Lord, I'm the One

If you do have your Bibles or your phones, go ahead and open your Bible or pull out your phone. Get to James chapter 4. James chapter 4. I've already read the Scriptures to you that will be the focus of our passage today. We began our service this morning singing a song saying, "Lord, revive us again." Revive us again. The word "revival" — what do you think that means? The word "revival." Is that a word for unbelievers, or is that a word for believers? It's a word for believers. "Viva" — the part of that word "revival," "vive" means life. And to revive is to renew life again.

And so for a person who's lost and spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, what they need is not revival — what they need is new birth, life. But for the believer, periodically from time to time, we need to experience revival. Would you agree with that?

One evangelist from yesteryear — from, I believe, the 19th century — he defined revival this way. He said, "Revival is a new beginning of obedience to God."

Another evangelist from the late 19th century, early 20th century, his name was Rodney "Gypsy" Smith. He was an acquaintance and a companion with G. Campbell Morgan and H.A. Ironside. Some of you may have those commentaries in your library if you keep such things. He said this about revival. He said, "If you want to have a personal revival, draw a circle, step into that circle, and say, 'Lord, send a revival and let it begin in this circle.'"

Have you been guilty of going to church and listening to a message and thinking, "Boy, I wish old Billy Bob was here. This is exactly what he needs to hear"?

I mean, we're good at that sometimes, aren't we? We can just sit there and go through a Rolodex all through the message. "Well, that's for Bill, and that's for Bob, and that's for Tom" — and yet not apply God's Word to ourselves. When I was about a six or seven-year-old boy in Sarasota, Florida, my father was pastor down there at Southside Baptist Church. Teresa was a member at Southside Baptist Church. And we had what we called a revival meeting. Now, sometimes we weren't completely sound in characterizing things as revival meetings, because really it was an evangelistic outreach preaching the gospel to the lost, but we called it a revival meeting. And we had a well-known revivalist come down there, and there was a song leader that was very well-known back in the '70s. In fact, he often led corporate worship at the Southern Baptist Convention. He's from Texas. His name is John McKay. And here's an album that we got down there in 1973–74 or so, after that revival service, from John McKay.

Now, I have a test for our children here. If you're under the age of 14, raise your hand.

Okay. Now, you all know what MP3 or MP4 music is? I see some nods. I don't.

That's apparently what's current out there, MP4 or MP3. How about compact discs?

All right, some folks are familiar with that. Remember cassette tapes?

Remember eight-track tapes?

When Melissa and I started dating, I had my mustard-colored Toyota Corolla. I had an eight-track tape, and we would pop them in there, and we'd hit town, wouldn't we?

Some of it was secular music, I must confess. Eight-track tapes. Remember those? But you know, before those modern eight-track tapes, you know what we had?

We had these things. These things called albums, a vinyl album. And this is a vinyl album of John McKay. And when I was a little boy, six or seven years old, I would hear this played in my home, and there were a couple of songs in there that I liked so much, I ended up singing them in church as a solo. One of those was "Lord, I'm the One."

"Lord, I'm the One." And I'm going to spare you singing this morning. But the lyrics begin like this. It says, "Lord, I'm the One.

Lord, I'm the One.

I'm the One who needs revival. I'm the One, I'm the One. No, it's not the man next door. Oh, Lord, I need it more."

And I forgot —

"I'm the One who needs revival." Then it says, "I thought one day about the man next door and all the sins he had, and I remember feeling good that I was not that bad. And then the Holy Spirit came and showed me all my sins, and told me that if I got right, revival would begin."

This morning, Jimmy and Joanna just sang about God's grace — "grace, God's grace, greater than all of our sins." Have you experienced God's saving grace?

Look at verse 6, because this kind of lays the groundwork for the imperatives that we're going to read in verses 7 through 10. It says, "But He giveth more grace. Wherefore He saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." You see, that begins with "He giveth grace."

If we have received the gift of God's grace and salvation, then as His people we need to also receive the "therefores" that He gives us. God gives us certain commandments, certain imperatives, that if we will heed and live by, we will experience joy in our Christian walk and victory over sin.

