child in a toy shop this evening, there are so many texts that could be preached from. One of the reasons why I like expository verse-by-verse preaching is it saves you from Saturday night fever trying to figure out what to preach from. I didn't start last night, I've been thinking about this for a while, but this text has been on much of my own heart and mind over recent weeks and months. The sermon I need to hear this evening, and I trust it will be an encouragement to you all as we seek to cultivate closeness with God. Let's draw near to God in prayer. Our God and our Father, We pray that your Holy Spirit will rest upon us this evening. You'll make the truth and the power of your word clear through your servant. And that you will use this text and the sermon of God to draw our hearts nearer to you. Because your son died that we might have everlasting life. And this is everlasting life. We might know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So we pray for wisdom and grace this evening. We might know. Press on to know the Lord. For Christ's sake we pray, O Lord, search us and know our hearts. Amen. Let's read the first ten verses of the passage here. James 4. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members. You lust and do not have, so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because You ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Now, do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires. The Spirit does, which he has made to dwell in us. But he gives a greater grace. Therefore, it says, God is opposed to the pride but gives grace to the humble. Submit, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Fend your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts. You double-minded, be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you. Well, in a fallen world, cultivating closeness with God is difficult. There are so many competing desires in our hearts and few of them are good. We want the wrong things for the wrong reasons. We pursue them often in the wrong way and these desires control and consume us. And James says there are two ways that sinners in the grip of self and self-centered desires, two ways that we often try to satisfy our desires and get what we want. Fighting and praying. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? It's not to source your pleasures that wage war in your members. You lust and do not have, so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask." He's using a very strong language here, speaking of murder. They say that 1 in 150 people are psychopaths. That means one in our mourning congregation perhaps could be a serial killer one day. God forbid, who knows. He uses very strong words. Murder. And he's speaking in a hyperbolic way, yes. But he's also speaking about those thousand different ways every day that you and I have this awful capacity of murdering one another with our words. little slices of the tongue that kill our nearest and dearest relationships one stroke at a time. Murder. Fighting. And the reason why you fight is because you want something so badly you're willing to sin against God and hurt someone deliberately in an effort to get them to give you what you want or to punish them for taking it away from you. Fighting. It speaks of our desires, like armies ready to go to war, like the Russians amassing on the border of Ukraine, waiting with a hair-trigger to invade, perhaps, and take over that country. And so often, we can have our desires like that in our hearts, innocent desires, apparently good desires, desires for respect, desires for appreciation, desire for encouragement, Desire for satisfaction. Desire for an easy afternoon. These desires are in our heart and they lurk there en masse, pent up like an army, ready to go to war. And they will murder and kill your nearest and dearest if those desires go unchecked by the gospel. He also speaks of prayer. Another common way people in the grip of the kingdom of self seek to satisfy their desires. You do not have because you do not ask. It's kind of a paradox. You should be praying more. But James said even when you do pray, you pray in this because you're not driven by a true spiritual desire for God and His kingdom. You're really using God like the genie in the lamp. You know, what is thy bidding my master? The genie is just a strong servant." You can use prayer like that. You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives so that you spend it on your pleasures. And such a life, James says, results in a profound alienation from God. more strong language. You adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world, this is the way the world does business, they're gripped by lust, driven by desire, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, Paul says in Titus 3. This is the way the world lives and if you want to live that way, you are making yourself to be enemies of God. Such a lifestyle results in profound alienation from God and the Holy Spirit won't put up with it. Now, this is a classic example of the translators looking at a difficult verse and not knowing what to do. It's like that insurance claim that a woman wrote. You know, people write the weirdest thing on insurance claims. There was a man in the middle of the road. He didn't know which way to run, so I ran over him. And the translators don't know what to do with this verse because it's a difficult verse in the Greek, so they just kind of make a mess of it. Do you think that the scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us. Is that even English? