Scripture: James 4:1-10
In reading my daily devotion the other day, I came across this phrase, “Grace is God’s answer to the junk of life.” Grace, the unmerited favor of God, is God’s answer to the junk of life. We don’t earn it, we don’t merit it, we can’t work enough obtain it, God just gives it to us. Life, sisters and brothers is not without junk.
There’s junk mail. I went to the mailbox the other day and more than 75% of the mail in the box was junk mail. Coupons, advertisements, offers, and enticements addressed to you, current resident, or occupant, saying congratulations, open immediately, or pay to the order of – all junk. Junk mail that entices us to spend money that we have or don’t have for things that provide worldly pleasures.
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Then there’s junk food. Junk food is probably the greatest threat to the good health that God has ordained for us. Excessive amounts of calories, carbohydrates, and sugar in junk food are the root causes of many of our health challenges such as obesity, diabetics, high cholesterol, cancer, heart attacks and strokes. Life is not without junk.
And then there’s junk yards – the places where junk cars are taken for salvaged parts after they have outlived their useful lives. The junk yards of our lives are filled with interpersonal relationships that have outlived their useful lives because of negative feelings.
The junk yards of our lives are filled with negative feelings of not being good enough or not being worthy of success or any good thing. They are filled with negative self-criticism, negative self-thought, negative self-talk, fear and phobias.
Junk, sisters and brothers, is in all aspects of our lives. There is junk in our personal and professional lives. There is junk in our private and public lives and there is junk in our physiological and psychological lives.
The junk in our lives cause us to live beneath the privileges of abundant life we have in Jesus Christ. Jesus came, He said in John 10:10, that we might have life and have it more abundantly.
In the text, James addresses the junk in the lives of these first century believers that was causing them to live beneath their privileges in Jesus Christ. Junk caused these first century believers to war and fight among themselves.
In verse 1, James rhetorically asked them, “Where did the wars and fights among them come from? Did it come from their desires for pleasure that war in their members?
“They lust and do not have (v.2a). They murder and covet and cannot obtain (v.2b). They war and fight and have not (v.2c). They have not because they ask not, because they are so consumed by pleasure (v.3).
“Their seeking of worldly pleasure placed them at enmity with God (v.4). Whoever wants to be a friend of the world does so by making an enemy of God (v.4b). The spirit that dwells in them James says, yearns jealously (v.5).
But God gives more grace (v.6).” Grace is God’s answer for the junk of life. God has more grace than life has junk. God, James says, resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (v.6).
So don’t try to earn God’s grace just submit to God’s grace. Let grace happen in your life. Submit to God’s grace, let grace happen, then resist the devil, and he will flee from you (v.7)
James goes on to tell them that if they draw near to God, God will draw near to them (v.8). If they make one step, God will make two. God won’t just meet you piece of the way, or half of the way, God will meet you two thirds of the way.
And then James tells them to cleanse their hands, and purify their hearts (v.8b) by lamenting, by expressing their grief, sorrow and regret, and by mourning with sadness, and by weeping being overwhelming with hatred for putting worldly pleasure before God (v.9).
How many times in 2023 did we put worldly pleasure before God? Our hands are in need of cleansing, and our hearts are in need of purifying by nothing more than lamenting, and mourning, and weeping.
Lastly, James tells them to humble themselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift them up (v.10). “Whoever exalts themselves will be humbled, and whoever humbles themselves will be exalted.” (Matt. 23:12)
To humble ourselves is to acknowledge God as Lord, and to obey Him as our Creator. And when we humble ourselves, God pours out more grace upon us. God pours out grace, upon grace, upon us.
God has more grace than life has junk.
John Newton grew up in Olney, England. The junk in his life was his career searching the African coast for slaves to capture and sell for profit. Profit from the sale of other human beings and the worldly pleasure derived therefrom was the junk in his life. On one of his seafaring journeys, he and his crew encountered a storm that swept some of his crew overboard and others with the likelihood of drowning.
With both of his hands on the wheel of the boat, he cried out to God saying, “Lord have mercy on us.” After eleven hours of steering the ship he and the remainder of his crew made it to land safely. When he made it back home, he got out of the slave trade business and wrote the words to “Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”
The only way we make it home, is by the Grace of God. The good news today is that the junk of life cannot stop us from making it to our heavenly home, because God has more grace than life has junk. Amen!
