Have you ever had a problem and you couldn’t solve it?
Not even checking out the hook while the DJ revolves it?
Here’s one thing that people sometimes say when you have a problem, or a big decision, and you don’t know what to do – they say…
“Sleep on it.”
A recent report from Harvard Medical School says that sleeping on it is a real thing.
It seems that when you are sleeping the prefrontal cortex gets shut down and that’s the part of the brain that reportedly handles executive decision-making – so, that means your brain is now able to freely associate and process things in the background.
One of the researchers says it breaks down kind of like this – you go to sleep and wake up suddenly thinking, “I don’t want to take a job in Iowa,” or “Yeah, Iowa!”
I don’t know how the prefrontal cortex works and I don’t know if you should take a job in Iowa, but there is a way to rise above the problems of life.
There is a way in every difficult moment and with every difficult decision and with every sleepless night to do something great – something to help you rise above.
What is that way?
What is that path to greatness?
Let’s find out.
Listen to James, 4 beginning with verse 8…
8 Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Well, there ya go!
The path to greatness – the path to rising above problems – begins with washing your hands.
Well, kind of.
James is writing primarily to early Jewish Christians.
These were folks that grew up in church.
And how does he address those church-going folks?
“You sinners!”
In the New Testament of the Bible “sinners” is normally a word used to describe people who were spiritually separated from God – lost or unsaved.
But James uses it to reference church-going folks.
Why?
He’s trying to help them see that their sin against God is dirty and nasty and rebellious.
If we are honest, we tend to think that as long as our sin doesn’t show up on the nightly news that it’s not that big deal – we aren’t as bad as those criminals on TV so our sin is okay.
And if we do get caught doing the wrong thing, we play dumb or we blame our sin on our spouse or our parents or our friends or our teachers or our coaches or our bosses or our politicians or our doctors or our pastors or the waitress or the lady at the customer service desk.
We get that honest.
Our first parents did the same thing.
They blamed their sin on someone else and then they tried to cover it up.
But as Christians we shouldn’t play dumb, and we shouldn’t play the blame game.
Of all the people in the world, Christians have an amazing and exclusive privilege…
Greg Morse
Christians alone can look our sin square in the face and own it, confess it, and apologize for it, because we alone know a Savior who died to forgive it.
Take a little personal inventory of your attitude right now.
What are you sinfully angry about?
What are you pouting about?
What are you sinfully afraid of?
What are you apathetic about?
Look it square in the face and own it and confess it and apologize for it because Jesus died to set you free from it – and not just you!
When we own our sin and confess our sin and apologize for our sin – without having to be asked to apologize – in a sense we are setting other people free from having to be bombarded with the consequences of our sin.
None of us are perfect, but – really – wash your hands.
Make it the practice of your life to own your sin and deal with your sin – all of your sin.
I don’t know if you are like me but I can be real good at confessing a lot of sin and feel good about it, but then ignore that one sin that would require me to really change.
I’m not trying to get you to unnecessarily waste soap and water, but for your practical and spiritual help, make it a habit to wash your hands often and when you wash your hands – or use hand sanitizer – pray.
Ask God what kind of sin you need to confess.
Who were you mean to in your family?
Who were you rude to at school?
Who are you angry with at work?
Let’s wash our hands more and confess our sin more.
I can’t imagine that would help anything in the White House or the State House or the church house or your house (hope you caught the sarcasm).
James also calls these church-going folks “double-minded”.
Now, I don’t think that means they were multi-taskers.
No, the idea is that a person has two souls.
One soul that loves the world
One soul that loves God
It describes a person who is constantly flip-flopping between God and the world.
God’s ways one minute
Your way the next minute
Well, good thing none of us are like that, right?
Being double-minded is kind of like daily taking the Bible for a spiritual test drive.
“I’ll take God’s wisdom as long as it’s what I’m looking for.”
Many people are curious about the wisdom of God as long as it doesn’t involve any suffering or inconvenience.
But that’s not how it works.
Luke 9:23
If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.
To follow after Christ is a complete and total commitment.
