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When You Fully Submit to God | Book of James | Shan Moyers · Central Christian Church

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Or here's what James says, and he just gets right to it.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean, James doesn't warm the thing up and say, hey, let's get a little comfortable here.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: He just kind of punches you right in the gut.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: He says this to Christians that he's writing to.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: He says, you adulterers, that's pretty powerful accusation.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: You adulterers, don't you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God?
0:24
SPEAKER_00: For emphasis, he says, I say it again.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: And again, guys, James is writing to Christians.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: He's writing to people just like you and me, audiences of people that he's, this letter is being circulated to them.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: And he's calling them adulterers.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: To his audience, here's what they would have done.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: They would have understood the covenant language that James is using.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: If you go throughout all of the Bible, what you find is James uses the idea of marriage to give a picture of what our relationship with God is.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: So in the Old Testament, God was the groom and Israel was like the bride.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: He was their God, they were his people.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: And it was almost this picture, this marriage relationship.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: You go to the New Testament, Paul writes it and uses the illustration directly and says, Jesus is the groom and the church is the bride.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: It's also our picture of our relationship with God, that unwavering commitment that we are to be faithful to.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: And so what James does is when he writes this, he says, You adulterers, and his audience all of a sudden goes straight back to the Old Testament, their context, goes back to the Old Testament, and here's the prophets.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Here's this covenant language that Hosea used and Jeremiah used and Ezekiel used, that they were saying that God is the husband and Israel was the unfaithful wife.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: And he just captures this picture of sin.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: And when we entertain sin, which we all do, we all mess up and we all sin.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: And we know that the New Testament talks about grace and Jesus' forgiveness, his death on the cross for our sin.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: But for a moment, what James is doing is saying, when we entertain sin and entertain sin and continually entertain sin, we're not just making a mistake.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: The prophets didn't say, hey guys, hold up, you're making a mistake.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: They said, you are committing adultery, spiritual adultery against God.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's a pretty big bold accusation that James is making toward people who are believers in God.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: Now, what he says is he says, when you commit spiritual adultery, what you're doing, you are becoming friends with the world.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: He says, friendship with the world makes you a what with God?
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Help me out, say it louder.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: Makes me a what with God?
2:57
SPEAKER_00: An enemy of God?
2:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that is bold language.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: What is he saying?
3:01
SPEAKER_00: We got to understand the context of the world.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: What James is describing when he says friendship with the world, he's not talking about the planet.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay, he's not talking about the people of the planet.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: What James is talking about is he's talking about the culture.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: He's saying when you become friends of a culture, a cultural system that says you are the center of the universe.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: That you are what you have, what you own, what your reputation is, what your achievements are.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: And we have this tendency in our Western culture to just wrap the whole world around us.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Our comfort, our achievement, our pleasure.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: And James is saying that cultural system has set itself up against God.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: It has actually pushed God away.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: And what we have to do is we can't put one leg on each side of the fence.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, when you are friends with God, man, you are on this side of the fence.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: When you are friends with the world, you are on that side of the fence.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: There's no one leg on each side of the fence.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: You have to choose.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Now here's what James is not saying.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: Hear me directly on this.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying that when you are friends, that you cannot be friends with people of that culture.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying that you can't be friends with people who did not know Jesus.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: In the early 2000s, there was a Christian apparel company that came out with this design and it was NOTW.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: You know what that stands for?
4:27
unknown: Not of this world.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Not of this world.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: You can see the picture.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: They were bumper stickers, there was t-shirts, sweatshirts.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was everywhere.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: People were wearing that.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: Not of this world.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: It's a direct quote from John 17, Jesus saying, My followers are not of this world.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: So it's biblical.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: Peter talks about how we're aliens and strangers.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: We're not citizens of this world.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: That's a biblical concept.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: But what some Christians did is they wore this apparel as almost this idea of I am separate from.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Like I can't be friends with people who do not know Jesus because I might be polluted by them.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: Now there could be truth to that.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: You have to watch who's influencing who.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: But I would say this: if you do not have friends that do not know Jesus, then you don't understand Jesus very well.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus in the New Testament, who was he friends with?
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was friends with everyone.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: It says tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes and cultural leaders and religious leaders.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, you go down the friends with everyone.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: He said, I did not come for the healthy, I came for the who?
