Beacon Sunday Service: September 8th, 2024

All right. Welcome everyone to the beacon. So glad to see everyone today, and what a great privilege it is to come before the Lord to worship him corporately. It truly is just such a great uh joy and just pleasure to be able to do so. Um could we all rise now and just greet one another in the Lord with grace and peace to you? Grace is the free gift of God and peace the result of that. And so may we just greet one another in that manner.

And if we can just make our way just back to uh where we started. So our worship team has been reading a book that we just finished, and this last chapter was just about preparing, preparing ourselves for worship, and just getting our hearts and minds set upon him. And so as we come before the Lord this morning, can we just pray to him right where you're at and just ask him, ask the Lord that he would be the focus of why we meet today, that Christ would be the foundation, that we would just be um, yeah, just focused upon him today as we give him our our worship this morning. So can we just pray for a minute?

This opportunity to come before you to worship you corporately. What a great joy and privilege it is, and I just pray this morning that we would set our hearts, our minds, our affections, Lord God, upon you as we worship you today. May you be glorified, and may we just give you all the thanks for uh everything that you do in our lives, Lord God, for your daily provision and just the ways that you uh continue to order our lives and continue to just uh um just grow us in you. And so we thank you, we love you, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. And can we all rise this morning? I just want to read scripture from Daniel chapter two, verses twenty to twenty-two, just to set our hearts on the Lord.

And it says this: join together, let us sanctify the name of God forever and ever, to whom belongs wisdom and might, who changes times and seasons, removes and sets up kings, gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding to you, oh God. We offer thanks and praise. And a few weeks back, we were just learning from Pastor Madison on just how to get wisdom, and again, the source of wisdom that comes from the Lord, it comes from Christ, and just following him wholeheartedly. And so, as we worship him today, may we give worship to the God of all wisdom. Um, this next song we're singing, it's a new song called Christ Our Wisdom. Um, Sarah's gonna sing out the first verse for us, and then we'll all join in.

I think you guys are all very musically uh inclined, so you'll be able to pick it up pretty quickly, I'm sure. So uh let's sing this. Uh there will sing the first verse for us here, Christ our wisdom. We are humbled when you hide your ways from us, you have purpose a number, each one good and glorious, help us trust when we grow free us from our anxious thoughts, and give us grace to see more cleanly.

You are God and we are now sing that first verse again. Christ our wisdom, and Christ our wisdom, we are humbled when you hide your ways from us. You have purpose is a number, each one good and glorious. Help us trust when we grow weary, free us from our anxious thoughts, and give us grace to see more clearly. You are God and we are not Christ our wisdom, Christ our wisdom, be our gladness when we fail to understand, and you ordain all joy and sadness to fulfill your perfect, help us know you roll with power over raging blood in our most uncertain hour.

You are God and we are love. Christ our wisdom, Christ our wisdom, we will follow, though the way is fail. As we journey through the shadows, grant us faith where sight has failed. Help us clean to your commandments, strengthened by your faithful word. We will never be abandoned.

Christ are wisdom, Christ our wisdom, we adore you for the beauty of the cross. Once in foolishness, we scorned you, but your blood has ransomed us. Help us, help us singly, and listen mercies of your humble to say, Christ our wisdom, Christ our glory, you are God forever praising. Help us, help us singly, and listen mercies of your humble to save.

Has sent me free, your life, the air I breathe, be glorified in me, sing your love, your love has captured me, your grace has sent me free, your life, the air I'll breathe, be glorified in me. Set my feet, you set my feet to dancing, you set my heart on fire in the presence of a thousand kings. You are my one visa.

Be glorified, your love, your love has captured me, your grace has sent me free, your life, the air I breathe, be glorified me. You set my feet to dancing, you set my heart on fire in the presence of a thousand kings, you are my one desire. I stand before you now with trembling hands with the height, be glorified, be glorified in me, be glorified in me, be glorified in me, be glorified, you said you set my feet to dancing, you set my heart on fire in the presence of a thousand kings, you are my one desire.

I stand before you now with trembling hands, lifted high, you say you set my feet to dancing, you set my heart on fire in the presence of thousand kings. You are my one design.

Now in trembling hands, lifting high, be glorified, Amen. That's our prayer that he would be glorified in our lives.

