Serious Sin

revival = renewal or restoration

People are in need of renewal.

James 4:1 ESV

1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?

The cause of the conflict is disordered desires.

James 4:2 ESV

2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.

Desire left unguarded is deadly.

James 4:3-4 ESV

3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Revelation 2:4 ESV

4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

James 4:5-6 ESV

5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

God’s grace abounds even in our adultery.

James 4:7 ESV

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

What do we do with disordered desires?

I. Submit

What do we do with disordered desires?

I. Submit

II. Resist the devil

James 4:8 ESV

8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

What do we do with disordered desires?

I. Submit

II. Resist the devil

III. Draw near to God

As we pursue His presence, His presence pursues us.

What do we do with disordered desires?

I. Submit

II. Resist the devil

III. Draw near to God

IV. Get serious about sin

His presence is found when His glory is sought.

2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV

14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

James 4:9-10 ESV

9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

God’s restoring presence meets us in a place of repentance.

"Never has there been a revival but that some of the people, especially at the beginning, have had such visions of the holiness of God, and the sinfulness of sin, that they have scarcely known what to do with themselves."

- Martin Lloyd-Jones