5:36
SPEAKER_00: The sick.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: The people who need to know Jesus.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: So if you are friends with people who do not know Jesus, understand you're being like Jesus.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Just make sure that you are influencing them more than they are influencing you.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: What James is talking about is he's talking about you and me.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about faithfulness to our relationship with God.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: He's saying to each and every one of us, and all of us have an area.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: We all have an area where we are tempted to sin.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: He's saying to us that what happens in our lives is when we are unfaithful in an area, it has a tendency to get a foothold.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: And then when we just move a little bit with a small compromise, it gets a bigger foothold.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: And then we move a little bit more with some more compromise.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, we are becoming part of the world that God is calling us out of or calling us to influence.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: If you go throughout scripture, you see a pattern.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a pattern constantly throughout scripture that you see this idea that friendship with the world leads to pollution.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: And then pollution by the world leads to an affection of the world.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And then this affection has a tendency to lead to this idea of conformity where we become like it.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Think about it this way: friendship.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: We make small compromises.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: We just kind of move a little closer to the world and we make small compromises decisions in certain areas of our life that we don't think are going to affect us a lot, but they begin to.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: And we get a little friendlier and we compromise a little, and then we get a little friendlier and compromise a little more.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, what that leads to is pollution.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: We've gotten so close to the world and to the culture that it begins to pollute our heart and our soul.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: And then when it pollutes it enough, we all of a sudden it blurs the lines.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: And we begin to create this affection and this affection for the world to where it's almost like we begin to have more affection for the things of the culture than we actually do the things of God and of scripture and of prayer and of his church.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: We've moved more to where there's an affection here.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: And then when that affection begins to set in, all of a sudden conformity happens to where we think like, act like, talk like, look like, and no one can tell the difference.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Where is it in your life right now that that pattern is happening?
8:12
SPEAKER_00: To where you're just getting a little friendly with the world.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: To where there's one area, and it might be something you watch, it might be something you say, it might be a little bit of greed, it might be, it can be all kinds of ideas.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: It might be something you believe.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: We're starting to get friendly with some of the ideas of the culture about certain cultural issues, and then all of a sudden we're becoming polluted by it, and then we become, we create some affection for it, and then all of a sudden we've conformed and you can't tell the difference.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: In scripture, there's a perfect picture of this.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: It's in Genesis chapter 13.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to turn there.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: I'll just give you the story.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 13 through 19 is the story of a guy named Lot.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: He was Abraham's nephew.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Abraham, we know, is a father of our faith.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: When God set up the Israelite nation, it started with a family.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Abraham moved his family, and the family began to grow.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: God said, I'm gonna move you to a different location.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna make you the leader of a great nation.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: But it starts with this family, and his family grows, and he has a nephew named Lot, and Lot's family begins to grow and they travel together, and then all of a sudden they get to this point where Abraham's flocks and Abraham's servants and Abraham's descendants are so much, and so is Lot's, that they have to decide to part ways.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Like just to live in different locations.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: And so Abraham looks at Lot, and Abraham's the older one, he has a little bit more, and so he says, Lot, hey, you choose.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: You can have the plains or you can have the hill country.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Which do you want?
9:42
SPEAKER_00: And Lot looks at the hill country and he's like, that's hard.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be really hard.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: The mountains for my flocks and and the rivers and all that, they're all down here in the plains.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to choose the plains where it's green, there's less grass and fields for my flocks, and there's also cities there.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: And in Genesis chapter 13 begins the process.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what it says.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: It says, Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near where?
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Sodom.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: Like most of you know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: God ends up destroying Sodom.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament says it's not just because of their sexual sin.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: That's the main part we focus on the story.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: It actually says, because of their greed, their unwillingness to be generous with the poor, their pride, and their sexual sin.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: It says, now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Did you notice what it said in chapter 13?
10:42
SPEAKER_00: It says, Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents where?
10:49
SPEAKER_00: Near the city of Sodom.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: He could have put his tent anywhere.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: But that was the first compromise.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: Lot just sets up his tent near the walls of Sodom.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: And then what happens one chapter later, you get to chapter 14, all of it says, all of a sudden it says that he had pulled up his tents, no longer had his tents, and his family had moved into Sodom.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Outside the walls, compromise, near it.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Then all of a sudden, moves inside the walls.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: Friendliness.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: He got friendly with the culture.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, friendliness leads to some pollution.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Do you know you go just a couple chapters later, and it says that Lot no longer has tents, no longer is just seen in the home.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: You know where they find Lot when the angels come into, like God had sent some angels to come look at Sodom and then decide whether he's going to destroy it or not.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: They walk into the city, and where do they find Lot?
