and church died exiled on a tiny island in the middle of the South Atlantic, a prisoner of the British, because God said, I humble the proud. As we were leaving there, I was talking to them about the story of Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel. He was the emperor of what is today Iraq in the Babylonian empire. Do you remember his story? He was marching on top of his great palace and he said, look at this great Babylon that I have built. Archaeologists have dug that site up in what is today Iraq. And on every brick, instead of Acme brick, it says Nebuchadnezzar. And while he was strutting, boasting, immediately he was felled. And God took him from the palace to the pasture and he ruminated and chewed a cud like an animal for seven years until finally he said God is God and I am not. Do you understand this? In the life of every single one of us the time will come when we will have to say God is God. He resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble. A friend of the pastor's, a friend of mine's, William Bill Curtis, pastor of Mount Arara Church. He's, he preached here. Bill told a story about being in a taxi cab, wanted to witness to the driver. They struck up a conversation talking about the Lord and the driver said, Oh yes, I used to be a millionaire with a big company, but then to do a favor to a friend of a friend. I let someone buy a few pieces of stock in my company. And with that brought a boatload of trouble. I spent years in trial in federal court, lost everything I have. And now

11:33 I'm a taxi driver, but I'm happy. He said, I used to have a house, but I didn't have a home. I used to have biological children, but I really didn't have a family. And God took what it did to get me to him. God will resist the proud. Now I want you to play children's church with me. I know I'm a professor of theology church, but we're going to play children's church today. We're going to learn how to remember this passage. Can you say God, God resists. The proud. But then look next. It says resist the devil.

12:20 Denial is discouragement to the devil. He cannot stand to be mocked. In his poem Paradise Lost, John Milton said the devil, that spirit, cannot stand to be mocked. if you resist the devil he will flee from you denial is discouragement when he says just click that button and look what no child of God ought to look at if you mock him and resist him I mean I talk to the devil talk to the Lord I also talk to the devil I say you can go to hell you're already there you're not going to drag me with you for some of you there's a place where you don't need to be and some kind of magnet draws you to that place resist the devil tell him you're not going to drag me down there with you mock him 40 days the Lord in the desert resisted the devil. Now, one of the problems about the devil is, C.S. Lewis has stated this, that we either laugh at him or believe that he doesn't exist.

13:41 We've dressed him up in a red suit with horns. Nowhere does it ever say in scripture he wears a red suit of pajamas with horns. Or we say he's in camouflage and we don't even see it. It's basic to biblical theology, basic to believing the word of God, that there is an enemy to your soul. There is a personal enemy adversary. And James says, resist him and he will flee from you. Do you remember what it says after Jesus was tempted to 40 days? It says the devil departed from him for a season. But I go up to Colorado spring from time to time to visit Compassion International every now and then have been up Pike's Peak. If you go up that it's switchbacks going back and forth and on the outside there's a sheer drop thousands of feet. Now suppose I wanted to hire a driver and I put in the local newspaper driver needed to take me up Pike's Peak. It is required that you drive as close to the edge of the road as possible.

14:49 I'd really like you to drive with one tire halfway over the edge. No. If I hired a driver, I'd say, I want a driver who specializes in hugging the mountainside. don't drive with one tire over the edge, resist the devil and he will flee from you. All right. Now we're playing children. Just what submit, resist. Here's the next one. draw near to God and he will draw near to you. That is an unqualified promise. If you look through the 66 books of Holy scripture, the record of human beings dealing with the living God, you will not find one instance of someone who drew near to him, that he was not already drawing near to them. Come close to me. I don't care who you are this morning, sitting in here or out there somewhere. You may be in a mansion. You may be in an apartment.

16:01 You may be in a manufactured home. You may be on the street somewhere. It's unqualified as to who, if you'll draw near to him, he'll draw near to you. You know what the lie out of hell is this? He's the accuser of the brethren. And he'll say, you've gone too far. You've done too much. You've had one foot on a banana peel and the other halfway in hell. And he'll say, you can't come back. No, it says, if you will draw near to God, he will draw near to you. The devil's lie is you've gone too far. You send it away. Nobody ever said this promise applies to everybody in creation, except you. That's a lie straight out of the devil's domain. Whoever you are, there's a mutual reciprocal. You draw near to God and God is already drawing near to you. Don't fear the encounter.

17:04 So it's too late. Famous Baptist preachers, president of the largest Protestant domination in America, the SBC. He was in a hotel room as a young man. He had a gun. He was about to blow his head off and Carl Bates, Dr. Carl Bates, for some reason, opened the drawer of the lamp table in the little bedside and there was a Gideon Bible. Dr. Bates read that Bible, fell on his knees, drew near to God, put down his gun and God drew near to him. And he became a world Christian leader. Wherever you are in the sound of my voice, I don't care how discouraged you are, draw near to him and he'll draw near to you. I had a friend who was building a huge new church building on 200 acres. And on a Saturday afternoon, he went to the empty building just to look it over while it was being built. And he came to a door that he'd never seen. So he pushed it open, said, what's in this room? Went in and the door closed behind him. What he didn't know is that there was no hardware on that side of the door. So it was Saturday afternoon up there by himself. The door closed with no opener. He said, as my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw across the room.

