We're in an important section in chapter 4. We started it last week in verse 1 through 6. And we talked about how There is quarreling, and there is divisions that take place in churches. That's what was going on in the time of James, Pastor James here, as we talked about. He's writing this to Christians who have been scattered away from the place of Jerusalem. And there are multiple different local churches, and the dispersion is what they call it. They've been dispersed around. And these Christians, often many Jewish Christians, who used to have their pastor, Pastor James, in Jerusalem, are asking for help. And so what does he do? He writes this letter to help pastor them even if they're not in Jerusalem. And so he helps them both in their understanding of who Christ is, but really in how to live a righteous life, how to live a life that pleases the Lord. And so what we see is that James, the half-brother of Jesus our Lord, he actually quotes and alludes to much of the teachings of Jesus directly. And so in chapter 4, as he deals with the issue of quarrels, after dealing with the issue of wisdom, there is godly wisdom, there's earthly wisdom, and we should be seeking godly wisdom. Well, what happens when we don't live with godly wisdom? It often leads to quarrels and divisions amongst others, particularly in the Church. We talked about how it's not, unfortunately, it's not rare for there to be divisions factions, church splits that take place. And so we saw James, the pastor, kind of diagnose the problem. Why is it that divisions take place and fighting happens amongst Christians? And unfortunately, that happens too often. And we have to sometimes be embarrassed by some of the churches and some Christians, maybe some closer to us, some further away from us, that we have to say, yeah, we wouldn't approve of that type of behavior because that's not fitting for a Christian. or for a church to act that way, but it happens all too often. And so, actually, we must listen to this teaching. We must not think that we are above this. No, we too can fall prey to the same type of divisiveness and fighting and quarreling. So, last week, we heard from verses one through six, and the main points were, what are we to know about fighting and divisions that take place in the church? And there was a few points there. The points were that we are to know that fighting and division is comes from sinful passions at war within us. The reason why we fight others is because we're actually not fighting the sinful passions within us. We talked about how we're always in a fight regardless, but are we fighting the right people or the right thing in the right time? No, we must be fighting sin, and those comes from our sinful passions within us. We should not be fighting each other. Where else does fighting and division come from? It comes from our sinful passions, but it also comes from our lack of prayer. It says you have not because you ask not. And even when you do pray for God's will, for God's peace, for God's harmony amongst the church, you ask for the wrong reasons. You ask wrongly. And so God doesn't answer every single prayer with a yes. He can see our heart when we're being selfish even in our prayers or we're lacking in our prayers. God is a good God who seeks to give good things to his people, but we must ask. We must ask in faith. We must ask in prayer the right way for the right reasons. And then our third point was, why do fighting and divisions take place in the church? It's sinful passions, it's lack or selfish prayer, but it's that we seek too much to be like the world. that we care too much about what non-Christians think, about what worldly wisdom looks like, we care too much about fitting in, or about our non-Christian family, our non-Christian friends, our neighbors, our co-workers, whoever we give too much weight in our life. We should be caring about what God says, what God thinks and tells us through His Word. We should care about what the godly saints think as they are seeking to follow the Lord. We obviously are not living for their approval, but we should be living above reproach and we should be living to have a good reputation, knowing that often those who are outside of the church, we can never please them. We can never live in their good graces. Now, there are many non-Christians that we can live in their good graces, and we hope to be a blessing to them, but we do not need their approval. We need God's approval. So we should flee worldliness. We should flee seeking to fit in, and we should pursue whatever is godly and righteous. So now we get to our section for today, but it's very important. They are connected. In fact, I'd like to read verse 5 and 6 again. It's kind of a hinge point for us to set up what we're going to be getting into verses 7 through 12. I mean, it's a pretty heavy passage in that Pastor James is diagnosing the problem of sinfulness, internal sinfulness, lack of devotion to God through prayer, and we're pursuing the wrong ends, the wrong influences. That's a sin diagnosis that needs to be dealt with. And it could be a heavy word. In fact, it is a heavy word. Doesn't he say, you adulterous people? That is not meant to be said lightly. No, that's a very clear description of what it's like when we do not live faithfully. If we are believers in Christ, we're united to Him, but we live a worldly life, or we live a lacking prayerful life, or our selfish life. We're not guarding against our sin, we're just living with our sin. That's a heavy word to receive that correction. But what does James do? He appeals to, but think about God. Remember who God is and what he says. He thinks you cannot live an adulterous life when God is a jealous God. God is a righteous and holy God, and He calls His people to be righteous and holy with Him. And so when Jesus saves people, He does not save them so that they can stay in their sin. In fact, this passage here is going to attack some commonly misunderstood or wrong doctrines out there. One of those wrong teachings is this kind of idea called easy-believism. that you can just come to Christ, make a verbal profession of faith, say, yeah, I'm a believer, but your life does not look like a Christian's life. No, this passage clearly says you cannot act however way you want. You are not the standard of your Christian life. Oh, you were saved. Praise the Lord that your sins are forgiven. Just trust Him. He'll take care of the rest. And just, you know, don't care about the details of your life. There have been maybe some well-meaning Christians who are trying to guard against this idea of legalism, that people are too strict and calling for people to do too much for the wrong reasons. There is such thing as legalism. The