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. What I think James is saying here is, you know, you Christians who are living like the world, do you think the scripture is wasting its time when it speaks and warns that the spirit which God has made to dwell in us jealously yearns for you? Which he's saying, the Holy Spirit in your heart won't put up with you pursuing the world and living a life dominated by desires. He'll put increasing pressure on you until you yield to God. Which is the next verse. But he gives a greater grace. God's grace has got biceps. Squash you into the ground graciously until you learn that God is opposed to the proud. but gives grace to the humble. God's gracious spirit jealously desires better things for us than worldliness. He systematically resists our prideful efforts until we learn humility. And that humility is the foundation of all godliness. I think it was Augustine that said, it was in pride that we first stepped away from God. And therefore, the first step back has to be humility. has to be humility. And that brings us then to verse 7, 8 and 9 which are just a wonderful scriptural counsel regarding drawing near to God, turning away from a life dominated by lust and walking with God. How can you cultivate closeness with God? First thing James says is submit to God. You submit to God. You can't be close to God if you spend your time resisting Him. Resisting Him. Remember, the context is God resisting our prideful attempts to satisfy ourselves without Him. I want life my way, my terms, my glory. my satisfaction, kingdom of self. That's prideful. Who do we think we are? Like the little child in the party I heard of once who was sitting at the table and the birthday boy at the head of the table was getting all the presents. And each time the birthday boy opened up a present, the boy, one of his friends apparently, cries, wails louder and louder and louder because he's not getting any presents. And eventually his mother can't take it no more, and she leans across to him and says, it's not your party. And the sinner's like that. He wants everything his own way, as if the universe was his playground. But it's not our party. God's. When we live as if it's our party, we can brace ourselves for God to oppose us constantly. Like a headwind. Like one of those stress positions where they make you stand against the wall with your head against the wall, lean against the wall, and it's agonizing. After a few minutes you get spasms in your neck, all down your back and your legs. But it's not a wall, it's God's hand holding us, resisting us as we pridefully try to get our own way. And James says, hold on, submit to God. Stop fighting against God. How does God resist us? Well, He gives things we don't want. It's called suffering. Or He takes away things we do want. Another definition of suffering. Getting what we don't want and not getting what we do want. Suffering. Or He withholds things we want. Or he stretches us through trials and forces us into a very uncomfortable situation where we feel out of our depth and overwhelmed. God has a myriad of ways to wrestle with a soul that will not submit to him. Of course, the poster child of this is Jacob in the Bible. Jacob the striver. And what's Jacob's whole life about? Jacob's whole life is trying to get God's blessing by his own grit and gumption. So he cheats his brother and he wins. Then he goes to Laban and he cheats Laban and he keeps on winning and Laban cheats him back and it's very kind of funny because Jacob deceives his dad, his old dad, can't see, he's dark and he deceives him, which brother it is of course. And then Jacob ends up going down to Laban's house and on the wedding night when it's supposed to be him and Rachel, he is deceived in the darkness, he can't see, it's the wrong sister. And Jacob's life, he's just constantly striving and plotting and scheming to try and get ahead for himself. Until the day when one day God the Son takes the form of a human wrestler and wrestles with mighty Jacob by the stream, Daniel. And they wrestle all night long. And he gets to that point and again the Hebrew is very ambiguous, but it says, when he saw that he could not overcome him, he touched his hip and the hip was dislocated. Now, what's that saying? Is that saying that when God realized he couldn't beat Jacob, he played dirty? No. What it's saying is the he's are confusing. When God saw that Jacob saw that Jacob couldn't overcome God, Now the movie tried, God countered, countered, countered. And Jacob left fighting a losing battle. And when God saw that Jacob learned the lesson, you can't out wrestle God. Then God moved in for the killer blow and dislocated Jacob's hip. And then what happened? Jacob clings to God. What's Jacob say? I will not let you go until you bless me. Once Jacob learned the lesson, you don't get God's blessing by fighting against him from a posture of strength. You get God's blessing by clinging to him in a posture of weakness and crying out, Oh God, have mercy upon me. And then God blesses Jacob. If you want to know closeness with God, the first step has to be submitting to God. And submission is always that prayer. Lord, I am willing. to receive what you give, to lack what you withhold, to relinquish what you take, to be what you require. Why are you struggling with that in your life this evening? Because you're all struggling somewhere. Receiving what God has given, lacking what God is withholding, or giving up what God is taking, or being what God is requiring. Where is the frustration in your life this evening? Where are the burdens that you feel are too big for you to carry? Connect that frustration to God's providence. God's works of providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions. And so that frustration, that fear, that anxiety, that overwhelming sense of burden is sent into your life by God for a purpose. And the first thing we should do is to submit to God, innit? Too often, you know, when I'm in trouble, when things aren't going my way, I'm saying, oh God, do something. It's a stupid prayer. Well, in one sense it is. Because the godly man's assumption is not God, do something. The godly man's assumption is God, you're already doing something. God is always at work, at all times, in all places, and through all things. Oh God, what are you doing? And how can I work with you and not against you? How can I submit to you and not strive against you? It's very hard to walk with God if you're resisting Him. Submit to God. Embrace His providence. Don't try to climb out of a hole, or don't try to fill in a hole God is digging. He's got a bigger shovel than you do. Maybe you're here this evening and you're profoundly disappointed and annoyed with your spouse or your children. You're thinking, oh God, change them. Well, God may well want to change them, but I have news for you. God is much more interested about changing you, first of all. Submit to God. Secondly, resist the devil. You have to go