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James 4:10: Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. (NKJV)
In this day and age of self-esteem, self-focus, self-improvement, self-love, self-forgiveness and self-worth any talk of humility and denying yourself is cast off as the old fashioned ramblings of the out of touch religious zealot. It’s a good thing Jesus wasn’t born in the 21st century. Nobody would leave their therapeutic pews long enough to listen to the self-esteem robbing message of the Sermon on the Mount. James wouldn’t get much of a following either.
But way back in those archaic and unenlightened days of the early church, James was very clear about what we need to do cure worldliness and human pride: humble yourself. No, not the self-aggrandizing version that lifts up person up by making them APPEAR humble but the real humility that sees ourselves for what we truly, how weak we truly are, and how prone to evil we truly are. THAT kind of humility, the kind that robs you of your treasured “self esteem” (a term predictably missing from Scripture and easily refuted by the same).
James 4:7-10: Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. (NKJV)
Before we take a look at each part of the passage, let’s be reminded of the context. The book of James is about practical Christian living. He gives no-nonsense advice and instruction on how to be holy, avoid sin and live right. Leading up to this passage, James tells us how pride causes strife, contention and sin which is how the world operates. He moves now directly to the cure for pride: humility.
James 4:7: Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. (NKJV)
Submitting to God is exactly the opposite of human pride. Submission is the essence of humility whether it is submitting to the truth, deferring to another’s preference, accepting our God-given roles or making our desires/will subservient to a greater Truth. Submit to God. That is humility. Humility is the cure for pride. Pride is the root of confusion, contention, discord and strife. If you want to rid yourself of those worldly traits then apply the cure.
Next we see “resist Satan and he’ll run away”. This is an interesting point. Nowhere in Scripture do we find commands to “rebuke Satan”, bind him or constantly address him with arrogant and witty threats to control him. If Satan were affected one bit by every rebuke, declaration or command uttered by Christians “in Jesus Name” he would have been cast into the abyss and destroyed long ago. But we don’t find Scripture telling us to confront or command Satan.
Scripture tells us to resist Satan, and he will find someone else to mess with. God does not give us control over Satan and too many Christian teachers and Pastors mistakenly run around commanding Satan to do this or that, and encouraging the listeners to do the same. Some of it is showmanship, some of it arrogance, some it Biblical illiteracy.
God clearly gives us instruction on what to do when Satan or his henchmen come calling. Resist them, and they will flee. They will run away. How do we resist them? By stomping our feet and using colorful (but arrogant) proclamations like “git on outta here you devil a’for I stomp you real good in Jesus name!!!” No, we resist. What is that? Glad you asked. Jesus answers that for us:
Luke 4:4-12 “it is written…”
I wish I could surprise you with some sensational new Prayer of Jabez or similar fad that will sweep Christianity, but there it is, modeled for us by none of than Jesus Himself. You resist Satan by answering his temptations and accusations with “the Bible says..”, “God’s Word tells us…”, ” the Scripture teaches..”
You see the problem with this simple approach though don’t you (other than it is boring compared to “7 Spiritual Power Laws” or Jesse Duplantis)? You have to know what the Bible says. That means you have to read it, learn it, study it, live it. It’s much simpler to use some positive confession or witty “in Jesus Name” rebukes but those come from our sinful minds not God’s inerrant Word.
Why is Satan even mentioned in this context of pride and humility? Because Satan is the ultimate in pride and hater of humility. He’ll do all he can to inflame your pride which results in quarreling, contention, strife and worldliness. We need to know how to run him and his buddies off when they come calling to our prideful flesh. Answer every temptation and every accusation with “The Bible says…” and Satan will get tuck tail and run. Not because of your authority, your confidence or your courage but because he cannot hope to compete with or defeat the true power of God’s Word.
James starts by telling us to BE humble. Now he tells us HOW:
James 4:8-9: Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. (NKJV)
It’s one thing to tell someone to be humble but that leaves us to figure out how and you know what happens when sinful and deceived humans start trying to figure something out… even something Godly. We ruin it, distort it, falsify it and figure out to do it in such a way as to glorify us. Result: false humility. So James tells us how:
- Draw near to God: prayer, time spent listening for Him, reading His Word
- Cleanse your hands: repent of your sin, recognize it, admit it
- Purify your hearts: commit to no longer sin (“go and sin no more”)
- Lament, mourn, weep: express true remorse for sin, recognize it’s true destruction, believe how offensive sin is to God what His response to it is
When we think on those things it’s hard to be prideful. Rather, it shows us our place, our weakness, our contribution to the misery of mankind because of our own sin. It is the opposite of being prideful (“I’m not that bad, I’m a good person, I’ve done more good than bad”). It is meditation on these Truths that will produce genuine humility
What: be humble. How: think on the things of God listed above. Results:
James 4:10: Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. (NKJV)
God will lift you up. Huh? Isn’t that PRIDE? This is a different kind of “lifted up”. To be lifted up by God is like being rescued, comforted, cradled, refreshed, enlivened, empowered and embraced by someone who cares for us when we have hit rock bottom. We don’t deserve it, we haven’t earned it, we can’t demand it. But in love, God comes along after we have discovered true humility and lifts us up, helping us to discover the glorious riches and eternal worth GOD achieved for us separate and apart from anything we have done, or could do (in fact, it’s DESPITE us).
Like many Christian concepts (first shall be last, the least is greatest, the servant is exalted), we find something very OPPOSITE of the worlds thinking: to be lifted up by God and in God’s eyes, we must completely humble ourselves.
There is a human application of this “lifting up” too. If we humble ourselves, we rid our life of pride which helps us to avoid worldliness, strife and problems with our fellow humans. In that sense, we are “lifted up” in the eyes of others as a person of patience, graciousness, peace and kindness.
Even though James wouldn’t get invited to speak at many of our huge churches where you can have your best life today, I’ll take his counter-cultural and life producing advice any time over the ear-tickling junk spiritual junk food of today.