Stop trying -- just do it! (CC)
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Pastor Dave - Zion (WELS) October 7, 2012
Sermon Text: JAMES 4:7-12 (NIV)
Recorded for us in the Epistle of JAMES where we read from
Chapter 4, beginning with Verse 7:
SUBMIT YOURSELVES,THEN, TO GOD.
RESIST THE DEVIL, AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU.
COME NEAR TO GOD AND HE WILL COME NEAR TO YOU.
WASH YOUR HANDS, YOU SINNERS,
AND PURIFY YOUR HEARTS, YOU DOUBLE-MINDED.
GRIEVE, MOURN AND WAIL. CHANGE YOUR LAUGHTER
TO MOURNING AND YOUR JOY TO GLOOM.
HUMBLE YOURSELVES BEFORE THE LORD,
AND HE WILL LIFT YOU UP. BROTHERS,
DO NOT SLANDER ONE ANOTHER. ANYONE WHO SPEAKS AGAINST
HIS BROTHER OR JUDGES HIM SPEAKS AGAINST THE LAW
AND JUDGES IT. WHEN YOU JUDGE THE LAW,
YOU ARE NOT KEEPING IT, BUT SITTING IN JUDGMENT ON IT.
THERE IS ONLY ONE LAWGIVER AND JUDGE,
THE ONE WHO IS ABLE TO SAVE AND DESTROY.
BUT YOU -
WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE YOUR NEIGHBOR?
This is the Word of our Lord. Let us pray:
Glorious and gracious God, may the words of my mouth and
the meditation of each of our hearts be acceptable
in Your sight, our only source of hope and comfort.
Amen.
[Text taken from the HOLY BIBLE:
NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION: 1973, 1978, 1984,
used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers]
Dear Followers of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ:
Have you had this conversation
with one of your friends? You know, they come up to you
and they say: You know I've had this thing on my arm,
you know it started about 3 or 4 months ago,
and it's getting bigger and it really hurts!
And I don't know what I should do about it.
Or: You know, I've had this pain back here.
And it gets worse all the time. But I'm wondering what -
what do you think I should do about it? I looked on the
Internet; I looked up back pain;
I talked to a lot of people. What do you think I should do?
And you tell them: Go to the doctor.
And they're like: Oh, no. No, I don't wanna go to the
doctor. He might tell me what's wrong.
It could be something really serious.
And you just kind of give up.
Because you think: That person isn't going to go to the
doctor until he can't get out of the chair.
Or she's not gonna get that thing on her arm fixed
until she can't use her arm.
What is it about us sometimes as human beings that
we just don't want to do what we know we have
to do. That it's just so much easier
to ignore some things in our life and keep going
and think that everything's gonna be fine.
And we do that with our faith, as well.
We do that in our life with God.
It is so important for us to hear this morning
that James says: Come near
to God and He will be with you.
How often in our life,
as the children of God, don't we just wanna stay away
from God? Maybe it's because everything's going fine
and we're all comfortable and we don't think that
we really have to have Him. Or maybe it's the fact
that sometimes we think that our sin, the thing that we
have done, has been so great that
God Himself, in all of His goodness and kindness,
would not be able to forgive it.
Or maybe we forget the fact that God loves
us! That He loves us so much
that He sent His Son for us.
And how important it is for us,
as the children of God, to be
near God.
To spend time with Him. To be with Him.
To realize that that is where we get our
strength for living; it is our support for going through this
world of sin.
And sometimes it is a reminder to us that we are sinful human
beings. That we need to go to God,
not always happy and laughing and joyful,
but grieving, mourning, and
wailing. That's a pretty serious
business that James tells us
about this morning.
To grieve, mourn, and wail ...
over our sin ...
because we are sinful human beings
that deserve to be condemned to hell.
We can't save ourselves; there is no one
outside of God who is going to bring us true comfort.
Because He is the one who has taken care
of that need. Taken care of
that great need in us by sending His Son
to take the punishment that should have
been placed on us. We shouldn't take
sin lightly. We shouldn't just keep going on our life
day after day, just thinking: Well, God's gonna forgive me
again. You know it's the sin of habit; it's
the sin that I repeat all the time; but God still
forgives me. Hear those words that Jesus
spoke in our Gospel Lesson for this morning: "IF YOUR HAND
CAUSES YOU TO SIN, CUT IT OFF." [MARK 9:43a]
If your eye causes
you to sin, gouge it out.
If your foot is causing you to sin, cut it off.
God is serious when He talks about sin
in our life. Don't live with it.
Don't become comfortable with it; don't rest with it.
Is it so important for us in our lives
to be comfortable here
with all of the sin
that we would throw that away for the eternity of
being with God
and rejoicing with Him?
Those are things we need to think about.
Not just that our life should be easier.
Not just that we should be comfortable. Not that God
should make our life so much more palatable here.
'Cuz we're in a struggle.
We are in a war with Satan
and our own sinful nature ...
to keep our faith; to stay close to God
where He will guard us and keep us and protect
us safe through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.
By the power of His angels and
the strength that is His alone
He keeps us as His own.
Living in Him, rejoicing in Him, putting into
practice in our lives the things that we hear and
the things that we know.
Being near to God we will resist the devil.
We will just stop it.
And that's a word that we don't hear a lot
even in our world today. Because in our world
it's so easy to say: Well, I'm gonna try that.
I'm gonna try to be better.
I'm gonna try to stop smoking. I'm gonna try
to diet. I'm gonna try to do a lot of things.
And in reality, we're not trying to do anything!
We're just putting it off.
God says: Resist Satan.
Stop ... it!
Stop ... that ... behavior
that you know you shouldn't be doing!
James gives us one example:
Stop slandering each other.
Stop talking bad about the people that are around you.
Don't TRY to do it. Don't think you're gonna
some day later on maybe attempt it: Just ...
stop it!
Who of any of us has the right
to judge someone else?
There's only one Judge and
that Judge is Jesus Christ and He has the right to judge
because He is the One who kept the Law perfectly.
He is the One who ENDURED
that Law and its full punishment ...
so that we wouldn't have to.
To live in His grace; to live in His forgiveness;
to live a life that shows God
how thankful we are and that we appreciate
what He has done.
So we just ought to stop it. Resist Satan
and come to God.
Submit to God and His will.
And have that beautiful fellowship ... that wonderful
fellowship with the Divine ... He IS our loving Father!
That great relationship that is built around God's Word
and studying that Word and
spending time in worship and in prayer with God ...
THERE is where we find peace! THERE is where we find rest!
THERE is our joy! THERE is our reason
for happiness!
And our reason for dancing! Our reason
for being alive as
the children of God!
To do what He asks of us.
One of the things that is so important about the Epistle of
James is it's short and it's direct and it's to the point.
What more needs to be said?
Draw near to God.
Confess your sins.
Resist Satan.
Submit to God
and come near to God ... and He
will be near to you.
Amen.
Let us rise. Now may the peace of God which
goes beyond all of our understanding keep your hearts
and your minds and especially your lives in the one true
faith unto life everlasting. Amen.