Worldliness & Conflict (V)
This is a transcript. It may contain some inaccuracies.
Can you believe it? It's been a year since we’re in James. For the past year, we've been studying James, this wonderful letter, which is both practical and extremely pointed. Extremely pointed. And James doesn't hold back, does he? He is relentless. He is, in a sanctified way, ruthless. Absolutely relentless.
In four chapters, really, he strongly rebuked us, he exhorted us, and it feels like he hasn't yet paused to even take a breath. It's like a rapid-fire succession. He's held the standard so high that at times it's easy, even for genuine Christians, to wonder if they're in the faith. But tonight we come to a passage that provides great hope. Up until this point in the book of James, there has been precious little encouragement, but today that changes. We come to what many have called one of the most encouraging passages in all of Scripture. It's buried in the middle of this really relentless letter that, frankly, sounds a lot like some of the Old Testament prophets.
For the last several weeks, we've been examining James 4, the first ten verses—a paragraph about arguing and fighting and sinful quarreling and how worldliness is really affecting all of that. In this passage, we're also given hope. You see, in this paragraph, James outlines for us three practical steps for dealing with conflicts and quarreling and fighting and, really, worldliness. Three immensely practical steps to resolve the fighting and arguing that is part of our daily lives.
The three steps he's giving us here don't have to do with resolving the issue in which we're disagreeing, but rather understanding the real problems that lie behind the conflict and dealing with the conflict not at the level of disagreement, but deeper than that—at the level of the heart. At the level of the heart. We've already, as you remember, I trust, considered two of the practical steps that he gives us for dealing with fighting and arguing and quarreling that's so often part of our lives.
The first step—he calls us to identify the true source of the conflict. Identify the true source of the conflict. And we looked at that extensively in the first three verses. The true source is bound up in the word, in verse 1, "idhoni"—pleasures—and again in verse 3, "pleasures." Then he uses a synonym in verse 2, "epithimeo"—lust—the word that means to crave, to lust after, to want something so badly.
So he tells us that the true source of the conflict in our lives is not really the person with whom we're arguing, it's not really the issue that we're arguing about. Instead, it's our own sinful hearts because we crave something to satisfy our own pleasure. And when someone gets in the way of what we want, then arguing and fighting erupts because we don't want anyone to stand in our way of getting what we want.
If we're going to deal with our sin of arguing and fighting, we've got to identify the true source, and it's the pursuit of our own pleasure. It's a heart issue.
The second step that he gives us in verses 4 and 5—we saw that the last couple of weeks—we need to enlarge, magnify the real sin behind the conflict. And James gives that to us in verse 4 in one word: *mihalis*, spiritual adultery. He calls them adulteresses, using the feminine just to hearken back to Israel in the Old Testament, how they left the living God and went after other gods.
Last time, we traced James' reasoning because, at first glance, that seems to be an illogical leap. But here's what he's saying: arguing shows that we are living for the pursuit of our pleasure. Living for pleasure is friendship, he tells us, with the world, and friendship with the world is spiritual adultery. In other words, if there's a pattern of arguing in our lives, it shows a heart guilty of spiritual adultery. And in this case, you know, my own pleasure, my own self-gratification is what? I'm the idol.
A quarrelsome, argumentative spirit is merely, James is telling us here, a symptom of a spiritual cancer that is raging within the heart. And so you've got to understand the true source of the conflict—it's the pursuit of our pleasure. And you really got to magnify the real sin, he says—it is spiritual adultery. In other words, and think about this, he says, you love God too little. You love God too little, you love your pleasures and the sinful pleasures of the world too much—so much so that you're unwilling to part with your darling sin because it's all about self.
If you want to really, truly deal with arguing and fighting that's part of your life, James says, you've got to start at your heart, identify the true source, and secondly, magnify the real sin. And that brings us to the third practical step tonight. We're going to begin to look at that together.
And the third practical step is this: apply the right remedy. Simply, apply the right remedy. Apply the right remedy to conflict. And what exactly is the right remedy? What is the solution? What is the appropriate solution? What is the helpful solution? Well, James gives it to us in a single word, a single word. It's right here in verse 6: *haris*, grace. That's the remedy—grace. "But He gives a greater grace."
And I have to tell you, I found myself really gripped by this first part of the verse, by these words: "But He gives greater grace." Every single word in that brief sentence deserves our careful, careful attention, deserves our careful study. That's what we're going to do tonight. Every word is like a diamond that, when you hold it to the light, with each small turn, you see a different facet of that stone, and each different facet radiates a brilliance of its own.
Now, we can't miss this. You want to really look at the diamond. You want to look at every single facet. You could take a glance, a quick glance—"Oh yeah, yeah, it's nice"—or you can really absorb it in every facet. You turn it this way, and you see light radiating from this way and that way, and you can see the real beauty.
Let's look carefully at each of the facets of that statement.
The first one, the first facet—the sentence begins with a simple conjunction: "But." *De*, the Greek word, *de*. "But He gives a greater grace." See that little word, "but"? It's right there. "But He gives a greater grace." "But He gives a greater grace." It's one of the greatest words in our Bible because it often marks the contrast between our sin and God's marvelous grace.
I'm reminded of the book of Romans. You remember in Romans 1 and verse 18, Paul begins his indictment of all humanity to show us our sinfulness, our total inability, our depravity. He begins to track through the way our sinfulness expresses itself, the way our depravity manifests itself, and he does that from verse 18 of chapter 1 all the way to chapter 3 in verse 20.
But then, you get to chapter 3 and verse 21, he says this. Follow with me. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there is no distinction.
Verse 23: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. When I read this, I think of Ephesians 2. In Ephesians 2, Paul does the same thing. He begins in the first three verses by highlighting just how terrible, horrible our sinful condition was—dead in sins, dead in trespasses, in lockstep with the prince of this world, the devil. We are children of wrath. We are condemned. We are under judgment. And he paints it in the darkest of colors.
But then you get to verse 4, and he begins by saying, what? “But God.” Same word, but. "But God." You remember when we studied Ephesians, what the doctor said, right? Martin Lloyd-Jones? He preached an entire message on those two words: "But God." "But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved."
The occurrence in James chapter 4 of this little conjunction, but, is no less significant, beloved. It's no less significant than the way it is used by Paul under inspiration in Ephesians 2:4. Because the word but is a word that marks a distinct connection and contrast with what has been said before.
Now, back to James 4. In our immediate context, it's a contrast with what? Our sinfulness. In verse 1, with our quarreling and fighting and arguing. In verses 1 through 3, with our occasionally living to pursue our pleasure and the satisfaction of it. In verse 4, with our spiritual adultery. But in the larger context, the statement in 4:6 follows a long series of difficult commands.
Let me remind us of what James has told us we must do. As we've gone through the first part of this book, you, no doubt, if you're taking the word of God seriously, no doubt you felt bruised and bloodied, as I have, from James' relentless pressure on our sinful hearts. Listen to what he's commanded us already up until this point.
In chapter 1, verses 2 to 12, James says, rejoice in your trials. "Count it all joy when you face various trials." In chapter 1:13-18, he says, fight the good fight, refuse temptation, say no to temptation. And from verse 19 of chapter 1 through the end of the chapter, he says, you and I ought to respond properly to the word of God, to take heed how we hear, how we receive the word, how we embrace the word.
Then you come to chapter 2. In the first 13 verses of chapter 2, he tells us that we must reject all forms of partiality and prejudice. And in chapter 2:14 through the end of the chapter, we come really to what is the core, the heart of his letter, where we're told that we must live in a consistent pattern of obedience that indeed reflects the reality of our genuine faith. Otherwise, this faith is bogus that we profess.
We get to chapter 3. In the first 12 verses, he tells us that we must exercise self-control over our tongues, the most difficult thing to control. By the grace of God, he says, you must exercise that control. And in chapter 3:14-18, he says, you need to pursue that wisdom from above, you need to pursue that biblical wisdom, you need to pursue being biblically wise, you need to become spiritually mature.
