SJ#292 (Pastor Schaser: Lent - C) James 4:7-10

“Fighting Temptation: The Sin Cycle”

“AGAIN, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD” (Judges 10:6). Do you sense the frustration behind that word AGAIN? No book of the Bible pictures the cyclical nature of the human struggle with sin better than the 300-year period of Israel’s history known as the Judges. The temptations to worship other gods, wealth, pleasure, or people would come and many of the people of Israel would give in to the temptations. God would call the nation of Israel to repentance by using a foreign army to attack Israel and force them to bear arms. After a period of warfare, the nation of Israel would repent. God would forgive them and would send a judge to deliver them from the foreign enemy. This sin cycle repeated itself over and over and over again for 300 years. Ever feel like the book of Judges is an autobiography of your life? “AGAIN, (insert your name) did evil in the eyes of the LORD.” What temptation did you give in to AGAIN two weeks ago? Selfishness? Gossip? Worry? Grumpiness? Impatience? Anger? Revenge? Hatred? Disrespect? Lust? Laziness? Greed? Vulgar words? Sinful Joking? Over indulging with food, drink, work, electronics, entertainment, or something else? The Lord didn’t send a foreign army to call you to repentance, but a guilty conscience, or the feeling of shame and embarrassment, or a person in your life to hold you accountable for your sin. You came last Sunday repentant. You found peace in the reminder of God’s forgiveness. You set out to do better this week. So how did it go? Did you find that you showed up today failing to break the cycle of those same sins AGAIN? We all know the cyclical nature of the human struggle with temptations to sin as the Apostle Paul described it, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature…For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing…What a wretched man I am!” (Romans 7:18- 19,24). Is this just part of life? Should we just be okay with the sin cycle? This is a part of life, but God doesn’t want us to be okay with the sin cycle. The Apostle John reminds us what the goal is for forgiven and saved children of God. “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin” (1 John 2:1). God does not want us to be content with the sin cycle. But we get caught in this cycle so often, “Who will rescue me (us) from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). In other words, is there any hope for breaking the sin cycle? Yes. “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25). Today God offers us help and hope to winning more battles against the sin cycle. James 4:7-10.

7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. This section of James features 10 Aorist Passive Imperative verb forms! Submit, resist, come near, wash, purify, grieve, mourn, wail, change, humble yourself. That may not seem very helpful, but trust me it is. Let me talk you through why those 10 words are the key to breaking the sin cycle in your life!

As we begin, just a disclaimer so that this doesn’t feel like 10 steps to a better you and you feel disappointed at the end. I don’t want to give you false hope that you will never struggle with the sin cycle again in your life. You will. We will all continue to struggle until the day we are in Heaven. That doesn’t change the fact though that God wants us to set the goal for ourselves each day that says, “I’m not going to sin today.” God doesn’t want us to be okay with the sin cycle. He wants us to break that cycle. And while we won’t be able to do that completely while we live on this earth, we can win more battles against the sin cycle. And those 10 Aorist Passive Imperative verb forms are the key to breaking the sin cycle more often.

It all starts with that word “submit” (vs. 7). That word comes from a Greek military term. Military work is serious business. There’s no messing around in the military because it is a matter of freedom and life and death. If we are going to break the sin cycle more often we need to look at it in military terms. It’s a battle. Freedom, not being mastered by sin and its negative consequences is on the line. My eternal life is Heaven is on the line. “Resist, grieve, mourn, wail, change, humble yourselves” (vs. 9-10). We aren’t going to break the sin cycle if we try to justify our sins or act like they are no big deal. We need to take our sinfulness seriously and we need to take this fight against the sin cycle seriously to have success.

Secondly, while it doesn’t stand out in our English translations, note that all 10 of these verb forms are passive. If they were active, it would mean that OUR power is primarily responsible for completing the action of the verb. However, these verbs are passive. That means that we are RECEIVING power to complete the action of those verbs. And note where that power comes from. “Submit yourselves, then, to God” (vs. 7). If we try to fight this battle against the sin cycle alone, we would lose every time. It would be hopeless. We don’t fight alone. “Come near to God and he will come near to you…Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (vs. 8,10). We come near to God as we humbly repent of our sins. We come near to God as we nourish our faith on his Word and Sacrament. We come near to God as we talk to him in prayer. We come near to God every time we gather together with other Christians to encourage each other and hold each other accountable. In those ways God comes near to us and lifts us up to make us better soldiers. He trains us, equips us, empowers us to be better soldiers fighting harder and smarter to break the sin cycle.

Thirdly, each of those 10 verbs forms are Aorist tenses. What that means is that they are trying to show one-time action. As you strive to break the sin cycle, focus on it one battle at a time. Don’t try to fight tomorrow’s, and next week’s, and next year’s sin cycle. If you try to do that you will get overwhelmed and you will give up. Focus on battling TODAY’s sin cycle. Pour your energy into that and see yourself have more success in breaking the sin cycle.

Fourthly, each of those 10 verb forms is an imperative, a command. God is not just suggesting them. God is not saying, “you may or may not want to try these things, but whatever you think is best is fine.” No, God is saying that if you are going to break the sin cycle in your life, and every Christian should be trying to do that, you NEED to submit, resist, come near, wash, purify, grieve, mourn, wail, change, and humble yourself regularly.

With those thoughts in mind, let’s read again James 4:7-10. 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

We’ve been focused on those 10 Aorist Passive Imperative verb forms, but I also want you to focus on 3 future active verb forms underlined above. Notice God’s awesome promise to each of us. When you comply with God’s commands to submit, resist, come near, wash, purify, grieve, mourn, wail, change, and humble yourself – God WILL come near to you and God WILL lift you up and the Devil WILL flee from you. God promises you WILL have success in breaking the sin cycle.

Permit me a final thought. We’ve been focused on breaking the sin cycle more often in our lives. That is a God pleasing task to strive to accomplish. And not only one that will please God, but will allow things to go better for us as we live on this earth. However, as mentioned earlier in this sermon, we are never going to completely break the sin cycle as we live on this earth. We are going to win more daily battles as we follow God’s commands in James 4:7-10, but we are never going to perfectly follow God’s commands here on this earth. What then? What is the help and the hope as I deal with that burden? When that happens, remember what King David says in Psalm 51:17, “a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Remember what God did time and time again for repentant Israel, “Then Israel got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the LORD. And God could bear Israel’s misery no longer.” (Judges 10:16). Remember how the Father treated the repentant Son in our Gospel lesson – he forgave him and showed it by fully reinstating him as his child giving him nice clothing and a ring and throwing a party. If we follow James 4:7-10 we will win more battles against the sin cycle, but we won’t win them all. When we lose a battle, remember that Jesus already won the war for us through his perfect life and innocent death on the cross. Through faith in Jesus as our Savior we are washed and purified and can confidently look forward to being lifted up near God in Heaven for all eternity. That’s God’s promise. Amen