Sunday 02/19/17
Series: Doers of the Word
Message – My Heart, God’s Throne
My Heart, God’s Throne
James 4:5-7
“Is it your opinion and do you presume to think that the scriptures say for no reason at all, that “The Spirit that dwells in us intensely craves possession of you, dotes upon you and is prone to feel pain and be moved to jealously at the sight of your happiness apart from God? He influences you more…which is why He says that he resists the proud and obstinate who reject Him, but influences the modestly reverent. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
Last week we looked at Phil. 2 & 3 which in many ways demonstrated the same thought progression as James 1-4. Below are the “take-away” thoughts from those chapters…
We observed that God’s yearning and jealous love for us draws compassion out of Him to influence your heart towards surrender, but BEING A DOER – DEPENDS on your response to that influence! Are you choosing to make your heart the throne of God?
But often we’d rather…
- Complain
- Argue
- Vent our irritation
- Seek out those we know will listen to us and join in our gripe-fest
- Wallow
We all have trigger points – for some it is sleeping, some it is isolation, some it is spending, others it is a physical addiction like food, alcohol or smoking, it can be entertainment, going out to eat, certain people we seek out to spend time with…
In fact that last one is a BIG ONE – Ask yourself – whose company do you seek out and WHY?
Does that person make you feel justified in your sin, do they wallow with you and even add to your complaints several complaints of their own or do they encourage you towards godliness, rather than listen to you blather on about how bad things are for you – do they ask you IF and HOW you’ve sought God in the middle of this problem and trusted Him instead of caving into your flesh? Do they challenge you concerning who you are letting reign on the throne of your heart?
Do the things you resort to led you to the Spirit of God or the deeds of the flesh….to satan or God ruling from the throne of y our heart?
If you buy the lie (in James 1:14-18 – Someone Read) that sin will satisfy…
That you will find satisfaction in…
- Selfish indulgence – instead of humility
- Pursuing being “right” – instead of finding acceptance in Him
- In pursuing the weaknesses of the flesh – instead of the strength of the Spirit
If these are predominately true of you then you are believing the lie – you are deceiving yourself and you are NOT a doer!
New Point…The Throne of the Human heart is a single seater!
James says in verse 7 – “Therefore submit to God and resist the Devil and he will flee from you!”
Then James tells us the answer to all that has been plaguing us…DRAW NEAR to God!!!
“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”
What is His promise!? He WILL draw near! God’s desire is for you. We must let Him take His rightful place on the throne of our hearts, to rule as our God and Father.
Now this promise in James, shows both God’s willingness AND the fact that there is a way in which God can be distant, even from his children.
I then offered an example drawn from a lady I met this past week, who had a work acquaintance who had died without knowing Christ.
The lady I was talking with had tried to witness to her, tried to reason with her to seek God and receive His love and forgiveness, but all she could say was…
“What God? My husband left me…I’m terminally ill…what God?”
The sad thing is that many Christians will empathize with this woman and claim that her rejection of Jesus was at least in some small way justified because she didn’t understand.
THIS IS FALSE REASONING…and it will lead to compromise and sin EVERY TIME!
By thinking this way, we turn the one rejecting Christ and spurring the Spirit’s advances into the “unwitting” victim and God becomes the celestial BAD GUY!
What was this woman to do in her state of anger, hurt and not understanding? She needed to do what Eve should have done in the garden when satan suggested to her that God was not good and His intentions could not be trusted. She could have ASKED God!
How do I know that she didn’t ask God from an honest heart? Because she rejected and scorned the words of His child when she offered counsel.
No, in the end this woman didn’t ask…didn’t seek…gave vent to her anger based upon uninformed, impetuous conclusions and made an temporary decision with eternal consequences.
Truth is God was enough for her, but she didn’t want to hear that – she would rather give vent to her anger and lash out at this “non-existent God”.
But are such actions limited to non-Christians alone?
We can all say easy enough, “God would have been enough for her” …but do our words have the conviction of people who live them?