We follow Christ on…
The days when our lunch is good
The days when our lunch is bad
The days when our family is terrific
The days when our family is terrible
The days when our health is happy
The days when our health is horrible
The days when our politicians win
The days when our politicians lose
The days when gas prices are low
The days when gas prices are high
We keep following or as the old hymn says, no turning back, no turning back.
Again, none of us are perfect, but we need to fight the good fight to be single-minded, not double-minded.
And what advice does James have for double-minded people in the church?
Clean your heart.
Now, cleaning your heart sounds a little more difficult that cleaning your hands – I mean how do you get a washcloth or a shower puff on your heart.
Well, James is using this kind of language on purpose.
Remember, most of these folks were church-going folks and they had seen and heard the message of the Old Testament.
Part of that message came from the book of Exodus.
God was giving Moses some instructions for the church leaders and said this…
Exodus 30:19-20
Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet…when they enter the tent of meeting, they shall wash with water, so that they will not die…
You think Aaron and his boys had some motivation for washing their hands and their feet?
You think they had some motivation for obeying God’s command?
If they didn’t, they were going to die.
But that sounds kind of harsh.
They had to wash their hands and feet to go to church?
God sounds like some kind of mean, psycho parent.
Our first year of marriage, my wife was a surgical technologist at UNC Medical Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Besides all the disgusting details of surgeries that she would mention over dinner every night, I also learned a lot about the meticulous process of washing your hands and sterilizing equipment before surgery.
The washing and sterilizing are critical for the health of the patient – they protect the patient from infection and danger.
Aaron and his sons were going to uniquely be in the presence of God – they were going to be interceding on behalf of the people.
They were going to be like surgeons caring for patients.
Their hands needed to be clean.
Why?
I can’t explain the quantum physics behind it, but God has said that being in his presence is dangerous – not because he is mean and awful – but because he is great and grand and holy, holy, holy – there is no one like him.
There is a mixture of awe and terror and glory and majesty in the power and the presence of God, so, they needed to wash their hands as a reminder of who they were standing before and as a reminder of how they were serving other people.
So, why was James using this hand-washing language?
What’s his point?
Well, he seems to be telling the church that there were some among them who continued to sit in the pew and sing on Sunday or watch online in their jammies, but they were living like the devil the rest of the week.
And if they did not start cleaning their hearts before God – if the obvious sinful patterns of their lives did not change – then they would seem to be proving to the church and to the world that they were not really saved – that they were not true friends of God.
It is sad that in almost every church, there are people that because of what they say and how they act and how they post, the question rises…
“I wonder if he really is a Christian?”
“I wonder if she really is a believer?”
And it’s not just what people see on the outside that must change.
Repentance is an outward change caused by an inward cleaning of the heart.
James says the heart and the hands must be clean.
The inside and the outside.
How do we deal with the inside?
How do deal with the heart?
Well, here’s at least one way.
Listen to verse 9…
9 Be miserable and mourn and weep;
9 let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
Someone might say…
“I thought the sermon was about solving problems?”
“I thought this was about the pathway to greatness?”
“This is starting to sound depressing!”
“I thought I was supposed to be happy in Jesus?”
“Now the Bible tells me to quit laughing?”
“It tells me I’m supposed to be miserable?”
“What gives?”
Don’t get distracted or discouraged – what James is getting at here is the urge to laugh off your sin.
Christians should hate their sin – not laugh it off.
Christians should be miserable about their sin.
Many Christians hear sermons and Bible studies that cut straight to specific sins in their lives, but they hop up after they hear and go to lunch and act like those truths have nothing to do with them.
Dear Christian, we should hate when what we say or how we think or how we act or how we respond or what we complain about or what we are apathetic about is dishonoring to God.
There are church-going people who talk bad about the pastor or the staff or other people in the church.
There are church-going people that blow up social media with rude, awful comments about people who disagree with them politically or socially.
There are church-going people that don’t give time or effort or money to the ministry of the church.
There are church-going people that don’t give time or effort or money to engage with lost people or help the poor and needy.
And James is saying to folks like that – folks like us – clean your life up – be miserable about your sin.
And why should we be so miserable over our sin?
W.M. Taylor
True repentance hates the sin…not merely the penalty; and it hates the sin most of all because it has discovered and felt God's love.