In this question and answer, we'll confess how we can belong to God. And so here's the question. How can we escape punishment and belong to God? And together, God himself, as a loving father, graciously reconciles us to himself, and delivers us from the power and penalty of sin by a redeemer. Amen. What a great God that we have.

Our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus.

Every tribe on this terrestrial to him all majesty and crown him to him all majesty and crown him with yonder sacred throng.

Sing out the last verse four time. Oh, that was on yonder. Oh that with yonder sacred wrong. We had his before will join thee everlasting song and will join thee everlasting.

Good morning, everyone. Today's confession of sin is one where we admit we are not comfortable in our sin, especially against our God, and that we have great reason to thank the Lord for our salvation. So let's do our confession of sin together. Oh God, please do not remember against us our former iniquities. Let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name. Deliver us and forgive our sins for the sake of your son's name. Let our groans come before you and preserve us according to your great power. We your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever. From generation to generation, we will recount your praise.

Amen. Please be seated. Let's now take in a time of private confessional.

Amen. Today's prayer topic is uh one that was brought to our attention, the attention of leadership uh recently. We have a friend to a couple of brothers that needs to be lifted up. Uh he and his wife uh were you know, were pregnant and having trouble um getting pregnant for many years. Uh and praise God they were finally able to. Um, but we were informed that uh their son had to be born prematurely, about fourteen weeks due to complications. And for perspective, a full-term pregnancy is about thirty-nine to forty weeks, so you can do the math there. Um, just lift him up in prayer. It's him and his wife. Um, we just want them to uh know that you know our church is praying for them. Um it's gonna be a long journey for them, and it's gonna be tough for their child, knowing that there could be complications if the child even survives.

Uh so let's just lift him and his wife up. It's it can't be easy for them. Uh, but just pray. I I don't want to get go into too many details, but I have been given permission to share this. So just lift up him and his wife in prayer, and just that the child will grow and be healthy these next months, um, and just give them continual continual faithfulness in our Lord, and that the Lord will continue to be faithful to them in this trying time. So let's pray for the baby son, their son, uh, our brother and our sister.

Oh God, our Father. You are one who answers prayers. We know that you are faithful to your people. And we know, Father, that you love those who proclaim that you are the one true God. We lift up our brother and our sister and their son to you. We know that miracles can happen, Lord, because we know that everything that has happened in our lives is a miracle, Lord. We know, Father, that you are faithful to us. So we pray, Father, for blessing upon this family. We know how difficult it has been for a journey for this husband and wife. And we pray, Lord, that this would be a testimony how great you have been in their lives by letting their son recover, to live, to develop, to grow, to be a part of their lives.

That their faithfulness in you would remain, that they would just continually just be prayerful. And Lord, that you would watch over them and that you put your hand upon this family, Lord, and lift them up. We pray, Lord, that Lord, that just that this family would remain. We pray for their son. And we know that it's just a difficult time, and only a few words can be said, but Lord, we just pray that you would just hear their cries. You can hear just the heavy hearts that we have. But Lord, may there may there be good reason to rejoice, Father, as time goes on. So we lift them up and uh we give all glory to you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Uh, kids, you are dismissed. Please enjoy Sunday school with teacher Stephen and teacher John.

As the children are being dismissed, uh, we're gonna go over a few announcements. The first one is uh Pastor Peter's installation service. We've been announcing this for a few weeks now, October 13th, 5 p.m. We would love all of our members to be there. We know that we are gonna have um a lot of prep to do before that, and but we want all of our members to be a part and witness this history for our church. Uh so just keep that in mind. If you have anyone that you want to invite to this ceremony, please let us know. Um, our capacity is a hundred and fifty. Probably gonna go over, but we want to be able to get a decent head count so that we can uh accommodate everybody with parking and refreshments.

Uh so just let us know. Uh, one of the people in the leadership know if uh you want to invite somebody. Judge's ministry, if you're unable to serve on your scheduled week, please arrange a replacement. There's a sign up sheet in the back with your name and what week you're serving. Uh, if you can't make that week, please coordinate with somebody else to take your place. Uh, and last but not least, our offering options are Zel Venmo Cash and Check. Pastor Madison. What a joy it is to open up God's word. And today I want to talk to you about how to have a friendship with God. But as we begin that, let me ask you this. I want you to think of some of your best friends. And not just think, you know, of them.