Bible teaches against it. We should not be following the commands of men that are not warranted from the commands of God in Scripture. But that is not the only thing to be concerned about. Kind of the other side of the ditch is that you're not concerned enough about following the commands of Christ and the commands of scripture. So this easy believism is, it's easy, just believe, just believe. And if you pray a prayer, you'll be saved. It's not that easy. In fact, the way of the Christian is narrow and the way of the Christian is hard. In fact, it's easy to go on the way of destruction, Jesus says. But it's hard to go on the way of devotion to Christ. So James makes sure, hey, remember, God is jealous. He didn't save you so that you could be worldly and corrupt and selfish. He saved you so that by his grace you would be more and more and more. cleansed and sanctified to be made more holy. Look what it says in verse 5. Do you suppose that it is not the purpose in the Scripture that says He yearns jealously over the Spirit that He has made to dwell in us? He has given us His Spirit to dwell in us, and when His Spirit is in us as Christians, God is jealous. He does not want sin to stay in us. That's why he gave us his spirit. And so James is saying, remember, God didn't just give you his spirit for nothing. God gave you his spirit so that you could be holy and righteous. But don't despair. Look at verse six. He's talking about God now. He gave you his spirit, but he gives more grace. So for those of us who may be struggling with selfishness or a quarreling spirit, or a lackluster prayer, we're not to be crushed by that, in the sense where we can't get up. No, no, no, we're supposed to be reminded of the goodness of the gospel of grace of Jesus, that God gives more grace. Where there is more sin for the believer, there is more grace that is available for the believer. And so, we must be aware of that. In fact, verse six ends with a quotation of Proverbs, when it says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. There is an unending fount of grace for us believers because there's an unending, a sacrifice that took place for us in Christ. His blood is so powerful enough to cleanse us completely. And so there's more grace for us in our sin. So as we see this transition now, as God is both jealous for us and gracious to us, we're gonna see verses seven through 12. And it's gonna be about, okay, if you're in sin, how do you then respond to the grace of God? You respond to the grace of God through repenting from that sin, amen? It's not okay to let sin stay in your life. And so today we're going to be answering the question in this way for our verses. It's what must we know about how to truly and fully repent from our sinful passions? What are we to know about how we are to truly, not in a fake way or in a fronting way, but truly, and not just truly, but fully, completely continuing to work on it, not just doing it one time, but to regularly be repenting, true repentance, full and ongoing repentance. What are we to know about that? Let's see what our verses tell us. We'll have two points this morning. And our first is this, you can write it down if it's helpful to you. What are we to know about how to truly and fully repent? It's this, it's that true and full repentance must include humbly submitting ourselves to God. True and full repentance must include, and these words are chosen purposely, humbly, just like we were told from Proverbs, God gives grace to the humble. In order for us to be rightly repenting the way God calls us to repent, a true and full repentance, it cannot be a pride-filled repentance. It cannot be, I got this, I know, I know. In fact, if there's any part of our heart or disposition that says, yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know. I don't know if any of you have children or maybe you have done that yourself or maybe you've experienced that from your siblings or co-workers where people go, yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know. Do you know that that's demonic and evil? When people say, yeah, I know, I know, I know. What are they saying? Don't tell me, I don't wanna hear anymore. That's fine, I'm fine, leave me alone. That is not humble. That is not willing to receive. We need to say, what must I do? Teach me. And so there must be a humility that comes with our repentance. Not a, yeah, sure, what do I need to do? Fine, that's fine. Okay, just leave me alone now. That's not how repentance works. In fact, it's a false repentance if there's any sense of leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone. So, but it's not just humility, it's a humble submitting, not just a posture of disposition, but an actual action of placing ourselves under God, offering ourselves fully to God. Let's see this in verse, starting verse seven. I'm gonna read verses seven through 10. And we're going to see here that there are actually seven main commands that are just kind of, they call them staccato, like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, a really quick fire. I'm going to read them all and then I'd like to go through them because this is actually what it looks like to submit. is to follow these commands of God. Let me read them. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. This is the umbrella one. Everything will fit underneath this now. What is it? We must humbly submit ourselves to God. And what does that look like? Well, it looks like resisting the devil. for he will flee from you. It looks like drawing near to God and he will draw near to you. It looks like cleansing your hands, you sinners, and purifying your hearts, you double-minded. What does it look like to submit to God? It looks like being wretched and mourning and weeping. It looks like letting our laughter be turned to mourning and our joy to gloom. And again, it looks like humbling ourselves before the Lord and he will exalt us. It's like a boxer, pooh, pooh, pooh, pooh, pooh, pooh, pooh. He punches hard, he punches quick, but that's exactly what we need to do to war against our sin. Punch hard, punch quick, don't stop punching until it's down, down for the count. In order to truly and fully repent, we must take sin seriously, and we must have the right attitude, and we must be doing the right types of work. Let's go through this here. Again, easy believism is out the door. We don't just believe and it's all easy. No, it's hard work to be a Christian. I've heard it said before, Christians should be the sweaty types. When you look at somebody who's sweaty, what do you think? Man, often they're working hard, always working hard. Well, we should be that type where it's like, obviously not literally, but maybe sometimes, but