We should hate our sin because we have tasted the love of God.
Let us thirst and hunger for God’s love not for sin.
Our sin is no laughing matter – it’s a big a deal.
We must learn to be miserable about our sin – and what do we do next?
Listen to verse 10…
10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord,
Be miserable about your sin and humble yourself before God – turn to God.
To humble yourself in the presence of God means to put your life under the mighty hand of God.
To make God the center of your universe.
And why would you do that?
A.W. Pink
Being infinitely elevated above the highest creature, He is the Most High, Lord of heaven and earth.
A.W. Pink
Subject to none, influenced by none, absolutely independent;
A.W. Pink
God does as He pleases, only as He pleases, always as He pleases.
A.W. Pink
None can thwart Him, none can hinder Him.
That’s why you wash your hands!
That’s why you wash you heart!
That’s why you get miserable with your sin!
That’s why you humble yourself in his presence!
There is no one like God!
The story is told of a man who had just been elected to the British Parliament.
He brought his family to London and was giving them a tour of the city.
When they entered Westminster Abbey, his eight-year-old daughter seemed awe-struck by the size and beauty of that magnificent church.
He asked his daughter, “What are you thinking about?”
His daughter said, “Daddy, I was just thinking about how big you are in our house, but how small you look in here!”
The path to true greatness is the path of true humility.
The path to true greatness is the path that makes God the center of your universe because God is the center of THE universe.
Rich Cathers
If you make it your life’s aim to promote yourself, you will eventually find yourself in trouble. It may not be in this lifetime, but one day when you stand before Almighty God, you will realize your mistake.
See, our culture trains us to show up at the banquet and think, “How can I get the best seat?”
But the gospel moves us to think, “How did I get invited?”
Someone might be thinking…
“But how does that solve my problems in life?”
“You said this sermon would help me with difficulty.”
“You said this would help me with big decisions.”
What does all this washing and being miserable and turning to God in humility do?
What do we get out of it?
Listen to the last part of verse 10…
10 and He will exalt you.
Finally!
There’s a payoff!
If we humble ourselves we will get the promotion and we will get into the best college and we will find a great spouse and we will win the championship and we will get to sit at the head of the table.
Not exactly.
Tony Evans
He is saying that God will exalt you above your problem, above that which is keeping you down and making you a spiritual prisoner.
Is there something in your life that is keeping you down – something making you feel like a prisoner?
Then…
Clean your hands
Be miserable with your sin
Humble yourself in the presence of God
Make God the center of your universe
Colonel James B. Irwin was an astronaut who was part of the Apollo 15 crew that made the successful walk on the moon.
Years after his mission, he shared the following thought:
Colonel James B. Irwin
As I was returning to earth, I realized that I was a servant – not a celebrity. So, I am here as God's servant on planet Earth to share what I have experienced, that others might know the glory of God.
Keeping your heart clean, hating your sin and humbling yourself before God – turning to God – all have one goal in mind…
The glory and fame of God.