I want you to think of their names. You know, if if you had to make a list of, these are my best friends. Who would be on that list? You know, I'm not just talking about people that are friendly. You know, I'm friendly towards you and you're friendly towards me. But I'm I'm wanting you to elevate and uh to think that they're really that that person's really my friend. You know, if I needed some help, I know they would be, they would be there for me. If I need to borrow this, if I needed to do that, if if I needed to call on somebody to be with my family, who's on that list? I want you to also think about Jesus had some friends too. But it wasn't, you know, a ton of friends. I mean, the people that hung around Jesus all the time, what do we call them?

The disciples. And how many? Twelve. And one of them betrayed him. Hardly could be called his friend. But let's narrow it down. Because while he had 12 disciples, who were the ones that he really took closer at times? Who are the ones that he said, hey, you stay here and pray and I'll go further? Who did he take into the garden with him? Who did he take at different places with him? Peter, James, John. Oh, wait a minute. That's that's it. You know, I used to say to people, our lives are kind of like little blocks. We only have, now how many, how many sides are on a on a block? You know, when you're when your kids get out the ABC blocks and start to stack them, how many sides are on those? Six, right?

You have a top side and a bottom side, and then you have the the four other sides. And our lives are kind of like that, almost like blocks that you could, like Lego blocks that connect together or something. How many people can get close to you? After a while, you don't have any more time. So you you have about Jesus got close to three. If you had six sides, the top side, bottom side, and all the sides around, you have six sides of people who can really get close to you, and you really get time with them. Now I asked you to make a list in your mind of some of the people that are your best friends. People that you could call on, no matter what time of the day or night, they would be there in an emergency.

I didn't get that. My watch speaking to me here. Get it. I said this morning I was goofing around with some of our kids here, and my watch lit up and said, Did you just fall? And I and I was listening to John Piper one time, and he's up there preaching away, and he's moving his hands and he's going like this, and his watch says, Did you just fall? And he said, I'm sorry, folks, but my watch just asked me if I fell down. Hold on here. Listen, when I talk about friendship, and you put the names, do you have names in mind now? These are the ones that you can call on because they're your best friends. Now I've kind of set you up. Because what I want to ask you is this? Was Jesus on that list? I think probably not.

You know, you have the best friends in the world. Oh, but Jesus wants to be your friend too. And you can be a friend of God. I could have said it in a negative way. I could have said how to avoid friendship with the world. Because if you're a friend of God, you're an enemy of the world. And if you're a friend of the world, you're an enemy of God. Correct. So when you think about this, in this passage, we're going to be spending a couple of weeks in this passage, James chapter 4, verses 5 through 12. And so I just put up here part one, because I don't know how many weeks, and I only have a couple more weeks here to be with you and to tell you these kind of things. So let's look at this passage of scripture starting at verse 1.

Because he's writing to Christians.

And what does he say to him? What is the source of wars and fights among you? Wait a minute. Who's he writing? Christians. And why does he have to write this to them? Why are you fighting? Why are there wars and fights among you? Don't they come from your passions that wage war within you? You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and don't receive because you ask with the wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulterous people. Don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility towards God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes what? The enemy of God.

Last week, James warned us two ways that we can become God's enemies. The first one was this, when we focus on our passions and pleasures. The second one was when we focus on a friendship with the world. Both of those make us what? Enemies of God. So let's go on with the text. Don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility towards God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God. Or do you think, or do you think it's without reason that the scripture says the spirit he made to dwell in us envies intensely? Here's the sermon. Okay? Somebody walks away and says, hey, what's the sermon about? The Lord wants to be your friend, not your enemy. You're a believer in him.

He wants to reach out and be your friend. Here's what he says in John 15, talking about friendship with God. No one has greater love than this. That someone would lay down his life for what? For his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. Did you catch that? I mean, he's talking about a wonderful relationship that we have with the Lord. The text goes on. I do not call you slaves anymore because a slave doesn't know what his master is doing. I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. I've called you what? Friends. So how do you have, how do you become a friend of God? What do you do that moves you from being an enemy to being his friend?

James chapter 2 said it this way. So the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness, and he was called God's friend. What made him God's friend? He believed God. He said, okay, you said it. I believe it. God said that settles it. You're my friend. He was called a friend of God. So I've gone back. Here's what I've said the sermons about. God wants to be your friend, not your enemy. What's interesting in this passage of Scripture? There are ten commands in today's text. Verses 5 through 12. There are ten imperatives. If you're talking to kids about English, well, that's an imperative. I gotta do it. It's a command. And there are ten of them.

