In James’ letter to the Jerusalem church he identified some issues that needed to be resolved…his suggestion was that what they needed to experience was a revival… a restoration of their fellowship with God.
In [7-10] of chapter 4 James gives eleven imperatives…that demanded immediate obedience if they were to enter into a true fellowship with God.
7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and He will come near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded 9 Grieve, mourn and weep. Change your laughter to mourning and Your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He Will lift you up.11do not speak against one another…
The first imperative was: 7 submit to God
The second imperative: to Resist the devil, and he will flee from you
The third imperative we talked about last week was 8 Come near to God and He will come near to you.
James adds a fourth…. 8 Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Something I have repeatedly pointed out as we continue to look at the fourth chapter of James is his insistence in what seems to be his continual bad mouthing of the Christians in the church he is writing to.
It’s rather startling that James would accuse the church members of fighting… quarrelling…coveting…while symbolically calling them murderers and adulterers because of their attitudes toward one other.
On the surface it would seem that James is using language more appropriate to unbelievers rather than believers…saying such things as ‘you adulterers’ … and calling them ‘sinners’ …this is not the type of language that is spoken with respect to genuine believers.
And that is exactly the case…in the New Testament Christians are always referred to as saints…those who belong to the body of Christ…saved by grace through faith in Jesus…are never referred to as sinners…so who’s James referring to?
Something I’ve often said is the Bible was written to believers…and that is almost always the case.
HOWEVER…there are a few instances where verses are directed to those who are still considered sinners because they haven’t yet committed to trusting in Jesus as their Savior.
When reading the Bible it’s important to use the context and choice of words to determine if the verse is directed to believers or unbelievers…most generally it is always directed at believers but there are times when verses are directed to unbelievers.
So what are unbelievers doing in the church anyway? …should we encourage unbelievers to be in church? …obviously YES we should…BUT here’s where we need to be cautious.
Should we permit unbelievers to serve in the church? …NO…unfortunately this has been an area that many churches and pastors have gotten wrong.
The rational for allowing unbelievers to serve in various capacities in the church is that it might cause them to know God through serving…on the surface that sounds good…but…that’s putting the cart before the horse.
Also, in an effort to bring more people into the church, many churches are changing their names so they don’t sound like a church…or to disguise their religious affiliation…years ago we changed our name to remove the word ‘Baptist’ because some thought it was too offensive.
Let me share some things with you about worship service.
First…it’s not for you…worship service first and foremost is to worship and praise God…when churches turn their ‘praise music’ into a rock concert with people dancing… jumping around…flashing lights with trendy gimmicks…that is shallow entertainment for the people…not for God.
Secondly…having an unbeliever singing on the worship team or serving in any capacity in the church is inherently hypocritical…unbelievers cannot worship the Lord…therefore the lyrics they’re singing really are nothing more than empty words…and anything they’re doing in the church is from a secular viewpoint.
We find no examples in the Bible of non-Christians leading Christians in public worship…as teachers…preachers…or in positions of authority in the church.
Here’s why…whenever someone is serving in a church ministry they are in effect representing the values of the congregation…if that person has beliefs that are contrary to the Bible that is hypocrisy.
Thirdly…pastors wearing skinny jeans with their cool shirts untucked so they can appear to be relevant to the culture while preaching a feel good sermon so the unsaved will feel more comfortable or not so out of place when they leave is also hypocritical.
In verse 8 James calls them double-minded…this is the second time in this epistle he refers to people as being double-minded…back in chapter 1 referring to the misplaced idea that all you have to do is ask and you shall receive, he says:
7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. [James 1:7-8]
Here James is saying one reason, and there are more…you’re not receiving because you’re double-minded.
Here’s what’s interesting about the word ‘double-minded’ …it appears only in the book of James…most scholars believe James might have even coined this word himself…to grasp the full meaning of this word it’s best to understand how it is used.
This statement goes hand-in-hand with what precedes it, referring to purifying your hearts….double-minded people lack purity of heart…that is why James mentions purity of heart before he lists someone who is double-minded.
Again…it’s important to note that James is using language more appropriate to sinners…unbelievers…rather than believers.
To purify your hearts is a call for inner purification…here’s the issue when dealing with purity of heart, because there’s two kinds of sorrow.
There’s the sorrow that is the result of a person who only repents outwardly who may ‘feel sorry’ for their actions…but it’s only superficial… and it’s done for a couple reasons.
- People often say ‘I’m sorry’ not to express genuine regret…instead they use it to manipulate you in an attempt to regain your friendship.
- People often feel guilty because of what they said or did and it makes them feel uncomfortable so they say I’m sorry to make themselves feel better…not you.