So, for the good of your family, for the good of our church, for the good of this community, for the good of our country, for the good of the world, for the good of lost people, for the good of your soul, I leave you with this simple question:
So, have you ever had a problem and you couldn't solve it? Not even checking out the hook while the DJ revolved it? I mean, you just, you couldn't do it. It's all right. 10 of y'all got that. That's all right. I love it. What's one things that people say to you when you're you're in a problem, you've got a big decision to make and you're not sure exactly what to do next. What's what's one of the things that people from time to time will say to you? They'll say this. They'll say, hey, just sleep on it. All right. Just just sleep on. Well, a recent report from Harvard Medical School says that sleeping on it as a real thing. It seems that when we're asleep, the prefrontal cortex get shut down and that reportedly is the area of your brain that does the executive decision making. So if the prefrontal cortex shuts down while you're sleeping, that means your brain is able to freely associate to process things in the background. One researcher says that what happens is then you wake up the next morning and you say, I don't want to take that job in Iowa or you say, yea Iowa, you know, you're not really sure. I'm concerned that the only thing you're going to remember from this sermon is yea Iowa, but that's okay if you remember that, that's, that's fine. It's something, I don't know how the prefrontal cortex works. I don't know if you should take that job in Iowa, but I do know that there is a way for us to rise above our problems, to rise above the difficult decisions, the things in life that can weigh us down. There is a way for us to do that every difficult moment, every difficult problem, every sleepless night. There is something that we can do something great that we can do something that we can pursue to rise above. So what is that? What is that great thing that we can pursue? What is this path of greatness, so to speak with problem solving and decision making? Let's see if we can find out. James chapter four, beginning with verse eight, James says, this cleanse your hands, you sinners and purify your hearts, You double minded. Well, there you go. Inside of a hallmark card for you right there. The path to greatness. The path to rising above our problems begins with washing our hands. Well, kind of James is writing two jewish christians. Okay, these were early christians. These were people that grew up in church and what does he call him? He says, hey, you sinners now. That word in the new testament is normally used to refer to people who were separated from God, people who were lost our unsaved. But James uses it here to talk to the church going folks now, why would he use yo sinners with church going folks? Well, he's trying to help them see that their sin against God is dirty and nasty and rebellious. Now, if we're honest, we really don't feel that way about our sins. We really don't. If we're honest most of the time, we're like, hey, if my sin doesn't get on the news, no big deal, right? I mean, I'm not as bad as those criminals. So that means my sin is not as bad. We tend to dress it up a little bit. Now we get this honest. Okay. Because our first parents were the same way, right? Our first parents, they were confronted with sin and what do they do? They play dumb and they played the blame game and we do the same thing when we're confronted with sin, we'll play dom or we'll play the blame game. You know, we'll be defensive, we'll blame our spouse, so we'll blame our kids and we'll blame our parents, will blame our friends, will blame the pastor or the politician or the doctor or anybody else. We can find life. We'll play the blame game. We'll look for ways to steer away. But as christians, we shouldn't do that. As christians, we have this unbelievable privilege that no one else in the world has. If they're not a christian. See as believers, we get to do this one radical thing that changes every moment of our life. And what is that one radical thing. We get to own our sins. That's what we get today. Greg moore said it this way, christians alone can look our sin square in the face and own it, confess it, apologize for it because we alone know a savior who died to forgive it. See we can own our sin because we know who has dealt with our sins. So just just a little quick inventory right now of your attitude kind of where's your attitude this week? Where is your attitude this weekend? Where is your attitude this morning? Where are you at with things in your life or things in the world or things in the church or things or wherever you are, How's your attitude? Doing? What are you sinfully angry about? What are you sinfully afraid of? What are you pouting about? What are you apathetic about? Whatever it is, whatever is going on as believers, we can own it, we can own it, we can confess it, we can apologize for it because jesus died to set us free from end and not just us right? When we own our sin, When we confess our sin, when we apologize for our sins, When we apologize without having to be asked to apologize for our sin, when we do those things, it impacts every body around us in a sense, not only are we freed from the consequences and the weight of those sins so to speak, but we are able to free the people around us from having to deal with our sin as well in a sense, not perfectly, but it's there. So we should make it our practice to wash our hands. I mean we're not perfect, we're all going to fail, but this is something we should do. We should wash our hands. A few years ago, sometimes the last decade one of my buddies, he's a doctor in another part of the state. He called me and said, hey the hospitals