We're not gonna have, we're not gonna have time for ten of them today. But the first one is this. Submit to God. It's not an option. He commands us. He's number one. Remember the first commandment, the Ten Commandments? He's number one. No other gods before him. He's number one. And number two, you're not gonna what? Not bow down before anybody else. Because he's number one. You're gonna submit to him. So here's what the text says. James chapter 4, starting at verse 6. But God gives greater grace. Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. There are only a couple of places in Scripture that tell you how you can get more of God's grace. Grace is God giving you something you can't earn.

You don't deserve, right? We call it amazing grace. How sweet the silent saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found was blind, but now I see. It's grace, amazing grace. I can't buy it. I can't earn it. But this is one of the places in scripture that God says, if you do this, you'll get more of God's grace. The Roman Catholic Church teaches you, if you go to confession, you get more of God's grace. If you take communion, you get God's grace. If you get married, you get more of God's grace. The married people here would say, if you get married, you need more of God's grace. Because all of a sudden, you have difference of opinion between you and your spouse, and God's grace moves in.

And so you can see God's grace in your life, but getting married doesn't earn you God's grace. Going to confession doesn't get you God's grace. Getting baptized doesn't get you God's grace. Nowhere in Scripture is it are we told, do this and you'll get more of God's grace. Do this and you'll get more of God's grace. Except right here where he says, humble. God resists the proud but gives grace to what kind of people? Humble people. Therefore, and here's the first command. Therefore, submit to God. Resist the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, first command. What are you doing? Submitting to God. What do you do? How can you submit to God? What do you do? I mean, you came to church.

Is that submitting to God? You got baptized. Is that submitting to God? Here's the Greek word that's used for submit. Hupataso. Hupatassal. You're familiar with the first part of it. Let me slide it up here so you can see it.

Let me break it into a prefix. A little prefix before the main word. And the second part of the word. So hupa, hupo is the little prefix. And look at the screen so you can see. I want you to catch this. There's a rough, we call it a rough in Greek, it's a rough breathing mark. In English, it would be a backwards apostrophe. Okay? So I'm going to highlight it here. I point it out right there. That little rough breathing sound in Greek makes the letter H. So what is our letter H say? Huh. We use it in like uh the word high. Hi. And then we add the letter I. Hi. Hi. Okay? So every time you see that in front of a word, it's going to put the H sound in front of the word. The next letter is a upsilon, and the upsilon is in Greek, it becomes that U.

But in it when it gets translated into English, it's always this Y. The next one is the letter pi. As in when we do that, remember that mathematic problem, pi r squared, okay? Pi, and that letter, that letter says the P. And so I'll drop it there. The omicron, what's interesting, look at, see these, the prefix and the main word? The prefix ends with an omicron. The tasso ends with omega. Both of them make the O sound in English. So I'm going to put the O uh Omicron and the O for hypo. Hypo. We use this a lot of times in the English language. If somebody, if somebody uh needs to have uh a given shot under the skin, under the derma.

Derma is the word for skin. And hypoderma means you have a hypodermic needle. Where does it go? A hypodermic needle goes where? Under where? Under the skin. So hypo means what? Under. If somebody is a diabetic, or the opposite of a diabetic, the opposite of a diabetic is somebody who is hypoglycemic. They're under what their sugar level should be. Got it? So let me uh drop it in here. Hypo means under. We're talking about submission here. What's the command? Submit to God. So the first part of this word, pupil tasso, is something under. The main part of the wordso, tasso means to arrange.

So the word submit, look at the screen. The word submit means to arrange under. So if I submit to somebody, I am putting myself, arranging myself under their authority and leadership. Everybody that's married, men and women know this verse. Wives. Submit to your husbands as to the Lord. What does that what is that commandment saying? Arrange yourself under the leadership that God ordained you. You accepted it. You wanted it. You said, hey, I want to be married to this man. So you willingly arranged yourself under the authority of that person. Now God is saying, listen, you wanted it. You asked me to come into your life. Why aren't you willing to arrange yourself and your life and your time under my leadership?