no, like spiritually speaking, we should be ready in the game, like always working hard. You look at somebody, they got beads on them, you go, okay, it's maybe not just because it's hot. It's because they're working for it, right? We should be that type when it comes to our spiritual lives. We should not be lax or lazy. We should be vigilant. This is directly from the scriptures. This is not our opinions. This is clear teaching that God gives us through the Apostle James, through the Elder James, through the wisdom that comes through Jesus to us through scripture. So what does it mean to submit yourselves therefore to God? Submit yourselves in verse seven. Submission is obviously a well-used word in the scriptures. It means to place yourself under, not over, not to the side. You're not equal to, but you're under whoever you submit to. In this case, we're submitting ourselves to God. We're intentionally placing ourselves at His feet saying, you tell me, I am yours. I appreciated this quote from Curtis Vaughn. He says, to set ourselves under God or to submit to him is to subordinate ourselves to him. And it's not, what does that mean? To bring our wills. Like God, it's not my choice, it's your choice. What do you want me to do? I'm going to align my will with your will. You know, we do have free will. We have the ability to choose, but it's overrated. to have free will because we choose poorly all the time. I'm not saying we shouldn't have the ability to have a free choice. What I'm saying is we need help to actually restrain our will so that it is underneath the power of God. God's will is better than our will. We should submit our will to His. So we bring our wills under His control to yield cordial obedience to His commands. We don't just We don't just obey, kind of begrudgingly, fine then, if you want me to do that, I will, fine, if I have to. No, this is a, it's a, I trust you, I'm yours, and I'm happy to do what you say. because your ways are better than my ways. Don't you have to be humble in order to have that thought? Your ways are better than my ways. So you tell me, you tell me what to do. And then please help me do that because I need your help. You're stronger than I am. It takes a humble person to rightly submit yourself. The second one is to resist the devil. The second command we see here. The first is to submit yourself. The second is to resist the devil. This is what it looks like. This is a practical outworking of submitting ourselves to God. It's just saying, I'm not going to let the devil, his demons, or any of the worldliness that he encourages, I'm not gonna let that have influence on me. I'm gonna resist those temptations and those pressures in my life. God, I think your ways are better than man's ways or Satan's ways, so I'm gonna not let Satan have sway on me. How do you submit to God? You say, no, Satan, stop it. Leave me alone, get out of here. We are to flee. In fact, this same word, resist, is found in Ephesians 6. Many of us may know about the passage in Ephesians 6 that talks about putting on the full armor of God so that we can be in the fight, the spiritual fight that's not against flesh and blood, but is against the spiritual powers, right, and the heavenlies, the cosmic powers of darkness, of evil. That's Satan and his demons. That's who we're in a fight against. And so what does it say in verse 13 of chapter six? Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand, or to resist, same word. in the evil day. and having done all to stand firm. We are not to let ourselves be taken captive by temptations on TV, on the internet, from our phones, from other loved ones who are trying to get us to do things that would be against God's law, to tell lies, to cheat, to break the Sabbath, to not honor our parents. Whatever God calls us to do in his word, or to slander, or to gossip, to be engaged with things that are wrong. No, we do not let these influences that Satan is trying to work around us. We do not fall prey to them. We're ready for them. And we say, no, Satan, we won't let you influence us. Get out of here. Leave me alone. There's something very similar that was said by Peter, in using the same word about devil. 1 Peter 5 verses eight and nine says, be sober-minded, be awake, don't be sleepy, don't be asleep on the job, no, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. The devil is dangerous. Resist him. That's a command, resist the devil. Are you resisting the devil? Are you saying, no, Satan, leave me alone? Are you aware of the temptations that come to your heart or come to your mind? And do you say, no, I don't want that. Are you a fighting? Are you a fighter when it comes to these temptations? Or are you just asleep at the wheel, going to crash and go off the side of the road because you're not awake? We're called to stay awakes. Stay awake. There is an enemy. He is trying to hurt us. Now, it's true that you could be over-preoccupied with Satan and his work. You could blame the devil for everything, it seems like sometimes, and we should also be aware not to do that. We shouldn't be scared of the devil because he's a defeated foe. If anything, the fact that we can resist him means that through the power of Christ, we're stronger than Satan. Now, again, that's not in our own strength. That's in the power of Christ. But he does not have power over us. Therefore, by the power of Christ, we can resist him. I appreciated this quote by Thomas Manton. He says, every denial is a great discouragement to Satan. Every time we say, nope, Satan, sorry, nope, sorry, not sorry, right? He is like a dog that stands looking and waving his tail to receive something from those that sit at a table. We have a dog like that, we know what that's like. But if nothing be thrown out, he goes his way. Just think about that. Think of Satan like a dog. And that dog that comes up to you going, I want some, give me attention. But if you just ignore him, say, no, no, no, get out of here. No, I'm not giving you any food. Go on, go on. And the dog goes away sad. That's Satan's like that, okay? He does not have power over you, praise the Lord, because Christ has broken his back. Sure, he can lie to you, he can try to deceive you, but you do not have to fall, pray to it. Praise the Lord, amen? It's a wonderful thing. In fact, this is, of the different commands that are in here, the seven commands, this is the first command that has a promise connected to it. Look what it says. Resist the devil, and what? And he will flee from you. That's a promise. If you're not resisting, he's not fleeing. If you're resisting, he is fleeing. That's how that works. So you don't have to be scared. You can be aware and be vigilant. So we are to submit ourselves to