And then you come to chapter 3, verse 9. He says you must exercise self-control over your tongues. And then when we come to verse 1 of chapter 4, we learn that we need to stop quarreling, stop arguing, and stop fighting.
So when you come to James 4, verse 5, just before verse 6, he tells us that God is a jealous God who will tolerate no rivals to our affection. No rivals for our affection. So the immediate context of these words is the declaration by James that God, our God, who bought us, who loved us, our God, our Creator, our Redeemer, demands our absolute, undivided allegiance because He's a jealous God.
Now, when you and I look at all of those commands, when we look at all that James has shared with us up until this point, we are left under the weight of it all, and we feel hopeless, and we feel hopeless, and we feel hopeless, and we feel hopeless. We are left under the weight of it all, and we feel hopeless because we have sinned in every single one of those areas, haven't we? There isn't a single one of those examples that I just shared with us that you and I have not really violated before God. We're totally guilty before Him.
That's the context of "but He," in verse 6. That's the context of those words. "But He." Now you see the force of it? You see the force of it? You see, God responds to our sin. God responds to our lack of undivided allegiance to Him, and He responds—blessed be God—He responds in mercy and in grace.
I love those words, and I'm so glad we sang of mercy tonight. Mercy, of course, is God's goodness responding to our misery—pity moved to action. Mercy, right? Grace is God's goodness responding to our guilt. We could put it differently. Mercy—God doesn't give us what we deserve. He doesn't give us what we deserve. We deserve judgment. He has mercy on us. He doesn't give us what we deserve. He has mercy on us. Grace—He gives us what we don't deserve.
God demands perfect obedience. He demands undivided allegiance. But God. But God. This little word, "but," reminds us that there's hope. There's hope. That's the first facet.
The second facet of this gem of divine grace—"but He." "He gives a greater grace." Of course, a reference to none other than God. The same God who issued all the commands that we've just reviewed comes to our aid. He comes to our rescue. Oh, this is so much like God.
"I have heard the cries of my people," He tells Moses. "I have come down to rescue them." "Adam, where are you?" This is our God. He's the initiating God. He's the one who takes the initiative. So this is a reference to God, who comes to our aid. The same God who is jealous over our spiritually adulterous hearts shows us grace. The same God who says His name is Jealous now tells us that His name is Grace.
Turn back with me to Exodus 34. Exodus 34. I want us to see that God can be both of these at the same time—how He declares Himself to be. Of course, the context there in Exodus 34 is the people of God at Sinai.
And in verse 12 of Exodus 34, God says to the people, "Beware, lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, lest they become a snare in your midst, but rather you are to tear down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim."
God says, I want your absolute undivided affection, absolute undivided loyalty. Verse 14, "I will not worship any other god, for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God." God is jealous over your absolute affection, over your absolute loyalty to Him. His name is Jealous.
And yet, turn with me back to the previous chapter, 33. I want us to see this because this revelation occurs in an interesting context that sheds more light. Exodus 33—you remember verse 13—Moses asked this of God. He says, "So now I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You." You see the word *ways*? In Hebrew, it's a Hebrew word that means a well-worn track, a beaten path. You know, you go over it, you traverse it time and time again, over and over again, and it becomes that well-worn path. That's the word *ways* here. It describes a predictable pattern of behavior—habits, if you will.
So Moses is saying to Yahweh, "God, reveal Your habits of behavior to me. Tell me what You're like. Tell me the tracks that You run down, God." And then in verse 18, Moses asks something else. Moses said, "I pray You, show me Your glory." So here Moses is asking God, "Lord, I want You to declare to me what's true about You. Teach me, Lord, what You're like, and let me see some visible display of who You are. Teach me what You're like, and let me see a visible display of what You're like."
God responds. Verse 19: "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you." There's that visible display—a glimpse of it. "And I will proclaim the name of Yahweh before you." Moses is explaining His ways. And He adds this. He adds to this. He adds to this: "And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious." He's already let us know that His grace is a sovereign grace. He decides on whom to bestow it and when. There's no claim on Him. It's entirely His decision. No one can tell Him what to do.
It's in that context, then, in verse 5 of chapter 34, we read this. In response to Moses' true request, here's what happens. Exodus 34:5: "Then Yahweh descended in the cloud and stood there with him, and he called upon the name of Yahweh. Then Yahweh passed by in front of him." There's the visible display—some visible expression of the glory of God, veiled, but some visible expression of the glory of God that Moses doesn't describe for us. And then in verse 6, it says, "And called out, 'Yahweh, Yahweh God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and truth.'"
See the words *called out*? So here's God teaching Moses His ways, His predictable patterns of behavior, His habits, if you will. He said, "It's My habit to be compassionate. You want to know well-worn tracks? It's My habit to be compassionate and to be gracious. You want to know what I'm like? I'm gracious. That's who I am. That's who I am. It's not something I only do—it's who I am. Gracious. Compassionate. Gracious."
The God who is jealous, in the same context, says He is—what?—gracious. The jealous God who demands our allegiance must give us grace, both for forgiveness and for the power to obey Him. What a hopeful, hopeful truth. It puts steel in our faith. It comforts our hearts. Augustine understood the connection between God's empowering grace and obedience. This jealous God who demands our allegiance must give us grace, both for forgiveness and for the power to obey Him, in both instances.
Augustine understood that very clearly. I've shared that already before, but in this context, it is very poignant. In his Confessions, Augustine writes—in the Confessions of Augustine, basically 300 pages of autobiography in the form of prayer. The entire book is one long prayer, tracing God's work through his life, and so he writes this, and I quote. He says, "God, give me the grace, O Lord, to do as You command, and command me to do what You will. Give me the grace to do as You command."
Augustine said, "God, if You don't act, if You don't act in grace and empower me, I cannot do it. I can't obey You. I can't do what You command me to do." And then he goes on to say, "O holy God, when Your commands are obeyed, it is from You that we receive the power to obey them."
Some probably are familiar with that period of history when Augustine lived, and you're familiar with his archrival, the monk by the name of Pelagius. He read this statement in The Confessions—Pelagius, that is—and absolutely hated it because he saw it as an assault on human goodness, human freedom, and human responsibility. His favorite saying, Pelagius, was this: "If I ought, I can. If I ought, I can." Augustine, on the other hand, argued exactly the opposite. He said that man has no capacity to obey God left to himself, including even the command to believe in Christ, and that if we are to have any hope of obeying God, then God Himself must act and empower us to do it.
"But God." God does act. James wants us to know that He acts in grace. Why? Why does He act in grace? Because it is His character to be gracious. Scripture tells us, by the way, that this is true of all of the members of the Trinity—every single one of the Trinity. This is true of each One. As you would expect, it is true of the Father. "1 Peter 5:10, He is called the God of all grace." It is true of the Son. "In Acts 15:11, we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus." And it is true of the Spirit. "Hebrews 10:29 calls Him the Spirit of grace." You see, God the Father is the fountain of grace. God the Son is the channel through which the grace of God comes to us, and God the Holy Spirit is the applier, the bestower of grace personally, individually.
"But God." There's a third facet of this amazing diamond—the saying, "But He, that is, God." Look at it with me: "Gives a greater grace." Zero in with me on the verb—"gives." He gives. "But He gives." You know, God's giving of grace started to us when there was no world, when there was no universe, no time, no space. In fact, there was absolutely nothing but God. There was nothing but God. And it was grace, and grace alone, that lies behind God's eternal choice of us, as we've been reminded of the last couple of weeks, Sunday mornings, right?
In 2 Timothy 1, Paul writes to his young son in the faith. "Verse 9, he says, God saved us and called us with a holy calling"—there's that effectual call of God—"not according to our works, but according to what? His own purpose and grace." Now watch this: "Which was given to us, when? When was it given to us? In Christ Jesus, all in Christ. When, when? Tell us, Paul. From all eternity." Wow. God's grace began in your life, child of God, before you were ever created. It began in your life before there was anything but God, and God began to show grace to you—to show you grace by graciously choosing you to be His own, a gift to His Son.