The REAL Question is – is He enough for me?
You know the honest answer to that based upon the repeated decisions that you make like we mentioned above. Do those decisions allow God to remain on the throne since they are guided and prompted by Him or is He removed from the throne due to the decisions we make.
Jesus said it this way, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, but do not do the things which I command you?” The Word Lord means, one with supreme authority concerning…in other words, it means KING! Where do kings sit…an a throne!
You cannot hold onto your “go to” sin – your “relief value” – your “be there for you friend” (the one we defined earlier who grumbles with you) – AND draw near to God the Father at the same time!
You will have to choose!
Remember His love is a jealous love – He will not share you with others. Your allegiance is His or it belongs to someone/something else….NEVER BOTH!
These are three of the GREATEST church lies of the 21’s century.
- I can love the world and God at the same time.
- I can enjoy the world and God at the same time.
- I can pursue friendship with the world and intimacy with God at the same time.
To which God says – NO YOU CAN’T!
Like the lady in our “real life” example above, we like to make excuses for our treasonous hearts and water down the impact such sin has on our minds by calling sympathizing with our weaknesses.
- I was just so depressed I didn’t see another way out
- I was just so angry I “HAD” to blow up at them
- They really hurt me, so I felt no need to pray for them.
All of our excuses, like those above, side with our flesh and make us the victim rather than the deliberate sinner.
But what does God say…
Does God say, “well, I understand that when you sin you are not really hating Me, you are just too hurt to make a good decision.” NO! What does He say our sin is? “To hate and despise”. Man we do NOT like being called out like this do we? But God loves us too much to let us hide behind “safe and comfortable” definitions for our rebellion.
You see if we didn’t have a choice…if the woman in our sad example above, actually had no choice…could see no other options – then God would be unjust to judge. But God is perfectly just and He does in fact judge, so whther we like to admit it or not – we not only had an option…at one point BEFORE giving in to our sin, we SAW it and rejected it! If nothing else, there was an inner prompting to ask or seek God BEFORE acting.
So now we can better understand why James tells us that the following should be our response to sin, once we’ve committed it…
“…Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to sorrow and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God….”
Do these words sound like someone who is buying our lies about “not having a choice”?
So let’s look at what James says here…
Why hands?
Why heart?
Notice….
clean = doing (hands)
pure = thinking (singleness of heart)
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard the word “double-minded” in James though is it?
Let’s look at James 1:5-8
“(5) If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, Who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. (6) But let him ask in faith, with no doubting,
WHY?
because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
(7) For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;
(8) he is a DOUBLE-MINDED man, who is unstable in all his ways.”
James says a double-minded person is driven and tossed by the wind.
David talks about people like that too as does Paul in Ephesians.
Psa 1:1-4
“(1) Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; (2) but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. (3) He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. (4) The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives about.”
Eph 4:14
“that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”
So we can see that double-mindedness is an instability of soul that is a trait of the childish, weak and wicked.
What does James tell us to do about this?
“(9) Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. (10) Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”
This sounds a lot like 2 Cor. 5 which is where we will end today…
2Cor. 7:6-16
“(6) But God, who comforts the humble, comforted us by the coming of Titus, (7) and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort he received from you. He announced to us your deep longing, your sorrow, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced even more. (8) For although I grieved you with my letter, I do not regret it–even though I did regret it since I saw that the letter grieved you, though only for a little while. (9) Now I am rejoicing, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance. For you were grieved as God willed, so that you didn’t experience any loss from us. (10) For godly grief produces a repentance not to be regretted and leading to salvation, but worldly grief produces death. (11) For consider how much diligence this very thing–this grieving as God wills–has produced in you:
- what a desire to clear yourselves
- what indignation
- what fear
- what deep longing
- what zeal
- what justice!
In every way you have commended yourselves to be pure in this matter.”
Same wording James used “Purify” your hearts, you DOUBLE-MINDED!
…Blessings!
I hope this teaching will challenge you and encourage you to place your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
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Blessings!
