SERMON: “Call to Repentance” (James 4:7–10)
“Call to
Repentance” (James 4:7–10)
Series: “James: True Faith Works” #19 Text: James 4:7–10
By: Shaun Marksbury Date:
March
2, 2025
Venue: Living
Water Baptist Church Occasion:
PM Service
I.
Introduction
One of the most
famous examples of repentance in Scripture would be that of King David. Though he was a man after God’s heart, in a
moment of weakness, he fell into grievous sin. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and, to
cover it up, orchestrated the death of her husband, Uriah. For a time, David tried to move on as if
nothing had happened. But then, God sent
the prophet Nathan to confront him.
Nathan told David a
parable about a rich man who stole a poor man’s only lamb. Enraged, David declared that such a man
deserved to die. Nathan pointed directly
at him and say, “You are the man!” (2 Sam. 12:7). David stood condemned.
At that moment,
David could have hardened his heart, excused his actions, or clung to his
throne in pride. But instead, he confessed, “I have sinned” (2 Sam. 12:13). His response wasn’t mere regret over
consequences —he wrote in Psalm 51: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and
renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). His was true repentance.
David’s life
reminds us that repentance is not just feeling bad about sin — it is turning
from sin to God. It is agreeing with Him
about our guilt and casting ourselves upon His mercy. And just as God restored David, He is always
ready to restore those who truly repent.
Repentance is a foundational aspect of the Christian life. It is not merely a one-time event at salvation
but a continual attitude of the believer’s heart before God. The Jewish believers to whom James wrote
struggled with conflicts, pride, and worldly influences, and we similarly need times
of repentance.
James, in this passage, presents a call to repentance in a
series of ten commands, all of which are vital to receiving God’s grace. He presents these imperatives with urgency,
showing that humility and repentance before God are essential for a right
relationship with Him. Just like them,
we need a return to God that involves both internal humility and external
transformation.
So, what does repentance involve? This passage involves ten commands, and this evening,
we’ll sum that into six principles of full repentance. Repentance involves submission to God (v. 7a),
resisting the devil (v. 7b), drawing near to God (v. 8a), cleansing hands and purifying
hearts (v. 8b), being sorrowful over sin (v. 9), and finally, humbling the self
before God (v. 10). Let’s consider the
first of those.
II.
First, Repentance Involves Submission to God (v.
7a)
Submit therefore
to God.
This really is the main command we need to hear when we go astray,
for we have gone astray from God. If you
have an LSB, it reads it as a middle command, “Be subject.” The Greek word for “submit” is a military
term meaning “to line up under.”[1] It signifies a voluntary, conscious decision
to place oneself under God’s authority.
MacArthur lists some ways in which it’s used in the New
Testament. He notes, “Luke uses it of
Jesus’ submission to His parents when He was a boy (Luke 2:51). Paul uses it to indicate a Christian’s
responsibility to human government (Rom. 13:1), of a wife’s responsibility to
her husband (Eph. 5:21–24), and a slave’s to his master (Titus 2:9; cf. 1 Pet.
2:18).”[2] These are images which we can use to consider
ourselves under the rule of God.
This command presupposes that James’s audience was not fully
submitted to God. That much is clear in
the previous six verses of this chapter, which is why James says “therefore”
here. They had allowed pride and
self-will to dominate their lives. But
as 1 Peter 5:6 reminds us, “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand
of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time;” they needed to bring their will
under the alignment of the Lord’s.
Submission is not optional.
Some think that we can become Christian, asking Jesus to save us, only
to later declare Him as Lord. However,
as the Reformation Study Bible says here: “We are under His authority whether
we submit to it or not.” Believer or
unbeliever, we all are under His rule.
So, submission should be the fundamental posture of a true
believer. It means yielding control to
God, obeying His Word, and trusting His will. It involves rejecting self-rule and placing
ourselves under the sovereign authority of the Lord.
This is the first command of this passage and our first
principle.
III.
Second, Repentance Involves Resisting the Devil
(v. 7b)
Resist the devil
and he will flee from you.
Part of submission to God means that we reject those things opposed
to Him, such as the devil and his worldly ways.
To resist means “to take a firm stand against” him. Satan is a defeated foe, though he still actively
seeks to deceive and destroy.
Resisting the devil includes rejecting earthly, devilish
thinking and adopting heavenly wisdom.
That means repenting or turning 180 degrees from your former life. We turn from the royal me to trust in
and submitting under the authority of God.
Believers often fear the enemy, the occult and the powers of
darkness. However, Jesus already
predicted the devil will be cast out (John 12:31). The devil has absolutely “no claim” (ESV) or
“no power” (HCSB) over Jesus (John 14:30).