18:30 There was another man said, my heart began to beat breath abated palms perspiring. I'm shut up here Saturday afternoon in this room with another man. He said he was bigger than I was, uglier than I was. So in a very pastoral way, I said, may I help you? And he didn't say a thing. He said, I took a step toward him and he took a step toward me. He said, so I braced myself. And then when my eyes adjusted a little more, I saw it was a mirror. he said the encounter I feared was an encounter with myself close to me when this says draw near to God. The encounter that you may fear is with yourself because to draw near to God, you have to own who you are in order to disown who you are. Don't fear the encounter.

19:39 He said, draw near to you. Oh, church. Well, wait a minute. Submit. Resist. Draw near. Look at the next one. Cleanse your hands, you double-minded. He says, look at the outwardness of your life and cleanse your hands. now another way to put that spiritually you can act yourself into a new way of feeling rather than feel yourself into a new way of acting here's what i mean james means establish some holy habits that whether you feel like it or not It is your practice every day.

20:37 These holy habits, whether you feel good or feel bad, whether God seems to be in the room with you or a mile away, holy habits. Let me tell you what I mean by that. I've wrestled with this for years, this holy habit that I have finally overcome. Wake up in the morning, put my feet on the Lord. Some mornings I say good morning, Lord. Others I say, Lord, it's morning, but I get up. and get a cup of coffee and the first thing that I'm tempted to do is to grab the Waco News Tribune and read the paper as if there was anything new in the paper. One of the most misnamed things in the world is the news. There's nothing new about the news. Somebody got shot, somebody got robbed. Some countries at war. I resist that and make myself first thing, take the word of God, whether I feel like it or don't feel like it. Happy set. That's what he means is cleanse your hands, change your habits, adopt some spiritual practices that, well, look, let me say this.

21:52 Why kneel in prayer for 2,000 years? People who are able have knelt in prayer. That's a practice. Because when you kneel before God, it humbles you before God. Our Catholic friends, Episcopal friends, Anglican friends, Lutheran friends, they cross themselves like this. Now, that doesn't have to belong just to them. That's the shape of the cross. There's nothing magical about it, but it reminds them that they live under the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Martin Marty, world famous church historian at the university of Chicago says, every morning when I wake up, I do this not because it's magic, but because it reminds me I'm under the cross every night when I go to bed and go to sleep, I do it. These are just holy habits that you practice in order to draw you closer to God. Could I give you a very practical one for our day? John Mark Comer is the pastor of a big church in Portland, Oregon, one of the pagan cities in this country, Portland, Oregon. He's written a new book, John Mark Comer, called the elimination of hurry our lives driven by hurry he says one way he's eliminated it is that he and his wife have taken these devices and after dinner in the evening they open a drawer and they put them there and they leave them alone so they interact with one another and with their family and with God. He reminds us that every time we look at these, say on Facebook and see that somebody likes us, nobody else may like us, but one person likes us.

23:48 It gives us a hit of dopamine. Dopamine is what your brain produces. It makes you feel good. Somebody out there says they like me. Now they probably don't like you, but they say they like you and you get some dopamine. What does dopamine sound like? Dope. one I'm serious about this he he has convicted me to put this thing down sometimes and spend time with God that is a holy habit sometimes you have to act your way into feeling I became a pastor when I was 19 years old what I didn't know about pastoring would fill the encyclopedia. But I knew I was supposed to go to the hospital and see people, but I didn't like hospitals. Didn't like the way they smelled. Didn't like the green paint on the wall.

24:48 But what happened when I made my 19 year old self go to the hospital and pray with people and see how much it helped them? It made me want to go. Once I got there, I acted my way into a new way of feeling. You hear what I'm saying? Cleanse your hands. Next, purify your heart. Now you can act yourself into a way of feeling, but your heart is the inner sanctum. That's the holy of holies. That's where nobody can get but you. Not your wife, not your husband. That's where things are that you'd be ashamed even to tell a psychiatrist the inside of the inside that is where God wants to get James reflects all of the beatitudes of his older brother and here he reflects blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God it doesn't say blessed of the pure in hands with what you do. No, blessed of the pure in heart. That's how you see God.

26:04 James would say to you, guard your center. Place a sentinel at your center. Out of the heart of humans come the issues of life. That place where only you and God know what you really are. You remember those old Roman movies, the chariot race movies like Ben Hur? Some of y'all remember those. Charlton Heston driving the chariot. One of those movies, can't remember which one, the hub of the chariot wheel caught on fire. In those days, there weren't any ball bearings or bushings or anything like that. You had a wooden hub on a wooden spoke. And if it ran out of lubrication, when you rub wood against wood, it caught on fire. And that fire from the center started to trace the spokes out to the circumference of the wooden wheel until the whole thing was on fire.

