Seek God (Seek #6)

Good morning, and merry day after Christmas. I hope yesterday was wonderful for you, and if you joined us Friday night for Christmas Eve, thank you for coming. I hope it was genuinely meaningful — not just singing some songs and lighting candles, but truly worshiping Jesus and thanking him for coming to earth.

On Christmas Eve we finished up our Advent series, called Seek. And now we are getting ready to move into the new year.

Every year for the past five years, we have started January with 21 Days of Prayer. This year’s theme will be The Upside-Down Kingdom — we are going to look at the Sermon on the Mount and see how Jesus calls us to live upside down compared to the value system of the world around us.

But as we get ready for that, I realized that what we are going to do during those twenty-one days is seek God. So that is what I am calling today’s message. We are going to take our Advent series and use it to launch us into the new year.

Why Do This Again?

This will be our fifth year doing this. And if you have been part of this church for more than a year, you may be thinking what I would be thinking: we have already done 21 Days of Prayer — why again?

Honestly, after the very first time, I was ready to move on to something else. It was our brand new elder team who said we would be wise to do it again. And now it is becoming something of a tradition. I do not know how many years we will keep it up, but right now it seems like the right thing.

And to prepare for it, I do not want to do what most people do at the end of a year. Most people look back. I want us to look ahead — to consider how we can begin the new year the right way, genuinely seeking God from the start.

So today I want to look at why we should do this, and then how.

The Text: James 4

To get at the why, open your Bible to James chapter 4.

Spoiler alert: the book of James was written by a man named James. Shocking, I know. But there are several men by that name in the Bible, and this particular one is the half-brother of Jesus.

We learn in Mark 6 that Jesus had several brothers, and James was the oldest of them — probably only a year or two younger than Jesus.

Now think about growing up in that house. Jesus is the Messiah, the only person who ever lived without sin. So when something went wrong, Mary and Joseph could look at the children and know it was not Jesus.

I imagine there was some jealousy on James’s part. In fact, elsewhere in Scripture we see Jesus’ brothers mocking him, teasing him, and trying to push him into things he was not ready for. James did not particularly respect his brother. He probably thought he was a little unhinged.

And then something changed. James came to believe his half-brother really was the Messiah, the Son of God.

What could possibly have changed his mind?

The resurrection.

James would have seen his brother die on that cross. And then three days later he hears that his brother is alive — and then sees him alive, physically. That alone would be evidence enough. My brother is different. Maybe it is true. Maybe everything my parents told me about his conception and his birth was true. Maybe he really is the Messiah.

So James goes from skeptic to believer. And he becomes one of the key leaders of the early church — after Peter is arrested and escapes prison, Peter’s role recedes somewhat and James rises to lead. You can read a great deal about his leadership in Acts.

What kind of writer he was

James was not prolific like Paul. This letter is his only contribution to the Bible.

He was not like David, waxing eloquent in the Psalms. He was not like Paul, building long, intricate logical arguments.

James writes probably the most practical and applicable book in the Bible. When you read it, it is not only clear and straightforward — it is almost too on point. He gets right in your face. You are about to see some of that.

James 4:6–10

“But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”

There are sentences in there that are genuinely encouraging — the kind you might put on a coffee mug or a t-shirt or post on social media. The kind you quote to yourself when you feel alone or are struggling with temptation.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you — reminding you that if you are in Christ you have the strength to resist. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you — deeply comforting words.

And mixed right in are some genuinely awkward, difficult lines.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. And then: Be wretched and mourn and weep.

What is going on? Did James wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Did he eat some bad fruitcake? Had he not had his coffee yet?

Why He Is So Blunt

He opens chapter 4 with a severe rebuke. Look at verse 1:

“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

James knows that if you believe this gospel — that his half-brother was the Messiah, lived a sinless life, died the sinner’s death on the cross, and rose again on the third day — that message should change you from the inside out. You should begin to live like Jesus lived and love like Jesus loved.

And his readers were not doing that.

They were being extraordinarily selfish, which produced arguments, which produced slander, murdered reputations, gossip, and theft. Their selfishness was generating brokenness.

Thankfully none of that happens anymore

I do not know about you, but I am so grateful we live in an age where that never occurs.