God and we are to resist the devil knowing that he will flee from us. Let's look at our third command in this. What does it look like to to be able to submit ourselves to God, and this third commandment says, draw near to God. It's not merely enough to submit ourselves and say, oh Lord, help me, and then to resist the devil. Those are really good things. But it's not just the absence of sin, okay? It's not just the absence of sin. There is a positive, proactive drawing near to God. See, God is life itself. He is the source of our life. We've talked about many times, the Bible speaks of us through the words of Jesus, that in order to bear fruit in our life, we must abide in Christ. We must draw near, be close to, remain in, take up our residence and to make Christ our home, where he is our place of rest, our refuge. He is where we are most at home and trusted. We must draw near to God, our second command with a promise, and He will draw near to you. In the same way that we resist the devil and we can have confidence that he will leave us alone, that we can get rid of him as he tries to tempt us, doesn't mean he won't come back later, but we can say, no, we can get through this temptation. Well, we also have the same confidence that when we realize we need God's help, we need God's presence, we need God's love, his knowledge, his wisdom, his comfort, his whatever, we always need something from God. When we realize, oh wow, I am lacking, I need God, draw near. Draw near to him in prayer. Separate yourself and say, I need you, God. You could do that by yourself alone through prayer. You could do that by calling other Christians with you, whether it's your family or church members or whoever through text. Say, pray with me, brothers and sister. Let us go to God through this. That drawing near is an intentional saying, I want to be in God's presence, I want to hear from God's word, I want to be submitting and receiving. When you draw near, you're drawing near to receive from God. So draw near. through prayer, draw near through getting rid of the distraction, turning off the phone, turning off the TV, closing the book, getting up out of the chair and going into the room, whatever it takes, do a physical act to get you in even a posture, get on your knees and pray. Draw near to God, use your body in the act to do that and then open up your heart and say, oh, our Father who's in heaven. Holy, holy, holy be your name. You are holy and I am not. You are in heaven and I am in earth. Jesus taught us how to pray. We must then go to God and approach him rightly, acknowledging his highness, our loneliness, and our need for him, and that it's his kingdom that matters more than our priorities. So humble ourselves and draw near to him and he will draw near to us. We're not looking for a feeling at that point. Some of us get discouraged because we're looking to have the feelies and just be like, oh, I feel amazing now. No, we're not looking for the feelings. What we're looking to do is we're looking to go to God in prayer, we're looking to open up our scriptures, we're looking to hear from God through those scriptures and God speaks to us through the word and we pray back to him our hearts and our needs. and our hopes that would be shaped towards His Word. And what we do is, as we draw near, we do not quit. It's kind of like... It's kind of like Jacob. You know, remember Jacob when he was wrestling with God and how he wouldn't let go and he wrestled all night? Drawing near to God doesn't mean you immediately turn on a switch and you get this incredible closeness feeling with God. No, sometimes it takes a while and there's a need to go to God in prayer. There's a need to separate yourself from worldliness or sinful things and you're not gonna feel something right away, but you're not giving up. and you're not blaming God. You're not saying, well, I tried that and it didn't work. No, remember, we submit ourselves to His ways, His timing, but there's a promise that says He'll draw near to you, keep going, keep going, don't give up. I love this passage from Hebrews 4, which just encourages us about this idea of drawing near. Hebrews 4 verses 14 through 16 says, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our confession, meaning we don't let go of it, we don't stop believing it. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. Remember when Jesus was praying in the garden of Gethsemane all night? He didn't stop working in prayer all night, but he knows that Peter and the other disciples were giving up and fell asleep. And he said, can't you not pray for one hour? But he knows the struggle, he knows what it's like. Jesus, when he took to himself human nature, that means he understands what it feels like to have a limitation in his human body. He sympathizes with our humanity. He sympathizes with our weaknesses. He's not harsh with us when we struggle. He calls us to say, I know what it's like. Hang in there, be with me. And I will give you strength. Listen to my word. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are. Christ was tempted by Satan. He was tempted in his flesh, yet without sin. That's the difference between us and Christ. He never gave in. Praise the Lord that we have one who never gave in. And so therefore, he could be a righteous substitute in our place, a holy substitute instead of our sinful corrupted. His blood is wonderful. Verse 16, therefore, let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that's prayer, that we may receive mercy and find grace and help in time of need. There's a promise, when you draw near to God and don't give up, He will draw near to you, and Christ is with us the whole way. Remember, Christ is that high priest. He's interceding for us. He's praying with and for us all the time, and especially when we're praying. He's there. So we submit ourselves to God. We resist the devil. Verse eight, he says, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. This is a pair of commands that are important for us to understand. excuse me, we're to submit ourselves, we're to resist external temptation from the devil, we're to not just fight sin, we're to draw near to God, get his love, his grace, his mercy from him. But it's not just hanging out with God all the time in a posture of on your knees in prayer, that's good and right and necessary, but we must actually do something in the world to Get clean. Did you know that we are commanded to cleanse our hands? Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. What does that mean? Does that mean that James is saying, oh, in and of yourself, you have the ability to cleanse your own hands and purify your own hearts. No, we don't have the ability by ourselves to do that, but when we draw near to God, guess what? He enables us through the Word, through the ministry of the Word and the Spirit, to be able to righteously repent, to be able to say, you know what? I have been lying in my speech. I've been exaggerating in my speech. I need to stop. I need to be a truth teller. I need to not go overboard, or I need to not hide because I'm embarrassed because I'm a people pleaser. I need to say the full truth even when I think people won't like me. Guess what? I can do that by the power of the Spirit. You can do that by the power of the Spirit if you're a Christian. Why? Because you've drawn near to God and he is enabling you to now obey. So you can therefore root out your own sin by the power of God, through the power of the Spirit. Not by your own self, but once you have his power and his knowledge and wisdom that comes through drawing near, do something with it. Obey the Lord! Actually stop it, or start it. Start reading your Bible like you're called to do, or stop sitting in the ways. Again, it's not by our own strength. That happens in cooperation with Christ and the Spirit. In fact, it only happens when we're endowed with that power from the Spirit, but we are supposed to use that power. The Philippians says, work out your own salvation with fear and trebling, because it's God who works and wills in you, right? It's the both and at this point. So notice though, it says, cleanse your hands. What does that mean, cleanse your hands? Is he talking about, oh, you need to wash your hands? No, it's not a physical washing. No, this is the idea that this is your outward life. Anything that you do outside of you publicly, make it right with God. That's your speech, that's what you do in front of people, not in front of people, anything external to you. Cleanse it, make it white as snow, the way that God sees you through the righteousness of Christ. But it's not just your outward obedience. It does include your outward obedience. Some people will say it's only about the heart. God just looks at the heart. It's not about your outward obedience. Yes, it is about your outward obedience, meaning that must be a part of the equation. It's not the only thing. If it's the only thing, that could lead to legalism. But if you are not outwardly obeying, then there's a problem. That's not the fruit of true repentance. Notice what he says. He couples them together. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts. It's both the external sins and the internal sins. It's both and. It's always been both and. It's not one or the other. It's always cleanse your hands. Follow the Lord in what you do with your life and be aware of your thoughts, be aware of your motives, be aware of your bad attitudes, of your covetousness or your bad, your desires. You don't wanna come to church. You don't wanna wake up early. You don't wanna have that time in prayer. I get bored, I wanna do something else. Those are wicked thoughts. Those are wicked, evil desires. I'd rather be doing something else. You know what I'd rather be doing? Name anything else that's probably idolatrous. That's how that works. That's how that works. So good news, we can, we are called to cleanse our hands and purify our hearts. Obviously, we can't do that by ourselves, but that is the standard. That is what we're called to do. No, it's not easy-believe-ism. You say a prayer, and then you're fine for the rest of your life. This should be a working out our salvation with the power of the Spirit. Psalm 24 actually has this idea. What does it look like for us to draw near to God? Who can even do that? Well, in order for us to draw near to God, we must be pure. So therefore, we must cleanse ourselves and we must be purified. Look what Psalm 24 says, who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? Who can be in his presence? And who shall stand in his holy place? What's the answer? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. In order for us to be in the presence of God, we must be holy like He is holy. And well, bad news, none of us are, right? Good news, Jesus is. And so if you are in Jesus, if you've placed your faith in Christ and in Christ alone, if you're saying, I'm not resting on my own works, on my own righteousness, but Christ said that he would forgive me based on his righteousness and his life, and God, you said you'd receive me because of Christ? Okay, I believe in Christ and his person, and I want to follow him, and I want to submit myself completely to him, therefore, tell me what to do, Lord, I'm yours. That's what it looks like. So we don't inherently have clean hands or pure hearts, but in Christ, we could be seeking to align ourselves with Christ, which means the more we look like Christ, the more our hands will be clean. The more we look like Christ, the hearts will be pure. So really, this is a process of becoming more like Christ. We receive strength from Christ to imitate the life of Christ. Not so that we can boast, but we boast in Christ. We say, He's so good. So yes, we can and should purify ourselves. We can and should say, that was a dumb thought. Lord, help me with that. No, I don't. Renounce those bad thoughts. Say it out loud. Ask for help and prayer and accountability. You can cleanse your hands by the power of the Spirit. You can purify your hearts, the internal life. Look what John says in 1 John 3. It says, We are God's children now, so it's clearly talking to Christians, and what we will be has not yet appeared, meaning there's a future for us, but we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, we'll be completely like Christ, it'll be a wonderful time, because we shall see Him as He is, and verse three says, and everyone who thus hopes in him, in Christ, purifies himself as he is pure. As we're looking to the future of Christ coming back to save his people from earth and to separate the sheep from the goats, a very important part of our regular awareness is that our history is going in a direction and it ends with Christ coming to earth, separating the wheat from the tares, from the weeds, from the sheep, from the goats. There is a judgment coming. And for those of us who are in Christ, we have the good news and the good fortune, the blessing to look forward to. We will not only see Him coming, He will cleanse us to be just like Him. We will not have to be fighting this sin forever. So this war that we're in against the flesh is a limited war. So fight it hard while it's here. So let's look at our are six now of seven. We submit to God, we resist the devil, we draw near to God, we cleanse our hands, we purify our hearts, that's five. Now let's look at the sixth one, an important one. We named the title today, The Anatomy of True Repentance. What