Make Yourself Low - James 4:8-10

A message by Tyler Sanborn on James 4:8-10

South Valley Student Ministry is a ministry of Compass Bible Church South Valley located in Kuna, ID. 

For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, please visit compassbiblesv.org.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Make yourself low. I'm not talking tonight about a limbo contest. I'm not talking about the time that I was at a roller rink and there was this horizontal bar, and I'm on roller skates trying to cruise around this rink, and they're saying, Who can get the lowest? Who can go under the bar? And the bar keeps dropping and dropping and dropping. And certain people, when they're doing this this contest here, they're on a roller rink, they're trying to get as low as they can. They are often doing the splits. Doing the splits, and they're maybe a foot off the ground, and they're they're trying to get below a bar. That's not what I'm talking about tonight. I'm talking about low in the sense of you making yourself low in front of a perfect and holy God. I'm talking about humility and the kind of humility that we see in the prodigal son. How many of you by raise your hands are familiar with who's the prodigal son? Raise your hand if you've heard of that. The prodigal son, yeah. The son who goes away to a distant land, asks for his inheritance early, and says, Dad, give me what's mine. I'm gonna go and and uh and make it on my own. I'm gonna go spend it on whatever I want. This life in your house, working for you, working, working with your people, with your servants, yeah, it's not for me anymore. I'm gonna go off and do me. I'm off, I'm off to the races. And what happens to that prodigal son? Uh his money is spent, he seeks pleasure and follows his passions, and uh, at the end of it, he he sits with this thought of even my my father's servants are are better taken care of uh than me, and he's in the in the pig pen looking at the pigs, and even these pigs, their food is starting to look good to me. Uh might just have some of the scraps maybe that would satisfy. And in this process, the prodigal son is is thinking to himself, man, I have I've I've done wrong. I I've spent my life in a way that doesn't please the Lord, and I need to return home. I need to humble myself, I need to admit that I I ruined my my inheritance, I ruined myself, I ruined my life, and he's gonna return home. Now, the prodigal son, the return home, that the son is realizing some things. The son is realizing his his depravity and his and his poverty. There's a realization that comes to mind in this prodigal. There's a realization and a drawing. The son is drawing near. He went on out, he went away, and now he's coming back to draw near to his father. There's a drawing of the father. As the son returns, what does the father do? He sees him a long ways off and he runs out to him. He meets him before he can enter into his house. The humility of the son, he confesses. He confesses to his father, I've done wrong. Please forgive me. I've spent my inheritance, I've I've I've done my own thing. I've followed after my own passions. And what does what does the father do in return? He takes off his robe, clothes him, and throws a feast for him. Um what a what a beautiful illustration of God the Father drawing near to sinners like you and me, and the humility of the Son to admit his wrongs and pursue a right relationship with his father and return home. This is an abbreviated gospel message. And on one day, all people will experience humility. One day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And one day everyone will be made low. The title of this sermon Make Yourself Low. You can make yourself low now, humble yourself now, or wait for judgment and humble yourself later. Today, James is going to give us some encouraging truths that I hope to deliver to you and that are going to direct you and instruct you on how to go about your day-to-day living in humility, drawing near to God and what we do when we fall short. And we live in a world full of people that are trying to convince you how to live your best life. The question for us is this how will you combat worldliness? Thinking about the prodigal son, how are you going to combat that desire to go off on your own? The world is full of teeth that would be interested in latching onto you and not letting go. Thinking about predators with large teeth, and thinking about polar bears and killer whales and tigers and this world is relentless. Now, who who can save himself in this world? Who can avoid the destruction to come? Who can pull you out of this death trap that we live in? And Adam all falls short. We inherit the sin nature. We need forgiveness. And today we're going to see a formula from James in chapter 4 on how to go about that. Let's look at our text together. James 4, verses 8 through 10. