So we open our Bibles to James and chapter 4. James and chapter 4. You like to be happy? So do I. You like to laugh? So do I. James, the brother of Jesus, tells us to stop laughing and to cry. This is how to draw near to God. It says there in chapter 4 to draw near to God in verse 7. He says in verse 8, draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. So there are times when we have to stop laughing and we have to cry. Times when we have to be sad rather than happy if we are to draw near to God. So in those verses, let me read them again, 6 to 10, we read these words. But God giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. In those verses we have the essential ingredients of repentance. Repentance is not just the door into the Christian life, it's the path for the Christian on the way to heaven. So every day we sin, every day we need to repent. And every day God forgives those who are sincerely repentant. So Christians, we need to repent every day. How do we do that? The verses I've just read tell you that. Here are the essential ingredients of repentance, turning away from our sins. So to draw near to God, we must be submissive, be steadfast, be sorrowful, and then we will be singing. Be submissive. He says, verse 7, quite clearly, submit yourselves therefore to God. Now imagine you're visiting a consultant at Bedford Hospital, you've got all kinds of tests, x-rays, you've seen more than one consultant and the consultant looks at you He's going to find it hard to tell you what he's got to say, but he does it gently. He says, I'm very sorry to tell you, but there is no more that can be done for you. That's his diagnosis. You're shocked. You're upset. You're crying. You may feel angry. But you have to accept, you have to submit to the diagnosis of the doctor, the consultant. There is no more that we can do for you. And in the verses we've read is God's diagnosis of the human race. God's diagnosis of you and me. You are a sinner, God says. And there is nothing that you can do. There is no remedy that you can find. That's the bad news, says God. But he says, look, there's good news. I have given my own son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for you, that you might be healed of the cancer, disease, this heart disease of your soul. God is telling us here, that's the diagnosis. You must submit to it and you must come to me in repentance. and all who come to me in repentance, I will forgive. Those who draw near to me, I will draw near to them. So the humble person accepts God's verdict. He does not hide or excuse his sin. He realizes that his own good deeds are like filthy rags. But God takes away the filthy rags and gives us the robe of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you come then to God in true, sincere contrition? I don't know, there may be someone who has never come to Christ here this evening. Well, you can come and God will forgive you. There may be someone who is a Christian, but you've been drifting away from the Lord, and you know that there's sin hidden in your heart. You need to come. You need to draw near to God in repentance, and He will accept you. It may be that your love for Christ is growing cold. Weak is the effort of my heart, cold my warm is thought with sun. Don't we all feel that? and we see that we all need to come in submission to God and realize there is nothing we can do apart from God and his grace and God forgiving us and God being with us. So he talks then of grace, verse 6. He says that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Grace is God's gift, the very word means that. It's a gift that God gives to you and you receive it gladly and joyfully. To refuse God's gift of grace offends him. I'll take you into a secret. Before this month is out, I'll be another year older. Think of that. Well, I'm sure my wife will give me a present. I hope so. I'd be offended if she doesn't. But just suppose she gives me that present. I don't want that. Take it away, Wendy. I don't want that. She'll be upset. Very, very upset. Why? I've taken the time to think about what you would like, something you particularly want, and I've wrapped it up, I've given it to you, and you refuse it. She would feel hurt. Is not God offended, may I say, even hurt if we turn away his great gift of grace, if we do not trust him and submit to him and come to him when we have sinned? We adopted a son called Wayne, who grew up in Dr. Barnardo's home in Barkingside. being prepared for adoption. Dr. Barnardo started his children's homes, the boys' homes to start with, in the East End of London. And one day there was a knock at the door. Dr. Barnardo opened the door and there was a little boy. Here, mister. Can I come in? I've got nowhere to stay. Dr. Barnardo said, I'm sorry, there isn't any room. I can't take you in at all. And he turned him away. And the next day there's another knock at the door. Hey mate, you turned away my friend Carrot. Ginger hair called Carrot. And now he's dead on the streets. Imagine how Dr. Bernardo felt. Deeply distressed. So he put up a sign. No destitute child ever refused. He said we'll find room somewhere under the bed, two in a bed, somewhere we will find room for destitute boys. He never turned away. And God says no destitute sinner ever turned away. Whether you were coming for the first time, whether you're coming as a Christian who's drifted away, whether you're coming as a Christian very conscious of your sinfulness and unworthiness, no sinner, destitute sinner ever turned away. Draw near to me, he says, God and I will draw near to you, but you