By: Rev. Eric Hancox
“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you” (James 4:10).
How should the church prepare for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ? How should God’s people be preparing and helping one another to prepare to stand before our King?
All of this, of course, is really just to ask: How should we live this thing called the Christian life, as we look with longing for the day when we’ll see our Savior face to face? And living the Christian life is something about which James has much to say. Yet, as many as his words may be, they can really be distilled down into one very simple word that describes an attitude, which will naturally shape the way we think about our God, ourselves, and our relations to others in this world. It is the word humility.
Humility is to describe the Christian as we daily live in light of the reality that we’ll soon be called to give an account to the Son of God, who humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross for us. And, to the end that we might understand what it looks like to have a heart and life defined by humility, from chapter 3 verse 13 to chapter 4 verse 17, James explains four very practical ways in which a posture of humility should be manifest in us, and in our lives.
Position
First, James says we should have humility with regard to our position in this world. To put it negatively, we shouldn’t spend our energy arrogantly jockeying for position and power for ourselves in this world (vv.14-16). We shouldn’t be living as if life is all about growing a bigger church, or advancing in the workplace, or gaining people’s recognition. The world will tell you this is the way to be, but James says it is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. Instead, he tells us, we should display humility by a life filled with good works (vv.13, 17-18). Instead of, ‘Fight your way to the top! make a name for yourself!’ he says, ‘Live in a holy and peaceable way. Be gentle and sensible. Be willing to listen to sound reasoning. Be compassionate and forgiving, as Christ has been with you. Do good.’ It is weak and foolish according to those who know how to get ahead in the world. But, for the Christian, whose treasure is in heaven, and whose Lord is Christ, this is the way of true wisdom.
Of course, living like this requires something, doesn’t it? It requires us to not only know, but actually trust the Lord when He says we’ll reap in due season if we press on in this way of humbly doing good and don’t give up. It requires us to take the long view of things, and to believe our God when He says our humble labor and patient waiting will be worth it. It requires us to believe that, having lived a humble, Christ-like life, we’ll be vindicated and made to share in a rich inheritance when Christ comes in His glory. It is the reward Christ calls us to pursue. And, to this end, we’re to have with humility with regard to our position in this world.
Possessions
To which James adds a second call to likewise maintain humility with regard to our possessions in this world. Put another way, we shouldn’t spend our lives selfishly coveting more and more things and pleasures for ourselves (Jas 4:1-2). This is the way of most of the world, isn’t it? Holding before us images of beautiful people with nice things, with the suggestion that your life would be better if you were like them. And we’re too easily ensnared by it, aren’t we? Seeing that thing and desiring it. Convincing ourselves that we don’t just want it, we need it. And soon, if unchecked, doing whatever it takes to get what we desire. But, as citizens of a heavenly kingdom, James is warning us that we’re not to spend our lives selfishly coveting more and more for ourselves. Instead, as he goes on, he says we should humbly aim to please the Lord with what He gives (Jas 4:2-5). Do you see the contrast? We’re not to love this world or the things of this world, which James says is enmity with God, but to love the Lord and use what we have to bring Him glory, knowing our real treasure is safe with Him. The Holy Spirit within us, we’re told, yearns jealously for this, for our single-minded commitment to living for our Savior.
It is the way we need to learn to think about our possession, holding them loosely as a people who already have more than we could ever dream, guaranteed and kept for us in heaven. Not only will this serve to show the world around us what a treasure we’ve found in Christ, but we ourselves will repeatedly discover that Jesus and His fellowship are far sweeter and more satisfying than all the stuff in the world. And so, we’ll be made to long more fervently for that day when our enjoyment of His fellowship will be made complete. It is how Christ lived. He often had no place to lay His head. He suffered greatly. He willingly endured terrific hardship, because He was looking to the joy that was set before Him. And it is how He calls us to live as well. We’re to have with regard to our possessions in this world.
Other People
Third, James teaches, the people of the Lord should be marked by humility with regard to other people in this world. As those who must one day stand before the Lord, he writes, we shouldn’t go around slandering and proudly judging one another, and thereby judging the Law of God (Jas 4:11). It isn’t, of course, that there is never a time for pointing out and correcting sin in another person’s life. Rather, the point James is making is that we must be ever mindful that we have ‘logs’ of sin in our own eyes that need to be confessed and repented of if we would approach others with humility, rather than harshly judging and condemning them. By which, James says, he is really warning us that we’re not to proudly judge the Law of God (Jas 4:11). Because, when we judge one another with a proud spirit, we effectively pronounce a judgment on God’s law that says, ‘It isn’t a high enough standard to convict this person, so I’ll do it.’ It ought to go without saying that this is very dangerous ground. This we’re not to do. Rather, James implies, we should humbly judge ourselves before the Lord, who is the true Lawgiver and Judge (Jas 4:12).
It is, we must always remember, the Lord Jesus who will sit on the great white throne in the coming day of judgment, not you or me. It may seem like an obvious thing to point out. Yet, apparently, we’re prone to forget it when someone else shows that they also have remaining sin in them. How quickly we transition from sinner saved by grace to judge who knows no mercy! But how foolish we’ll look if Christ comes and casts His great shadow over us as we look down on one another with proud spirits that know how to condemn, but not how to overlook a fault. It is a necessary reminder then, as we wait for the appearing of the Judge of all the earth, that we’re to maintain humility with regard to other people in this world.