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. Now, the the Jewish Christians who would be hearing this letter, hearing this message from James, would be thinking, as they're hearing these words, draw near to God? You mean like go into the temple? How do I go into this holy place that God receives atonement? How do I draw near to God? What do you mean, draw near to him, and he will draw near to you? What does that mean? Now, if if your parents this evening were to pull you aside and talk to you and say, you know, Scarlett, we've saved, we saved a lot of money, and it's all on this plastic card, and it's your job to plan a five-day vacation. It's your job. There's no limit. We have enough money. Spend as much as you want. We're going to have a great time. You're going to go after the things that you personally like, the things that you love, the things that bring you joy, the things that are fun, that bring happiness. You're not going to go somewhere boring. Probably not. You're not going to go somewhere where you're like, actually, I'd rather not be here. That would make no sense. No, we go about pursuing things in this life that we love. We wear and paint our walls and our homes, our clothing. We adorn ourselves with our favorite colors. I see a lot of green in this room. Blue by default, because those are the hoodies that you're given. But there's some gray, there's some black. There's some colors in the room. My favorite color is green. Different shades of earthy greens, pine green, forest green, sage green, moss green. I don't like Kelly green that much, but you're Kelly Fitzgerald. It's not a personal dig. But you get what I'm talking about. The smells that we love the most. The smells that we love the most, we go to the store and find a candle. It's like, mmm, that smells good. Let me smell that more often. The things, the things that we enjoy, whether it's sports, whether it's hobbies, we go and do those things. We pursue those things. We go after them. We chase after them. And we put, for some of us, we love animals. Some of us out there will watch videos on the internet, sometimes even live streams of our favorite kinds of animals. Shout out Jackie and Shadow. Some of us watch bald eagles from the comfort of our own homes just to see what's going on. What are they doing? Do they have an egg yet? Is it out there? The nest got bigger. Oh, wow.

unknown 8:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Amazing. Now we got to be careful in this life what we draw near to. We have to be careful. The world, the flesh, and the devil would love for us to continue and pursue the passions that go with. Because even the things that we love, we need to be careful. The things that we love can betray us. The things that we love can harm us, can destroy us. We need to choose rightly what it is that we are pursuing, what we're drawing near to. Now, drawing near to an apex predator would be a poor choice. A very poor choice. You wouldn't cozy up next to an eagle, probably attack you. You wouldn't cozy up next to a polar bear, even though Coca-Cola commercials would convince you otherwise that they're cute little bubbly things that just roll around in the snow and are just you just want to hug them. No. You're not going to do this. Why? Because they could inflict incredible harm to you. Incredible harm to you. Now, while we're thinking of what to avoid, you're thinking like, Tyler, get to the point, get to the point. Yes, what are we drawing? Stick in the text. Draw what? Not where not to go, but the text says, draw near to God. That's where we should go. Draw near to God, and what happens? He will draw near to you. The only folks that were able to do this as we read our Old Testament were Aaron and his sons. There was a specific family, specific group of people, a lineage that would draw near to God, starting with Moses and Aaron. Moses gave Aaron instructions as to how to go about this, the directions on where to do this, what was going on in this structure, the tabernacle. If you're following along with us in Lamp and Light, we've been going over that over the past couple weeks. What does the tabernacle look like? What is drawing near to God look like? What do you need to do? What are the steps in order to make this happen so that you don't die? You don't die. Now, God is kind, God is loving, but he is also a dangerous God if you're not obeying him and following him in the way that you should. Now, if you were Boromir, if Boromir was a priest, he would probably say, one does not simply enter the Holy of Holies. You need to do it in a specific way. You cannot have a blemish, you cannot have a leg that's longer than the other. You can't be blind. You can't have any mutilation, you can't have any defect about you. And when you go into the Holy of Holies, when you're drawing near to God, no hair is out of place, no thread is out of place. When you draw near to God, you draw near on his terms, not your terms. The world today would try to convince you, well, I'm close to God, I'm a spiritual person. They define approaching God and drawing near to God in ways that make them comfortable, in ways that they feel good. You know, God and I have an understanding. You know, I go out in nature and I think about him and I just I look around, I take a deep breath of this mountain air, and God and I have some alone time together. That's what the world will try to convince you. But the God of the Bible, He wrote, He wrote some words for us to read. He spoke through human beings like you and me. He gave us his very word. He said, This is this is what I have for you. You don't need to go look and figure out and define how to draw near to God on your own terms because we're not God. God determines how we draw near. Now, during the times of the tabernacle in