And then, as Galatians 4:4 says, "When the fullness of time came, after the world was created, when the right time came, God sent forth His Son into the world, born of a woman." And when God sent forth His Son into the world to die as our substitute, that too was pure, pure, pure grace. "Hebrews 2:9 says, It's by the grace of God that Christ tasted death for us."
And then fast forward to today, today, to this moment right now. You're sitting here in this chair, to your life, to my life, in time, in our lives, when God interrupted our lives. What a holy interruption. What a delightful interruption. As Ephesians 2:5 says, when He made us alive, when He granted us repentance and faith, when He declared us righteous, when He adopted us into His family, when He set us apart for Himself—that moment in time, that event that we call salvation—that too was all of grace. But God.
Of course, all of us know Ephesians 2:8-9: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this, this is, that is the entire act of salvation, not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast." We understand that, don't we? That God's grace started in eternity past. It brought Christ to the earth, and in our own lives, it interrupted our lives—blessed be God—and brought us to saving faith. But listen, beloved, that's not all. God's grace doesn't merely extend into eternity past. God's grace for you and for me extends into eternity future. Isn't that marvelous? Isn't that amazing?
We're very familiar with Ephesians 2:8-9, but listen, listen to Paul, what he says: "He saved us, He made us alive," verse 7, Ephesians 2, "so that in the ages to come, He might show the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." It goes back, it goes forward. God will spend eternity lavishing us with grace. Now, I hope we can grasp even a little bit better, you know, concerning John 1: "The Word became flesh, dwelt among us, we beheld His glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of what? Grace and truth." God will spend eternity lavishing us with grace.
To quote Newton in his famous hymn: "When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise"—praise for His grace—"it's amazing grace, right? Than when we first begun." Look back with me again to verse 6 of James 4. Notice the Greek word *gives* (*didomi*), translated in the present English tense. It's also in the present tense in the Greek, particularly denoting continuous action. Now, we could translate it this way: He's giving greater grace. In other words, it is constant. It's constantly occurring, and it's now. It's like grace upon grace upon grace upon grace that is flowing and flowing and flowing.
You see, God not only showed us grace in eternity past, not only in sending Christ, not only at the moment of salvation, not only will there be grace in eternity future, but right now, today, here, right now, God is constantly giving us an ongoing supply of grace. Because not only were we chosen by grace and saved by grace and we're being sanctified by grace, but we have an ongoing need for grace to live out our Christian lives, and God is continually giving us a supply of grace every moment of every day.
The story is told by John Blanchard of an artist who submitted a painting to an art exhibition, the painting of Niagara Falls. The artist failed, however, to give the painting that he painted a title. And so the organizers of the event saw this painting without a title, so they decided until the artist could make it the painting himself, that they would give it a title of their own temporarily. They looked at the painting, the mighty Niagara Falls pouring over millions of gallons of water a second, and they named it with these three simple words, "More to follow, more to follow."
And then Blanchard writes, "Those surging waters had poured down for countless years and had been harnessed to bring light and heating, power and comfort to multitudes of people, yet there was more to follow." And then he concludes with this, "So it is with the grace of God." You see, grace from God flows to us as a mighty spiritual Niagara, rushing over our souls every single day. That was true in this godly woman's experience. Annie Johnson Flint (1866–1932) was disabled for all of her adult life. She writes from deep experience those words:
"He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength as our labors increase.
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials He multiplies peace.
His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto man,
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again."
But He gives. But He gives. Briefly look at the fourth facet as this gem of divine grace is unfolded for us. But He gives a—look at the word—greater grace. Greater. This word "greater," of course, is a comparative word, isn't it? But it immediately raises the question: Greater than what? If He gives greater grace, then greater than what? Oh, dear people of God, and this is a sweet sound to my ears—greater than our sin. Greater than our sin. Greater than our sin of quarreling, arguing, fighting. Greater than our willingness to live at times to pursue our cravings, our pleasures. Greater than our acts of spiritual adultery against God. Greater even than deepest sin. God's grace is always greater than our need.
Paul writes in "1 Timothy 1:14," "The grace of our Lord Jesus was more than abundant." We understand abundant, but you know what Paul says? It's more than abundant. It's rich. It's lavish. It's bottomless. It's extravagant. It's inexhaustible. It's *prodigal*. God's grace is greater. It's greater than the guilt of our sin. I love the way Isaiah the prophet puts it in the first chapter of his prophecy, verse 18:
"Come now."
What an invitation by Yahweh!
"Come now," He says to Israel, to us.
"Let us reason together, says Yahweh, though your sins are as scarlet."
You see, in the ancient world, the darkest stain that they could produce was from the darkest dye that they produced, and that was scarlet. And He says, if your soul is stained the absolute darkest that it can be stained with, it will be as white as snow.
"Though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool."
Listen, friends, I don't know what guilt for your sin you bear this evening. I don't know how you stand before God in terms of how you have sinned and how much guilt you have amassed before Him. But I could tell you this based on the authority of God's Word: The grace of God is greater than whatever guilt you have amassed and you have accumulated.
"Where sin increased," Paul says, Romans 5:20. "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more."
This evening, if you will turn from your sin, if you will repent, if you will turn to Him, then it doesn't matter how bad the sins, it doesn't matter how frequently you have sinned—there is grace. And God will give to you new life in Christ. He will forgive your sins by His grace. God's grace is greater than the guilt of our sin.
But you know something else as well? And this is amazing. This is really amazing. God's grace is also greater—now listen carefully—greater than the power of our sin. God's grace is greater than the guilt of our sin, but God's grace, blessed be God, is greater than the power of our sin. And this is a word of comfort, not only to sinners who are in desperate need for the Savior, but also for saints who are struggling with besetting sins.
I love Revelation 1:5, where we read concerning Christ, "To Him who loves us"—present tense, continuous tense—"and what? Released us. Released us from our sins by His blood." Listen, released us. Notice how Christ is described. He's described as He who loosed us, released us from our sins in His own blood, beloved. In His death, we get the grace of Christ, and part of that grace is the grace not only to overcome our guilt but also to overcome the power of sin in our lives, the dominion of sin.
If you're a believer, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, and I don't know what sin you believe you are entrapped in, that you're enslaved to, listen carefully and be hopeful. The grace of God is greater. You need to know this, that there is grace that is greater—enabling, empowering grace that can set you free from that slavery. You don't have to be a slave anymore because as a child of God, you're no longer under the dominion of sin. Sin has no more dominion over you.
Romans 6. Turn to 2 Corinthians 12. Paul writes about his trial also because there's another element here. The grace of God is greater than the guilt of our sin. The grace of God is greater than the power of our sin. And the grace of God is also greater than our trials. You're familiar with this portion of the Word of God. Paul writes about his trial. He calls it the thorn in the flesh.
And he says in verse 7, "Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation that he'd received, obviously, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself." Here's a trial in Paul's life. We don't know exactly what this thorn exactly was. We can speculate it may have been the leader of the revolt in Corinth, a false teacher attacking or accusing Paul. Could have been a physical issue, perhaps. We can't be absolutely certain. But it doesn't matter for the point that he's making.
Notice verse 8: "Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me, and He, the Lord, said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you.'" I couldn't help it but defer to the prince of preachers commenting on this verse. He said, and I quote, "I've often read in Scripture of the holy laughter of Abraham when he fell upon his face and laughed, but I do not know that I ever experienced that laughter till a few evenings ago when this text came home to me with such a sacred power as literally to cause me to laugh."
He goes on to say, "I had been looking it through, looking at its original meaning, trying to fathom it, till at last I got hold of it this way. 'My grace,' says Jesus, 'is sufficient for you.' And it looked almost as if it were meant to ridicule my unbelief, for surely the grace of such one as my Lord Jesus is indeed sufficient for so insignificant a being as I am."