having this contest for a new wash your hands slogan and if we come up with the right one and a cool picture and everything, we went on tv come on let's do it was like all right so I put together pictures and we came up with some slogans we didn't win but I thought I'd be exciting you know going to the hospital and seeing my poster in the elevator that'd be great. But I didn't win. We didn't get the T. V. But one thing that I realized in that time was the reminder that you know medically speaking washing your hands is kind of a big deal. You know it's it's a good thing to do so for your practical health and for your spiritual health and not encourage you to waste a lot of soap and water unnecessarily. But we need to learn to wash our hands. It's a good thing. And here's what we can do when we wash our hands. When you wash your hands, just let that be that moment where you say God, what do I need to own? Right? What do I need to own? Who is I mean to in my family today, who was I rude to at school today, Whose head did I bite off at work today? What is it that I'm for us? What is it? God right now is I'm washing my hands. What do I need to wash my attitude of? What do I need to clean up in my life? We need to wash our hands, confess our sins more, but it won't really do anything right? I mean washing our hands confessing sin. I mean if people started doing that it wouldn't have any impact on anything, right? I mean, nothing would change in the White House or the Statehouse or the Church house or your house. If we started confessing sin right, everything would stay the same. I'm pretty sure hopefully you're hearing my sarcasm. Can you imagine what would happen just in our church, in our homes? Just the homes connected to this room and those watching online? Can you imagine what would happen if we became of people that started watching our hands and owning arson? Can you imagine? And imagine if that began to spread to other places? Imagine if that started, you know, think about it. Some of us, I'm not saying me yet, but some of us may be in politics one day, right? And and if we're washing our hands at home and we're washing our hands at church, we're going to wash our hands wherever we're serving in politics, wherever we're serving in our job, whatever school were working. And it will become the habit James is calling us to wash our hands. He's calling the church centers so that they will be able to come clean and be able to impact their hearts, their minds, their souls and the hearts and minds and souls of people around them. But he also calls him double minded. Now, that doesn't mean they were multi taskers. Alright, that's that's not the notation here. It's it's a person that has two souls, okay. They kind of have a soul that leans toward the ways of God and then they have a soul that leans toward the ways of man, it's kind of like a flip flopping thing, you know, God's way this minute and and man's way the world's way the next minute. Now, thankfully none of us are like that, right? I mean, we always just do whatever God tells us to do, right? We'll see. We're flip floppers too. You know, we're double minded to, we struggle with these things being double minded with God is kind of like taking the bible for a test drive. You know, we might follow after it if we like how it feels and you know, if we like how it drives, if we enjoy the experience, then we might follow after God's wisdom. And some people are very curious about the bible to the point that they like reading the bible and studying the bible as long as it doesn't create any suffering in their lives or as long as it doesn't create any inconvenience. I think I've shared with you before about my dear friend who is with the Lord now but years ago I was teaching a bible study to a bunch of young adults and college students and I was doing it. Uh I think we're in first peter he's like man, I love first peter he goes but don't ever teach from job. I was like okay, he's yeah, I don't like job, so don't ever bring up joe, I don't want to hear anything from job. I was like we kind of got to do that, it's in the bible right? And he's like, yeah, I don't like it though. You know sometimes we approach that, you know, we like the bible verses that make us feel good but we don't like the ones that step on our toes. But the reality is that's just not how the math works. This is what Jesus said in Luke 923 if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me to follow after. Christ is a total and complete commitment. It doesn't mean we're perfect, we'll still flip flop, but flip flopping doesn't need to be something we enjoy our we're comfortable with, we need to be more comfortable, more committed to following after jesus. And what that means is this, we follow jesus on the days when our lunch is good and when our lunches is bad, we follow jesus on the days when our family is terrific and when our family is terrible, we follow jesus on the days when our health is happy and on the days when our health is horrible. We follow jesus on the day when our politicians win and when our politicians lose, we follow jesus on the days when the gas prices are low and when the gas prices are high, we don't stop, we keep following and we keep following and we keep following as the old him says, no, turning back now, no, turning back, no turning back and I would say this to according to what we see in scripture, no, turning to the side either. Just fix your eyes on jesus. That's the call of our life. We're not perfect, okay, we're not going to do this, but we do need to be in the good flight of being single minded instead of being double minded. Double minded causes problems. Double minded ruins lives. And what is vice does James give for the double minded? He says to purify your heart. No, that sounds a little harder than washing your hands. Right. I mean, how you going to get a shower, puff on your heart? You know? How do you, how do you do that? Well, James felt like it was important for us to remember that he was not accidentally using this language. Remember he's writing to people who grew up in church, He's writing a churchgoing folks. These folks would have known the old testament. They would have heard the old testament stories in the old testament teachings. So his language, his own purpose. He's bringing their minds back to Pictures. one maybe particular from exodus. Chapter 30 Moses was receiving instructions from God about how some of the church leaders were supposed to do things annexes. 