does it look like to have true repentance? Well, it's all of these, not some of these. And this is one that often does not happen, or at least we need more work on it for many of our lives. It says, be wretched and mourn and weep. This is a command, be wretched and mourn and weep. Many of us struggle with the fact that we do not want to feel bad, but actually we're commanded to feel bad about our sin. This is actually a part of the process of true and full repentance. We are supposed to hate our sin, to be all torn up and busted up about our sin, not to think that it's a small thing that can quickly be glossed over. No, look at what Jesus says in Matthew 5. He talks about a blessing that comes with mourning, right, in the Beatitudes. Blessed are those who mourn, who are sad, who are sorrowful. Why? Here's the promise. For they shall be comforted. When you hate your sin, you're sad over your sin, you're busted up wishing you hadn't done it, why did I give in to that, why? Why does my selfishness have to spill out over onto my friends and my family and my jerkness comes out and it hurts people, oh, I hate it, Lord, I'm such a, oh. Well, guess what, when you hate your sin, you'll be comforted. What's the comfort? Have cheer, brother or sister, Christ has overcome. Have cheer, sinner, you are forgiven in Christ. But if you're not wretched and you're not mourning, look what it says, you're not weeping. When's the last time you cried over your sin? When's the last time you teary-eyed, saying, what I've done is displeasing to God. It is not okay for a Christian to act like this, and I've been doing it for months, for years, with my besetting sin. Many of us, if we're Christians, even Christians, yes, Christians, have besetting sins, meaning they have sins that just die hard, that maybe you punch them like whack-a-mole, right? You punch here, then something else pops up, and you punch there, and this other thing, and you're just like, ah, why do I have to, I just want it to stay down. But Christians, we shouldn't mourn over the fact that sin has entered into our lives, that we give ourselves over to it, even willingly, Do you remember the last time you sinned kind of willingly? You're just like, I don't care, I'm just gonna do it, gonna do it. You should, oh, you should weep over that. You adulterous people, James says. He's talking to Christians, he's not talking to non-Christians. He's like, you just cheated. You just said, yeah, I'm gonna cheat on my spouse, whatever, when you sin. That's terrible. If we're offended by that on earthly terms, how much more godly terms? Right? Look what Curtis Vaughn says here. He says, the words in general, be wretched, mourn, and weep, suggest a deeply repentant state of mind, a sober, moral earnestness in dealing with the reality of sin. The great variety of expression indicates that the repentance must be real, deep, and thorough. not a surface treating of our sin. It's fine, everybody struggles. When you hear Christians say that, it's okay, brother, sister, everybody struggles. In fact, so many of Christian accountability groups, quote-unquote accountability groups, are just everybody patting each other on the back saying, yeah, I struggle too, I struggle too, I struggle too. That's not repentance. That's not repentance. Now, there is a time to comfort people, to say, but you comfort people with Christ. You don't comfort people by saying, it's okay. It's not okay. It's not okay to sin ever, ever. It's never okay to sin. But what's the good news? There's a solution to your problem. Christ can cover that sin. If you're a Christian, Christ has covered that sin, which is why we must preach the gospel to our friends and our family, because Christ has not covered their sin. They're in sin with the fullness of God's wrath being ready to be poured out on them. They could die at any time, and what happens? If they die without the blood of Christ, they will go through the wrath of God, the full judgment of God, all of their sins they're gonna have to pay for, and Christ has not, will not pay for them. Because there must be a submission to God. That is a part of that. But good news, if you are in Christ, Christ has dealt with that. Christ will deal with that in you. He'll give you the strength to fight it. He'll give you the help. But we must mourn, we must mourn and we must weep. Be wretched and mourn and weep. In fact, Thomas Watson, a book that I recommend to everyone, The Doctrine of Repentance, it's a short book, it's a Puritan classic, it's not expensive. Find it, I'm sure they have it online or you can buy one. It's such a helpful book because it breaks down how to go about repenting of your sin, and it really, it leans on verses just like these. True and full repentance is way more involved than you think. Thomas Watson gives us six ingredients to true repentance. Here's the ingredients that are needed in order to repent. He says you need to see your sin. So you need to have a sight of your sin. You need to see it. A lot of people don't see their sin. They don't see that it's sin. They just think it's not a big deal. It's just, no, it's fine. It's not sin. No, it's sin. You have to see it rightly. Then, number two, the ingredient is sorrow for sin. That's what we're talking about now. You must be sorrowful about your sin. You cannot make excuses for your sin. You cannot diminish the importance or the significance of your sin. You must go, oh, it's terrible what I did. In fact, I remember using the word wretched and wicked when one time preaching and teaching about sin and how Christians are wicked, and somebody really did not like that. They were just like, hey, you can't call me wicked. It's like, wait, well, the Bible does, and God does. Good news, repent from that sin. Christ is a good savior. He will cleanse you from that, and he will help you to cleanse yourself from that and to run far away from that sin so you can stop acting wicked. We as Christians have the ability, I mean, it's not that hard to believe. Just look at your life, just look at the last year. There's probably something wicked in there. I'm not doing that to punch you in the eye. Really what we're trying to do is we need to see our sin and hate it so we're not letting it stay. The number three is you must confess your sin. It's not just seeing it and being sad about it. You must talk about it and verbally confess, I'm wrong. That was wrong. What I did was displeasing to God. And then ask God for forgiveness. Lord, please forgive me. Please, it's not just going through the motions, it's actually, if you read in the Psalms, what does David say? It says, it did me good when I spoke to the Lord and I confessed my sins to him. It actually was like healing to my bones