And then he gives a couple of illustrations that came to his mind. Listen to what he writes. It seemed to me as if some tiny fish, being very thirsty, was troubled with the fear of drinking the River Thames dry. And Father Thames said to him, "Poor little fish, my stream is sufficient for you."
Put one mouse down on all the granaries of Egypt where they were the fullest after seven years of planting. Imagine that one mouse complaining that it might die of famine. "Cheer up," says Pharaoh. "Poor mouse, my granaries are sufficient for you." Imagine a man standing on a mountain saying, "I breathe so many cubic feet of air in a year, I'm afraid that I shall ultimately inhale all the oxygen which surrounds the globe." Surely the earth on which the man would stand might reply, "My atmosphere is sufficient for you." Let him fill his lungs as full as ever he can. He will never breathe all the oxygen, nor will the fish drink up all the River Thames, nor the mouse eat up the stores in the granaries of Egypt.
And then he gives the application. With such a Redeemer to rest in, how dare I for a moment think that my needs cannot be supplied? If our needs were a thousand times larger than they are, we would not approach the vastness of His power to provide. The Father has committed all things into His hands. Doubt Him no more. Listen and let Him speak to you: "My grace is sufficient." Or in the words of James, we could say, "My grace is greater."
There's a final facet of this promise, and it is this very important word: "But He gives a greater what? Grace." What exactly is grace? Grace defined theologically is God's goodness to those who deserve and have earned only wrath. God's grace is God's goodness to those who deserve and have earned only God's wrath. Sometimes you hear it defined as unmerited favor, and that's fine as far as it goes, but grace is really more than that. More than that. You see, it's not merely undeserved favor. It's undeserved favor to those who deserve exactly the opposite.
But what is favor? Well, the dictionary defines favor this way: it's a state of being held in friendly or favorable regard. You see, in relationships, the word favor describes one person's attitude toward another. If that person has a positive attitude, it's called favor. It means to approve, to like, to kindly regard, to show kindness toward. And think about this for a moment. With reference to God, God has a positive disposition, an attitude toward those who have earned eternal wrath and judgment. And He treats us as the special objects of His favor. Stunning, isn't it? He loves us. He loves us. He loves me. He loves us. He shows kindness towards us. He kindly regards us.
We are in a state of being held in friendly, favorable regard by God Himself, the very One we have offended deeply and are deserving of His judgment, and yet He shows us grace. That's grace. Now, in the context of James 4, what kind of grace or undeserved favor do we need? Well, we need two kinds, beloved. We need forgiving grace—forgiveness for our arguing and fighting and quarreling, forgiveness for living to satisfy our pleasures, forgiveness for our spiritual adultery. So we need forgiving grace.
But also, we need sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace—grace that empowers us to live in obedience and a wholehearted allegiance to our jealous God. And this is crucial, so crucial to understand. You see, grace—and listen carefully, beloved—grace is not a blank check to sin. Grace is not a blank check to sin.
In fact, Jude writes in his letter, verse 4, of ungodly persons who turn the grace of God into *asilia*—sensuality, licentiousness, debauchery. The word means sexual excess, absence of restraint, insatiable desire for pleasure. Now, we don't use that word "licentiousness" very much, or we use instead "sensuality" sometimes. But this word "licentiousness" is a word out of which we get our word "license."
You know what he's saying? Jude is saying there are people who take the grace of God and turn it into a license to sin. "Oh, it's all grace. Therefore, I can live however I want, do whatever I want. You see, where I sin, there's grace. And so I keep on sinning, and there's more of grace." They turn it into a license. And some may be familiar with the hymn:
"Free from the law, O happy condition,
Jesus hath bled, and there is remission."
But those people who turn the grace of God into a license, who profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, seem to believe a revision of the hymn:
"Free from the law, O happy condition,
Sin all I want with easy remission."
That is not the attitude at all.
Romans 6:1-2, Paul says, "What shall we say then?" Yes, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. "But what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?" And you know that strong answer of Paul—*me genoito*—"May it never be. God forbid. Absolutely not. How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, Paul says you died to sin. How can you keep on living in that sin as a pattern of life?
You see, grace not only forgives, but it fortifies. It fortifies. Grace doesn't excuse us from obedience. In fact, grace empowers us for obedience. The only way that you and I, in the context of James's comment here in James 4, the only way that you and I can ever stop committing spiritual adultery, the only way that we can stop living to satisfy our sinful pleasures, the only way that we can stop quarreling, arguing, fighting is through the enabling divine grace.
And Lord willing, next week, we'll look at the only precondition. You see, there's a precondition. There's a prerequisite. God gives a greater grace, but there's a requirement, and it's not work. As we will see next week, Lord willing, it's called—well, I'll tell you. It's called *metanoia*—repentance. And with repentance, bound up in that genuine repentance, for it to be genuine, is humility. Humility.
You know, when we think of grace, all of us think of John Newton. John Newton was a sailor, a sailor who bought and sold slaves for a living during the 1700s. Raised by a Christian mother, but when he left home, he went on his way and forgot everything he'd been taught. He went on to lead a life of really rank selfishness and absolute unrestrained debauchery and immorality. A man of filthy language, he boasted that brutality and rape were part of his daily life. And to appease his conscience, he took pleasure in trying to convince others to turn from their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
A turning point for John Newton came during a storm, a severe storm, when he, during that storm, remembered a verse that he'd memorized as a child. And if I may interject here and say, oh, dear parents, pour the Word of God into your kids. Pour it into your kids. Let them learn it, hear it, hide it in their hearts, and even when it doesn't seem like they're retaining it or heeding it, oh, you instill that Word in their heart. You never know. It's living and active, and in that particular moment, God turns on the light. It was a warning from God, and that word that came to his mind was from Proverbs 1, and I'm gonna conclude with this tonight.
Proverbs 1:24-27—listen to what came to his mind: "Because I called and you refused, I stretched out My hand and no one paid attention, and you neglected all My counsel and were not willing to accept My reproof, I will also laugh at your disaster. I will mock when your dread comes, when your dread comes like a storm and your disaster comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you."
In that moment, John Newton felt the weight of his guilt in the midst of that storm, that literal storm. From without and now from within, he humbled himself under the mighty hand of God and asked for mercy, and God showed him mercy. Newton eventually went into ministry, where he served God for 40 years, telling others concerning the wonderful work that God had done for his soul. And we remember him most, of course, for his hymn, that famous hymn, *Amazing Grace.* That hymn shows the reality and shows that he understood the reality that the Christian life is from eternity past into eternity future—a life of grace, the grace of God.
At the end of his life, Newton put it this way. Listen to his concluding words, and I quote: "My memory is gone. My memory actually is nearly gone," he said. "But I remember two things: that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior."
But He gives a greater grace.
Let's pray. Oh, Heavenly Father, our souls tonight are so refreshed with this magnanimous truth, this amazing truth, because as You lay out Your standard and we see clearly how miserably, even as Your children, how miserably we do in keeping it—we fail, we fall, we falter. We fall. Father, we're grateful for Your grace. Thank You for Your forgiving grace for our sin.
But Lord, thank You, thank You as well for Your empowering, sanctifying grace that enables us to obey Your will. And Father, we pray that You would lavish us this week with Your grace, both the grace of forgiveness as well as the grace that sanctifies. Give us the grace that empowers us to serve and even the grace that allows us to face the trials and difficulties of life in a way that glorifies You.
We're reminded again tonight, Lord, that without Jesus, we would not be here. We're reminded again tonight, Lord, that without Jesus Christ, we are nothing and we can do nothing. And so we desperately need Your favor. And we can claim it, not because of who we are. There's nothing in us that calls out for Your grace. You will be gracious to whom You will be gracious. And so all we can do is cry out for Your grace.
Show us favor, oh God, on account of Him who is full of grace. And we know if we are in Christ, then we are recipients of grace, for we come before a throne of grace.
I pray also tonight, Lord, for the person who needs desperately Your saving grace because they're bound in their sin with no hope, facing an eternity without Christ in unending torment in hell. Father, I pray tonight that they would turn to You and cry out for grace, that they would turn from their sin to You and to Your Son. So help us, Lord. Help us.