30 says this, Aaron and his son shall wash their hands and their feet when they enter the tent of meeting. They shall wash with water so that they will not die. Well, that's a whole another motivation for washing your hands. Right. I mean, you think Aaron and his boys had a reason to wash their hands and their feet. You think they had a reason to obey this command from God If they didn't. the instruction was they were going to die. That sounds a little harsh, right? I mean they have to wash their hands and their feet to go to church. Come on. God! Sounds like he's just being mean. He's not being mean. He's not some psycho parent with rules that are impossible to follow. Our first year of marriage, my wife was a scrub tech in the operating rooms at UNC Medical Center in Chapel Hill. So every night at dinner I heard these fascinating, disgusting stories of whatever she did in surgery that day. And I listened and smiled and tried not to chew while she was talking. But she also talked about the meticulous ways that you have to prepare yourself for surgery. It's an amazing thing. It's like this 20 minute process of washing your hands and making sure all of the instrumentation is sterile. But there's a reason behind that, all of that hand washing that all of those people do before surgery, it's for your good. That hand washing and sterilizing of that equipment. It is to protect you from infection and to protect you from danger. Aaron and his sons. They were uniquely going into the temple to spend a unique time in the presence of God as a way of interceding on behalf of the people. In essence, they were surgeons going in to do things for the people and so they needed to have clean hands. They needed to be prepared. Why why did their hands need to be cleaned? Well I don't understand all the quantum physics behind it but there is something about being in the presence of God in the unique presence of God in the way that they were going to be. That is dangerous. There's something about God, there's, there's this, all this majesty, this glory, he is Holy Holy Holy and no one else's to be in his presence. To be close to him. It requires this reminder of who you are, with, who you're in front of what you are doing. So they needed to wash their hands as a reminder that they were with the God of the universe. They needed to clean their hands as a reminder that there lives, impacted the lives of other people. They needed to wash because they were honoring God and they were serving others. James uses that hand washing language to try to get a pretty good point across to us. He's trying to help us see that our sin matters and ali he's challenging the church a little bit because there seemed to be some folks that we're going to church on sunday. You know, they were watching online, they were, they were listening, they were singing, but then they were on purpose, living like the devil the rest of the week. And so he seem to be wanting to get their attention by saying, hey, you're being central, you're being double minded. And he wants them to say, look, if you don't clean your hands, if you don't wash your hands, if you don't wash your heart, then you are by default, going to be living in such a way that you might be calling your salvation in the question. I mean, over the last 30 years, I, over and over again, I've heard so many times in so many different churches, churches I grew up in, or the church, I grew up in our churches, I've attended our churches, I've served that there's always that conversation where somebody says, you know, I don't know if they're Christian or not. I don't know if he's a christian. I don't know if she's a believer. Why? Because the outside seemed to say the opposite of just sitting in the pew on sunday, but it's not just outside, that matters right. Repentance is an inside change that reflects on the outside. And so that's why James says, hey, you got to look at your heart, You gotta clean and wash and purify your heart. How do you do that? How do you, how do you deal with your heart? Well, he gives us one way in verse nine, he says, be miserable and mourn. And we let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Well, so I come to Holland Avenue, they tell me to be miserable there. That's why I show up. What's he get now? What's he trying to help us? See, because see someone might say, well look, I thought the sermon was about solving problems. I thought this was about helping me with big decisions in life. Now now I'm told I can't even laugh, I gotta stop laughing, I gotta be miserable. What gives? Don't get distracted with the words all James is really saying is this, don't laugh your sin off since not something to laugh off since not something to blow off. Sin is something as believers. We should be miserable over. We should be miserable over our sins. We shouldn't just listen to sermons and bible studies are seeing christian songs or are seeing christian songs in our car and they haven't even church and and and we're engaged with all of these christian things. But then we kind of walk away and don't apply what we've heard, especially, you