11:46
SPEAKER_00: They find him sitting at the city gates.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Do you know, culturally speaking, who sat at the city gates?
11:54
SPEAKER_00: It was the city leaders.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: Lot's gone from having a tent outside, having his own flocks, his own community of people, to moving inside and having a home inside.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: He's being now polluted by the city of Sodom.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Then all of a sudden, he becomes part of the city.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: It's so polluted him that he becomes part of the city government.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: He's sitting at the gates of the city.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Then it says that the angels in Genesis chapter 19, they go to Lot and they say, Lot, God's decided he's going to destroy the city.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: We want to take you out.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: We want you to get your family.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: And it says that they go to grab Lot's arm and he says he hesitates and he does not want to go.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: Affection.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Even when God sometimes comes into our life and convicts us and says, run, what do we do?
12:42
SPEAKER_00: We hesitate and we look back because what we've created is we've created a bit of an affection for the things of the culture.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: You go on and you look at the rest of the passage, it says that he runs to his son-in-laws and he says, Take your daughters, take my grandchildren, and leave the city.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Run from the city because God, the God of the Israelites, God is going to destroy this city.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: And they look at him and they laugh and they think he's joking because no longer can his son-in-laws tell a difference between Lot and Sodom.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: He is fully conformed to who Sodom is, and they can't even see his faith.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: Friendship, pollution, affection, conformity.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: So it has this tendency to happen in our life.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: And when you look at what the result is, man, God gave Abraham and Lot.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: He was blessing them like crazy.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: He was protecting them.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: And then Lot chooses to go live near Sodom.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Then he moves into Sodom.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Then he becomes a part of the leadership of Sodom.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: Then God tries to rescue.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Lot is sitting in the middle of a city.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: What does James say?
13:54
SPEAKER_00: Friendship with the world makes you a what of God?
13:57
SPEAKER_00: An enemy of God.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: Like nobody sets out to be an enemy of God, but what happens is we don't exactly become an enemy of God in the sense that God looks at us as an enemy.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: We just move so far and cross the line that now we're in enemy territory and that's where we're living.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, where God has said to Lot, I'm here to bless you, protect you, and to take care of you.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: Would you live underneath my blessing and my authority?
14:24
SPEAKER_00: And Lot left and went over there, and then all of a sudden his whole city's on fire.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Lot does make it out, but he does not make it out with all of his family.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: His wife looks back and she dies.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: He loses the respect of his children.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the story is a disaster from there on out.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Can I just ask you across all of our campuses, wherever you're sitting right now, can I ask you, where have you set up your tent right now?
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Is there an area where you set up your tent, not underneath the authority of God, but more closely to the culture?
15:05
SPEAKER_00: And it's starting to cost you.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're not even realizing it yet that it's starting to cost you, but it will in the future.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Where are you beginning to see this pattern start to happen in your life?
15:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it happens.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: And God's just sitting there saying, No, come back over here, but it will begin to happen.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: I take that first illustration of marriage.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: Man, for some people, marriage is hard.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: For all people, marriage is hard.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Like I've talked about our marriage.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: There were moments that were very, very difficult, but for some people, what they do is they don't keep to their commitments and their vows.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: And they're struggling and it's hard.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: And so they find somebody at work and then all of a sudden there's work lunches that are happening.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're just kind of meeting for lunch, and it goes from, you know, the conversation in the break room to hey, we should meet and work on that project, and then it's work lunch, and then it's after work drinks, and then it's personal conversations.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: It should only be happening with your spouse and not with somebody else of the opposite sex, that leads to ultimately an affair.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: Friendship, pollution, affection, conformity.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Enemy.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: Not enemy of God in the sense that God is God is a gracious God.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: But you've moved into enemy territory where the devil is not there to bless you, the devil is there to take you down.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: And we know the consequences and the difficulty that happens with things like affairs, or you look at a person, young people who are sitting here, or young adults, or single people that are sitting here right now, and you want to find that person.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: So you get on the dating app and you start dating, and you got all your different things that you put out there that you want to find, but you're not finding someone.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: So then you meet somebody, and all of a sudden it's like, well, they're not a Christian, but they're really fun.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
16:53
SPEAKER_00: They'll they'll they'll become a Christian.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: Like I'll influence them, and we'll we'll hang out and we'll do that.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: They'll start coming to church with me, and they come to church and give you a little hope, and they come to church a few times, but then all of a sudden you start coming less.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: And then you start coming hardly at all.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: And then you get engaged to this person, then you get married to this person, and all of a sudden you have divided values.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: And I would say, if you're a person who's here today and you're sitting here and saying, Yeah, I'm married to that person or not, hey, 1 Peter chapter 3 says, you keep being faithful because God can use you, and it may be your faithfulness through a difficult time or a tragedy, or just your faithfulness over time that brings that person to repentance and faith in Jesus.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: But if you are not married and you are entertaining that kind of relationship, man, you need to be equally yoked with a person that is pulling toward God with you for the sake of your family in the future, all of that.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: You step back and you think about screens.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's another thing for all of us.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: What are we looking at?