And so this morning as we look at this matter of personal revival, I would ask you to do this — and me as well — heed the words of old Rodney "Gypsy" Smith. That was his nickname, Gypsy Smith. Draw a circle, step into that circle, and say, "Lord, send a revival and let it begin in this circle."

Now let's begin with a series of imperatives. We're going to walk through verse 7. Let me put my record up. I was going to play it for you and I talked it over with Melissa and she said, "Yeah, just tell them the lyrics." All right, I blamed you, Melissa.

All right, so we begin in verse 7. What is the very first imperative if we're going to experience revival? It is this: submit to God.

That's where it all begins — submit to God. Now that's not the message of the world, is it?

The message of the world is, "Assert yourself."

But the message from the Scriptures to God's people is this: submit to the Lord. "Submit yourselves therefore to God." In the Greek language, that word was very often employed as a military term. How many of you have enlisted in the military in the past?

Few of you, all right. Now when you enlist in the military, you are voluntarily putting yourselves under the authority of another, aren't you?

And so when we submit therefore to God, what we are saying is, I am going to put myself under the authority of God. In other words, I have to decide — even though I'm a professing Christian — am I going to live my life to please myself, or am I going to live my life to please God?

We have to make that decision. We did respond to God's gospel call. But periodically as Christians, we need to reaffirm and renew that we are going to submit our lives to the Lord. Do you agree?

Listen to Romans chapter 12. We talked about this in Sunday school this morning, Brother Ken. Romans 12:1 says this — after Paul has extolled God's salvation, justification by faith, in those first nine or ten chapters, in verse 1 of chapter 12 he begins the application. He says, "Therefore I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

When he says, "Present your bodies a living sacrifice,"

that is in a very definite tense. It is a decisive statement — presenting myself to the Lord.

That's what we ought to do daily. Daily. Perhaps in the morning, begin that morning with Bible study and prayer, and daily submit ourselves to the Lord. It's the language of offering. You know, in the Old Testament, the priests, when they would put an animal sacrifice on the altar, they would have a utensil — a pronged utensil, a fork — and it was called a flesh hook. Because what would happen is, as the fire would burn and begin to consume the animal — not to get too graphic — it would sometimes start to slide, slide over to the edge of the altar.

And what the priest would do is he would take the flesh hook and put that sacrifice right back into the center of the flame.

You see the metaphor there?

Revival for you and me might just mean to reaffirm, reaffirm my submission to the Lord — to put ourselves back in the center of His flame. "Lord, I submit myself to You and to Your Word."

That's the first imperative. And so if you're taking an outline, the first imperative, or the first call to personal revival, would be this: the position of submission.

Now the next imperative — look at your Bible there. The next imperative is really under this umbrella, I would say. If we're going to submit to the Lord, you know what else we're going to do? We're going to resist the devil. Look what it says in verse 7. It says, "Resist the devil and he will" — what? — "he will flee from you." Resist the devil. In other words, if I'm going to submit to God, I'm going to counteract the devil's presence.

There are many words in the New Testament that are used for the devil, for our enemy, the adversary. The Greek word that's used here is the word diabolos.

And it means the slanderer.

If we're a believer, the devil will attack us. He will come slashing and slandering at us.

I mean, he attacked the Lord.

Who of you thinks you're so spiritual that if he attacked the Lord, he's not going to attack me? And so we have an adversary, the slanderer, diabolos, and he will attack us. And let me ask you, when is the devil most likely to attack us?

He's unpredictable, for sure.

But there's a good biblical case to suggest that he's going to attack us as soon as we say, "I'm going to submit myself to God."

Right at that point of commitment —

"I'm going to teach a Sunday school class.

I'm going to be committed to my church. I'm going to submit to the Lord." Right at that point of submission, that's where you can fully expect the devil to attack. That's his modus operandi.

Remember the Lord Jesus in Matthew — I believe it's chapter 3. It was His baptism, the commencement of His ministry.

And you talk about a spiritual high. It says, "The heavens opened and the Spirit of God descended like a dove." And what did the Spirit say? What did God say? "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."

And then chapter 4, what happens?

The Bible says the Holy Spirit led the Lord into the wilderness, and that's where Satan's temptations took place. Three times the devil begins to attack the Lord right at the beginning of His calling, right at the beginning of His ministry. Right after God the Father has said, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" — that's when Satan begins to attack.