We never have to worry about one political party regarding the other as the spawn of Satan. And how relieving that the other side never returns the favor by treating them as the most evil collection of people ever to walk the earth.

And within Christianity, what a comfort that we never read posts about how terrible one denomination is, or how corrupt another is, or how twisted a third one is. None of that exists at all.

Kids, I am using something called sarcasm.

Because the opposite is true. It is not only you who quarrel on the playground or in the neighborhood or with your siblings. Adults quarrel and fight and take and live selfishly too. And we set ourselves against people who do not think like us, dress like us, talk like us, look like us, or act like us.

So I think if James were writing today, on the edge of a new year, he would not change a word. What he wrote two thousand years ago applies directly to us.

“You Do You”

James points out that all of this brokenness flows from selfishness.

We live in a culture that says: you do you. Be who you were meant to be.

Now, there is some wisdom in that. I should not try to become a professional lineman — at my height and weight it is not going to work. That is not what I was designed for. I was designed to be a pastor. So for me to do me means being who God created me to be: to love, to shepherd, to serve.

But so many people use that phrase as cover for selfishness — as a permission slip for sin, a way of taking. And that leads to the fights and the quarrels, and to painting everyone else as horrible and evil because they are right and it is always their way.

James looks at that and says: no. Do not do you. Be like Jesus.

Do not take the path of selfishness, because selfishness always leads to unhappiness. Take the path of selflessness. Put the needs of others first. And by loving and serving them you will give them great joy — and that joy will come back to you.

But the Path Runs Through the Hard Thing

Which is why he says what he says in verses 7 through 9.

If you cherry-picked those verses out of the Bible, it would sound as though following Jesus should lead to depression — as if being truly holy means looking miserable.

I do not think that is what he means at all. Because notice verse 10: humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

James is trying to rescue his readers from the path the world insists leads to happiness. He is saying: do not seek what you think is best for you. Seek God.

But sometimes the road to God runs through broken ground. It leads to humbling, to mourning, to weeping, to gloom — because we look back and see how selfish we were, how sinful, how much we were hurting people. And that should bring us to a place of brokenness and repentance.

And it is precisely in that place of humility that God exalts us, and we find genuine joy.

That is why James sounds like a street preacher yelling at us to repent and change. He knows that continuing down the path of self only leads to death. He wants to lead us to life.

So: seek God. Submit to him. Draw near to him. And you will be lifted up.

That is why I want you to participate in these twenty-one days.

How to Use These 21 Days

1. Pray

Prayer should be the first thing — after all, we do call it 21 Days of Prayer.

If you know how to talk, you know how to pray. That is all prayer is: talking to God.

You should not approach him flippantly — but you can approach him, because Jesus died on the cross. Scripture says we can approach his throne of grace with confidence. So come. Talk to him. Lift up your needs and the needs of others. Simply begin discussing things with him.

If you want something to guide you, we have devotional booklets available, and you can let the prayer at the end of each day lead you.

There are also blank lines in each day where you can take notes — or write out your prayers. Some people find that writing prayers makes them deeper and more meaningful, because it slows them down and makes them think about what they are saying.

But whether you write them out, use a guided prayer, or simply talk — the point is to pray. Commit to praying every day, and multiple times a day, to connect with God and submit to him.

2. Use the Scriptures

Verse 8 says to draw near to God, and that he will draw near to you.

I believe that in prayer God’s presence is right there with you. But so often it is through the Scriptures that we draw near to him — because God wrote this through his Holy Spirit and human authors precisely to communicate his truth to us. When we submit ourselves and draw near through the Scriptures, we are letting him draw near to us, teach us, and help us understand more of the gospel and what following Jesus looks like.

So get yourself a Bible reading plan. We have several free ones on our website under resources.

If you have one of the devotional booklets, use it — because each day begins with Scripture. The author shares a few paragraphs of his own thoughts, but he does not speak first. He gives you the Scripture first.

3. Fast

I want to encourage all of us together to fast during these days.

Your fast might involve food, which is what fasting most often means. Maybe you give up one type of food — desserts, or ice cream, or something you eat a bit too much of and need to set aside for a time as a reminder that there is something better.

Maybe it is a drink. Maybe you give up caffeine — coffee or energy drinks. Maybe alcohol.

