Click here to view the entire service
God knew exactly what He was doing when He formed Eve from Adam’s rib. He knew the man needed a woman to complete him, but He also knew children needed mothers to nurture and love them. We are thankful for mothers. You’ve probably heard of Susannah Wesley, wife of Samuel Wesley and mother of 19 children. Nine died as infants, which still left ten children to raise, including John and Charles Wesley. One biographer wrote, “Mrs. Wesley took tireless pain with her numerous offspring. The guide and teacher of those little children and growing youths was their best, most loving, and most beloved friend – a wise, sweet, and saintly woman.” And I’m sure many sitting here this morning would say the same thing about their mother. “Her children rise up and call her blessed” (Psalm 31:28). We thank God for godly mothers.
Jesus didn’t tell us about that prodigal son’s mother, but when he cashed out his inheritance and headed for the far country, I imagine his mother’s heart grieved as she watched him disappear in the distance. And when he came to his senses and returned to his father’s house, her heart surely leaped for joy just like the father’s.
As James traces true repentance in our passage this morning, we can almost see the steps the prodigal took in returning to his father. You may not have wasted all your substance in riotous living, but we all tend to drift away from our loving, heavenly Father. Life chews up your days; you neglect the Word and prayer. You engage in little compromises. You ignore the convictions of your heart, indulge in the world’s diversions, and before you know it, you find your heart far from God and spiritually cold. Is that true of you this morning? No one else knows, but there you are, struggling with guilt, putting on a front, somehow knowing things are not right in your life. You’ve been trying to fill your life with all kinds of stuff, but yet you are empty, hollow, without an anchor. The prodigal son knew all about this. His money ran out and now he’s headed for the pig pen. “I’ve gone my own way, and look where it’s led me.”
You don’t have to be a flagrant prodigal to need this passage on repentance. The first of Martin Luther’s 95 theses was, “When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said ‘repent,’ He meant that the entire life of believers should be one of repentance.” But what is true repentance? What does it really look like to return from the far country and really get close with God? That’s exactly what our passage is about. We’ve lived for our selfish pleasures. We’ve had conflict with people. We’ve loved the world rather than God and idols of self-indulgence have ruled out hearts. God even calls us “adulteresses” in verse 4. How we need true repentance.
TRUE REPENTANCE – A RADICAL CHANGE OF HEART THAT LEADS TO A RADICAL CHANGE OF LIFE
The best way to understand repentance is in the story in Luke 15 – that prodigal son diving for the husks in the pig pen. He came to himself. He confessed his sins to God. His heart was humbled before his father. He offered to be a servant. He was willing to do anything, just to be near the Father. That’s repentance. That’s submitting to the Father, that’s resisting the devil, that’s drawing near to God, and that’s God drawing near to you!
How about you? Are you in a far off land, far from your God? Have you come to yourself? “How dumb I’ve been. What am I doing here? Look where this has led me.” You’re on the wrong road, you’re going the wrong way. You know you are lost. You want to find your way back. Here’s true repentance – a radical change of heart that leads to a radical change of life. And God welcomes us back. This call to true repentance applies to true believers as well as lost people. MacArthur says this passage is one of the clearest calls to salvation in all of Scripture.
GRACE ALWAYS LEADS TO REPENTANCE
Remember that “greater grace” back in verse 6? This is where God’s grace will lead you – to dealing radically with your heart. You can’t repent without the grace of God. 2 Timothy 2:25 says God gives repentance, so God gets all the glory. And no matter how far down into the gutter of sin a man or woman has gone, God’s grace is greater.
James gives us seven steps of true repentance in this passage. These steps are not optional in coming back to God. There are ten strong, urgent verbs of command that carry the passage. They are all aorist imperatives, which means do it right now, don’t hesitate, be radical: submit, resist, draw near, cleanse, purify, be wretched, mourn, weep, turn, and humble yourself. We’re not going to rush through the passage. We’ll look at three steps today and the remaining four next week.
#1 SUBMIT TO GOD’S RULE OVER YOUR LIFE
James 4:7, Submit therefore to God.
“Therefore” means in view of God’s resisting the proud and giving grace to the humble in verse 6. Humility is the soil in which true repentance grows and leads you to willingly and cheerfully come under God’s authority. “Submit” is a military term. You acknowledge God is your Creator and Redeemer who deserves your obedience. But submission is not just external compliance to God’s law, it is heart submission in which you bring your heart under God’s authority. The opposite is to rebel, reject that authority. And there can be a fake, hypocritical repentance of merely lip service. In Mark 7:6 Christ quotes from Isaiah 29:13, And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.’
