James 3:16:

“…where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and ever vile practice.”

We ask ourselves about some chronic sin, ‘why do I keep doing this?’, we look at our churches and say, ‘why don’t we look anything like the faithful depicted in scripture’, we look at our culture and our corporations and wonder, ‘why does that happen?’.

‘That lawsuit is just greedy.’

‘She hit me with her car, why is she yelling?’

‘Why isn’t he there for his kids?’

‘Why can’t he spend even one night without getting drunk and passing out?’

Sin has its roots in our personal and pervasive commitment to our own ambition. From the very first sin beneath that tree, it was only considering ourselves that lead us to neglect God and the purposes he had designed for us. And it continues today in every country, culture, people group, family and individual. Even the church. It is the personal commitment to self and our ambitions that leads to ‘disorder and every vile practice.’

I’ve often spoken to people frustrated by their inability to stop sinning. I sympathize because in so many ways, I suffer the same frustration.

The total message of James, and the frequently overlooked solution, I believe is this: We must see and trust God’s grace, and we must meet that with our own personal commitment to selflessness.

James 1:27:

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans, and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

As we know from the whole of scripture, by trusting God’s grace, we have the power to live a religion undefiled before God, and by our own commitment to selflessness, our actions, by the same grace of God, begin to fall in line with those of God’s desire.

Of course, that is all much easier written that worked. It’s a good thing grace is the much greater part, no matter what it’s contrasted with.

I think that most people at first have a hesitation to be honest about their struggles when speaking to someone they recently met, or that they don’t know well. It makes sense. We’re unsure of their reactions. We don’t know if they will be sympathetic or judgmental. We don’t know if they’ll understand.

Even more so, I think that most of us have that same hesitation with God, but for much deeper reasons. We know of God’s holiness, and even though we hear of and believe in Jesus’ sacrifice, there remains a disconnect. God his holy, we are not.

But just as it is with people, the more we get to know them, and the more they get to know us, the more aware we become of their struggles and imperfections. Most, in time, become sympathetic of our struggles and the judgment from people who we’ve become close to stops being a worry. We can look at them and know they’ll understand. We come to trust their sympathy.

John Piper makes, perhaps, the most intelligent argument for why we can have that same confidence before God, right out the gate.

“On the way to the cross for thirty years, Christ was tempted like every human is tempted. True, he never sinned. But wise people have pointed out that this means his temptations were stronger than ours, not weaker. If a person gives in to temptation, it never reaches its fullest and longest assault. We capitulate while the pressure is still building. But Jesus never did. So he endured the full pressure to the end and never caved. He knows what it is to be tempted with fullest force.”

Humans know the displeasure of failure, and that’s something. But no human understands the full force and weight of temptation to sin—except Jesus. When we sin, Jesus knows, and relates to every ounce of weight we experienced before meeting our failure.

As John Piper continues later, “Jesus feels with us, not against us.”

Before Jesus, in spite of God’s holiness, we are able to come with our struggles and failures. Not only before a gracious God with a legal obligation to pardon us, but with an emotional understanding of what led to our struggle and sin. He gets it. And not only in a cosmic, all-knowing sense, but in a real, “I’ve been there” sense. One that is much more potent than any brother or sister we might have confidence in.

In Romans 8:32, we’re promised to be given “all things”. We know from elsewhere in scripture that this means “all good things”. I think what trips up a lot of Christians when pondering this verse is the difference between perceived good and actual good.

After all, Christians in lots of different places of the word go without bank accounts, cars, safety—even food. How could that be reconciled, except by differentiating between what we think we need and what we actually need.

John Piper comments like this:

What then does it mean that because of Christ’s death for us God will certainly with him graciously give us “all things”? It means that he will give us all things that are good for us. All things that we really need in order to be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29). All things we need in order to attain everlasting joy.

Sometimes what we would define as “good” for us or our spiritual walk is not so. Sometimes an even greater good is not having those things, in the interest of what we might learn, or how we might rely on God for what we do not have. Even safety and food. Some of the most basic needs.

Few truths about God’s behavior and feelings are as encouraging as the ones that reveal the unity of love for the believer by the Trinity. And it’s not so often that we’ll read it written in such a powerful way as in John Piper’s Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die:

Jesus did not wrestle his angry Father to the floor of heaven and take a whip out of his hand. He did not force him to be merciful to humanity. His death was not the begrudging consent of God to be lenient to sinners. No, what Jesus did when he suffered and died was the Father’s idea.

Thanks to Jesus, we are now at ease before every part of Trinity, and each independently—if that distinction is even reasonable. God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit all share the same affection for the believer.

This is something I’ve been thinking about over the past few days. Ephesians 1:19:

“… and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power to ward us who believe, according to the working of his great might.”

This verse is talking about the power exercised for believers in the death and resurrection of Christ. However, it’s a vast under-appreciation of the gravity of the situation to see God’s power primarily or mostly in the death and resurrection.

What I mean by that is there is a collision of facts flowing from that one act of power and sacrifice that should embolden just about anyone who truly appreciates them.

Only a few verses earlier, Paul describes believers as ‘sealed’ with the Holy Spirit. Elsewhere God’s Holy Spirit is described as a ‘deposit’ ensuring our eternal salvation. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in every believer is what I mean to make mention of.

Now, let that truth meld with the reality of God’s immeasurably great power. Let it blend with the truth of God’s ultimate victory over the enemy and sin. Set it with his eternal quality, his omniscience, his sovereignty. Remember that work that Jesus did on the cross—his proven commitment to our joy and satisfaction in him. Now, remember that all of that is literally in you.

Okay, now let out a relieved sigh and go get a drink of water.

Reading in Mark this morning, I came to the place where James and John ask Jesus that when he is in his glory in heaven that he would appoint them to sit on his right and left. Jesus promptly responds saying, “you don’t know what you’re asking.”

Matthew-Henry, in his concise commentary, has a great explanation of this. So, rather than attempting to give my own thoughts, I’m going to share Matthew-Henry’s.

“If Jesus would gratify all our desires, it would soon appear that we desire fame or authority, and are unwilling to taste of his cup, or to have his baptism; and should often be ruined by having our prayers answered. But he loves us, and will only give his people what is good for them.”

It’s a good reminder that when our prayers aren’t answered, it’s because the answer ‘no’ is much better for us than ‘yes’. If we trust him to truly ask in the first place, we must trust him when he says no.

Mark 4:22

“For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light.”

This is a verse that, for me, I always found a bit perplexing. In the economy of human behavior, we hide things so that they will not be found out. In fact, often so that they will never be found out.

But God’s economy works differently. When God hides something, it isn’t so that we will never discover it. While I haven’t nailed down this verse entirely, I hypothesize that man’s readiness is somewhere in view here.

What I mean by that is that while there is truth almost everywhere, as individuals, we’re not always ready to hear or see it. God hides things from us until we, as people on our own personal journeys with the Lord, are ready to understand them.

Every one of us is living in sin. Somehow. Some are living in sin they know about. Others are freed from some sins they once lived in and now live in sins they are yet unaware of. But God knows of these sins and has chosen not to reveal them to us yet. Why? Because we’re not ready yet.

God is gentle and patient. He has a truckload to reveal to us about ourselves and this life, but he isn’t going to dump all of it on people who don’t have the means to carry it yet.