What's the command? If you're going to be a friend of God, you're going to submit to God. Friendship takes what? Time. Are you ever a friend of somebody you've never spent any time with? No. You're only a friend with somebody you spend time with. You know what's interesting about time? I've shared it with you. You know one of the commands? Honor your father and mother. I've shared with you that the Greek word for honor is to may. Letter for letter, right out of the Greek into English, to me is time. Honor. If you're going to honor your parents, you have to give them what? Time. If you're going to be a friend of God, you have to give him what? Time. You know what's interesting? If you give me your time.

If you spend an hour with me, you're giving me something. Listen to me carefully, because I don't want to be, I don't want people to go walk away and say, man, he said heretical things there. Okay. If you spend an hour with me, if you give me an hour, just me. If you give me an hour, you're giving me something. I'm cautiously saying this. You're giving me something that God can't even give me. Because God doesn't have any time. He's eternal. If I give my wife an hour of my time, I can't give that to anybody else again. If God gives you an hour, he can give her an hour and her an hour and him an hour, and because he didn't have any time. No beginning, no end. He's timeless. But for us, that's why when you spend time with your parents, you're honoring them and you're giving them something that you cannot give to anybody else.

That's why it's honor. Because you're giving them a gift that you can never give again. Did you catch that? So in this case, he's saying, I want you to submit to God. And if I submit to God, I get, I arrange myself under him. Let me say it this way: to put yourself under the authority of another. That's what submission is. Whether it's your boss at work, whether it's your spouse, whether it's your kids submitting to you. You know what's interesting? Your kids will never learn submission unless they see it in your family. And who are they gonna see it from in the family? The wife. And he doesn't say submit to your husband beating you. He just says, arrang yourself under the authority of this head.

God is it of Christ, Christ said of man, man is the head of his wife. That's 1 Corinthians 11, if you want to just look at those first few verses. So he's just saying, look, put yourself, you have chosen this. You willingly said to your husband. I give myself to you for better or for worse, for richer for and sickness and health, the loving to cherish till death do us part. So help me God. You chose that. God didn't force you into that. And when you choose to submit to God, God's not forcing you. That's why he's so honored when you willingly submit to God. Even though it's an imperative here. Genesis 16 is an example of this. Abraham's wife Sarah had not born any children for him. But she owned an Egyptian slave slave named Hagar.

Sarai said to Abram, by the way, it's you know, Sarai becomes Sarah, and Abram becomes Abraham later on. But verse 2, Sarai said to Abram, Since the Lord has prevented me from bearing children, go to my slave. Perhaps through her, I can build a family. And Abraham agreed to what Sarah said. Listen to me. This is this is the dumbest sin I've ever heard of. You know, and your wife wouldn't tell you today. I can't have any children. I want you to sleep with this other woman. Would your wife say that to you? No. Would your wife say that to you? No. Would your wife say that to you? No. My wife would kill me. They're not going to tell you to sleep with somebody else. But Sarai says to Abraham, go sleep with my handmaiden Hagar.

Hopefully we'll have you'll have a child by her. The text goes on. So Abraham's wife Sarai took Hagar, her Egyptian slave, and gave her to her husband Abraham as a wife for him. This happened after Abram had lived in the land of Canaan ten years. He slept with Hagar. And she became pregnant. When she realized that she was pregnant, Hagar, when the slave woman realized that she was pregnant, she treated her mistress, who's her mistress, Sarai. She treated Sarai with contempt. Because now, hey, I'm pregnant. Hey, by your husband, you couldn't get pregnant, but hey, I did. Can you imagine how hurtful that would have been? The text goes on. Then Sarai said to Abraham, listen to this, guys. You think you get blamed for things that are wrong?

Then Sarai said to Abraham, you are responsible for my suffering. You did this to me. I'm so hurt by Hagar. Who suggested that he sleep with Hagar? Do you catch that? You might say, yeah, that sounds like me at times. I get blamed for everything. Hey, you're this, you're on you're on no level of par with what's going on here. Okay. Then Sarai said to Abraham, You are responsible for my suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant, she has treated me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me, me and you. Abraham replied to Sarai, here. Your slave is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her. Then Sarai mistreated her so much that she ran away from her.

The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness. The spring on the way to shore. He said, Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going? She replied, I am running away from my mistress Sarai. Then the angel of the Lord said to her, You must go back to your mistress. And look at this. You must go back to your mistress and do what? Submit to her mistreatment. The only thing I'm telling you here is that is really submission. That's really.