General Ulysses Grant was known as “Unconditional Surrender Grant.” He required his conquered armies to surrender with no conditions or terms. Submitting to God is unconditional. You don’t present God with conditions or terms. You surrender all without exceptions. You leave nothing out. You submit to God’s Person, His way of salvation through Christ alone, His providential dealings, and you especially submit to the authority of His Word in the Scriptures we call the Holy Bible.
Thomas Manton says, “Submit yourselves to God; that is lay aside your pride and stubbornness, humbly acknowledging your sins; come as lost, undone creatures, lying at the feet of mercy.” Consciously tell God He is supreme in your life and that you are coming under His rule. In James 4:4 you were living as a world-lover rather than a God-lover. You were a spiritual adulteress and hostile to God. But now by God’s greater grace you are submitting your heart willingly to God as your one and only authority and true love. God calls the shots. God gives the orders. You are committed to following God’s plan and purpose laid out in the Bible. No more running over to enemy territory for your daily instructions. Nope, God rules your heart!
This is a call to every believer, but also a call to lost people. Heart submission to God is absolutely necessary for salvation through faith in Christ. No one comes to Christ while running away from God in rebellion. You can’t run in two directions at the same time. Spurgeon lets us know clearly, “A man is not saved until he bows before the supreme majesty of God. He may say, “I believe in Jesus,” but if he goes on to follow out his own desires, and to gratify his own passions, he is a mere pretender, a wolf in sheep’s clothing” (Sermon: The Reason Many Cannot Find Peace). Submit yourselves, your heart, therefore to God. Go to your Father like the prodigal, “I will rise up and go to my father.”
#2 TAKE A FIRM STAND AGAINST YOUR ENEMY
James 4:7b, Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
“Resist” is a term like submit. It too is a military word – take a determined, definite, militant stand in opposition to your enemy. Be aware and alert that the devil is your enemy and you are his target.
Satan Wants to Hijack Your Heart
Resist the devil. That implies he is right there in your life and he is battling for your heart. God owns your heart. God paid for your heart with the blood of Jesus Christ. Christ deserves to rule supremely in your heart. But Satan wants to use the world and your selfish lusts, cravings, and desires to hijack your heart and crash it. Satan wants to lure you into a love affair with the world. You must resist him.
A Primer on the Devil
Let’s rip off Satan’s mask and look straight into his wicked, evil face. Here is what you see – hatred. Satan absolutely despises God and everything of God he sees in you. He hates the blood of Jesus that redeemed you and brought you forgiveness. He hates the image of God in you. That’s why he promotes false religions to lead eternal souls into eternal hell. He’ll try to deceive you into thinking your religion will save you, that you are good enough on your own, or you don’t need to be saved, or if you follow the leaders and rules of your church you’ll be alright. How many people in Evansville are duped into thinking because they were baptized as a baby they are guaranteed a place in heaven, or even trusting their adult baptism to save them. Satan is okay with anything but the gospel of Jesus Christ, the only power to save man from sin.
Satan hates God and everything of God he sees in people. That’s why he promotes godless evolution and abortion and all this gender confusion. All are direct attacks on the image of God in man. And Satan works his program, his system, by lies. He is the father of lies. He is the great deceiver of the whole world (Revelation 12:9) and the accuser of the brethren (Revelation 12:10). He’s the original hater!
Resist the Devil with God’s Full Armor
Ephesians 6:11, Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
So how do you resist the devil? Put on God’s full armor in Christ. By truth, righteousness, the gospel, the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil, confidence in your salvation, and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God, with all prayer. Christ clearly demonstrated how to use this armor in His bout with the devil. Filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and with the sword of the Word of God ready on His lips, He resisted the devil and He really did flee for a time.
Peter gives the same instruction in 1 Peter 5:8-9.
1 Peter 5:8-9, Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.
The devil is your adversary, your inveterate enemy, walking around like a roaring lion, looking for ignorant, deceived, disgruntled, disobedient, money-loving, grudge-holding, worldly Christians to gobble up and spit out. Be on the alert! Don’t let him sink his teeth into you! Peter says the same thing as James: “Whom resist, firm in your faith!” This is the first key to resisting Satan and keeping him from smashing and bulldozing your life. Get the Word of God into you. Let it dwell in your richly. Read it, become familiar with it, memorize key verses, meditate on it, and especially apply it to your life.