the temple, there would be a cleansing that would need to happen. There's a process. You wash your hands, you'd wash your feet, you put on a certain hat, you put on a certain robe, a certain attire. And once a year, for all of the nation, one priest would enter the Holy of Holies and make atonement for the nation. There's a cleansing, there's an anointing, there's sacrifices that happen. And there's a sincere heart. You don't just go into the Holy of Holies. You don't draw near to God without checking first your heart, checking and remembering who exactly you're drawing near to. This is the creator God, the God that delivered his people from Egypt, the God that inflicted plagues over Egypt and showed his signs and his wonders to the watching world. This is this is not this is not the God that you might see in other nations. This isn't the God that you define in your own mind. This is the God that says, I am who I am. He determines who he is because he is. He's self-existent. He doesn't, he's not created, he's not an offspring of someone like you and me. He is eternal God, perfect and holy in all of his ways. And for a person to draw near to God, they need to be at their very best. They need to be as clean as they can be. They need to be put together as well as they can be on God's terms. On God's terms. Cleanse your hands. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Now, you you have an opportunity this evening to just sit and consider where you are with God. Are you drawing near to him? Is he drawing near to you? You're like, well, Tyler, I don't know. How would I even know if that's happening? Do you have a relationship with him? Do you have a right relationship with this holy God, with this perfect creator God? Well, if you're like me, all of us in the room, we're human beings. We're sinners. We fall short of God's standard. And James is saying to his readers, you need to cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts. You double-minded. Don't go about pursuing God kind of wishy-washy. Earlier in James, we see this term double-minded. He brings it up again in chapter 1, verse 8. He brings up this term double-minded. Kind of one foot in the world, one fitting with God. It's like I kind of know God. I kind of know what he wants for my life because I think I know what would please him. We kind of define these things in our own mind. That's what the world would do. We can't be double-minded. We have to go about it with sincerity, with a pure heart that seeks to please God, that seeks to know him as he describes himself to us. We need to go about it confessing, confessing our sin. And when we approach God, God, like you hate sin, and I'm a sinner. What am I to do? We've got to confess. We've got to admit that we're in the wrong. This God is powerful. He is almighty. He is all-knowing. He is everywhere present. And he does not like sin. This is a problem because we're sinners. What do we do? What can we do? A person who's double-minded might be described as an occasional believer, a hypocrite. When things get tough, he kind of maybe not God's, but I'm going to do me. This is too much for me. I'm getting too uncomfortable. I don't like this. I don't like what he's telling me to do. This unbeliever, this double-minded person would not have a sincere faith, kind of wishy-washy. I don't know. The belief, faith is lacking. Clean hands. How do we go about having clean hands in this world today? I mean, the stomach bug is just running rampant. If you ask anybody, you know at least one person that has been ill over the past month or so. Clean hands, not just germs. We're talking about hands that are seeking to please the Lord, hands that are free of guilt and sin. This is referring to this process that the priest would go through in order to approach a perfect and holy God. They would wash their hands, they would wash their feet, they would need to make a sacrifice for their own sin before they proceed and enter into meet with the Lord. James is not speaking here to instruct the priests of Israel, though this is what's on their mind, surely. He was speaking to the church in Jerusalem. Some of them have put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Though in this first verse that we're looking at, there are some that are not. There's some that are not Christians. And he's speaking to them also. In either position, James is encouraging them to live for God and set themselves apart as he intends. Pursue God on his terms, draw near to him. In the encouragement, he's going to draw near to you. The way that you obey God and draw near to him on his terms, James is saying, He's going to meet you. He's going to come out like the father of the prodigal son. He's going to run to you. He's going to meet you. And he will embrace you. This is a great encouragement for us. As God is spirit, I mean, Jesus has ascended. How are we to know God to draw near to God? What do we have? We have his word. We have his bride to draw near to. We have his word to ingest. We have the spirit. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you are born again, you have the spirit in you. You have the helper. This passage should be an encouragement for us. How do we draw near to God? Well, let's write this down for point number one. How do we draw near to God? Pursue God with a pure heart. Pursue Him with a heart that seeks to please Him, with a heart that is agreeing with God when He's saying, You need to confess your sin. To be right with me, you need to be cleansed. You need to be healed. You need to be forgiven. And Jesus has made a way through his death and his resurrection for sinners like you and me to draw near to him. The veil has been torn. The priest doesn't go on our behalf. We can go to God individually. This is life. It's powerful. This is sustaining grace. God is going to meet you if you choose to pursue him, you choose to humble yourself, you choose to take a look and take an assessment of your life and say, God, I don't stack up. These Ten Commandments, God, I I I've broken so many of them. How can I follow you if I keep failing? How can I pursue you? Will you even accept me? I'm messed up. No. You don't need a priestly garment to draw near to God. You don't need a fancy turban. You don't need to come and clean yourself up before you come to the Lord. You don't need to clean up your life. God's own son bled out, and your sins are washed if you confess. God offers his righteousness to clothe you. You don't need priestly garments. You don't need to slaughter an animal to sacrifice on an altar because God offered up his own son as a sacrifice. There's no need to anoint your head with oil. Jesus, the Messiah, the anointed one, Jesus was set apart for God's own service. He is the anointed king. We have a Lord that makes a way for us to be made right with him, to draw near to him. The Lord Jesus Christ in his ministry was calling people to repent and taught them, taught the crowds, taught individuals the things of his father, the things of the kingdom of God. And Jesus calls sinners to repent or die. Repent or perish. He did so in sections of Scripture. If you look to the end of Luke chapter 13, or the opening of Luke chapter 13, rather. There were Jews. There were people making sacrifices, and Romans crashed in. Roman soldiers crashed into the temple, and the blood of these worshipers that were making sacrifices, God, were being mixed and mingled with the blood of the animals that they put on the altar. Did you hear this, Jesus? And Jesus draws their attention to their own heart. These people are calling to Jesus, did you hear about the tower that fell and killed? Killed these people? Did you hear about it, Jesus? And they're trying to understand what they did wrong to incur such a death. What sin did they not confess to receive such brutal treatment? And Jesus is drawing their attention to them. They're trying to understand why it is that they died. Why? Why is it? You're looking at the news. Why do all these what wrongs did they not confess? And Jesus is saying, unless you also repent, you will perish, you will die. Any of us at any moment, at any time, can suddenly die without explanation other than that's the time that God ordained you to go. And whether you're drawing close to God and offering up worship today or walking near a tall building tomorrow, I was talking with one of our leaders today. Our life is so short. Our life is just a blink. And it's so fragile. So fragile. Any of us can go at any time. We're not as strong and sturdy and stable and bulletproof as we'd like to think. Now we see Jesus. We see Jesus drawing close to sinners. We see Jesus throughout the gospels approaching, drawing near to the people that needed him for salvation. Are you drawing near to Jesus today? Have you drawn close to the Savior? In Mark chapter 6, verse 34, Jesus is going ashore and he's seeing a great crowd. And the scripture says, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. Jesus is drawing near and instructing them and calling the people. And then what? He's teaching him the things of the kingdom to come. Teaching them the things of his father. How to be made right with the Father? How to taste life everlasting? Now oftentimes we would be thinking, how do I please this God? Do I have to know this whole Bible? Do I have to know every word in order to know exactly how to please God? Like what if I miss a part and I don't do it? What do I do then? Well, as you draw near to God, he's going to draw near to you. And as God makes himself more known to you as you draw near to him, you're going to be more attentive to the to the ways that God is calling you to live your life. You're going to be more attentive to the ways that by the power of the Spirit, He's increasing, you're turning up that sensitivity in your own heart to hate sin more and more and more. And he's going to turn up the desire in your heart to obey and please God more and more and more. It's the power of the Spirit within. You don't need to have the whole Christian life figured out when you decide to follow Jesus. You need to see how amazing the gospel is. You need to see how beautiful the Savior is in light of just how fallen you are. God is offering the sinner, the enemy of God, life in him. He's offering you, come and join my family. Come and be found in me. Be a part of the kingdom of God. And then he says, Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself may serve the law of God with my mind, but my flesh I serve the law of sin. We're going to go and battle the flesh. As a Christian, you're going to have these days where you're going to go back and forth, back and forth. You're going