July 27, 2022
Humility Looks Good on Anyone
James 4
Josiah Jones
Central Truth
Humility sets the pace for your relationship with Jesus and others.
Key Verse | James 4:6
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
James 4
Warning Against Worldliness
1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions 1 4:1 Greek pleasures; also verse 3 are at war within you? 2 4:1 Greek in your members 2 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. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! 3 4:4 Or You adulteresses! 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. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. 4 4:11 Or brothers and sisters The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
Boasting About Tomorrow
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Listen to the Podcast
Listen NowDive Deeper | James 4
Recently, I came home stressed from a long day at work to a messy house, no dinner, and hyper kids. I was upset because my expectations weren't met. I was short with my wife and unkind. Not even a second after I responded to my wife poorly, my 3-year-old daughter said, "Daddy, the way you spoke to Mommy was not kind, and you don't let us speak that way." And she was 100% right. I was so humbled in that moment because of how I spoke to my wife and because my 3-year-old called me out. I start there because the cure for evil desires is humility (see Proverbs 16:18-19; 1 Peter 5:5-6).
Pride makes us self-centered and leads us to believe that we deserve all we can see, touch, or imagine. It creates a greedy appetite for things we don't need. We can be released from our self-centered desires by humbling ourselves before God. When we walk in humility, we realize that the world's seductive attractions are cheap substitutes for what God has to offer.
I was in my apartment one night after playing a baseball game when I saw my need for Jesus. I finally understood how my sin was leading to more brokenness. For so long, I compared my life to everyone else (even people in the church). When I did this, I could always find someone "worse" than I, which made me think I wasn't that bad. When I stopped comparing to others and started comparing my life to Jesus, I was truly humbled. I was a sinner in need of God's grace.
Are you in need of God's grace today? Do you realize we all have sinned and fallen short of God's standard—perfection (Romans 3:23). No amount of good works can make us right with God. Our hope for grace is rooted in Christ's performance for us when He died on the cross for our sin and rose again from the dead. Humble yourself, and He will lift you up.
Discussion Questions
1. Think back on a time in your life when you were humbled. What happened? How did it make you feel? What was your response?
2. Why is it so hard to humble yourself before God?
3. What is one specific way you can humble yourself before God today?