when we confessed. In fact, when I didn't confess, I dried up, right? So confession is actually a part of the healing process of forgiveness. It's necessary for repentance, but not just that. Shame for sin, number four. We must feel the shame. We must be sad about it and then feel the shame of it. People hate shame these days, but the Bible talks about, even Peter, or I'm sorry, Paul says, you do these things to your shame. He's just said what you're doing is shameful. Shame is meant to be a pathway towards forgiveness and sin. We're not supposed to stay in a state of shame. We're supposed to go through shame so that we can get to Christ. But if we avoid shame, we will not have the fullness experience of our repentance. Because guess what, when we feel the shame of our dirtiness, we can then experience the beautiful, wonderful release when Christ says, I forgive you, you now have my righteousness. You're not corrupt anymore when you believe the gospel. I'm not seeing you in that sinfulness, I'm seeing you according to my righteousness, and the shame goes away because that's not who I am anymore, I'm a new creature. Hatred for sin. and turning from sin. Thomas Watson says, either sin must drown in the tears of repentance or the soul must burn in hell. If a person is not actively sorrowful for sin, so much that they have a bodily response, tears are a God-given bodily response. If we're sad about losing a person in our life, which we should, we should shed tears over those things that are sad. There's a time and a place for everything, including sorrow, right? Well, let's have the cleansing effect of tears over our sin. and have those point us to Christ's cleansing in our life. Let's look at our last part here in verse 9. It says, actually leading to the last part, your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. It's kind of an example of you're not focusing on the right things. You're more worried about laughing. No, you should be more worried about mourning at this point when there's sin in your life. You're more worried about staying joyful. Well, not when it comes to sin. When there's sin in your life, it's not a time to be joyful. It's a time to be sorrowful. It's a time to root out that sin. It's a time to deal with that sin. You can't be ignoring the sin. No, no, no, don't ignore sin, deal with it. Repentance is deep and wide, and we should have a grief. In fact, we probably heard these verses before in 1 Corinthians. I hope you have. Chapter seven, the difference between a true godly grief and a worldly grief, it says in verse nine of chapter seven, as it is, I rejoice not because you were grieved, I'm not just happy the fact that you're sad, but because you were grieved, a certain type of grieving I'm happy about, you grieved into repenting. Like yes, I'm really happy when you get sad, because that particular kind of sadness leads to your repenting, which leads you to more godliness, which leads you to more peace and hope in Christ. I'm actually really happy when people grieve over their sin. This is what Paul is saying. That's what we should be happy about when it's the right kind of grieving. For you felt a godly grief so that you suffered no loss through us. Verses 10, for godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret. You won't regret when you're sorrowful over sin, when you're repenting rightly, whereas worldly grief produces death. Isn't that interesting? When you're sad, like pagans are sad, like worldly people are sad, you have an outward front of being sad about something. Oh, I'm sad I got caught. I'm sad about the consequences, but I'm not sad over what I... how I'm marring the holiness of God, meaning I'm bringing disrepute against God or against His word or against His church. I'm not sad over the right things. I'm sad over my own selfish experiences. And guess what? That will only lead to death. That's not actually bringing true repentance. So it's only gonna lead to death. For we see that the earnestness of godly grief produces goodness in us. And so now, verse 10 is the seventh of the command, and it really repeats what was mentioned in verse six, humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. The third command with a promise. When we draw near to God, he will draw near to us. When we resist the devil, he will flee from us. And when we humble ourselves, God will exalt us. This is great news for us because we have power through the person and the work of Christ, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, through the ministry of the Word that the Spirit uses to teach us and help us. We have hope in Christ that we actually can deal with our sin. that Christ has dealt with our sin and he will help us to continue to deal with our sin. And so let me ask you the question, which of these commands of repentance do you do well with and which of the commands of repentance do you struggle with? Which do you do well with? There's many here, there's seven. Number of completion, it kind of makes sense. What is true repentance and full repentance? The number seven is the number of completion. Here's how you fully repent. You submit yourselves to God, you resist the devil, you draw near to God, you cleanse your hands and purify your hearts, you're wretched and you're mourning. You don't focus on the wrong things, no, you let your laughter turn to mourning, your joy to gloom, and all of this is humbling ourselves. Which ones do you struggle with? Do you struggle with resisting the devil? You're not really aware of how he's influencing you? Do you struggle with cleansing your hands? Maybe you pray to God for forgiveness, but then you don't do the active work to actually cleanse your hands, your outward life, or to fight the fight in your thought life or your heart. Maybe you struggle with being wretched and mourning. This is a command. It's a command. This is what it means to truly repent. Maybe you struggle with that, maybe you don't. But God calls us to do this. Good news, in Christ we can. Let's look at our last point for this morning. What are we to know about true and full repentance? The first is we must humbly submit ourselves to God. And the second is this, it's gonna have an effect outwardly again. True and full repentance must include that we humbly honor our neighbor and that we revere God's law. We humbly honor our neighbor and we revere God's law. Verses 11 and 12 says, do not speak evil against one another. Hey, if you're repenting and you're drawing near to God, you're cleansing your own heart, okay, it affects you what you do with your neighbors. Don't speak evil against them. This is a clear example of what repentance looks like. When you were speaking evil against your neighbor, don't speak evil