27:09 To me, that's a picture, a metaphor, poetic of my life. I need to guard the center so that what happens in the center doesn't follow the spokes out to the circumference of my life. He says, what? Purify your heart. Now, this last one sounds like somebody spoiling a party. Lament. 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 lament there's a book in the Bible called Lamentations now listen this is not the room God wants you to live in but it's a hallway you need to go through. The choir sang earlier today about joy. Joy is the emblem of the Christian life. That's the room you want to live in, but come close to me.

28:28 You have to pass through the hallway of lamentation to get into the room of joy. If you look at Jesus' beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of God. That means you're blessed if you're humbled and look up to heaven and say, I'm spiritually bankrupt, overdrawn, in the red. My only hope is the grace of God. What's the second beatitude? then blessed are they that mourn for they'll be comforted. Now that doesn't mean just go around acting mournful all the time. That's how you feel when you recognize you're bankrupt in spirit. What's the third beatitude? Blessed or the meek. That is I submit. Now remember where we've been?

29:28 submit, resist, draw near, cleanse your hand, purify your heart. To do that, you've got to go through lamenting. There's a syndrome called the Jogren's syndrome. It's for eyes that cannot produce tears. You have to artificially lubricate your eye. Now that may be a medical necessity, but you don't want artificial spirituality. Now, I don't know how you are when it comes to weeping or lamenting. I know some people that can cry a bucket at the drop of a handkerchief. Others, not so much. It doesn't have anything to do with how many tears you said. It has to do with the attitude of your heart. Do you lament more over your spiritual bankruptcy? Go through that hallway so you can get back to God. Now here's an interesting thing. James himself had to do that.

30:40 you remember his biography he was the younger half brother of jesus john chapter 7 says his brothers mocked him jesus had at least four named brothers and two sisters says they mocked him because they didn't believe his message go up to jerusalem if you're a prophet mark 3 says his family came to him and said you're crazy you're beside yourself we're here for an intervention.

31:10 And yet, James became the pastor of the church at Jerusalem. Paul gives us a little cameo appearance of the risen Christ after he'd appeared in the upper room in the mirror. He says to James also. I think James was in that carpenter shop back at Nazareth. Probably with his back to the door when he heard a voice, James, he recognized the voice and he turned around and it was his risen brother, now his Lord Jesus Christ. You know what James had to do?

31:53 James had to submit. James had to draw near. I'm sure James lamented and he became the Apostle James, pastor of the church. This is his biography. did any of you ever listen to the radio on PBS to Prairie Home Companion Garrison Keillor was the star of it he is one of the greatest storytellers in American history if you ever heard it you might have fallen in love with it he made up a town in Minnesota called Lake Wobegon and he made up the characters who lived at Lake Wobegon Many of them were Scandinavian Lutheran dairy farmers And he'd tell stories about these people out in the country One day Garrison told about Hans and Hulda Hulson Scandinavians out on a dairy farm They were nearly 80 Hulda wasn't feeling good And the country doctor couldn't do her any good Hans, I needed to go into Minneapolis And see a real doctor Hans said, I'm afraid of Interstate 35.

33:15 Those trucks, I can't see well. I don't know where to go. Hans, I need to see. It's went on, you know. Finally, Hans said, okay, okay. I'll take you to Minneapolis to see a real doctor. So he got in his old car, headed down the interstate. 30 minutes later, nervous wreck, 18 wheelers cars. He said, I got to get a piece of apple pie. Got off at a truck stop. They both went in, had some pie. Hold on, I'll be back. I'm gonna put some gas in the car. Hans was also having some memory problems. And after he put the gas in the car, he just drove off. Half hour later he said, oh Jesus, I left to hold her. Then he got off Interstate 35 and got lost in the county roads. Couldn't find his way back.

34:08 Finally, hours later he found the truck stop, went in and said, there was a lady here in a blue dress. Waitstaff said, yeah, we know. She called her son and he came and got her. Oh, An said, now I know they'll put me away.

34:29 He made his way back to a little grassy knoll looking down on the farmhouse, and he saw his son's pickup. He was too ashamed to go home where his adult son was with his wife, so he sat there until it was dark, and the lights of that pickup penciled their way away from the farm, and he knew he had to go home. Hans creeped in the door snicked up to the old kitchen door and just stood there Hulda's back was to him washing dishes where she'd been 60 years Hans didn't know what to say finally cleared his throat and Hulda turned around and said oh Hans Hans I'm so glad you came back I thought I'd made you so mad that you left me.

35:25 And he said, I thought you'd never speak to me again, Alda. And they fell into one another's arms, both of them fearing the encounter. Come here. Some of you feel toward God the way Hans felt standing in that kitchen door. Oh my God.

35:54 When if you draw near to him, he is already drawing near to you. In a moment, the ministry is going to come and open this altar and this church door. Out of the many people here and many of you beyond here, somebody has been fearing the encounter. Hear this word. Humble yourself under the hand of God. And he will exalt you. to stand up, to step out, that's to submit. It's to resist the one who doesn't want you to do it. Your spirit, Holy Spirit of the living God, will take this word of God.

37:03 Faith comes by hearing. And may one somebody now draw near. In Jesus' name, amen.