Jesus is sinless, and through His death He rendered the devil powerless
(Heb. 2:14). The devil might have
bruised Jesus’s heel, but Jesus bruised his head! Because of Christ’s victory, we can resist
the devil, and he will flee.
How do we resist? By
rejecting worldly thinking and standing firm in the truth. Ephesians 6:11 commands us, “Put on the full
armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the
devil.” The Lord provides our needed armor, and with
it, we “able to resist in the evil day” (v. 13). Moreover, there is no need to fear, then, for
“greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). We can have peace knowing that our victory
over his evil is in Jesus Christ! The
attack of the enemy may be imminent, and we must stand our ground, but the Lord
has already promised us victory in Jesus.
Our resistance is not passive — it is an active engagement
in spiritual warfare, standing firm in faith.
Yet, we’re given this word of good news that the devil will flee from
us. The nature of spiritual warfare is
often pictured in the spectacular, casting out demons, but here we see that the
devil flees with simple resistance in the power of the Lord.
This is a necessary part of repentance. As one commentary notes, “Like a magnet, the
call for commitment has both positive and negative poles: submit … to God and resist
the devil. … Take a stand against the devil, and he will flee.”[3] We are following the Lord’s ways when we
consciously turn from the devil’s ways toward Jesus Christ. And that brings us to the next principle:
IV.
Third, Repentance Involves Drawing Near to God
(v. 8a)
Draw near to God
and He will draw near to you.
There is some debate as to the realities of this
passage. Some see the people in these
verses as unbelievers only, and they certainly are living like
unbelievers. The Lord is indeed far from
sinners. Yet, these could also be
believers who are not living in a right relationship with the Lord. So, for some reading this, James might be inviting
them to salvation, but this is also a call for believers to renew their
intimacy with the Lord.
In the Old Testament, drawing near to God was associated
with the priesthood (Exod. 19:22). Yet, James
extends this call to all believers. This
is similar to Hebrews 10:22, which urges, “Let’s approach God with a sincere
heart in full assurance of faith.”
Believers can uniquely approach God because of our relationship wrought
in Jesus Christ.
While believers are never far from God, sin nonetheless creates
distance — not because He moves away, but because we withdraw. For unbelievers, sin creates a complete separation.
Either way, the call to draw near here is
a call to repentance, a call to forsake sin, seek His presence, and restore
broken fellowship.
The good news here is that God will always draw near to
those who come near Him. He never turns
a repentant soul away from Him. He is a God
of great mercy and compassion. Let our
thoughts be as Psalm 73:28 states, “But as for me, the nearness of God is good;
I have made the Lord God my refuge.” He
will be a refuge to us as we draw near.
Still, what does drawing near look like? Is it a flutter of the heart? We see that in the next principle and
commands:
V.
Fourth, Repentance Involves Cleansing Hands and
Purifying Hearts (v. 8b)
Cleanse your
hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
This is strong language for a people who have been
stiff-necked. James’s requirements echo
Psalm 24:4, which says, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” Unfortunately, they have neither, so they need
repentance.
First, he says, “cleanse your hands” or “wash your hands” (NIV). This is more than a sign we would see in the
bathroom! Cleansing hands
represents external actions. There was a
ritualistic element to this in with the Old Testament priests.[4] Here, James calls all believers to have clean
hands or actions.
The other side to this is cleansing the heart. If hands represent our external activities, purifying
the heart refers to correcting internal motives. They had love for the world, so their hearts
needed to be changed. Repentance must
address both the internal and the external.
This is humility — recognizing our hands as filthy, and our hearts
torn between two opinions. When Isaiah
sees the holiness of God, he confesses his unholiness and receive cleansing
(Isa 6:5–8). This also pictures the
first step to bridling the tongue! Our
hands should no longer sin, and our hearts should no longer desire the amiss,
if we only draw near and wash in the river of life.
James punctuates this call with a couple of strong terms. He calls his audience “sinners” — a term
typically reserved for unbelievers.[5] Here, he rebukes professing believers who were
living in worldliness. Their external
lives were tainted by sin, and their hearts were divided in loyalty between God
and the world.
He also calls them double-minded. This may also describe unbelievers, as it
does in James 1:8. They are trying to
live in two worlds, but it is not working.
In fact, the person living in constant sin and duplicity is likely an
unbeliever, so readers of James’s letter should take notice.
Believers still have the capacity for sin and
doublemindedness. Believers could have
wars and fights due to their own selfish desires (vv. 1–2) and can ignore God
(v. 3). They could be adulterous with
God by being friends with the world (v. 4) and proud (vv. 5–6). Thus,
James says to submit to God and to resist the devil (v. 7), something only
Christians can do. He says to draw near
to God, to cleanse their hands and hearts, something only regenerate believers
can do.