to do the things that you don't want to do, and you're not going to do the things that God is calling you to do. But forgiveness isn't available. If you confess your sins to God, if you say, God, I blew it again. I messed up again. I'm not-I know, I know I shouldn't. I shouldn't. I don't want to, but I am. Please forgive me. Help me to desire. Help me to desire the things that are of you, the things that would please you, that would bring honor to you. God, humble me. Now, verse 9 says, Be wretched and mourn and weep, and let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. The question for you is, has God made you aware of your offenses? And if he has, what do you do with them? What do you do with them? Do you laugh them off like no big deal? Does the weight of your own sin have any have any effect on your conscience? Do you mourn over your sin? Do you grieve over your sin? Do you weep? Or do you laugh it off? No big deal. I'm gonna live my life. God will forgive me later. That's okay. It's not that big of a deal. Don't laugh at sin. Don't make a mockery of it. It's what separates us from God, but God is offering forgiveness. So what do we do? Let's write this down for point number two. We need to embrace godly grief. Embrace godly grief. Not the grief that says, man, I'm sorry, mom and dad, I got caught. Will you forgive me? I know this is the right thing to do. It's like a formula. One plus one equals two. To be in right standing with them, I know I need to say this, I knew, I know I need to do this. But really, just it's more of a formula. You're just kind of going through the motions. Are you more upset about what's happening because of your mistakes, because of your sin, than how it offends God, how it offends the people around you? I'm thinking of David. I'm thinking of the sin that he confesses and just the brokenness. Throughout the Psalms, it talks about David weeping. He's he's soaking his couch with his tears. Thinking about Peter also. He denies Christ three times. He's broken about it. God, what have I done? And Jesus meets him on the seashore and comforts him. Don't just be sorry because you don't like the situation that you put your own self in. Don't be sorry about that. Think about your decisions, your thoughts, your motives in light of a perfect God. 2 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 10 says this, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation. Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. You're not going to regret it. If you humble yourself and confess, God, I I've sinned against you. I need you to forgive me. You're the only one that can. You're willing to grant forgiveness, God. I know that you will. You got caught in a lie. You got caught mistreating your sibling. You got you got caught cheating. You got chopped, you got caught stealing something. You took something out of the fridge at the wrong time. You know it wasn't yours, but you're like, but those Girl Scout cookies are so good. I know these are my siblings. They're not going to know if I just take one. They're not going to know. The pack's already opened. You know, mom and dad, they're not counting all the Girl Scout thin mints in there in the freezer. They're not counting them. Even if they don't notice, God notices. God knows. God knows your every thought, your every intention, your every word. It doesn't matter who's around, God is there. Now, God, do you have a God-focused grief or a man-focused grief? That's a question that you should ask yourself. When I make mistakes and I sin against God, who do I have in mind immediately after? Am I thinking about God, the one who I offended, or are you thinking about yourself? Now what happens to me? Now I can't go play. Now I can't go hang out. Now I can't have dessert again. No. Think about the kind of grief that you have. Is it leading to life? Is it leading to repentance that leads to salvation? Or is it self-focused? Now I can't have what I want. Man, when I was in high school, I experienced worldly grief quite a bit. I experienced it quite a bit. The things that I preferred to do got taken away from me. And eventually I failed to the point where the thing that I love the most got pulled from me, sports. My parents said, and now you can't go play. Go tell your coach tomorrow that you're stepping down from the team. What in the world? I was experiencing some worldly grief. I was embarrassed at school. So many friends would come up to me, like, Tyler, what's going on? Like I kind of brushed off, didn't want to admit it, didn't tell them the full truth. I said, My parents made me quit. Why? No. No. When you sin, when you fall short of the glory of God, are you more focused about your immediate circumstances, about how you're not getting what you want, what you prefer, what you love? Now you can't draw near to the things that make you happy, the things that bring you pleasure. Isaiah chapter 1, verses 16 and 17 say this. This is what the prophet says. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. When you fall short, when you do evil things, when you sin against God, are you thinking about how not to get caught next time? Are you thinking about what God thinks of your sin? Are you thinking about, I want to obey God, so I really don't want to do this ever again. I want to obey God. And when I do this, I don't, I disobey God. I want to obey. God, help me to obey. Is that something that you're that you're telling yourself, that you're telling God? God, I want to obey you. Help me obey. That's you drawing near to God. God, I don't want to sin like this. These desires I have are wicked. I confess it. I confess it. I'm coveting. I'm jealous. God, I don't want to be jealous. You don't like people who are proud, who are envious, who covet. These people won't inherit the kingdom of God. I want to tell the truth, but I hate getting caught, so I lie. I don't want to lie. God help me to tell the truth even when it gets me in more trouble. That's what we need to do. That's godly grief. That's a God-focused grief that leads to salvation when you confess your sins and ask him to forgive you. He will. Embrace godly grief. And we live in a world that struggles to admit inadequacy. We live in a world that says, my mistakes, my flaws, my imperfections, my shortcomings, my sin, someone else's fault. Someone's got to take the blame for this because it's not me. It's not my fault. If it wasn't for mom and dad, I wouldn't have the situation that I'm in right now. If they didn't have these expectations, these rules, I wouldn't struggle so much. You know, if my if my teacher didn't have such high expectations, I wouldn't be tempted to cheat. If I didn't have so much homework, I wouldn't be tempted to copy my siblings' homework or my friend's homework at school. We need to take accountability for our own sin. When we stand before God one day, we're going to be accountable for our sin. Everyone, each man and woman, boy and child, we're going to be accountable for our own sin. We're not going to look for someone to take our blame. We will have nowhere to hide. We will be stuck. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. Humble yourselves. Make yourself low. Admit you're wrong. Admit you're wrong. It takes humility to confess. It takes a lot of courage, admittedly. When you know you're in the wrong and you know that you should say something to someone to make it right. Hey, sis, I took that, I shouldn't have. I said this behind your back, I shouldn't have. Will you forgive me? I was trying to make myself look better, and that's why I put you down. Will you forgive me? I made jokes about this person who's in my class or who's who I saw in the playground, who I saw at the park. Me and my friends were laughing at them. We felt better about ourselves. You can go up to that person. Hey, we shouldn't be doing this. I'm sorry for leading you down this path in your mind. We need to humble ourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you, He will lift you up. Don't blame someone else. Don't make excuses. Just confess your sin and turn from it. Confess your sin and believe that God will forgive you. He will. He will. His son died on the cross. That's that's the Lord Jesus Christ took your shame, took your sin. Forgiveness is available to you. Your sins can be washed away tonight. Will you humble yourself before God and say, I'm not good enough. I don't meet your standard. God, I want to obey you. One day you promised me everlasting life with you, face to face. And I that can start now. It can start here. This life everlasting can begin right here, right now. It takes a godly grief. It takes you drawing near to God and saying, I'm not enough. I'm broken. I'm sin stained. I'm inadequate. But God, you are none of those things. You are perfect. You are just and you are willing to forgive. God, you won't, you won't dodge the punishment of sin. You will punish. But God, you crushed your son so that I can be made right with you. Will you humble yourselves before the Lord tonight? Have you done that? Maybe you have. Maybe you're trying to learn this Christian life. Like, how do I do this? How do I wrestle with the flesh? Like Pastor Josiah was talking about. How do I wrestle? How do I wrestle with these internal desires that don't want anything to do with God? How can I do that? Well, you need to ask God to humble you. Ask God to stir up godly grief in you. Pursue God with a pure heart, seeking to please Him and Him alone. Let's write this down for point number three, our last point this evening. Let's walk the lowly path towards exaltation. Walk the lowly path towards exaltation. One day all of us will die. One day all of us will take our last breath, our heartbeat will pump blood for the last time, and we will face the Lord. We will give an account for our life. And when you do, you're either going to have the Lord Jesus Christ that says, They're mine. This one's mine. Forgiven. There's no guilt in them because I paid for their sin. They're clean. I've washed them white as snow. One day, the ultimate exaltation will be you being made perfect without sin in front of a perfect and holy God, and you will dwell with him forever. You will worship him forever. Psalm 37, 34 says this wait for the Lord and keep his way. Wait for the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land. This is this is a message to God's people. But for us, this land is a better country. This land is heaven. This land is an eternity fellowshipping, communing with this God that offers and extends grace and salvation to us this evening. Will you accept that? Will you say, God, I need that. I can't, I can't achieve perfection. I'm