Thank You that as Your children, that we do stand in grace. We praise You and we thank You in Jesus' name, amen.
In four chapters, really, he strongly rebuked us, he exhorted us, and it feels like he hasn't yet paused to even take a breath. It's like a rapid-fire succession. He's held the standard so high that at times it's easy, even for genuine Christians, to wonder if they're in the faith. But tonight we come to a passage that provides great hope. Up until this point in the book of James, there has been precious little encouragement, but today that changes. We come to what many have called one of the most encouraging passages in all of Scripture. It's buried in the middle of this really relentless letter that, frankly, sounds a lot like some of the Old Testament prophets.
For the last several weeks, we've been examining James 4, the first ten verses—a paragraph about arguing and fighting and sinful quarreling and how worldliness is really affecting all of that. In this passage, we're also given hope. You see, in this paragraph, James outlines for us three practical steps for dealing with conflicts and quarreling and fighting and, really, worldliness. Three immensely practical steps to resolve the fighting and arguing that is part of our daily lives.
The three steps he's giving us here don't have to do with resolving the issue in which we're disagreeing, but rather understanding the real problems that lie behind the conflict and dealing with the conflict not at the level of disagreement, but deeper than that—at the level of the heart. At the level of the heart. We've already, as you remember, I trust, considered two of the practical steps that he gives us for dealing with fighting and arguing and quarreling that's so often part of our lives.
The first step—he calls us to identify the true source of the conflict. Identify the true source of the conflict. And we looked at that extensively in the first three verses. The true source is bound up in the word, in verse 1, "idhoni"—pleasures—and again in verse 3, "pleasures." Then he uses a synonym in verse 2, "epithimeo"—lust—the word that means to crave, to lust after, to want something so badly.
So he tells us that the true source of the conflict in our lives is not really the person with whom we're arguing, it's not really the issue that we're arguing about. Instead, it's our own sinful hearts because we crave something to satisfy our own pleasure. And when someone gets in the way of what we want, then arguing and fighting erupts because we don't want anyone to stand in our way of getting what we want.
If we're going to deal with our sin of arguing and fighting, we've got to identify the true source, and it's the pursuit of our own pleasure. It's a heart issue.
The second step that he gives us in verses 4 and 5—we saw that the last couple of weeks—we need to enlarge, magnify the real sin behind the conflict. And James gives that to us in verse 4 in one word: *mihalis*, spiritual adultery. He calls them adulteresses, using the feminine just to hearken back to Israel in the Old Testament, how they left the living God and went after other gods.
Last time, we traced James' reasoning because, at first glance, that seems to be an illogical leap. But here's what he's saying: arguing shows that we are living for the pursuit of our pleasure. Living for pleasure is friendship, he tells us, with the world, and friendship with the world is spiritual adultery. In other words, if there's a pattern of arguing in our lives, it shows a heart guilty of spiritual adultery. And in this case, you know, my own pleasure, my own self-gratification is what? I'm the idol.
A quarrelsome, argumentative spirit is merely, James is telling us here, a symptom of a spiritual cancer that is raging within the heart. And so you've got to understand the true source of the conflict—it's the pursuit of our pleasure. And you really got to magnify the real sin, he says—it is spiritual adultery. In other words, and think about this, he says, you love God too little. You love God too little, you love your pleasures and the sinful pleasures of the world too much—so much so that you're unwilling to part with your darling sin because it's all about self.
If you want to really, truly deal with arguing and fighting that's part of your life, James says, you've got to start at your heart, identify the true source, and secondly, magnify the real sin. And that brings us to the third practical step tonight. We're going to begin to look at that together.
And the third practical step is this: apply the right remedy. Simply, apply the right remedy. Apply the right remedy to conflict. And what exactly is the right remedy? What is the solution? What is the appropriate solution? What is the helpful solution? Well, James gives it to us in a single word, a single word. It's right here in verse 6: *haris*, grace. That's the remedy—grace. "But He gives a greater grace."
And I have to tell you, I found myself really gripped by this first part of the verse, by these words: "But He gives greater grace." Every single word in that brief sentence deserves our careful, careful attention, deserves our careful study. That's what we're going to do tonight. Every word is like a diamond that, when you hold it to the light, with each small turn, you see a different facet of that stone, and each different facet radiates a brilliance of its own.
Now, we can't miss this. You want to really look at the diamond. You want to look at every single facet. You could take a glance, a quick glance—"Oh yeah, yeah, it's nice"—or you can really absorb it in every facet. You turn it this way, and you see light radiating from this way and that way, and you can see the real beauty.
Let's look carefully at each of the facets of that statement.
The first one, the first facet—the sentence begins with a simple conjunction: "But." *De*, the Greek word, *de*. "But He gives a greater grace." See that little word, "but"? It's right there. "But He gives a greater grace." "But He gives a greater grace." It's one of the greatest words in our Bible because it often marks the contrast between our sin and God's marvelous grace.
I'm reminded of the book of Romans. You remember in Romans 1 and verse 18, Paul begins his indictment of all humanity to show us our sinfulness, our total inability, our depravity. He begins to track through the way our sinfulness expresses itself, the way our depravity manifests itself, and he does that from verse 18 of chapter 1 all the way to chapter 3 in verse 20.
But then, you get to chapter 3 and verse 21, he says this. Follow with me. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there is no distinction.
Verse 23: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. When I read this, I think of Ephesians 2. In Ephesians 2, Paul does the same thing. He begins in the first three verses by highlighting just how terrible, horrible our sinful condition was—dead in sins, dead in trespasses, in lockstep with the prince of this world, the devil. We are children of wrath. We are condemned. We are under judgment. And he paints it in the darkest of colors.
But then you get to verse 4, and he begins by saying, what? “But God.” Same word, but. "But God." You remember when we studied Ephesians, what the doctor said, right? Martin Lloyd-Jones? He preached an entire message on those two words: "But God." "But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved."
The occurrence in James chapter 4 of this little conjunction, but, is no less significant, beloved. It's no less significant than the way it is used by Paul under inspiration in Ephesians 2:4. Because the word but is a word that marks a distinct connection and contrast with what has been said before.
Now, back to James 4. In our immediate context, it's a contrast with what? Our sinfulness. In verse 1, with our quarreling and fighting and arguing. In verses 1 through 3, with our occasionally living to pursue our pleasure and the satisfaction of it. In verse 4, with our spiritual adultery. But in the larger context, the statement in 4:6 follows a long series of difficult commands.
Let me remind us of what James has told us we must do. As we've gone through the first part of this book, you, no doubt, if you're taking the word of God seriously, no doubt you felt bruised and bloodied, as I have, from James' relentless pressure on our sinful hearts. Listen to what he's commanded us already up until this point.
In chapter 1, verses 2 to 12, James says, rejoice in your trials. "Count it all joy when you face various trials." In chapter 1:13-18, he says, fight the good fight, refuse temptation, say no to temptation. And from verse 19 of chapter 1 through the end of the chapter, he says, you and I ought to respond properly to the word of God, to take heed how we hear, how we receive the word, how we embrace the word.
Then you come to chapter 2. In the first 13 verses of chapter 2, he tells us that we must reject all forms of partiality and prejudice. And in chapter 2:14 through the end of the chapter, we come really to what is the core, the heart of his letter, where we're told that we must live in a consistent pattern of obedience that indeed reflects the reality of our genuine faith. Otherwise, this faith is bogus that we profess.
We get to chapter 3. In the first 12 verses, he tells us that we must exercise self-control over our tongues, the most difficult thing to control. By the grace of God, he says, you must exercise that control. And in chapter 3:14-18, he says, you need to pursue that wisdom from above, you need to pursue that biblical wisdom, you need to pursue being biblically wise, you need to become spiritually mature.
And then you come to chapter 3, verse 9. He says you must exercise self-control over your tongues. And then when we come to verse 1 of chapter 4, we learn that we need to stop quarreling, stop arguing, and stop fighting.