17:53
SPEAKER_00: What are we seeing?
17:54
SPEAKER_00: I saw a study this last week talk about the idea of just gradually moving.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Saw a study last week that was done by the Institute for Family Studies, surveyed 2,000 young men, 18 to 29 years of age, and they said that one in four of those young men gamble every single day.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Whether that's sports betting or whatever, they gamble every single day.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: More than one in four watch porn every single day.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: Now you could do the statistics on how many young men watch porn in a month, and that's like through the roof.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: But every single day, one in four, two out of three play video games every single day.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Am I saying video games are wrong?
18:44
SPEAKER_00: Students don't get bothered at me.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: I've got kids too.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: It's not wrong.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: But I would say this when you take all three of those things, they said one in eight.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: One and eight did all three of those things every single day.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: And I would ask the question how in the world, if you're spending hours gaming every single day, you're gambling every single day online, and you're looking at porn every single day online, how do you stay under the protection and blessing and purpose of God for your life?
19:13
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't just start by every single day.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden you go from one day from nothing to all the, you know, zero to a hundred.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: It begins with small compromises.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: Small compromises where we get a little friendly with it, and we see something somebody else is looking at, and they show us this, and we're, or we go over to somebody's house, the students, and we're hanging out, and we we look, and then you go home and you start looking, and then it just and then you create some pollution, then you create some affection, and all of a sudden you are those things.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: And James is just saying, it will pollute your life.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: Friendship with God will make you an enemy of the world.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: And then James just steps back and he says, But God is gracious, listen to what he says.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: He says, Or don't you think that scripture says without reason that he is he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us, but he gives us more grace, grace through Jesus on the cross.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: That is why scripture says God opposes the proud and shows favor to the humble.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting that line, he says, God jealously longs.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Think about this for a moment.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: We think of jealousy as a negative word.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: We think of the guy who broke up with a girl, now he's stalking her and he's jealous.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just this unhealthy idea of jealousy.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: That's not what James is talking about.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: Go all the way back to my illustration with my wife and I.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: Man, that deep love that is actually there.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Let's say that she was splitting her affection between me and somebody else, and I just kind of looked at it, shrugged my shoulders, and said, Oh well, that's not love.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: That's indifference.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: If Jen was splitting her affection between me and somebody else, we'd have a conversation.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: I'd be finding how that who that guy is, and then I would be taking some of you with me to go have a conversation with that dude.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: And I don't care who he is, I don't care if it's Dwayne Johnson, the rock, we are going.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: I might take 50 of you with me, but I'm not sharing.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: And God's not sharing.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't want to share because he jealously longs, and his jealousy is a healthy, beautiful love that caused him to send his son.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: He gives us more grace.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: He sent his son to die on a cross to save us from our sins.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: That's how he was willing to fight for us.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: And he's just saying, man, if you're gonna set your tent up over there, man, everything's gonna be on fire after a while.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, if you were willing to come back, I am always forgiving, always gracious, always willing.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: I can't be over there, he says, but I can be over here.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: And if you would be willing to come back, my forgiveness and my grace are there.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: And then James gives us the picture of how we make peace with God.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: He gives us the picture of how we come back under that umbrella of God's protection.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: He says, submit yourselves then to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: That word submit.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: Keen on that for a second.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: That word submit is a military word.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, we've got some military language going on already, enemy.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Like this battle.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, throughout James, there's kind of this battle language is going on.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: He's like, we got to get serious about our faith and we got to battle this thing out.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: When you are friendly with the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And what submission is, is this military word that means to come back underneath the authority of.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: It means that you're over here and you're flirting with the world, you're cheating on God, flirting with the world, or fully engaged with it.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: We start pulling up tent stakes.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: Like every act of repentance, he says, He says, submit to God, resist the devil.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: Every act of repentance is pulling up a tent stake, acknowledging our sin, and then taking that tent and moving it back under the authority of God and beginning to put those tent stakes in and saying, I'm staking my life down right here on the beliefs of scripture, not on the beliefs of culture.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: Guys, right now, what culture says about sexuality and about gender and about marriage and about that is not what is true.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: This is what is true.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: And you might say, Sean, I don't agree with that.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Hey, hey, there is a process that happens over time in our lives where we get friendly, where we get polluted, where we get to this place where we develop an affection, and then all of a sudden we conform to it.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: And you got to ask yourself, is my life coming under the authority of God and under the authority of his scripture?
