The Bible says a lot about humility…God calls on all people to humble themselves (Micah 6:8; Matthew 23:12; Romans 12:16; Philippians 2:3–4; 1 Peter 5:6). but He especially calls on believers to humble themselves.
In the 4th chapter of James he lists a series of commands that are concrete examples of the types of behavior needed to keep us in close fellowship with God.
In [v 7-10] of Ch. 4 James addresses the interpersonal conflicts occurring among his readers…he gives eleven imperatives…commands that demand immediate obedience if they were to remain in a true fellowship with God.
First imperative 7submit to God
Second imperative to Resist the devil, and he will flee from you
Third imperative 8 Come near to God and He will come near to you.
Fourth imperative 8Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Here’s how these four imperatives play out in our lives.
We submit to God by knowing and obeying His Word…we submit to God when we trust in His will for our lives.
We resist the devil by knowing and applying God’s Word…through righteous living…through collective fellowship…and through prayer.
To come near to God is a call for action…an action we initiate…not for God’s benefit…but so that we might have a closer walk in the Spirit for our benefit.
To cleanse our hands is to be positionally cleansed by the Holy Spirit… removing our judicial condemnation by giving us a new life in Christ.
To purify your hearts is a call for inner purification…a genuine heartfelt sorrowful admission to God for what we’ve done.
James warns against being a ‘double-minded’ person…one trying to live with one foot in the world while claiming to love and worship God…this will cause a person to become unstable in all their ways.
James’ fifth imperative is to 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
The thought of humbling ourselves is often thought of as an act of weakness… having low opinions of yourself…low self-esteem…and a lack of confidence.
Here’s the thing about humility…it’s not thinking less about yourself…it’s not disliking who you are…or demeaning yourself…it’s not thinking less about yourself…it’s thinking of yourself less…we live humble before God when we demand less of what we want and more what others may need.
Humility is knowing we cannot succeed by trusting in our own human effort… it goes hand in hand with being poor in spirit.
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Being poor in spirit is realizing that you cannot in your own efforts please God. It’s admitting that you are spiritually bankrupt before God…it’s recognizing that there is nothing you can do to gain God’s acceptance or approval…that I am spiritually worthless.
In that respect being poor in spirit is like humility…as a Christian God has sovereign authority over you…He created you…He paid your sin debt…you now belong to Him…goes back to trusting in His will for our lives.
I want to share something with you regarding that statement…that you belong to God…it brings up the horrible situation Alyssa and Cameron are experiencing.
To humble ourselves before God is to let go of our ideas…plans…and purposes and instead surrender to God’s purpose for our lives.
That means letting God have full control of what happens and when it happens in our lives…accepting His timing in all things according to His plans and purposes.
Don’t know why sickness…distress…or physical ailments happen to people…I don’t even attempt to explain why…and neither should anyone else.
We need to remember…even in the direst of circumstances…the central purpose always is to bring about God’s sovereign will…Bible says so…[Rom. 8:28]:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.
That statement makes it plain that as a Christian you can be assured that the things that happen in your life will always work for God’s good.
Regardless of whether God actively inflicts an illness or passively allows it… God’s ultimate purpose is to bring glory to Himself…it’s not so you can be happy…as a Christian you have essentially given God the right to use you to bring about His sovereign will.
At conversion…when we make the decision to trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior…along with that decision is a commitment that we will be obedient to Him…that we will submit to Him by giving Him authority over our lives.
God uses whatever means necessary to accomplish His will…including using you…I said it earlier…as a Christian God has sovereign authority over you…He created you…He paid your sin debt…you now belong to Him.
First 4 words of Rick Warren’s book, Purpose Driven Life ‘it’s not about you’.
As Christians we need to realize that we may never truly know why God permits certain events to occur in our lives.
People mistakenly say ‘when we get to heaven God will explain everything to us’ …why should He?…He doesn’t owe us an explanation on why He does what He does…BUT we can be certain that He does so for His benefit.