Our Plans
To this James then adds his fourth and final lesson, calling us to humility with regard to our plans in this world. He tells us that we shouldn’t boast about our plans for the future (Jas 4:13-14). We’re not to fixate on our five-year plan for the church, or the next business deal, or the next vacation, or retirement, when we don’t know if we’ll enjoy any of those things. To do so, rather than focusing on praising and serving the Lord right where He has us today, is an insult to His Lordship. It is to think and behave as if our uncertain plans for the future are better and more worthy of our attention than His perfect call to live for Him right where He has us at present. It is to forget that when we stand before Him, we’re not going to give an account of all the great things we had hoped to do one day, but of the things we actually did with the days He gave. So, rather than boasting of the future, James says, we should humbly remember that each day is a gift to be used to serve the Lord right here, right now (Jas 4:15-16). Verse 15, in particular, is the language of a person who knows Who holds every tomorrow in His hands: “If the Lord wills.” It is the language of someone who lives with reference to Christ’s Lordship, humbly submitting all our plans to Him, even as He fervently prayed to His Father, and then said, “not My will, but Yours, be done” (Lk 22:42).
Taken in sum, James is describing a beautiful, Christ-like life. And it all begins with seeing ourselves rightly before the Lord, of whom we’re told, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (Jas 4:6). This is essentially what James writes in verses 7-10 of chapter 4, saying to humble yourself get down on your knees. Draw near to the Lord and confess your foolish pride. Grieve that you could have ever thought life was all about you and your position and your possessions and your plans, when the Son of God lowered Himself and died on a cross to save you. And this, not so that you could do whatever you want, but so that you could heed His call to take up your cross daily and follow Him.
That, people of God, is how you’re to live so as to be found ready for the return of Christ. Humble yourself before the Lord, trusting that, at the proper time, He will exalt you (Jas 4:10). He will make you to shine like the sun as He lifts your head and speaks those sweetest of words, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt 25:21, 23). That is the exaltation we’re to seek – the great reversal, the lifting up of the lowly in the day of Christ’s return. And, if you would seek and share in it, then James has told you the way in a single word: humility.
Rev. Eric Hancox is the pastor of Covenant of Grace ARP Church in Winston-Salem, NC. He is a graduate of RTS-Charlotte. He and his wife, Laura, have four children.
Jesus has been ministering in Galilee, but he now sets his face toward Jerusalem, where the cross awaits. It is time for his disciples to learn about the true nature of his mission as the Messiah and about what is required of those who want to be his followers. Emphasizing the human aspect of his mission by speaking of himself specifically as the Son of Man, Jesus asks them first who the people say that he is (8:27). We learn from the response that the people seem to be willing to view him as a forerunner of the Messiah but not as the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed divine Son of God (8:28). Jesus then asks them who they say that he is, and Peter makes the Good Confession, declaring Jesus to be the Christ (8:29). After commanding his disciples not to reveal his true identity (8:30), no doubt because any public claim by him to be the Messiah would be seriously misunderstood by both his disciples and the authorities, Jesus begins to teach them about the true nature of his mission, informing them that it is necessary for him to suffer, be rejected by the leadership of the Jewish people, be put to death, and be raised from the dead (8:31-32). This teaching is necessary so that the disciples can begin to understand that the events they will witness in Jerusalem have to take place because those events are all part of God’s sovereign plan to accomplish the redemption of his people.
Jesus willingly embraces his mission as the Suffering Servant. Peter, however, speaks for all of the disciples when he rebukes Jesus for speaking of his coming suffering and death (8:32), which are at variance with prevailing notions. This shows us that, despite scripture passages such as Isaiah 52:13-53:12 that foretell both the suffering and the triumph of the Messiah, neither those closest to Jesus nor the rest of the Jewish people can believe that such calamities can befall their Messiah. Jesus’s rebuke of Peter indicates clearly that he will not be persuaded to forsake his mission (8:33).
Jesus next begins to teach his disciples and the crowd following him what is required of those who want to be his disciples: His disciples must deny themselves, take up their individual cross, and follow in his footsteps (8:34-9:1). The idea of self-denial reflects the New Testament teaching on personal transformation. Jesus brings each of us new life. He makes possible an inner transformation that enables us to grow in likeness to himself, as Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” As Jesus works within us, we learn to reject the desires and motives that arise from our old nature. We turn away from them and commit ourselves to live by the will of God. In taking daily steps of obedience, we deny ourselves and choose instead the higher path, and, in doing so, we find ourselves being renewed daily. While the way of the cross involves the difficulties and persecutions that come with following Jesus in the way of righteousness, the reward is eternal life—eternal fellowship with God himself in the coming Kingdom. This is made clear by John in Revelation 21:7-8a: “He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters, and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.”
As we prepare to celebrate the Resurrection of God’s Anointed One, we need to recognize that the cross was central to Jesus’s mission as the Son of Man and the Messiah and be ever mindful of the griefs he had to suffer and the sorrows he had to bear to reconcile us to God. We also need to recognize, even as we give thanks that we need no longer fear the grave because Jesus has been raised from the dead, that we as Christians are called to take up our cross and follow him. As we follow Jesus in the way of the cross, we grow in likeness to him and are more and more made ready for the time when he returns in glory to establish the Heavenly Kingdom.
Dr. Rob Roy McGregor III is Professor of Economics at UNC Charlotte and an elder at Back Creek ARP Church in Charlotte, NC.