so wrong. I'm so wicked. I'm sin stained. I can't do this. I can't, I can't make myself clean no matter how hard I scrub. I can't make myself clean. Wait for the Lord and keep his way. Pursue the Lord. Look into his scriptures. Be encouraged by your small group leaders. The Christian life is not meant to be lived alone. Walk the lowly path towards exaltation with others who also want to do the same, with others who are wanting to please the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 5, verses 5 through 7. It's a great encouragement for you and I this evening. It says, likewise, you who are younger, be subjects to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility towards one another. For God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Live a lowly life. Live a life of humility. A life that says, like, other people are more important than me. I need to serve them. Christ came to serve. I'm going to do what he did. Humble yourselves. God is opposed to you. We've talked about this before. God is opposed to you if you're proud. He's against you if you're proud. Verse 6 says this: humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. If you're drawing near to God with a with a humble, a broken and contrite spirit, God's going to draw near to you. He's going to encourage you. He's going to build you up. He's going to help you fight this temptation, this day-to-day struggle. He's going to give you all the things that you need to follow him and obey him. You need to humble yourself. Have you done that? Daily. Maybe you do it some days, but do you do that every day? Do you humble yourself? God, I need your help today. I'm so prone to failing. I mess up so much. I need your help. Please help me please you. Please help me obey you. And one day, this is the ultimate exaltation. God's going to give you a body. He's going to give you a new body that is void of sin. You're not going to struggle anymore. You're not going to struggle with sin any longer. What a beautiful day that will be. You're not going to have to think like, I'm going to, nope, nope to that, nope to that, nope to that. Nope, not that one. I'm going to please the Lord. That won't even be an option. Temptation won't even be an option one day. When sin and death are under God's foot. When the world, the flesh, and the devil, like Pastor Josiah was saying, when he makes a footstool of all his enemies, there will be no more temptation. But while we're still here, there will be. You need help. You need to go about your life with humility, take the lowly path. You need to, when you wrong someone, when you wrong the Lord, confess. You need to embrace godly grief. And you need to pursue God with a pure heart. We need his help to do that. We need him every single day. And he makes himself available. If you draw near to him, he's going to draw near to you. So if you're feeling defeated, keep drawing near to God. He's going to draw near to you. If you're feeling like you're struggling with sin and you can't beat it, talk to someone, ask for help. Confess your sin to God. Be forgiven. Make yourself low. Don't make yourself an enemy of God. Make yourself humble. Make yourself low. And God will one day, He will exalt you. He will have favor. You'll have favor with God. Make yourself humble. Make yourself low. Let's pray. God, we admit that we are so prone to being proud. We are so prone to seeking our own way above yours, preferring the things that satisfy us over the things that satisfy you. God, will you change that in us? God, will you change in our hearts this evening? Give us a desire to pursue you stronger than ever before. For these students, Lord, help them to draw near to you. Help them to see their need for you. God, you promise that you'll draw near to those who draw near to you. We believe that. God, help them believe that. God, help us to be broken by our sin, crushed by the ways that we sin against you. God, help us to repent, help us to turn, confess, confess our sin to you, to others, to people that will help us live a life that's pleasing to you. God, we need we need humility to do that also. God, will you humble us? Even if it means embarrassment, even if it means loss, even if it means hurt in our own in our own minds, in our own bodies, God, will you humble us? Will you draw near to us and pick us up? God, one day we we trust you for those that you that you forgive. One day we will die. If we're found in you, if we have the Spirit dwelling in us, God, the same Spirit that rose Christ from the dead, we will also rise and meet you and see you face to face. And we will have forgiveness, and we will we will have a way to be living with you forever. That possible God on the cross. Your son paid it all for us. Your son humbled himself and took the cross for sinners, that they would have life in you. Help help these students to see the beauty of the gospel this evening. Help them to see their need to humble themselves before you. God, thank you so much for this time. It's been an encouragement reading the book of James. God help us with these punchy, these one liners that it seems, seems like we can't dodge James's punches. God help us to just embrace, embrace this training and discipline through your word. And God help us to follow you closer than ever before. It's in Christ's name that I pray. Amen.