must come with submission. You must be submissive as you come. The Christian must be also submissive, not only to receive God's diagnosis about him, but he must be submissive in times of suffering. And back in chapter 1 we read these words about suffering. in James 1 and in verse 4, 2 to 4. We read there that the apostle says, chapter 1 verse 2, he says, but know this, my brethren, and sisters as well, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations, various kinds of trials and temptations. You are to be submissive and to accept them as from the hand of your Father, the all-wise God. Knowing this, that the trying of your faith, work of patience. So God has a purpose to teach you patience and endurance. And the path to heaven is one of suffering. And God says, be submissive when I'm dealing with you in discipline, when life is very difficult. But let patience have a perfect work. that you may be perfect and endure wanting nothing. So, God will bring you to perfection. God will bring you to completion. You've turned to God through Christ. You've trusted him for salvation. And then you discover that the pathway of repentance, the pathway of following God is not easy. God doesn't promise that it will be. Yet you have to submit yourselves to God. I accept your diagnosis if I'm a sinner. I accept that you are wise in the times when you discipline me, in the times when there are trials and life can become very difficult and almost unbearable pain is afflicting me. Yes, but I'm submissive to God. God says, be through James, he says, submit yourselves therefore to God. Don't be proud, thinking I know best. If you grumble against God, then you are in effect saying, I know better than God. How foolish that is. How can you know better than the All-Wise God? How can you know better than God who loves you and cares for you, who is your Heavenly Father? He says in verse 6 that we are to be humble. God resists the proud but give us grace unto the humble. And verse 10 he says, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up. So the two bookends of this section, 6 to 10, are be humble, humility. Humility is the hallmark of the Christian. Nineteenth century, J.C. Ryle, John Charles Ryle, became the first Bishop of Liverpool. Wrote great books like Holiness, Practical Religion, every Christian should read them. And J.C. Ryle says this, Humility is the very first letter in the alphabet of Christianity. Remember when you were learning your alphabet? A, B, C, D, and so on. And Rao says the very first letter in the alphabet of Christianity is the letter. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Be submissive. But then, if we're to draw near to God, we have to be steadfast. We read again in verse 7, we read there, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Be steadfast, you will need perseverance, you will need endurance to resist Satan. He's a very real spiritual person. Peter talks about him like a roaring lion, walking about, prowling around, seeking whom he can devour. John in the book of Revelation talks about him as a red fiery dragon. He wants to consume you and destroy you. He wants to take you from Christ, but he can't if you're a true Christian. But you must resist the devil if you want to see him flee from you. So sincere repentance is a declaration of war against the great enemy of our souls, Satan, the devil. So we must stand firm, be steadfast against Satan. You see, once you belong to Satan, before you were a Christian, you belonged to Satan. You were in his kingdom, you were in his army. And now you have come out of the devil's army, you've repented your sin, you've turned to God, away from sin and Satan, you no longer serve the old master, you serve a new master, the Lord Jesus Christ. God in heaven. And the devil does not take very kindly to that. He doesn't like you forsaking him and leaving him and serving a new master. And he'll do all that he can to stop you serving God. He wants to stop you becoming a Christian. He wants to stop you repenting. And when you are a Christian, he will do all he can to stop you from repenting. Why? It's not such a big sin after all. Why worry about that? Why get your conscience all bothered about such a small and trivial thing? It's not that important. It tries to fool us, delude us, deceive us. So we have to stand firm. We have to resist him with all the power that God gives us, with all of the discipline we can master, with God's help. We have to stand our ground and fight against him because he would damn our souls if he got us. There's a devil and there's a heaven and there's a hell and we have to be serious as Christians and determined in our Christian living. I was in my 20s, I read J.C. Rowell's Holiness, and I think the overall impression of reading that book was that I've got to be serious as a Christian. Holiness has got to be the obsession of my life. To be like Christ, to want to be more like Christ, to live for Christ, to resist sin and temptation has got to be the most essential thing in my life because in that way I'm drawing near to God and I'm showing that I am a real true soldier, disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God in heaven. So read sometime again Ephesians 6, you'll know it well. called to a spiritual warfare. Our fight is not against flesh and blood, just people. It's against the rulers of darkness, principalities and powers, Satan and his vast army of fallen angels. They're arrayed against us. And we have to state, he says there, stand, stand, stand. Running away is not an option. You stand. You are steadfast in your