- People will say they’re sorry to get you to admit that it was you who was really in the wrong… ‘I wouldn’t have said or did what I did if YOU hadn’t said or did what you did’ …I was only reacting to your inappropriate behavior…so I’ll say I’m sorry but you started it…this is the action of a double-minded person.
That’s the kind of sorrow that shows no remorse…the Bible says that’s the kind of sorrow that leads to death…because there’s no genuine heartfelt sorrow nor is there an admission of guilt for what you did.
Then there’s the sorrow God wants you to experience that is more intense than just being sorry.
That’s the sorrow that is according to the will of God (2 Cor 7:10), a sorrow that includes an intellectual recognition and confession of sin over having grieved another person and God…this results in the purification of the heart.
Sorrow that is according to the will of God is recognizing your sin and confessing it.
This is why James is tying purity of heart with being double-minded…the double-minded person is the person Jesus was referring to when He spoke about the one trying to serve two masters…calling him unstable. [Matt. 6:24]
A double-minded person is one who is restless and confused in their thoughts …actions…and behavior…always being in conflict with themselves…they lack solid convictions and as a result they have inner conflict.
Being double minded prevents them from never fully leaning with confidence on God…that’s why James describes such a person as one who…is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed (vs.6).
To be double-minded is to be inconsistent, acting one way today and another way tomorrow…it’s the description of a hypocrite.
James branded them double-minded because they continued to live with one foot in the world while claiming to love and worship God.
God and the things of this world are so opposing that it is impossible to love one without hating the other…trying to love them both will cause a person to become unstable in all their ways.
James says our actions should be to be miserable…mourn…and weep [9].
I thought the Christian life was supposed to be one of joy…happiness…and rejoicing…so where’s James going with this? Actually it has a twofold meaning.
First…I somewhat enjoy hearing people give their testimonies…something we seldom do anymore…but it is still done on occasion…BUT…what bothers me is the humorous…casual attitude people take when sharing their conversion experience….seldom is there a sense of remorse.
Often times it’s done with an attitude of how much fun I was having…or how I was enjoying my former life as a sinner…or telling about all the things I did were was causing someone else difficulty.
Here’s a problem we have as Christians…we laugh at sin when we should be mourning over it…here’s the danger in that…if Satan can get us to laugh about sin we’re one step down the path toward the acceptance of it.
Remember Grieve, mourn and weep are commands…so what is the intent?
As Christians we are not to rationalize…humor ourselves…or justify how we live before we became Christians…we are not to rationalize sin BUT…rather we are to lament over its destructive nature…the power it had over our lives… and the evil it caused.
Jesus Himself told us that when we reflect back on the sinful condition we were previously living in we should mourn and weep over how we were living.
Secondly…grieving and mourning should produce repentance…if it is genuine …if we are truly sorrowful for what we have done…not talking about worldly sorrow that shows no remorse but Godly sorrow that includes confessions of sin resulting in the purification of the heart…Jesus says you will be blessed and comforted.
Two kinds of comfort…almost everything in the Bible is conditional…there is not universal comfort for all mourners…done lots of funerals…people are mourning for lots of reasons… usually for the kind of natural grief that comes from not being able to physically see the deceased…to hear their voice…to touch them…to be with them…and the loneliness of not seeing them.
For unbelievers…there is no comfort…because there is no hope in the resurrection of the body…BUT…there’s another kind of comfort.
Scripture says…as Christians we don’t grieve as others who have no hope… we are secure in knowing that they are with the Lord.
That’s why Jesus in the Beatitudes says…all mourners who are poor in spirit and hunger and thirst for righteousness will find comfort…so there is comfort for some but not for all.
Thirdly…as Christians we should lament over our sin and be regretful about what we did but it should not consume us to the point of thinking what I did in the past is preventing me from living the abundant life today or keeping me out of heaven.
Nor should we pretend to be so sorry over sin thinking that wallowing in the wretchedness of it will somehow justify us in the eyes of God.
Admitting to sin…grieving over sin…and weeping over sin is an important step in bringing a lost sinner into fellowship with Christ…and it’s important in restoring our fellowship with Christ when we sin…but…the true benefit is in what Paul had to say… godly sorrow produces repentance which leads to salvation.
The widespread problem of worldliness is infiltrating the church…splits in the Presbyterian and Methodist church are evidence of that…I believe there is a clear reason for that…said it already…unbelievers having positions of authority in the church and dictating church policy.
James is inviting those who are unbelievers pretending to be believers to Draw near to God…to cleanse your hands and purify your hearts…and at the same time is telling Christians…to do the same…to take a second look at how we assess sin and our reaction to it…to also evaluate their lifestyle.