Maybe you give up food entirely for a full twenty-four hours. I would encourage you to pray about fasting for twenty-four hours once a week across the three weeks — pick a Monday, or a Tuesday, and simply do not eat.

Or you could do what one of our elders and his wife did last year: each day they gave up one meal. Some days breakfast, some days lunch, some days dinner. They agreed together in advance what they would give up.

But the point is not the calories

The point is not to reduce your intake so you can lose a few pounds heading into the new year.

The point is to seek God.

We think constantly about food — what we are eating next — and we build our days around it. What we need reminding of is what Jesus said: that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God.

So replace it. When you set aside a meal or a dessert, fill that space with Scripture, or with prayer, or with worship music, or with something that points you to Christ. Give yourself something to turn toward when the craving hits.

And some of you need to fast from something else entirely

Maybe you need to give up your streaming service or social media. Maybe you are too tethered to your phone and need to delete some apps and get down to the essentials.

Do what you need to do to let your laughter turn to mourning and your joy to gloom — not because you are trying to make yourself miserable, but because you are traveling the road back to something better.

“But He Gives More Grace”

Because you have to remember what James says right in the middle of all this.

After the severe words of verses 1 through 5, and before the uncomfortable words of verses 9 and 10, verse 6 says: “But he gives more grace.”

James did not believe his brother was the Messiah while growing up. That is sin. He denied who Jesus actually was. And yet he came to a place of realizing his brother really was the Son of God, surrendered his life to follow him, and found joy in it.

So he has experienced this grace. And I love that it says he gives more grace. Immediately after confronting their sin, he says: but God gives more grace.

In other words, you cannot out-sin the grace of God. It does not matter what you have done or what you are wrestling with now. God’s grace is more than able to forgive you.

But he attaches a warning, quoting Proverbs 3 in the second half of verse 6: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

The reason the people are struggling in verses 1 through 4 is pride. They are making everything about self.

So James says: humble yourself. Submit to God. Draw near to him. And you will be exalted — and you will experience astonishing grace.

What I Want for You

That is what I want for you as we move into this new year: that you would begin the year understanding and experiencing God’s amazing grace.

That you would seek after God. That you would walk this road through fasting, through prayer, through taking in Scripture — so that you arrive at a place of genuine humility, realizing how great God is, how much he loves you, and how much grace he pours over you. And as you feel it and live it and believe it, you will be lifted up.

So may you submit yourself to God. May you resist the devil and know he will flee. May you draw near to God and confidently know he will draw near to you.

May you use these twenty-one days to cleanse your hands and purify your heart. May you let the fasting bring you low. May your laughter turn to mourning and your joy to gloom — so that you will have humbled yourself before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Let Us Pray

Heavenly Father, do this for your glory and for our joy.

Help us not to treat these twenty-one days as just another program — that come Saturday we would not simply do this because it is what our church does, or go through the motions trying to impress you. Let us genuinely seek you and make you the priority of our lives.

Forgive us for our selfishness. Forgive us for the ways we try to make life all about self.

Help us give some things up during these days so that we get you — because you give more grace. Help us to live in that grace, to find joy through that grace, and to be compelled to go and be a blessing because of that grace.

Help us start this year on the right foot and in the right way, for your glory and for our joy. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Come to the Table

As we move into communion, we are declaring that our purpose for this coming year is found in Christ and in the hope he provides — that we get to trust him with this new year, that we get to fast in a way that focuses us on him, and that we get to pray to him knowing he hears.

So as we come, we place our dependence on him and surrender everything to him.

The bread represents the body of Christ, which went to the cross where we should have been — he took our place. The cup represents his blood, shed for our sins, so that we are washed clean, our sins washed away, and we come to know him, reconciled in relationship to our Father, redeemed from sin and into a new, born-again life in Christ — empowered by the Holy Spirit to live and love as Jesus has called us to.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for the work you have done: that you came to go in our place, that you lived perfectly and sinlessly, that you would die the death of a sinner and exchange your grace for our sin, so that we could be born again and made new — and that you rose again, so our hope rests not only in your sacrifice on the cross but in your coming back to life, and in the life we now have in you. Help us as we go forward. In your name we pray, amen.

So go and be a blessing. Go and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.