against your neighbor anymore, right? Brothers. Look what he says, the one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. There's an important logic that he's going to bring out here. He says, but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. Verse 12, there's only one law giver and one judge who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? Kind of this idea of if you're going about repenting from your sin, Repent in such a way that you're not comparing yourself to other Christians and saying, well, they're doing that over there. Don't speak evil against your neighbor. Yeah, I need to repent, but they need to repent too. He's saying, hey, you repent, and don't worry about your neighbor. Like, don't speak evil against your neighbor. No, you follow the Lord. Because when you speak evil against your neighbor like that, and you say, yeah, I need to, but they do too, You're saying, hey, I can judge that one as if he owes me something, as if I'm his master. He's saying, wait a minute, there's only one master. There's only one judge, and it's the one who can save and destroy. Who's that? That's Jesus. There's only one who we're gonna be going through the judgment that we are being judged by. That's God through the person of Jesus. He is the judge. He is the lawgiver. Are you Jesus? No. So don't you be pointing out your neighbor's stuff when you need to work on your stuff. Don't speak evil about him. He goes, hey, honor your neighbor. They have their struggles too. Don't speak evil against them. They shouldn't speak evil against you. He says, don't make yourself a judge. Be a doer. You know, as we end our time, this is important to pull out, because many people misunderstand this. They misunderstand easy believism, which is this idea that it's okay, it's easy, just pray a prayer and you're fine. But there's also other misunderstandings. People put themselves over other people, and they put themselves over God's law. That's what he's saying here. You make yourself a judge of the law. As if you're the judge. No, you're not the judge. People love these verses, because there's all this misunderstanding about judging. Here's another example where the Bible says that we can't judge each other. Well, yeah, we can't judge each other wrongly. That's true. But we can judge each other rightly. We can judge each other hypocritically. That's not what we're allowed to do. Matthew 7, we know this. Judge not that you may not be judged or that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure that you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye and do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, then you will be able to see, to clearly take out the speck out of your brother's eye. We are not to be worried about our brother's sin or our sister's sin. We are to be worried about our own sin first. We must come with clean hands first. Sure, we actually are called to help each other with their specs and their eyes, but not when we're the hypocrites who have our own sin. We should cleanse ourselves first before we deal with that. There's an order to this. So we are supposed to judge. We're just supposed to judge rightly, in the right time, in the right way. We're not supposed to judge wrongly. But James, when it says there's only one lawgiver and one judge, I appreciated this comment because it calls out another misunderstanding, what we'll call antinomianism, if you've heard of that term. Antinomian is to be against the law of God. It's to say that there is no law of God anymore. You've probably heard this because it's out there in Christian circles everywhere. It says, the description of God as a lawgiver in 412 is a reminder that we are called to live by his law. We are actually called to be under God's law. There is sometimes confusion about the place of the law in the Christian's life. Some contend that we are no longer under law but under grace. Therefore, the Old Testament moral law enshrined in the Ten Commandments is no longer valid. Instead, they say that we are to live by the new commandment of love given by Jesus in John chapter 13. Yet, this is a misunderstanding of what Jesus taught about the law in Matthew 5, when he says he did not come to abolish the law, but he came to fulfill the law, meaning the 10 commandments are alive and well, they never went away. The Christian is not under the law to be justified by the law, so we are not justified by the law, but we are to be guided by the law. So we're not under the law for our salvation in terms of, we're not gonna be under the law for salvation, but we are under the law in terms of this is what makes us more like Christ. Didn't Christ come and fully fulfill the law? He did it all. Well, guess what? When you do the law, you look more and more like Christ. It's his law. Christians are not under law for justification, but are to be guided for sanctification or to be mature. The moral law exposes our sin and reveals what God wants for us in order that, animated by the Spirit of Christ, we may learn to delight in what He delights in. None of this is contrary to the gospel. which frees us from the condemnation of the law. It's true, we are no longer under the condemnation or the curse of the law. If you're a Christian, you are not cursed by the law anymore. Amen? Amen. But that does not mean we are not underneath the law of God. We are underneath the law of God. We are all to follow the Ten Commandments appropriately. James is not saying you can't judge the law. He's saying you're to be under the law. You're to follow the law. So yes, we will not follow the law perfectly. We will not. But we are to have the law guide our life. In fact, think of the psalm that says, you know, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path, right? Am I the only one who knows that? No? You guys know that, right? That's a psalm. Meaning the word is a light unto our feet. Meaning how are you supposed to live? The 10 commandments are how you're supposed to live. They light the path. They don't save you, but they tell you how to live. So we should love God's law. We should love his commandments and say that's what pleases God. So I'll do that. Lord, help me. Jesus, help me. You did it, help me. And he will. So let me ask you. Might you be elevating yourself over your neighbor? Might you be more worried about their sin than your own sin? Are you humbling yourself underneath God's law? Praise the Lord that Christ did this for us. And so we don't do this in our own strength. We do this in the power of Christ. We do this because of Christ. We do this for Christ. We do this with Christ. We don't do it on our own. We look to his gospel, we look to his spirit, we listen to his word, and we follow his laws.