23:48
SPEAKER_00: Is what God says, is that what actually goes in my life?
23:53
SPEAKER_00: In the areas of our sexuality, in the areas of our relationships, in the areas of our pride, in the areas of our generosity, in those areas, what James is saying, he's saying, submit, come underneath the authority of God.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: And you look throughout scripture, even kings came through the came under the authority of God.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: And there was this picture.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: When you followed God or you followed Jesus, there was this idea of submission or surrender that acknowledged that you were not in charge, God was in charge.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: When Solomon dedicated the temple, what did he do?
24:25
SPEAKER_00: He's in all of his glory.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: There's a parade that's happening, and everyone acknowledges Solomon.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: He does a sacrifice and then he gets down on his knees and submits himself before God the Father, saying, You're the king and I'm not.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Sad thing about Solomon is he didn't do that his whole life.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: And it wrecks so many things in the kingdom of Israel, splitting the kingdom in half when he began to submit to when he became the king in his mind, messed things up.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: David, same way.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: So many things.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: You see, Peter in the New Testament.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: What do you see in Peter in the New Testament?
25:01
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus calmed the storm, what did Peter do?
25:03
SPEAKER_00: He realized, man, he is the king and I am not.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: And he got on his knees, submitted himself before Jesus, worshiped him, and said, My Lord and my God.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: When we step into this thing called faith in a relationship with God, what James says is he says, Submit yourself then to God.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: Come underneath the authority of God.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Students, young adults, people in this room right now, your sexuality should come under the authority of God.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you, the protection and the blessing that comes from that.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's hard to see with the peer pressure, and all, but the protection and the blessing that comes from that, you cannot trade.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: Adults with your finances.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: God says, honoring God with our finances.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: When we pull up stakes over here and say that everything we have is for us.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: When we've been over here in the culture, hey, for you, for your we pull that up and we set it underneath.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: God, the protection, the blessing, the miracles in how He provides, you can't trade that.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: You see it all throughout scripture.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: People submitted themselves.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: And then what does it say?
26:18
SPEAKER_00: Resist the devil.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: You cannot resist the devil when you are doing that on your own.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: The only way you resist the devil is when you come under the authority of the one who has more power than the enemy.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: When you step back in under his authority and realize that when you give your life to Christ, you realize we always talk about this idea, man, when you give your life to Christ and accept his forgiveness on the cross, you receive forgiveness of your sins.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: That's half the thing.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: That is half the deal.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: The other side of God's offer to you is when you receive Jesus, what you receive is not just forgiveness of your sins.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: You receive the Holy Spirit that comes to live inside of you to guide you, to direct you, protect you, and to empower you to fight the battle against the enemy.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: Most of us just live going, hey, thank God that you forgive my sin and I just keep messing up.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: God's saying, No, no, no.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: I have given you my Holy Spirit that will help guide you and direct you.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: Will we still sin?
27:17
SPEAKER_00: Yes, but it gives us a desire when we lean into it to desire more of who God is.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Last thing that James says is he says, draw near to God.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8 through 10, it says, Come near to God and he will come near to you.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: God never moved.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: He says, Come near to God.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Come from over there and start coming this direction, and God will meet you there and receive you.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: He's not angry at your sin.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: He is ready to forgive you and then to protect you and bless you.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: Come near to God.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: He will come near to you.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Wash your hands.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: This idea of like washing our spirits.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Wash our hands, you sinners.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Purify.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, don't be double-minded anymore.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: Don't be splitting on both sides of the fence.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: Purify your hearts, you double-minded.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Grieve, mourn, and wail.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, God's not just trying to make us sad.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, get serious about your sin.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: Get serious about what is messing up your life.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: Humble yourselves before the Lord, and what will he do?