And the nice thing is, we see in Jesus' example how it is that we resist the devil. There are a few ingredients to the way that Jesus resisted the devil. First, it says in the very first verse of chapter 4, "He went into the wilderness in the power of the Holy Spirit."

He also spent 40 days fasting and praying.

And then when the devil tempted Him — three times — what did He say?

"It is written, it is written, it is written."

And so in the Lord's response, we have the ingredients for resisting the devil. Fill our heart and mind with the Word of God.

Ask for the Holy Spirit's power, spend time in prayer. That's a good way to start your morning every day — with the Word of God.

I've got a semi-office where that takes place every morning.

All right. Starting with the Word of God. But resist the devil. Now if God tells us to resist the devil, that tells you that he's going to attack, right? The Lord wouldn't tell us to resist if there was no threat. You know what it also means? It also means that the devil is not irresistible.

The Lord wouldn't tell us to resist the devil if he were irresistible. Now, some of you out there — I won't call any names — some of you might just be old enough to remember an old show by Flip Wilson.

Flip Wilson — I think it was on a Saturday night. I was just a really little fellow when that came on television. But Flip Wilson had a couple of little lines he would say, and one of them was what? "The devil made me do it." He'd say, "The devil made me do it."

And that's not theologically sound, because if you're a believer in Christ, the devil can't make you do anything that you're not willing to do, right?

He can tempt you, but greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world. And so we can have victory. And this word here — it means to take your stand against the devil. It is a defensive word. It is a defensive word against the devil. In Ephesians 6:13 — I believe we read this last week — listen to the Scripture. "Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand."

1 Peter 5:8–9 describes how the devil attacks us. It says, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." He's looking across Beulah Baptist, "seeking whom he may devour.

Whom resist, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world."

And so the first imperative, if we are to have personal revival, is submit to the Lord. Reaffirm our submission to the Lord — that we're going to live under His lordship, live to please Him and not myself. Part of that is resisting, counteracting the devil's presence in our life, resisting him through the power of the Spirit, through prayer, and having our heart filled with the Word of God.

Now let's look at the next command, all right? This too, I believe, you can put under the umbrella of submission.

It says, "Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you." And then in verse 8, it says, "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you."

So we counteract the devil's presence, and we cultivate the Lord's presence.

We cultivate the Lord's presence. This word — "draw nigh to God" —

it has a direct Hebrew equivalent in the Old Testament. "Drawing nigh to God" was the language that spoke about priests who were going into the temple.

For example, going into the Holy of Holies.

That's what the language means: "draw nigh to God." It's the language that was used for the priests in the Old Testament, and now in the New Testament we have the same basic type of language telling you and me, as believers in Christ, to draw nigh to God. Now, how can we do that? Little old me, little old you — and we can, like an Old Testament priest, enter into the very presence of God? Yes, we can.

In fact, the Bible says in Revelation that He has made us priests and kings to God.

I'm looking at Priest McDermott.

Priest Doug, Priestess Teresa. Is that okay to use that word? Priestess Teresa. We're priests. It means that you and I can go into the very presence of God. How can we do that? Because when Jesus died on the cross, the Bible describes that God tore the temple veil in two, and we can go into the very presence of the Lord because of the blood of Christ Jesus. In fact, there's a verse in Ephesians that says, "We who once were far off have now been drawn near to the Lord."

All right, so drawing nigh to the Lord. Now, there's a sense in which we are always close to the Lord, isn't there?

In Acts 17 — I believe it's verse 27 — it says,

"That they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any of us." Acts says right there, "The Lord is not far from any of us." And then in Ephesians 2:13, it says, "Now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." And so there's a sense in which as believers, we are always close to the Lord. And that's because of our position in Christ.

In Christ, I am close to God. In Christ, I am close to the Lord. And yet there is another sense in which we are called upon to draw nigh to the Lord, to cultivate His presence in our lives. Draw nigh to the Lord. What a privilege. There used to be a bumper sticker — I think I've got it right — but it basically said, "If you're not as close to the Lord as you used to be, guess who moved?"