Repentance demands both outward and inward transformation. We must confess and forsake sinful actions and
align our hearts fully with Christ. True
repentance leads to holiness in both deed and desire, as we see next.
VI.
Fifth, Repentance Involves Being Sorrowful Over
Sin (v. 9)
Be miserable and
mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into
mourning and your joy to gloom.
Emotions can be complicated.
As Proverbs 14:13 says, “Even in laughter the heart may be in pain, and
the end of joy may be grief.” This verse
is predicated on the fact that emotions are mutable, though; we can change how
we feel based on what we think. When we
are joyous in sin, we should repent and turn back to the Lord.
That’s what we see in this series of imperatives. Incidentally, if you were wondering why there are ten commands in these
verses, but I’m, only giving six principles, note the number of commands
here. These are all about changing our
desires and developing a godly sorrow over sin.
The first is to “be miserable” or “lament” (NKJV). The second is like unto it: “mourn.” In places like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah,
God repeatedly commands His people to weep over the state of their nation. Some of our problems arise from mourning the
wrong things in our lives and ignoring the things we should mourn over (like
our sin). The Jewish leadership would
not have had Jesus crucified if their concerns were God’s concerns.
So, the third command here is to weep or “cry” (LSB). God’s true people should weep over things
that causes God to weep, such as the injustice in this land and the loss of
protections for the innocent.
These imperatives reflect genuine contrition. 2 Corinthians 7:10 distinguishes between
worldly sorrow, which leads to death, and godly sorrow, which produces
repentance. The latter is what James
calls for — true grief over sin.
This does not mean believers must live in perpetual gloom,
but that sin should never be taken lightly. Many today trivialize sin, but
James reminds us that true repentance involves heartfelt sorrow. We see this in
Peter’s response to his denial of Christ—he wept bitterly (Luke 22:62). True
repentance does not brush off sin but grieves over it, leading to
transformation.
Fourth and fifth, he says “let your laughter be turned into
mourning and your joy to gloom.” As people pursue their sinful pleasures, it
will spark laughter and even joy, but Christians should seek to find their
enjoyment elsewhere.[6] There are external indicators for true
repentance. This happens naturally when
people hear the reading of the Law, though the good news of God’s grace is the
answer (Neh. 8:9–10).
We will either change how we approach our lives, or the Lord
will change it. In Luke 6:25, we read, “Woe
to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to
you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.” We need humility before God, bringing us to
the final point:
VII.
Sixth, Repentance Involves Humbling the Self
Before God (v. 10)
Humble yourselves
in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
This final command summarizes the previous ones.[7] Humility is the hallmark of genuine
repentance. The verb means “to make
oneself low.” This follows what James
said in v. 6, “But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it
says, ‘God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ ” Isaiah 6:5 exemplifies this attitude — when
Isaiah saw the Lord, he immediately recognized his own unworthiness. This is ultimately submission to God.
That is repentance, is it not? Instead of pride (which resists God’s
authority), one turns to God in humility.
A repentant person submits and draws near to God in humility.
Humility may be to make oneself low, but God promises
exaltation here. Just as Christ humbled
Himself and was exalted (Phil. 2:8–9), so God lifts up those who bow before
Him. Again, as 1 Peter 5:6 affirms, “Humble
yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper
time.”
VIII.
Conclusion
We see that true repentance is more than an act of penance or
a simple emotional response. It is a
radical turning to God in submission, resistance against sin, and
transformation in both heart and action.
We must continually submit to God, resist the devil, seek His presence,
cleanse our lives, grieve over sin, and humble ourselves before Him. As we do, God promises to draw near, to
cleanse, and ultimately to exalt those who come to Him in humility.
The call to repentance is also a call to restoration. It is a restoration of our relationship with
God and restoration of the joy of salvation. Let us take these words to heart and live
lives marked by true, ongoing repentance.
[1] John MacArthur Jr.,
Ed., The MacArthur Study Bible,
electronic ed., (Nashville, TN: Word Pub., 1997), 1932.
[2] John F. MacArthur
Jr., James, MacArthur New Testament
Commentary, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1998), 204.
[3] J. Ronald Blue, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An
Exposition of the Scriptures, 1985, 2, 830.
[4] A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament,
(Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1933), Jas 4:8.
[5] MacArthur, James,
208.
[6] Earl D. Radmacher,
Ronald Barclay Allen, and H. Wayne House, The
Nelson Study Bible: New King James Version, (Nashville: T. Nelson
Publishers, 1997), Jas 4:9.
[7] MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible, 1933.