know, those sermons where you know, you're listening to the sermon and you're like, man, I hope so and so is listening to this. You know, hope someone says watching the stream today, you know, or maybe the person next to your elbow and hey, you listen to this, you know, and what we do is we think this is all for other people and we ignore that God's truth is for us. We forget to be miserable about our own sins. But it matters arson matters how we act, how we think, how we respond, what we complain about, what were apathetic about those things matter. And it should bother us when what we think and say and do when our attitude is dishonoring to God, It should bother us. It should make us miserable. What James is saying here is that there's churchgoing people that talk bad about the pastor and the staff and other people in the church. There's churchgoing people that will blow up on social media over someone who disagrees with them socially or politically. There's a church going people that don't give time or money or energy or effort to the ministry of the church. Their church going, people that don't give time or money or energy or effort to engaging with lost people are serving the needs of the poor and the needy. There are church going, people like this. And James says, if that's you, if that's us, he says you need to be miserable, you need to get miserable about your sins. And why should, why should we be miserable about our son W Taylor said this true repentance hates the sin, not merely the penalty. See if we're honest, this is how we usually function. We're going to cruise until we're caught. You know, we're just going to keep doing our thing until we get caught. And that's the opposite of what we should be doing. As believers. We should be owning our sin without having to be told. We need to own our sins. So he says true repentance hates the sin, not merely penalty, but then he says this and it hates the sin most of all because it has discovered and felt God's love. We should be miserable over our sin because we have discovered the love of God. We have felt the love of God. The love of God has captured us. It's compelled us to say I hate my sin because I love God. So if we're having a sin issue, we're really kind of having a love issue. We forgot to love God first and most we should be miserable over our sin. We should thirst and hunger for the love of God, not thirst and hunger for our own sins. Our sin is no laughing matter. Our sin needs to be something that we hate. Our sin, not in part, but the whole needs to be something that we are miserable over. But what do we do next? If we if we get to the point where we start to be miserable of our sins? So we're washing our hands, You know we're owning our sin, were beginning to be miserable over that sin. What do we do next? James says this in verse 10, humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, wash your hands, Be miserable over your sin, humble yourself in the presence of the Lord, Turn to God to humble yourself in the presence of the Lord means that there's this thing where you make God the center of your universe, You put yourself underneath God. And why should you do that? I love these thoughts from a w pink being infinitely elevated above the highest creature. God is the most high Lord of heaven and earth, subject to none, influenced by none. Absolutely independent God does as he pleases, only as he pleases always as he pleases. None can thwart him. None can hinder him. That's why we wash our hands. But that's why we wash our heart. That's why we're miserable about our sin. That's why we come into the presence of God and we humble ourselves there because there's no one like him. There's No one Like God. There will never be anyone like God. We humble ourselves under the Lord because he is the center of the universe. Stories told of a man who had just been elected to the british parliament. He took his family to London for the day to take a tour of the city, and they were in Westminster Abbey and and his eight year old daughter was standing there and she was just looking around at this magnificent church and she was just awestruck. So he said, sweetie, what are you, what are you thinking about? And she says, daddy, I was just thinking when you're at our house, you are so big, but in here, you are so small. See to humble ourselves before the Lord is. We get this picture that he is God and we are not, but he is holy, holy, holy, he is other other other and and we are not to make God. The center of the universe is the call of the life of a believer. And the reason we should make God the center of our universe is because he is the center of the universe. He is God. And there is no other path to true greatness is a path of humility. The path of true greatness is a path of making God the center of your universe. But sometimes we go, I'll do that later. No big deal. You know, Or that doesn't apply to me at work. That doesn't apply to my life at school or home. That's that's good language for church. But I don't really need to do that anywhere else. Rich gather, said this. If you make it your life's aim to promote yourself, you will eventually find yourself in trouble. You may make it through your whole life and not find yourself in trouble, but you'll find yourself in trouble. Eventually he goes on. It may not be in this lifetime, but one day when you stand before almighty God, you will realize your mistake. See the world tells us to walk into the banquet of God and to say, hey, where's the best seat in the house? But the Gospel calls us to walk into the banquet of God to lower our head and to whisper, how in the world did I get invited? See the world will never push us towards humility. The world will never push us towards humbling ourselves before the God of the universe. But