to seminary to think up really cool titles like this. You're probably wondering, where are you getting these points from? These are just fantastic points. Submit, therefore, to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. You cannot walk with God if you are walking with the devil. Kind of obvious, isn't it? Because they're going in opposite directions. And the devil's aim in your life is to have you focus on the kingdom of self, to be a proud person. It's got to be about me, myself, and I.com. That's your website if you're walking with the devil. And the devil, you know, there's lots of them. We probably actually have never met the devil. The devil's much too big, and I'm too small, and so are you, to be really much of interest to the devil. But there are junior devils, I'm sure, in the kingdom who are focused on you, and they swarm around your soul like gnats. I'd never heard of gnats till I came to Savannah. There are awful things. Yesterday I was outside painting the large, too large play set that my parents bought the children some years ago and hasn't been covered in paint, or not paint, but varnish stuff. Wood seal for years and they need to go out and do it. And they've been putting it off and off and off. And I picked the day when the gnats are testing their wings for the first time of the year. So I'm outside in the garden and they are fierce. There are swarms of gnats around me. And for the first, I just sat there for two hours and I'm painting the, washing the place I was first scrubbing it for, and I'm getting eaten alive. And I don't think, and I go inside for lunch and I'm just miserable. It's really hard to focus on your job when you're being attacked by swarms of gnats. There's so many that are carrying me off the garden. So I go in for lunch and my wife says to me, why don't you put bug spray on? And I thought, that's a good idea. I hadn't even thought of it. There's something I can do to resist the gnats. Then I thought, there's something else I can do also. Benjamin. You can come out and blow in the backyard and you can be a decoy. Half the gnats will eat you and that means they won't be eating me. There are things you can do to resist the gnats. It doesn't work very often but you can resist. And there are things you can do to resist the devil too. The problem is we often just allow the devil unfettered access to our hearts. He comes in and he tries to make you think about yourself. Oh, woe is me. The burdens you can't carry. The problems you can't solve. The difficulties that are just too great and too big. It's all just me, me, me, me, me. We just let Him come in and talk to us. About me, me, me, and I, I, I. And what I haven't got. And what I'm not getting. And where I want to go. And all these things. And if you allow Him to do that, He'll cause havoc in your soul. Resist Him. How can you resist him? By coming to God prayerfully and by refusing to let the devil keep the focus on yourself. It's not about me, it's about God. What's God doing in my life? How's God at work in my trials? What's God wanting me to become? Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Listen to the voices in your heart, those quiet voices in your heart. That's like the background music in Kroger or the background music in Atlanta Bread. The worst thing Atlanta Bread do is their coffee is pretty bad, their sweet tea is awful, but the background music they play is awful. It's like supermarket smelts. It's awful stuff they play. It's in the background. Annoying. When you're talking to somebody, you can, some of the time, forget about it. And our hearts like that too, there are voices in the background of our heart that are constantly talking to us. Listen to them. What are they saying to you? What does the Bible say about what they're saying? What does the Bible say about what you should be thinking? I can't cope. This is too great. What if this happens? What if that happens? What if this happens? These voices talking and we just listen to them. No, the Bible says no temptation shall overtake you except such as is common to man and God is faithful. He'll not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able. All things work together for good. That's important. You know, Northern Ireland, the way you say you've had a really good, and people ask you in Northern Ireland, how's it going? The stock response, these words speak volumes about our culture. The stock response is, how are you doing? Not too bad. Cup's always half empty. Not too bad. No, all things work together for good. What you're thinking, what God's saying, two very different things. What's your heart saying? What does God say about what your heart's saying and how should you be thinking? And that's the way to resist the devil, and when you resist the devil, he will flee. That's sweet. Now he will come back again. Jesus commanded him to go and he left until an opportune time, but he will go when you resist him. God has given you bug spray and it will work. Use it. Third point, can you guess what it is? Submit to God. Resist the devil, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. If you want to grow in your relationship for God, there's something for you to do. Draw near to me, God says. That's a problem because we're Calvinists and we're used to monergistic grace where God is always the first one taking the action. Now, God is always the first one taking the action, but it doesn't always feel that way. Very often, all you feel is this intense desire to stay in your bed in the morning, and this massive battle to fight, to drag yourself out from under the covers, to turn off the alarm clock, which you have strategically placed on the far side of the room, and to get your Bible and to read it, and to pray. Now, God is always the one drawing us with cords of loving kindness, but His fingers are very gentle. We often aren't aware of them. We just feel this, oh, I don't feel near God. It's too hard to pray. I'll just watch TV. What's on Netflix? You spend about half an hour trying to find. I mean, Netflix has got a thousand videos and none of them are worth watching, one or two maybe. But you flick through that you're trying to find something to watch all because you think, I don't really feel like praying. Draw near to God. What time are you committing to drawing near to God in your life? This is very counter-cultural. We live in the age of the one-minute devotion and the seven-minute Bible. Access, your access card. I don't think they make any more, but the access card. Remember the old catch line, take the waiting out of wanting. Well, in the biblical access to God, it's exactly the reverse. The wanting readies you for the waiting. and God is worth waiting for. It's a lovely promise that, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. I know He's already drawn near to you, you are waiting for Him, but still, it's a wonderful thing, draw near. You're not on a fool's errand. It's work that you can do, draw near. Be in the Word, be in prayer. Fourthly and lastly, and here we are being a bit ingenious because I don't want a seven-point sermon like this morning. Make up your mind. Verse 8. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. What do you really want? Do you really want me, God says. Do you really want me? Look at the word double-minded. Here's a man who doesn't know what he wants. Half of him wants God, half of him wants his own way. It describes us all, doesn't it? Our best desires are ambiguous. Remember in chapter 1? Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him." Now, here's the man, okay, and you're in trial. all different sizes and shapes of trial, and what does God want you to do? He wants you to pray, O God, for joy. Don't take the trial away. Give me joy. And give me joy. Because I know, O Lord, that these trials have a purpose to make me mature and holy. That's what we should want. But, Paul says, he must ask in faith. Faith is the ability to reach through what we can see and lay hold of what God really wants. He must ask in faith, without doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man and stable in all his ways." What's happening there? Here's a man and he is wrestling in his heart these two desires. Desire number one is, oh God, give me joy. I want to grow, grow, grow in this trial. And so, don't take the trial away. I want to grow. The other half of them is saying, no, I don't want the trial to go. I don't want to care about it. I don't care about growth. I want an easy life again. I want to get back to the straight and narrow. And there's this constant push in his heart, this way and that way. And the double-minded man is the man who has both desires in his heart, but really is being pulled away from God and toward the, oh, just give me the easy life. And the same word occurs here in this passage. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Do you want God or do you want sin? Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laugh to be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Illustration of this is in Psalm 34. David is up to his neck in Philistines. Big hairy Philistines. Goliath's friends in Goliath's hometown of Gath. You're in a desperate place. If you're running away from Saul and you think the best place to hide is Goliath's hometown, you're in a tough time. And David gets captured. People think, that's David. He killed Goliath. Let's kill him. And David is dragged before Abimelech, whose name means, My God is King. A good name and a bad name all at the same time for Philistine. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the Lord. The humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears." Now stop there a second. David's up to his neck in Philistines and he decides to be mad and he pretends to go mad and Himalek or Bimelech looks and says, this isn't David, this guy's crazy and I've got enough crazy people in my retinue that is. Drive him away and David escapes. But interestingly, verse 4, what does David seek? I sought salvation and the Lord answered me and delivered me. No. I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. You see David here, what he's saying is salvation is really a secondary issue. What I want is God. That's the most important thing. Whether I end my life here before Bimelech is a secondary issue. I sought the Lord and he answered me, delivered me from all of my fears. And the double minded man doesn't do that. He seeks deliverance. He seeks salvation. He seeks blessing and easy life. God is a secondary issue to him, but not David. David seeks the Lord. Make up your mind. What do you want? Searching question. It searches me. What do I want? Really, what do I want? And while you're waiting for God, brace yourself for weeping because God is rarely found by the man with a dry eye and a cold heart. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom." Because when you draw near to God, you draw into the light, what happens? The darkness of your heart is exposed and it's very painful. When you realize again and again and again, oh God, I don't really want you, I just want your blessing. You know, God is to be worshipped, his gifts are to be used, and our hearts are worshipped. We use God and we worship his gifts. And it's very, very painful for a preacher to face that every day. And so if you want to draw near to God, James says, brace yourself for a broken heart, because when you come into God, you're constantly going to see the slop and the darkness of your own soul, and it's heartbreaking. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you. The first step away from God is pride. The first step back has to be humility. We take our place and we embrace our place as creatures and servants and we come before God not as the genie, but as the servant, weak, feeble, and saying, what is thy bidding, my master and my father and my savior? Do you want more of God in your life? Do you want to cultivate closeness with God? Submit to God. Why are you resisting Him at the moment? Submit to Him. Yield your soul to Him. Resist the devil. He will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Resolve to set no unclean thing before your eyes. To hate the work of those who fall away, that backsliding will not fasten its grip upon me. Cleanse your hands. Wash yourselves and be clean. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are red like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you'll eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, I know you'll not refuse and rebel. Let's pray together.