28:23
SPEAKER_00: All right, about wake back up.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will do what?
28:28
SPEAKER_00: He will lift you up.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: God is there to lift us up.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: What's interesting about Abraham is Lot went and set up his tents near Sodom.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: Do you know where Abraham set up his tents?
28:41
SPEAKER_00: He went up into the hill country and he set up an altar and he set his tents around the altar, signifying the idea that God is the center of my universe.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm coming under the authority of God, submitting myself to him.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: And you know, guys, don't want to be health and wealth here at all.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: But Lot ended up in a city on fire, lost his wife, lost the influence with his family, almost lost his own life, and Abraham was blessed incredibly, like you would not believe.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Man, some of you, God's decision, every single one of us, no matter where you are today, God is inviting us to move, to make a decision.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: For some of you, that decision is to resubmit, to bring yourself up under the authority of God, to pull up some tent stakes, to confess some sin, to repent of some sin, and to come back and say, God, you're gonna be my authority, and I'm asking for your blessing and your protection.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Man, if you need to make that decision today, as we sing, man, you just humbly submit yourself before God, whatever posture you want to set take, and just say, God, would you forgive and receive me?
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Would you renew my heart?
29:56
SPEAKER_00: And then you walk out of this place and you don't just say that, you change.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: You tell somebody, you get in a group, you ask people for help, and you start walking away from that kind of sin.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: And then the second idea is do you know that in the New Testament, the picture of submission was not kneeling?
30:13
SPEAKER_00: The picture of submission in the New Testament was baptism.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: When a person came to an understanding of Jesus, who he is, he's God's Son, that he's the savior of the world, that he was going to go to the cross.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: When a person came to an understanding of that, what they did is they confessed Jesus as their savior.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: They said, I believe.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: I want forgiveness of sin.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: I want to come under the authority of Jesus.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: And then they showed that symbolically with the picture of baptism.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 6 says that it is the picture of a person being put underneath the water.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: It is the actual picture of the death of Jesus, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus being applied to them, them being lowered into the water, Paul says, with all their sin.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: It's a picture of spiritual death cleaned by Jesus' sacrifice and then raised up to live a new life.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Man, if you've not been, if you've been setting up 10 stakes over here, and you've never actually committed to Jesus, or maybe you've been a really good person, you come to church, but you never actually committed your life to Jesus.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Understand that the Bible says until you accept him as your Savior, man, you're not saved.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: You're not underneath that protection and blessing of God.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: Your sins are not forgiven.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says you do that by placing your faith in Jesus.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: But then you show that by going to the waters of baptism and being buried and raised up with Jesus and saying, Now I'm on mission with Him.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: All of our campuses, we're gonna stand and we're gonna sing in just a moment.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pray.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: And I would say to you, if you've not made that decision today, you're gonna see people on the screens that are getting baptized at all of our campuses, and you can join them.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: We've got shirts, we've got towels, we've got everything you need.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: We've got private changing rooms in the back.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: We've got people to receive you right down here next to the Baptistry at all the campuses.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: I would encourage you, if you want to make that decision today, don't wait.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: Don't hesitate like Lot hesitated.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: Man, you just come running to Jesus and you let him take it from there and see the miracles that can happen in your life.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and stand all of our campuses together.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pray for us.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: And then if you would like to make that decision to get baptized, you just meet us right down in front by the baptistries, and we'll take care of you.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: Father, we just want to recommit.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: We want to repent, we wanna ask your forgiveness for the times that we have just drifted from you.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Father, we're also so grateful that you don't require us to be perfect.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: You sent your son so he could be perfect, so he could pay the sacrifice for our sins.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Father, you just ask us to do our best to be faithful.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: And so, Father, I pray for those who need to return today.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray that there will be some repentance in the time that we sing.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: And then, Father, I pray that there will be also some people that just step out boldly into those aisles and they walk down at their campus and they come forward and they make a decision to give their life to you and to be baptized.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: They don't worry about, you know, getting wet or getting in the back.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: They just are committed fully to you.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: And then, Father, I pray that you will bless, protect, and there will be a visible change for them.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: Pray your spirit will begin working inside of them.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: God, we just pray that many will respond.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: And then, Father, for the rest of us, as they do, help us just to lose our minds and celebrating people who are making that kind of decision.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: God, we love you and we give this moment to you.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: Amen.