resisting of Satan. But how, you say, do I resist Satan? Well, you need to go and read again Matthew chapter 4 and the temptation of Jesus. Remember, he'd been 40 days, 40 nights, 6 weeks fasting. He was physically hungry. As a man, he was hungry. And it was a real temptation when Satan said, take the stones and make them into bread. He could have done that, of course he could. But he says, quoting Deuteronomy, God's word, he resists God's enemy by quoting God's word, man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. and three times he's tempted, and each time he quotes from the book of Deuteronomy. He quotes God's word. You resist God's enemy by God's word. The word, as Paul did in Ephesians, is the sword that you use to fight off Satan. So you must fill your mind and your heart with the Bible, God's word, so that when you're tempted, You know what you should do. Why? God says this. I must not do that. Or God says, I must do this. The more you fill your heart and mind with God's word, the more equipped you are to resist Satan and to see him flee. So Satan's a powerful man, but he's not as powerful as God. Of course not. God's almighty. God made the world. God made Satan, though that's a great mystery, we can't go into that this evening. He was an angel. So God is almighty and powerful. And go to the cross. There at Calvary, Christ defeated Satan. Colossians 2 tells us that he made a show of all the principalities and the powers. He defeated Satan on the cross and we fight therefore from the vantage point of victory already accomplished by Jesus Christ. The devil comes to you, tempts you, vexes you. Oh, nobody sinned like you. That's a lie. Oh, you can't overcome me, says the devil. That's a lie. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. And one day the Bible tells us, the book of Revelation, that the devil will be chained up forever, thrown into the lake of fire, along with all those who do not repent. Those who are not submissive, those who are not steadfast, will be forever with Satan in hell. So, you're a Christian, you say, yes I'm a Christian, I know the Saviour, I've trusted Him, I've turned to my sins. Well, are you therefore each day resisting the devil? comes at you, maybe with the voice of a relative, a friend, someone you love, someone you respect, someone at work, someone at school, someone at college, you have to be alert. Ah, that's a temptation. That is the devil speaking, and I have to be steadfast, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. That's God's promise. So to draw near to God, be submissive, be steadfast. But then you must be sorrowful, sorrowful. In verses 8 and 9 of our chapter 4, draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. There are times when we must stop laughing and we must cry. Times when it's not appropriate to be jolly and jovial and joking. Time to be sorrowful. if we would draw near to God. Of course, there is a joy in being a Christian. Peter speaks about joy inexpressible, full of glory. Yes, but before you know that joy inexpressible, full of glory, you have to mourn and to weep and to cry in deep contrition, in repentance as you come to God. Verses 8 and 9 tell us what genuine repentance looks like. The words cleanse and purify tell us that we're unclean. There is the stain of sin deep within our hearts from the moment of birth. You're praying about a son, about to give birth. Isn't that happy? Isn't that a lovely occasion? But when you look at the little baby, everybody's ooing and aahing, isn't he lovely? Isn't he like his dad? He's got his mother's nose, a bit like his granddad. And everybody says, of course he's wonderful, everything's wonderful about a baby. But we know, because we know our Bibles, that a little cherub is actually a sinner. Of course not conscious of sin from birth, of course not. But it doesn't take long for that little child to learn how to say no, stamp their feet and get into a temper tantrum. Because we are born sinners and therefore we need to cleanse our hands and purify our hearts. The hands speak of our actions, what we do. But why do we do sinful things? Because of what's wrong with our heart. Our heart speaks of the inward stain, the inward sin. Theologians call it total depravity. And as water flows out of a fountain, so sinful actions and desires flow out of our sinful hearts. Cleanse your hands, repent your actions. But you must get deeper than that. You must purify your hearts. It's no good if you, going back to the doctor illustration, it's no good with the doctor, the consultant, just dealing with the symptoms, where there's a few tablets. No, doctor, I want to know what's causing the pain. I don't just want a few tablets that will ease the pain for a brief time. I want to know what is wrong with me and what can be done to deal with that problem, whatever it is. So what are we to do? Cleanse your hands, purify your hearts. Every day, and I hope you do, every day you have a wash, a shower or a bath. I haven't had a bath for years, but that's because we haven't got one. But I do a shower. We do that every day, to clean up, wash our bodies. But we need to wash our souls every day with the detergent of repentance, a soap of repentance, the detergent that will wash clean our souls. But you say, surely only God can forgive, only Christ's blood can wash away sins. That's true. Nevertheless, our response to Christ's death on the cross and his shed blood, is that by repentance we clean our hands, we cleanse our hands, we turn from our sins and we wash our hearts. We pray that God will take away the love of