A word to our younger folks: Count on it. Satan is coming for you to get you all confused and drag you away from your faith. You can’t fight him with sponge bullets and squirt-guns. You need to know the Bible, God’s Word. So listen closely to your parents, your Sunday School teachers, and the words spoken here from the pulpit. As you get older, don’t depend on others, but read the Bible for yourself. Search it out. You need the Word of God in your minds and hearts! He wants to blow you away spiritually. And he’ll use anything. He’ll cause you to doubt. Today if you’re a boy, he’ll try to get you to think you’re a girl. He’ll get you to agree with, “My body, my choice.” He’ll use an unsaved boyfriend or girlfriend to draw you away from God’s truth, luring you with promises of love for sex. He’ll use drugs, alcohol, false teaching, ungodly friends, and your own sin to beat you up. He’ll lure you into sin by assuring you it’s okay, everyone is doing it, even Christians, go ahead, just this once, you can handle it, go ahead and click on that “bait,” give in to your lust, take that drink, take that pill. You’ll feel better. Then after you’ve done it and are guilty, he’ll try to keep you from confessing sin, or make you feel like a total failure and yeah, you’ve blown it now, may as well do it again. Satan is excellent at his game. He’s been playing it for thousands of years. You may think you are cool and you can handle it and you’re smart enough and no one can tell you what to do and all the while you are being deceived by Satan. That’s his business…to get you to think you can make up your own mind and don’t need to be under God’s authority, God’s truth, God’s Word. Don’t believe him!
Give the Devil a Word-Whipping
Be ready with God’s Word. Christ gave the devil a good word-whipping out there in the wilderness. When you are tempted to rebel against God and Satan is right there cheering you on, whip out the Word and nail him! “But God says.…” Send him fleeing. But remember, he is persistent and will probably regroup and return. Stay on high alert as long as this God-hating terrorist is around! 1 John 2:14 says, “I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” May this be true of every young person in our church. Submit, resist, and…
#3 GET AS CLOSE TO GOD AS YOU CAN
James 4:8, Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
Draw near speaks of getting close, coming right in and enjoying God’s presence. That’s exactly what that prodigal son did.
Luke 15:20, So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
God Welcomes Sinners
Regardless of who you are or what you’ve done, God welcomes repenting sinners into His presence. All kinds of sinners drew near to Jesus and He delighted in their getting close and personal. Remember that prostitute drawing near to His feet to bathe them with her tears and wipe them with her hair? Jesus didn’t push her away. God gives His children a hunger and thirst to draw near to Him and find heart and soul satisfaction in Him alone.
Psalm 42:1, As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God.
Psalms 63:1, O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Hebrews 4:16,Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
You’ll Find God Right There!
And the most encouraging thing here is this – the moment you draw near to God, He is right there for you! The prodigal’s father didn’t even wait for him to walk up the lane. He went running out and embraced his repentant son. That speaks of the character of our living and loving God.
But how do you draw near? Certainly by prayer as you think about how good and compassionate your heavenly Father is. Spurgeon said “The essence of prayer lies in the heart drawing near to God, and it can do that without words.” You can reflect on God with your mind and heart and find sweet communion with Him.
In Psalm 73 the believer almost stumbled and slipped when he saw how good unbelievers had it. He envied them. His heart was drawn away from God, until he went into the sanctuary of God and saw their end. He realized they were headed for eternal terrifying punishment – that they were sinners in the hands of an angry God. He came to his senses. He saw what a beast he was. He repented. He drew near to God. How does he end it?
Psalms 73:28, But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, That I may tell of all Your works.
So draw near to God. Get as close to God as you can. God created and redeemed you to love and delight in Him far above all other created things, including yyourself. As Augustine said, and I paraphrase, “God made us for Himself and our hearts are restless, full of noise and disorder, until they draw near to God. And when we do, God promises, He’ll draw near to us. But this is impossible without trusting in Christ as your Savior. Only Christ can bring us to God.
1 Peter 3:18, For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God.
SO WHAT?
Are you submitted to God? Are you living under His authority? Are you resisting the devil and his lies? Do you realize that old serpent would love to see you perish just like he will? And if he can’t keep you from Christ, he’ll do everything he can to keep you from living your life for Christ’s glory. Are you pursuing God every day, drawing near to Him through prayer and His Word, delighting in His goodness throughout the day? This is part of true repentance: submit, resist, and draw near. We’ll see the last four steps next week.