So when you come to James 4, verse 5, just before verse 6, he tells us that God is a jealous God who will tolerate no rivals to our affection. No rivals for our affection. So the immediate context of these words is the declaration by James that God, our God, who bought us, who loved us, our God, our Creator, our Redeemer, demands our absolute, undivided allegiance because He's a jealous God.
Now, when you and I look at all of those commands, when we look at all that James has shared with us up until this point, we are left under the weight of it all, and we feel hopeless, and we feel hopeless, and we feel hopeless, and we feel hopeless. We are left under the weight of it all, and we feel hopeless because we have sinned in every single one of those areas, haven't we? There isn't a single one of those examples that I just shared with us that you and I have not really violated before God. We're totally guilty before Him.
That's the context of "but He," in verse 6. That's the context of those words. "But He." Now you see the force of it? You see the force of it? You see, God responds to our sin. God responds to our lack of undivided allegiance to Him, and He responds—blessed be God—He responds in mercy and in grace.
I love those words, and I'm so glad we sang of mercy tonight. Mercy, of course, is God's goodness responding to our misery—pity moved to action. Mercy, right? Grace is God's goodness responding to our guilt. We could put it differently. Mercy—God doesn't give us what we deserve. He doesn't give us what we deserve. We deserve judgment. He has mercy on us. He doesn't give us what we deserve. He has mercy on us. Grace—He gives us what we don't deserve.
God demands perfect obedience. He demands undivided allegiance. But God. But God. This little word, "but," reminds us that there's hope. There's hope. That's the first facet.
The second facet of this gem of divine grace—"but He." "He gives a greater grace." Of course, a reference to none other than God. The same God who issued all the commands that we've just reviewed comes to our aid. He comes to our rescue. Oh, this is so much like God.
"I have heard the cries of my people," He tells Moses. "I have come down to rescue them." "Adam, where are you?" This is our God. He's the initiating God. He's the one who takes the initiative. So this is a reference to God, who comes to our aid. The same God who is jealous over our spiritually adulterous hearts shows us grace. The same God who says His name is Jealous now tells us that His name is Grace.
Turn back with me to Exodus 34. Exodus 34. I want us to see that God can be both of these at the same time—how He declares Himself to be. Of course, the context there in Exodus 34 is the people of God at Sinai.
And in verse 12 of Exodus 34, God says to the people, "Beware, lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, lest they become a snare in your midst, but rather you are to tear down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim."
God says, I want your absolute undivided affection, absolute undivided loyalty. Verse 14, "I will not worship any other god, for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God." God is jealous over your absolute affection, over your absolute loyalty to Him. His name is Jealous.
And yet, turn with me back to the previous chapter, 33. I want us to see this because this revelation occurs in an interesting context that sheds more light. Exodus 33—you remember verse 13—Moses asked this of God. He says, "So now I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You." You see the word *ways*? In Hebrew, it's a Hebrew word that means a well-worn track, a beaten path. You know, you go over it, you traverse it time and time again, over and over again, and it becomes that well-worn path. That's the word *ways* here. It describes a predictable pattern of behavior—habits, if you will.
So Moses is saying to Yahweh, "God, reveal Your habits of behavior to me. Tell me what You're like. Tell me the tracks that You run down, God." And then in verse 18, Moses asks something else. Moses said, "I pray You, show me Your glory." So here Moses is asking God, "Lord, I want You to declare to me what's true about You. Teach me, Lord, what You're like, and let me see some visible display of who You are. Teach me what You're like, and let me see a visible display of what You're like."
God responds. Verse 19: "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you." There's that visible display—a glimpse of it. "And I will proclaim the name of Yahweh before you." Moses is explaining His ways. And He adds this. He adds to this. He adds to this: "And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious." He's already let us know that His grace is a sovereign grace. He decides on whom to bestow it and when. There's no claim on Him. It's entirely His decision. No one can tell Him what to do.
It's in that context, then, in verse 5 of chapter 34, we read this. In response to Moses' true request, here's what happens. Exodus 34:5: "Then Yahweh descended in the cloud and stood there with him, and he called upon the name of Yahweh. Then Yahweh passed by in front of him." There's the visible display—some visible expression of the glory of God, veiled, but some visible expression of the glory of God that Moses doesn't describe for us. And then in verse 6, it says, "And called out, 'Yahweh, Yahweh God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and truth.'"
See the words *called out*? So here's God teaching Moses His ways, His predictable patterns of behavior, His habits, if you will. He said, "It's My habit to be compassionate. You want to know well-worn tracks? It's My habit to be compassionate and to be gracious. You want to know what I'm like? I'm gracious. That's who I am. That's who I am. It's not something I only do—it's who I am. Gracious. Compassionate. Gracious."
The God who is jealous, in the same context, says He is—what?—gracious. The jealous God who demands our allegiance must give us grace, both for forgiveness and for the power to obey Him. What a hopeful, hopeful truth. It puts steel in our faith. It comforts our hearts. Augustine understood the connection between God's empowering grace and obedience. This jealous God who demands our allegiance must give us grace, both for forgiveness and for the power to obey Him, in both instances.
Augustine understood that very clearly. I've shared that already before, but in this context, it is very poignant. In his Confessions, Augustine writes—in the Confessions of Augustine, basically 300 pages of autobiography in the form of prayer. The entire book is one long prayer, tracing God's work through his life, and so he writes this, and I quote. He says, "God, give me the grace, O Lord, to do as You command, and command me to do what You will. Give me the grace to do as You command."
Augustine said, "God, if You don't act, if You don't act in grace and empower me, I cannot do it. I can't obey You. I can't do what You command me to do." And then he goes on to say, "O holy God, when Your commands are obeyed, it is from You that we receive the power to obey them."
Some probably are familiar with that period of history when Augustine lived, and you're familiar with his archrival, the monk by the name of Pelagius. He read this statement in The Confessions—Pelagius, that is—and absolutely hated it because he saw it as an assault on human goodness, human freedom, and human responsibility. His favorite saying, Pelagius, was this: "If I ought, I can. If I ought, I can." Augustine, on the other hand, argued exactly the opposite. He said that man has no capacity to obey God left to himself, including even the command to believe in Christ, and that if we are to have any hope of obeying God, then God Himself must act and empower us to do it.
"But God." God does act. James wants us to know that He acts in grace. Why? Why does He act in grace? Because it is His character to be gracious. Scripture tells us, by the way, that this is true of all of the members of the Trinity—every single one of the Trinity. This is true of each One. As you would expect, it is true of the Father. "1 Peter 5:10, He is called the God of all grace." It is true of the Son. "In Acts 15:11, we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus." And it is true of the Spirit. "Hebrews 10:29 calls Him the Spirit of grace." You see, God the Father is the fountain of grace. God the Son is the channel through which the grace of God comes to us, and God the Holy Spirit is the applier, the bestower of grace personally, individually.
"But God." There's a third facet of this amazing diamond—the saying, "But He, that is, God." Look at it with me: "Gives a greater grace." Zero in with me on the verb—"gives." He gives. "But He gives." You know, God's giving of grace started to us when there was no world, when there was no universe, no time, no space. In fact, there was absolutely nothing but God. There was nothing but God. And it was grace, and grace alone, that lies behind God's eternal choice of us, as we've been reminded of the last couple of weeks, Sunday mornings, right?
In 2 Timothy 1, Paul writes to his young son in the faith. "Verse 9, he says, God saved us and called us with a holy calling"—there's that effectual call of God—"not according to our works, but according to what? His own purpose and grace." Now watch this: "Which was given to us, when? When was it given to us? In Christ Jesus, all in Christ. When, when? Tell us, Paul. From all eternity." Wow. God's grace began in your life, child of God, before you were ever created. It began in your life before there was anything but God, and God began to show grace to you—to show you grace by graciously choosing you to be His own, a gift to His Son.