Right? We know the Lord doesn't move. He's steadfast and immovable.

But we can move.

Now what is the strategy for drawing near to the Lord?

It's an interesting thing that it is the very same strategy that counteracts the presence of the devil.

Listen to the Scriptures.

"The Lord is nigh unto all that call upon Him,

to all that call upon Him in truth."

You get that? The Lord is near — that is, close — to all who call upon Him. Prayer. And to all that call upon Him in truth. Scripture.

The same thing that counteracts the devil's presence will cultivate the Lord's presence. In Zechariah we have the same promise in the Old Testament. It says, "Therefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Turn ye unto me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the Lord of hosts."

You know, there's a term for God the Father in the New Testament. It's the term "Abba."

And we must have a balanced view of God. There are many words for God that describe different aspects of His nature and who He is. But this word "Abba" — it can be translated "Daddy."

And it speaks of the intimacy that we as children of God can have with Him.

Do you remember when you were a little girl or a little boy and you would sometimes crawl up into your mother's or father's lap?

Yeah, that's the intimacy of a child to the parent.

We ought to have that mindset in terms of drawing close to our Heavenly Father who loves us and has blessed us with His grace. Draw nigh unto God. Are you drawing nigh unto God? Are you cultivating His presence through consistent Bible study, through prayer?

This is the third imperative, all under this idea of submission — submitting to the Lord.

Some of us, that's it right there.

That's what we need to obey.

To reaffirm today our submission to the Lord. Stop playing games and just submit to Him.

Resist the devil and cultivate His presence. Well, let's move on now to the second section here of personal revival. If the first section deals with submission,

the second section deals with purification. If I wanted to make it rhyme, I would say the first one has to do with submission, and this section deals with contrition. All right, but it's more than contrition — that's why I don't want to say just that. Contrition is, of course, feeling sorrow over sin. But let's read now in verse 8. "Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you." And then listen to verse 8 continuing and into verse 9. It says, "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness." Here we have a series of statements — bam, bam, bam — that are basically talking about the same subject matter, and it's the subject matter of dealing with sin in our lives.

And what the Word is clearly telling us is that we can't expect to be near to God and have personal revival in our lives while holding sin in one hand and pursuing that in the other. He says, "You must deal with your sin."

And the first truth that He talks about is that we must deal with our sin thoroughly. Notice He says, "Hands and heart." He says, "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts."

Hands and hearts.

In athletics, I was blessed to coach my son from the time he was in T-ball until high school through the 12th grade. I was able to coach his little Christian school team in Kissimmee. And from the time he was just a little fellow, I would always tell him to keep his eye on the ball. I said, "Son, see the ball hit the bat. See the ball hit the bat." Because we're talking there about what? Hand-eye coordination.

And yesterday we saw our grandson, seven years old, and we were saying, "Keep your eye on the ball, Jacob." Well, here spiritually speaking, what do we have? We have heart-hand coordination.

Hands — those are the outward things we do. Those are our deeds. Those are our actions. Heart — those are our attitudes. Those are the motives for why we do what we do.

And when it comes to this matter of dealing with sin, God's Word is telling us that we must deal with it thoroughly — not just our hands, that's legalism, but also our hearts. Ask God's Spirit to do a work down in our hearts. The Bible says in another place, "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of the heart are the issues of life."

Jesus said it's not what goes into a man's body that defiles him, it's what comes out of his heart.

We do what we do because we are what we are.

And so the call here is to deal with sin and to deal with it thoroughly. Hands and hearts. Listen to the psalmist. Psalm 24: "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy place?" You can finish it for me. "He that hath clean hands and a pure heart."

The word "cleansing" there is an interesting word. He says, "Cleanse your hands."

This too goes back to the temple. This too goes back to the priests. The priests, when they would go into the temple, had to have a thorough washing.

They had to be clean when they went into the temple. And like many things in the Old Testament, so many of the things that we read about there are pictures to convey to us a spiritual truth.

And the spiritual truth being portrayed for us — the priest washing before he goes into the presence — is that if you and I want to have that personal revival, if we want to go into the Lord's presence and stay close to Him, we have to be clean.

We're kidding ourselves if we think we can do both at the same time.