This is my son. I'm not you want me to kill my son? Abraham submitted to him because he believed God was somehow gonna give him back life. And when he raised the knife to come down on Isaac, God said, Stop. Now I know that you love me. You have not withheld your son, your only son, from me. The question I have for you again is what area would you cease to submit to God? That's one of the commands here. If I'm gonna be a friend of God, then I need to follow this command. Submit to his leadership. Lord wants to be your friend, not your enemy. He's already talked about if you're a friend of the world, you're an enemy of God. He wants to be your friend. He said, I call you friends. John Paper 15.

You're not my slave. You're my friend. Ten commands. First one, submit to God. Second one, resist the devil. Again, he's going to give you ten commands here. I don't know if you're aware of this. Book of James only has five chapters. There are more commands proportionately in the book of James than any other New Testament book. More commands in just five chapters, percentage-wise, than any other New Testament book. And ten of them are right here in just these seven verses or so. Resist the devil. Here's what the text says. But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he'll what?

Flee from you. You know, that's a wonderful promise. If I resist the devil. But I want you to know the devil doesn't flee from you because he's afraid of you. Do you catch that? Why is the devil? Why does the devil even flee from you? Because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. 1 John 4 says that. It's because if you resist the devil, who does the devil really see in you fighting? The battle belongs to the you know the song. The battle belongs to the Lord. Satan's fearful of the Lord, not of you. If you went after the devil, he'd look at you like what are you doing?

You're not the power. God in you is the power. If you went and said to the devil, hey, get out of here. I want you to flee. It would almost be like, can I say it this way? Can you imagine a literal flea? F-L-E-A, a flea, going up the backside of an elephant with the intent of murder. And the elephant's looking at this little flea. And this flea says, I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna kill you, and I'm gonna eat you bite by bite by bite. Can you imagine how long it would take a flea to eat an elephant? That's kind of how Satan would look at us. But when Satan sees us, who does he see? It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. He greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

So I resist the devil, and he'll flee from.

Letter for letter, this is an English word that we use. So let me divide it up here. Little prefix. We would say it in English, the anti. As in Antichrist. In Greek, it would be the antihistamine is the word. And so let me just say that if somebody has a hard time breathing and they use a nasal spray, it's called the anehistamine. Letter for letter, right out of the Greek. They just said, oh yeah, this is against anti. The anti, anti-christ or anti-anything, uh, that's somebody against. And histamine means to stand. And so when you use an anahistamine, your congestion cannot stand against what you're spraying a pure nasal passage.

It's an anahistamine. What's standing in the way has to get out of the way. And so what does he say there? If I'm going to resist the devil, the devil wants to block up my breathing of the Lord and my strength in the Lord. And God comes in and he says, Hey, I want you to resist. I want you to be an anahistamine against Satan. Let me put it down here. Anti means against.

He says, Stand against the devil. Why? Because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. I got time to give you an illustration. Okay. I used to uh I used to be young. And I used to like to play sports. And so I played racquetball and I played basketball and I ran track and I played tennis. And I did all of that in high school. And then when I went on to college, I played basketball. And so it was just, you know. But when I played basketball in high school, I was uh we're from a little bitty town. If you listen to the uh devotional this past week that I put on the internet, the the town I grew up in, 500 people. A little farming town. When you drive into the town, it's called Sherman, S-H-E-R-M-An, Sherman, New York.

When you drive into the town, they have a sign that welcomes you to Sherman. My wife is already laughing about it because as you drive into the town, it's a farming community. And now Amish people have kind of taken over the community area with the farms. And my uncle had a farm. When I grew up in that area, I'd help him do the haying and stuff, and we'd buy a gallon of milk from him, you know, right from the farm. You know, it wasn't pasteurized. The cream came to the we had a gallon, a gallon jar was about this big around, about this high, and about this much would be cream on the top. And you'd scoop off the cream and make it into butter or real whipped cream. And so as you drive into my hometown, the sign says, Welcome to Sherman.

It's a farming community. Cows. Welcome to Sherman, a place like no udder. If you know what an udder is on a cow. Okay. Maybe I have to explain it to you. People in LA without cows. So I grew up in this really small town. And our basketball team was, oh, you know, you had farm guys, you know, and they were, you know, strong and they worked hard. And so we would win state championships. And so I was moved up to the varsity high school basketball team when I was a sophomore in my tenth grade. Of course, most of the time I sat the bench as a sophomore because the juniors and seniors said, hey, you need to serve your time, buddy, before you, you know, and the coach wasn't it wasn't going to put me into that position right away.