And then, as Galatians 4:4 says, "When the fullness of time came, after the world was created, when the right time came, God sent forth His Son into the world, born of a woman." And when God sent forth His Son into the world to die as our substitute, that too was pure, pure, pure grace. "Hebrews 2:9 says, It's by the grace of God that Christ tasted death for us."
And then fast forward to today, today, to this moment right now. You're sitting here in this chair, to your life, to my life, in time, in our lives, when God interrupted our lives. What a holy interruption. What a delightful interruption. As Ephesians 2:5 says, when He made us alive, when He granted us repentance and faith, when He declared us righteous, when He adopted us into His family, when He set us apart for Himself—that moment in time, that event that we call salvation—that too was all of grace. But God.
Of course, all of us know Ephesians 2:8-9: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this, this is, that is the entire act of salvation, not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast." We understand that, don't we? That God's grace started in eternity past. It brought Christ to the earth, and in our own lives, it interrupted our lives—blessed be God—and brought us to saving faith. But listen, beloved, that's not all. God's grace doesn't merely extend into eternity past. God's grace for you and for me extends into eternity future. Isn't that marvelous? Isn't that amazing?
We're very familiar with Ephesians 2:8-9, but listen, listen to Paul, what he says: "He saved us, He made us alive," verse 7, Ephesians 2, "so that in the ages to come, He might show the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." It goes back, it goes forward. God will spend eternity lavishing us with grace. Now, I hope we can grasp even a little bit better, you know, concerning John 1: "The Word became flesh, dwelt among us, we beheld His glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of what? Grace and truth." God will spend eternity lavishing us with grace.
To quote Newton in his famous hymn: "When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise"—praise for His grace—"it's amazing grace, right? Than when we first begun." Look back with me again to verse 6 of James 4. Notice the Greek word *gives* (*didomi*), translated in the present English tense. It's also in the present tense in the Greek, particularly denoting continuous action. Now, we could translate it this way: He's giving greater grace. In other words, it is constant. It's constantly occurring, and it's now. It's like grace upon grace upon grace upon grace that is flowing and flowing and flowing.
You see, God not only showed us grace in eternity past, not only in sending Christ, not only at the moment of salvation, not only will there be grace in eternity future, but right now, today, here, right now, God is constantly giving us an ongoing supply of grace. Because not only were we chosen by grace and saved by grace and we're being sanctified by grace, but we have an ongoing need for grace to live out our Christian lives, and God is continually giving us a supply of grace every moment of every day.
The story is told by John Blanchard of an artist who submitted a painting to an art exhibition, the painting of Niagara Falls. The artist failed, however, to give the painting that he painted a title. And so the organizers of the event saw this painting without a title, so they decided until the artist could make it the painting himself, that they would give it a title of their own temporarily. They looked at the painting, the mighty Niagara Falls pouring over millions of gallons of water a second, and they named it with these three simple words, "More to follow, more to follow."
And then Blanchard writes, "Those surging waters had poured down for countless years and had been harnessed to bring light and heating, power and comfort to multitudes of people, yet there was more to follow." And then he concludes with this, "So it is with the grace of God." You see, grace from God flows to us as a mighty spiritual Niagara, rushing over our souls every single day. That was true in this godly woman's experience. Annie Johnson Flint (1866–1932) was disabled for all of her adult life. She writes from deep experience those words:
"He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength as our labors increase.
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials He multiplies peace.
His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto man,
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again."
But He gives. But He gives. Briefly look at the fourth facet as this gem of divine grace is unfolded for us. But He gives a—look at the word—greater grace. Greater. This word "greater," of course, is a comparative word, isn't it? But it immediately raises the question: Greater than what? If He gives greater grace, then greater than what? Oh, dear people of God, and this is a sweet sound to my ears—greater than our sin. Greater than our sin. Greater than our sin of quarreling, arguing, fighting. Greater than our willingness to live at times to pursue our cravings, our pleasures. Greater than our acts of spiritual adultery against God. Greater even than deepest sin. God's grace is always greater than our need.
Paul writes in "1 Timothy 1:14," "The grace of our Lord Jesus was more than abundant." We understand abundant, but you know what Paul says? It's more than abundant. It's rich. It's lavish. It's bottomless. It's extravagant. It's inexhaustible. It's *prodigal*. God's grace is greater. It's greater than the guilt of our sin. I love the way Isaiah the prophet puts it in the first chapter of his prophecy, verse 18:
"Come now."
What an invitation by Yahweh!
"Come now," He says to Israel, to us.
"Let us reason together, says Yahweh, though your sins are as scarlet."
You see, in the ancient world, the darkest stain that they could produce was from the darkest dye that they produced, and that was scarlet. And He says, if your soul is stained the absolute darkest that it can be stained with, it will be as white as snow.
"Though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool."
Listen, friends, I don't know what guilt for your sin you bear this evening. I don't know how you stand before God in terms of how you have sinned and how much guilt you have amassed before Him. But I could tell you this based on the authority of God's Word: The grace of God is greater than whatever guilt you have amassed and you have accumulated.
"Where sin increased," Paul says, Romans 5:20. "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more."
This evening, if you will turn from your sin, if you will repent, if you will turn to Him, then it doesn't matter how bad the sins, it doesn't matter how frequently you have sinned—there is grace. And God will give to you new life in Christ. He will forgive your sins by His grace. God's grace is greater than the guilt of our sin.
But you know something else as well? And this is amazing. This is really amazing. God's grace is also greater—now listen carefully—greater than the power of our sin. God's grace is greater than the guilt of our sin, but God's grace, blessed be God, is greater than the power of our sin. And this is a word of comfort, not only to sinners who are in desperate need for the Savior, but also for saints who are struggling with besetting sins.
I love Revelation 1:5, where we read concerning Christ, "To Him who loves us"—present tense, continuous tense—"and what? Released us. Released us from our sins by His blood." Listen, released us. Notice how Christ is described. He's described as He who loosed us, released us from our sins in His own blood, beloved. In His death, we get the grace of Christ, and part of that grace is the grace not only to overcome our guilt but also to overcome the power of sin in our lives, the dominion of sin.
If you're a believer, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, and I don't know what sin you believe you are entrapped in, that you're enslaved to, listen carefully and be hopeful. The grace of God is greater. You need to know this, that there is grace that is greater—enabling, empowering grace that can set you free from that slavery. You don't have to be a slave anymore because as a child of God, you're no longer under the dominion of sin. Sin has no more dominion over you.
Romans 6. Turn to 2 Corinthians 12. Paul writes about his trial also because there's another element here. The grace of God is greater than the guilt of our sin. The grace of God is greater than the power of our sin. And the grace of God is also greater than our trials. You're familiar with this portion of the Word of God. Paul writes about his trial. He calls it the thorn in the flesh.
And he says in verse 7, "Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation that he'd received, obviously, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself." Here's a trial in Paul's life. We don't know exactly what this thorn exactly was. We can speculate it may have been the leader of the revolt in Corinth, a false teacher attacking or accusing Paul. Could have been a physical issue, perhaps. We can't be absolutely certain. But it doesn't matter for the point that he's making.
Notice verse 8: "Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me, and He, the Lord, said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you.'" I couldn't help it but defer to the prince of preachers commenting on this verse. He said, and I quote, "I've often read in Scripture of the holy laughter of Abraham when he fell upon his face and laughed, but I do not know that I ever experienced that laughter till a few evenings ago when this text came home to me with such a sacred power as literally to cause me to laugh."
He goes on to say, "I had been looking it through, looking at its original meaning, trying to fathom it, till at last I got hold of it this way. 'My grace,' says Jesus, 'is sufficient for you.' And it looked almost as if it were meant to ridicule my unbelief, for surely the grace of such one as my Lord Jesus is indeed sufficient for so insignificant a being as I am."
And then he gives a couple of illustrations that came to his mind. Listen to what he writes. It seemed to me as if some tiny fish, being very thirsty, was troubled with the fear of drinking the River Thames dry. And Father Thames said to him, "Poor little fish, my stream is sufficient for you."