the Gospel will and that's why we have to keep preaching the gospel to ourselves because Fox News will not preach the Gospel team and CNN will not preach the Gospel and NBC will not preach the Gospel to to you. And most of your talk radio shows will not preach the gospel to you. And sadly there are some churches that will not preach the Gospel to you, but you can preach the gospel to yourself. Because when you preach the gospel to yourself, you will keep dropping back and saying to yourself, how did I get invite? How is it them here again? You might be saying, hey, I thought this was supposed to be solving the problems in my life. I thought this was supposed to help me decide if I'm going to take that job in Iowa, where's the payoff here? Tell me to be miserable. Tell me to hate my sin. Where's where's the payoff here? Like the last part of verse 10, James says, this humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exotic. Finally the pay off if I will humble myself before God and we get that promotion, I'm going to get into that really good school. My grades are going to be okay, I'm going to find a great spouse and I have a great job. Everything is going to be great. Not exactly those things might happen, but that's not really the theme of being exalted by God. I love how Tony Evans says it. James is saying that God will exalt you above your problem, above that, which is keeping you down and making you a spiritual prisoner. That's the problem solving. That's that's the decision making. It's not that the problem will magically disappear. It's not that the decision will magically become an answer. It's just that whatever is happening in that moment to humble ourselves in the presence of God means that God will exalt us over the problem. He will lift us up out of the my reclaim. He will help us begin to think differently to see differently. He'll calm our hearts in a way that can't be explained. Now. I know that sounds like mystical ferry to our land, but it really is true. I'll give you an example from my life yesterday morning, So yesterday morning, Yeah, it's just one of those mornings, you know, Just one of those mornings and I found myself at the sink at my house and I just ticked off. I was ticked off about 97 different things probably in that moment. And praise God for us and Jayne Atkinson, they were a couple in my wife's home church and when we left to go to seminary, Russ and jane gave me this little plaque with Isaiah 26 3 on it and it says thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on the, sometimes when you're standing at the sink and you're ticked off, you can't rise above on your own. You're not going to solve the problem by yourself, You're not going to always make the right decision, but you can rise above in that moment and God has purposed his word to do that. Now, did it just magically change my attitude immediately? I said a bible verse and birds flew in the window sill and the skies parted. No. Yeah, but I will say this. By the time I was finished at the sink, my attitude is a little different, you know, And by the time I got to the end and and wash my hands and kept saying that verse over and over again, my attitude was a little different. All my problems didn't go away. But God and his kindness through Russ and jane and through the truth of Isaiah, he just he helped me rise above the problem. There's an old saying that says sometimes you pray until you pray because sometimes when we get ready to pray, we ain't got nothing in us to pray. Right man, we're mad. we're angry, we're afraid we're confused. Whatever it is, sometimes you pray until you pray and if you ever done that, you know what happens? Because that's what happened to me at the sink. You know the first time I'm like, don't keep them in perfect peace, whose money? But you know by by the fifth or sixth time I was like, thou will keep him in perfect peace, You do that, God, you calm our hearts, you help us rise above. Is there something that's keeping you down right now? Is there something in your life that is making you feel like a spiritual prisoner? I know this advice sounds crazy, but James says wash your hands, he says be miserable with your sin. He says humble yourself in the presence of God and he says, God will exalt you, he'll he'll lift you up over the problem and let me remind you to it. Maybe that other people are sitting against you more than your sending against them. It just don't matter. The call is for us to be miserable with our sins. James is that's how you rise above you, humble yourself, You make God the center of your universe, and God has designed that as the way that he will help you rise above. Col James Irwin was an astronaut. He was part of the Apollo 15 crew crew that made the successful walk on the moon years after his mission. This is what Colonel Erwin said as I was returning to Earth, I realized that I was a servant, not a celebrity. So I'm here as God's servant on planet earth to share what I have experienced that others might know the glory I've got, keeping your heart clean, washing your hands humbling yourself before God being miserable over your sin, all of those things have one goal, and that goal is the glory and the fame of God. So for that problem in life, for that difficult decision, for the sake of that problem, for the sake of that decision, for the sake of the sleepless night, for the sake of your family, for the sake of your church, for the sake of this community, for the sake of our country, for the sake of our world, for the sake of the lost, for the sake of your own sold. I leave us with one simple question is the fame and glory of God. Your goal is the fame, the glory of God. Your goal. If so, that you have just discovered one of the biggest problem solving decision making helps in the world.