When I was a sophomore, we want to say championship. When I was a junior, we want to say championship. But as a senior, we were we were runners up in the seat. We didn't win that year. But we had to play a team. The team we played, my neighbor, my next door neighbor, uh, his name was Fred Fortune. Fred was uh six feet seven inches tall. And his birthday was the same day as mine. He was born a half hour before me, and he grew up and I didn't, you know. So, and but what's interesting is he was also adopted. So his dad was 5'2 and he was 6'7. And I remember his dad looking at him one time and was upset with him, and he said, I don't care if I have to get on a stepladder, I'm gonna come up here and correct you and beat you up, you know.

His dad wasn't a believer. But so Fred and I were best friends because we played basketball together, and we were next door neighbors. Our basketball team was going to play another team. And that night we would rotate captains, and that night Fred and I were captains. But Fred wasn't ready to go out to meet the other captain of the other team. Okay, you know, before a basketball game or before a football game, what are the captains do? The captains all go out and meet each other, right? With the ref. And the ref says, okay, and then you know, he didn't introduce and he tells you how he's gonna call the game, and so I go out because the other team is out there, and Fred wasn't quite ready, and I go out, and the guy that I was introduced to, his name is Fred Hahn.

And Fred Hahn was about six five. And so here I am. I think at the time I was five, six, you know, five six, a hundred and ten pounds, you know, next to nothing. And so the ref introduces me, and I stick my hand out, and I'm looking at this six five guy, and I'm thinking, oh man, we're not gonna make it tonight. But just about that time, my fears were gone because Fred showed up, and he's six seven, and I just kind of slide behind Fred. And I said, Yeah, we're gonna get him. Why? Because we had somebody bigger, taller, better. And it wasn't that six five guy wasn't my responsibility. Do you catch that? And God is saying, just like Fred being bigger, better, greater, and taking on the responsibility, God said, I'm in you.

Nobody gets better than God. Nobody's bigger than God, nobody's more powerful, omnipotent than God. Satan is not my responsibility. All I have to do is submit to God. That was the first command, right? Submit to God. And if I submit to God, then I can resist the devil because it's God in me, fighting the battle for me. Do you understand? God wants to be your friend. And what is he saying to you? Look, I want you to resist. Resist is a military term used to describe an army arrayed for battle. You have you ever seen those old army uh movies or the or understood what armies used to do? The whole army would go out and stand, you know, 300, 500 people across in the line with their guns, and they would stand there and shoot at each other.

And he's saying, Look, I want you to stand, stand, and resist the devil. Matthew gives you an example of that in Jesus. Matthew 4, 1 through 4. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. Do you think you'd be hungry after he hadn't eaten for 40 days? So how is Satan gonna tempt him if he hasn't eaten for 40 days? What's the best way Satan can tempt him? Food. You're hungry. Verse 3. Then the tempter approached him and said, If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. You're hungry, aren't you? Don't you want something to eat? But he answered, it is written, man must not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

It is written. Do you catch that? What did Jesus use to fight and resist Satan? The word of God. It is written. What should we use to resist Satan? The word of God. Let me give you an example of that. Ephesians chapter 6. Let me read you a passage through here. This is why we must take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil days. Did you see? Here's resist again. You're going to resist in the evil days. And he's telling you, this is why you must take up the full armor of God. And here's why. So that you may be able to what? Resist. He's telling you to resist resist the devil. Now he's going to tell you how you can resist the devil. Having prepared everything to take your stand.

Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, and your feet sandal with the readiness of the gospel of peace. In every situation, take the shield of faith. And with it you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is what? The Word of God. How are you going to stand against the wiles of the devil? The word of God. How are you going to resist the devil? The word of God. David says it this way, Psalm 119. This is a passage that most people memorize. Psalm 119, verse 11, King James, thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against God against thee.

Right? I don't know if you've memorized that one, but it's a good one for you to memorize. This is a good one if you have kids to memorize this passage. How can a young man keep his way pure by keeping your what? Your word.