sinning, as Charles Wesley puts it. So here is the Holy God. He's more holy, more almighty than you can ever, ever imagine. And in his presence we are, as he says here, be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. That is the only appropriate way to draw near to God. And it's the person who's weeping and mourning with sin and repentance and contrition That's the person that God draws near to and forgives them. Is God willing to forgive? Yes, you know the answer is yes. James 4, the verses we've read, is a call to repentance, isn't it? Through James, the voice of God is calling us to repentance. He's calling us to seek him, to come near to him, to turn from our sins, And how can the high and holy God forgive sinners? Because his own son died on the cross. God laid on him all the stain and the filthiness and the vileness of your sin. Your sin deserves God's holy wrath that fell on Christ when he died on the cross. There on the cross, he took our sins. God treated him as the vilest sinner, that he might treat us as righteous, declare us not guilty. So Jesus washes away the filth of our sins, but we must wash our souls and actions by repentance as we come near to God. Let me add this, that the forgiven forgives others their sins. Do you want to know whether you've really been forgiven by God? Well, are you willing to forgive others? Look for the account of the Lord's Prayer. We read that we pray, forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. In Matthew's account of the Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6, if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you. It doesn't mean that by forgiving others you earn God's forgiveness. It means that because you're forgiven, You must, inevitably, and you cannot help but forgive others. If you can't forgive somebody, then I say on the authority of God's Word, you're not a Christian at all. So is there someone you're not talking to? You're a Christian, you say God's forgiven you. Is there someone you're not talking to? It's about time you went to that person and said, look, I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I said something to hurt you, to offend you. Please forgive me, and I'm willing to forgive you too. Isn't that hard? It's a short word, but it's the hardest word to say, sorry. To a husband, to a wife, to a mother, father, to your children, to your neighbour, to the person at work, to the church member, But if you understand James 4 and what it means to draw near to God and God to draw near to you in repentance, you will and you must forgive. I leave that challenge with you to think about, to pray about, and to do something about if you need to. It's all very well, yes we know that, we've heard it so many times, but what are we going to do about it? And briefly, there's one more point. Be submissive, be steadfast, be sorrowful, be singing. Where's that in James 4? Well, if God forgives you, you can't help but sing. You can't help but be joyful. There's a great hymn, Christian hymns, it's not very often sung, by Charles Wesley, on the joy of being forgiven. My God, I am thine. What a comfort divine. What a blessing to know that Jesus is mine. In the heavenly land, Christ happy I am. And my heart doth dance at the sound of his name. Danced, Mr. Wesley? We don't do that in Providence. Don't do it in Wellington Evangelical Church. I'm a member. But there ought to be a feeling of my heart of dance at the sound of his name. There ought to be excitement that God has forgiven us. There ought to be an exhilaration that God has forgiven me. God, the holy God has forgiven me, such a wretched sinner. Oh, I should want to dance. East End of London when I was pastor, the lady who became a Christian in her 60s, she worked for the Newham Council, never read anything till I introduced her to J.C. Ryle's expository thoughts. And she said when she was converted, became a Christian, I was instrumental in that, praise God, she said, I felt like dancing down the street. But she said, ladies of my age don't do things like that, do they? But I said, oh, Trim, I know what you mean, and I know what you feel like. So we should be singing, because of God's promise to the penitent. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. We ought to be singing because of God's promise to the tempted. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up. Lift you up from sin, and lift you one day into the joy of heaven, then we don't need to repent because there'll be no sin. Let me then tie it all together with some questions. Are you daily using the soap of repentance? Are you daily resisting the devil? Are you daily rejoicing in God's promises to draw near to you and to lift you up? Are you daily praising God for his pardoning grace? Let's pray and then we'll sing. So Lord our God, we thank you. For this apostle James, our Lord's brother, we thank you that you directed him by your spirit to write this very practical letter. challenging us as to how we're living as Christians and whether we are really Christians at all. Lord, maybe there's someone here who has felt convicted of their sins, someone who feels guilty about some sin in their hearts, in their lives, maybe not even known to others here. Oh God, that they will come humbly with contrition to the cross, and they will go leaping and jumping with joy away from the cross, knowing that their burden has rolled away and the Lord has forgiven them their sins. Thank you, O God, that we've taken time this evening with your Word and to worship you. Lord, write your Word on our hearts, we pray, in Jesus' name.