Far too often when bad circumstances happen people are quick to blame the person, saying it’s their fault…usually for some sin…that belief is grounded in Middle Eastern thought that’s called the retribution principle.
The idea that God prospers the righteous and afflicts the wicked…therefore if you’re suffering you must have done something bad…that’s not biblical.
Even disregarding that idea it’s still difficult for us to accept sickness as being part of God’s divine plan…we are all confronted with issues in life that are mysterious and don’t make sense.
If we can’t see a purpose in life we get frustrated…discouraged…and unfortunate for many depressed to the point of wanting to quit the church.
We may be tempted to distrust God…blaming Him for our current state of health BUT… we must never allow ourselves to believe that God is cruel, but rather, God is always a just God both in His rewards and in His punishments.
Those who go through life living on explanations will always be unhappy because sometimes there are no explanations for what happens, and God is not obligated to explain them.
Bad things do happen to good people…more often than not there is no meaning to why they happen to us because there is no satisfying answer.
But we can give them a meaning by imposing a meaning on them. The question we should be asking is not, “Why did this happen to me? …that’s really unanswerable because there is no explanation that makes sense of it all.
God’s goal for your life is not ease, comfort, or pleasure…too many TV preachers would have you believe God’s will for your life is health, protection, and prosperity…that is not the message of the New Testament.
We may not like to hear that sickness is allowed by God to bring us closer or He’s using that sickness to bring someone else closer to Him…BUT…because God owns you He orchestrates the events in your life according to His plans.
He calls us to humble ourselves not because He is a controlling God that wants you to bow down to Him…it’s not to make you His servant…it’s not so He can boss you around…here again is another conditional promise…it’s because He wants to exalt us…to lift us up.
In verse 8 and 10 we see two conditional statements…these don’t represent the standard conditional if-then statements seen in the New Testament, but the language used suggests if you do one thing the other will result.
8 Come near to God and He will come near to you.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
God’s desire has always been that we would draw near to Him with all our hearts. God created us to walk with Him in fellowship.
Drawing near to God is a major theme in redemption history…but it’s conditional.
The statement ‘draw near to God’ indicates that the separation from God was a result of our choice…it is our involvement with the world that has moved us away from God…that’s what happens when we are friends with the world.
I can’t emphasize enough the importance of how God responds to us.
There was a reason some were not as close to God as they once were…they had stepped away from God and allowed Satan to be an influence in their lives…as a result they had broken their fellowship with God.
In this verse James is not giving an evangelistic invitation…this is not a call for the lost to be saved…James is speaking to believers…‘draw near to God.’
BUT…the catch is:
—can’t be living in sin and at the same time be close to God…just like
—can’t be living a disobedient lifestyle and expect God to hear your prayers.
God doesn’t care how sincere you are…how earnest you are…how genuine you are in your request…God will not hear your prayers and you cannot be near to God when you are out of fellowship with Him.
The other conditional statement is:
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
Peter writes almost the same thing [1 Pet 5:6].
humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He
may exalt you at the proper time.
Jesus makes mention of the importance of being humble and the result of being exalted [Matthew 23:12].
whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles
himself will be exalted.
We’ve already talked about the importance of being humble…it’s recognizing God’s providential interest in our lives even during times of great distress… putting our complete trust in the Lord and when we do…God will exalt you.
So what do James and Peter mean that God will exalt you? There’s no shortage of people in the church today wanting to exalt themselves…more people wanting to be Reverends…Apostles…Bishops…and Prophets than ever before…giving themselves titles in order to get a price.
The answer is in the phase…He may exalt you at the proper time.
Two key words in this verse:
One…is ‘exalt’ meaning to receive a high place of privilege and honor…
Second…is ‘time’ καιρός time meaning the opportune time…more specifically God’s time…in His own good time.
In life there will be many things that don’t make sense…there are many problems we face that we don’t want to face…but when we humble ourselves in those circumstance by allowing God to work in our life by releasing our life into His hands…you open the doors for God to exalt you by sending His blessing into your life.