So that I might not sin against you. So what are you going to use so that you don't sin against him? The word. The word. So let me get back. Here's the sermon. The Lord wants you to be a friend. How are you going to be a friend? Here are the commands that he says, three of them today. Submit to God. Get under his leadership and authority. Secondly, resist the devil. Because the Lord's in you. Again, the devil's not fleeing from you because of you, but because of who lives in you. Thirdly, draw near to God. This doesn't take a rocket scientist. Here's the text. But God gives us greater grace. Before I go further in the verse, God gives us what?

Grace. And he even gives greater grace. Do you know when God gives us greater grace? We have people all the time leaving California. Why? Because it's such a bad biblical framework. Ungodly. The focus on ungodly things is so strong in California. And that's why California gets deemed as so liberal. But God's word says, where sin abounds. Do you know what it says after that? Romans. Where sin abounds? Grace much more abounds. So when people are wanting to leave California because of how bad it is, I say, yeah, but we get more of God's grace. Because where sin abounds, what happens to grace? Grace gets greater. Listen to me. Here's how foolish some people got, and this is why Paul had to deal with it.

They said, hey, if that's the case, well, then why don't we sin more? Because if I sin more, then God will give me more of his what? Grace. And what does Paul say to that in Romans? God forbid. I mean, I if I if you want more of God's grace, it always happens when there's sin. But he says, don't go there because God wants to keep. The reason he doesn't want you to sin is he doesn't want you to destroy your family. He doesn't want to destroy your life. So here's what he says in this text. But he gives greater grace. Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, command one, submit to God. Command two, resist the devil, he'll flee from you. Command three, draw near to God.

Oh. I'd walk over and give my wife a hug right now, but I'd go out of the camera, you know, and they're putting it on the internet. And so if I walked over, if I draw near to my wife and give her a hug, does she push me away? Hopefully not. No, she wouldn't. If I draw near to her and show love towards her, what does she do? She responds in love. When I draw near to God, what does God do? What's the thing say? Draw near to God, and he will what? He'll draw near to you. Isn't that what you want? How do you draw near to God? Well, I've already told you, you spend time with him. You cannot be a friend with anybody that you never have met.

You meant the Lord, and you invited him into your life. And then you give him time. When you honor your parents, you give them time. When you honor God, you give him time. When you honor God with your time, you're drawing near to God. You're spending time in his word. You're spending time in prayer. And when you do that, God says, Oh, let me get near to you. He wants to draw near to you. And so as you look at this passage of scripture in James, how to be a friend of God, if you submit to him, if you resist the devil, if you draw near to him, you're not going to be a friend of the world. The world's not going to want anything to do with you. And you become a friend of God. And the question I have for you is this are you willing to obey his commands?

There are ten of them here. We look at three today.

And he wants to be your friend. He calls you your my friend. Will you be a friend of God today? Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, you've given us real clear instructions. While your heads are bowed, can you submit to God today? Will you place yourself? Arrange yourself under him. Under his authority. Will you tell him today that you want to be his friend? Will you express to him that you would want him to be the best friend that you have? Oh, I'm not saying that your spouse can't be a good friend.

And your best friend is an earthly friend. But can you say Lord? I want you to come back and be my friend. I'll submit to you. I want to resist Satan. Give me the power this week to do that. And then I want to draw near to you. I'm gonna spend time with you this week to glorify you.

In Christ's name. Amen.

Just continue to submit to Christ.

Our time with him. And so it's fitting that in this last song that gives the most of Jesus, which is all that he has done for us.

What love is this? That Christ would die for me. His goodness, his merit, his righteousness, his sinners only. Oh foolish pride, be crucified, work is all my boast is in Jesus.

And I will glory forever in what the cross has done.

All my mercies in Jesus.

I boast not in riches or strength or life, but in the grace of God. I glory in weakness to live his cause in plenty or in one that I may know all may see. All my boast is in Jesus. All my hope is his love. And I will glory forever in what the cross has done us in. Now I stand in his dream.

And I cannot be ashamed. For my boast is Jesus Christ. My boast is Jesus Christ. Wherever my boast is Jesus Christ. Text this morning that I'm gonna boast in him because he's gonna fight the battle for me. Let's close in prayer, shall we? Oh Heavenly Father, I raise my hands in praise to you, and I pray your blessing on this congregation, on these dear people of yours. Father, may this week we learn to submit to you. May we learn to resist the devil and stand in your strength. May this week we draw near to you and watch you lovingly draw near to us. For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. God bless.

Have a great week in the Lord.