Put one mouse down on all the granaries of Egypt where they were the fullest after seven years of planting. Imagine that one mouse complaining that it might die of famine. "Cheer up," says Pharaoh. "Poor mouse, my granaries are sufficient for you." Imagine a man standing on a mountain saying, "I breathe so many cubic feet of air in a year, I'm afraid that I shall ultimately inhale all the oxygen which surrounds the globe." Surely the earth on which the man would stand might reply, "My atmosphere is sufficient for you." Let him fill his lungs as full as ever he can. He will never breathe all the oxygen, nor will the fish drink up all the River Thames, nor the mouse eat up the stores in the granaries of Egypt.
And then he gives the application. With such a Redeemer to rest in, how dare I for a moment think that my needs cannot be supplied? If our needs were a thousand times larger than they are, we would not approach the vastness of His power to provide. The Father has committed all things into His hands. Doubt Him no more. Listen and let Him speak to you: "My grace is sufficient." Or in the words of James, we could say, "My grace is greater."
There's a final facet of this promise, and it is this very important word: "But He gives a greater what? Grace." What exactly is grace? Grace defined theologically is God's goodness to those who deserve and have earned only wrath. God's grace is God's goodness to those who deserve and have earned only God's wrath. Sometimes you hear it defined as unmerited favor, and that's fine as far as it goes, but grace is really more than that. More than that. You see, it's not merely undeserved favor. It's undeserved favor to those who deserve exactly the opposite.
But what is favor? Well, the dictionary defines favor this way: it's a state of being held in friendly or favorable regard. You see, in relationships, the word favor describes one person's attitude toward another. If that person has a positive attitude, it's called favor. It means to approve, to like, to kindly regard, to show kindness toward. And think about this for a moment. With reference to God, God has a positive disposition, an attitude toward those who have earned eternal wrath and judgment. And He treats us as the special objects of His favor. Stunning, isn't it? He loves us. He loves us. He loves me. He loves us. He shows kindness towards us. He kindly regards us.
We are in a state of being held in friendly, favorable regard by God Himself, the very One we have offended deeply and are deserving of His judgment, and yet He shows us grace. That's grace. Now, in the context of James 4, what kind of grace or undeserved favor do we need? Well, we need two kinds, beloved. We need forgiving grace—forgiveness for our arguing and fighting and quarreling, forgiveness for living to satisfy our pleasures, forgiveness for our spiritual adultery. So we need forgiving grace.
But also, we need sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace—grace that empowers us to live in obedience and a wholehearted allegiance to our jealous God. And this is crucial, so crucial to understand. You see, grace—and listen carefully, beloved—grace is not a blank check to sin. Grace is not a blank check to sin.
In fact, Jude writes in his letter, verse 4, of ungodly persons who turn the grace of God into *asilia*—sensuality, licentiousness, debauchery. The word means sexual excess, absence of restraint, insatiable desire for pleasure. Now, we don't use that word "licentiousness" very much, or we use instead "sensuality" sometimes. But this word "licentiousness" is a word out of which we get our word "license."
You know what he's saying? Jude is saying there are people who take the grace of God and turn it into a license to sin. "Oh, it's all grace. Therefore, I can live however I want, do whatever I want. You see, where I sin, there's grace. And so I keep on sinning, and there's more of grace." They turn it into a license. And some may be familiar with the hymn:
"Free from the law, O happy condition,
Jesus hath bled, and there is remission."
But those people who turn the grace of God into a license, who profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, seem to believe a revision of the hymn:
"Free from the law, O happy condition,
Sin all I want with easy remission."
That is not the attitude at all.
Romans 6:1-2, Paul says, "What shall we say then?" Yes, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. "But what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?" And you know that strong answer of Paul—*me genoito*—"May it never be. God forbid. Absolutely not. How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, Paul says you died to sin. How can you keep on living in that sin as a pattern of life?
You see, grace not only forgives, but it fortifies. It fortifies. Grace doesn't excuse us from obedience. In fact, grace empowers us for obedience. The only way that you and I, in the context of James's comment here in James 4, the only way that you and I can ever stop committing spiritual adultery, the only way that we can stop living to satisfy our sinful pleasures, the only way that we can stop quarreling, arguing, fighting is through the enabling divine grace.
And Lord willing, next week, we'll look at the only precondition. You see, there's a precondition. There's a prerequisite. God gives a greater grace, but there's a requirement, and it's not work. As we will see next week, Lord willing, it's called—well, I'll tell you. It's called *metanoia*—repentance. And with repentance, bound up in that genuine repentance, for it to be genuine, is humility. Humility.
You know, when we think of grace, all of us think of John Newton. John Newton was a sailor, a sailor who bought and sold slaves for a living during the 1700s. Raised by a Christian mother, but when he left home, he went on his way and forgot everything he'd been taught. He went on to lead a life of really rank selfishness and absolute unrestrained debauchery and immorality. A man of filthy language, he boasted that brutality and rape were part of his daily life. And to appease his conscience, he took pleasure in trying to convince others to turn from their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
A turning point for John Newton came during a storm, a severe storm, when he, during that storm, remembered a verse that he'd memorized as a child. And if I may interject here and say, oh, dear parents, pour the Word of God into your kids. Pour it into your kids. Let them learn it, hear it, hide it in their hearts, and even when it doesn't seem like they're retaining it or heeding it, oh, you instill that Word in their heart. You never know. It's living and active, and in that particular moment, God turns on the light. It was a warning from God, and that word that came to his mind was from Proverbs 1, and I'm gonna conclude with this tonight.
Proverbs 1:24-27—listen to what came to his mind: "Because I called and you refused, I stretched out My hand and no one paid attention, and you neglected all My counsel and were not willing to accept My reproof, I will also laugh at your disaster. I will mock when your dread comes, when your dread comes like a storm and your disaster comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you."
In that moment, John Newton felt the weight of his guilt in the midst of that storm, that literal storm. From without and now from within, he humbled himself under the mighty hand of God and asked for mercy, and God showed him mercy. Newton eventually went into ministry, where he served God for 40 years, telling others concerning the wonderful work that God had done for his soul. And we remember him most, of course, for his hymn, that famous hymn, *Amazing Grace.* That hymn shows the reality and shows that he understood the reality that the Christian life is from eternity past into eternity future—a life of grace, the grace of God.
At the end of his life, Newton put it this way. Listen to his concluding words, and I quote: "My memory is gone. My memory actually is nearly gone," he said. "But I remember two things: that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior."
But He gives a greater grace.
Let's pray. Oh, Heavenly Father, our souls tonight are so refreshed with this magnanimous truth, this amazing truth, because as You lay out Your standard and we see clearly how miserably, even as Your children, how miserably we do in keeping it—we fail, we fall, we falter. We fall. Father, we're grateful for Your grace. Thank You for Your forgiving grace for our sin.
But Lord, thank You, thank You as well for Your empowering, sanctifying grace that enables us to obey Your will. And Father, we pray that You would lavish us this week with Your grace, both the grace of forgiveness as well as the grace that sanctifies. Give us the grace that empowers us to serve and even the grace that allows us to face the trials and difficulties of life in a way that glorifies You.
We're reminded again tonight, Lord, that without Jesus, we would not be here. We're reminded again tonight, Lord, that without Jesus Christ, we are nothing and we can do nothing. And so we desperately need Your favor. And we can claim it, not because of who we are. There's nothing in us that calls out for Your grace. You will be gracious to whom You will be gracious. And so all we can do is cry out for Your grace.
Show us favor, oh God, on account of Him who is full of grace. And we know if we are in Christ, then we are recipients of grace, for we come before a throne of grace.
I pray also tonight, Lord, for the person who needs desperately Your saving grace because they're bound in their sin with no hope, facing an eternity without Christ in unending torment in hell. Father, I pray tonight that they would turn to You and cry out for grace, that they would turn from their sin to You and to Your Son. So help us, Lord. Help us.
Thank You that as Your children, that we do stand in grace. We praise You and we thank You in Jesus' name, amen.
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