Do my own thing and sin as I please, and have a close walk with the Lord in His presence and have joy in my walk.

All right. There must be a cleansing, and it must be thorough. Hands and hearts. Notice the second aspect of this purification. Not only does he say we must deal with our sin thoroughly, but we must deal with our sin seriously.

Going back to the Word, it says, "Be afflicted, mourn, weep,

let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness."

Those aren't real happy words, are they?

Those aren't words that most modern churchgoers want to hear, quite frankly.

In fact, that's not a message you hear from many of the popular TV folks.

And you know, this isn't teaching that Christians are supposed to be sourpusses.

We can get that way, can't we?

All right. No, we can have a sense of humor. We can cut up. I love pulling pranks — Melissa could share that and give affirmation to that. There's nothing wrong with having a sense of humor, having a good time. But you know, in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, it says, "There is a time to weep and there is a time to laugh."

And here he's dealing with the issue of us dealing with our sin. And he's saying our sin is no joking matter, our sin is no laughing matter. And so he piles these words upon each other. He's basically saying, "Hit rock bottom and cry your eyes out over your sin." It's our sin that nailed Jesus to the cross.

Do you remember King David? It's recorded for us how he committed adultery with Bathsheba. And then in an effort to cover it up, he killed Uriah the Hittite — manslaughter at best, probably murder.

And he carried that around with him for a long time.

And then Nathan the prophet came to David and gave him an illustration about a man who had treated someone horribly in his family. And David became angry. And what did Nathan say? He says, "You are the man."

And in that moment, all of the guilt —

all of the guilt began to flood David's soul. And that's what gave us Psalm 51.

And he cried out to God. What did he say? He said, "Wash me."

Because he felt the dirt.

He said, "Cleanse me and purge me with hyssop."

That's because he felt that his sin was a disease. It was permeating everything.

And so he cried out to God for a cleansing.

And you know what? That's what restored the joy of his salvation. When you read through that Psalm, that's when the happy time comes, that's when the joy time comes — not when we're trying to live in both lanes, but when we come clean and seek God's forgiveness for our sin. And so we must take it seriously. And King David is a wonderful example of that.

I think a lot of times many of the sourpusses in church —

it's because they're not dealing with this.

Now, it may just be your manner, like me.

Some of us are more stoic than others, aren't we?

But this is a call to revival, and it is a call to submit to God. It's a call to resist the devil. It's a call to cultivate God's presence. And then it's a call to deal with our sins thoroughly and seriously. Our sin is no joking matter, is it?

Now, let's go to verse 10, the last verse here in our Scriptures. Verse 10 says this:

"Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up."

"Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord." The Greek word there is one word for "humble yourselves." And this morning I made — listen to the pronunciation right — it is pronounced...

I may get it wrong.

It's a Greek word pronounced tapeinoo. And it means to make low. And in the context here, talking about us before God, it means to make low. Not in the false sense, not in the sham sense that we sometimes do — you know, where we criticize ourselves or put ourselves down, sometimes for the very purpose of drawing a compliment from another, right?

But it is a genuine acknowledgment and realization of how hopelessly lost I am, if I'm lost, or how desperately I need revival — to come clean before the Lord.

And so it means to make low. It's what Isaiah the prophet did — he cried out when he got a glimpse of the Lord. In Isaiah 6:5 he said — and I believe Caleb might have preached on this — "Then said I, 'Woe is me! for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.

My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.'"

That was that throne room vision. And when he saw the Lord in the Lord's glory, in the Lord's holiness, then he saw himself for his sinfulness and his lostness. And it caused him to cry out to the Lord, "Woe is me." When Jesus miraculously filled the nets with fish, and Peter saw the divine in His presence, you know what he said? He says, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."

God promised to Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7:14, He said this: "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray

and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

That promise hasn't changed.

"If My people will humble themselves, pray, seek My face, turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land."

You know, I think probably the greatest example in the New Testament —

of a heart of sincere contrition — is the story of the prodigal son.

You know the story. I'm going to go through the details. He demanded his inheritance from his father, which in that day was as good as saying, "I wish you were dead, Dad."

And he took all of his resources and he went out to the big city, and he squandered all of his resources on riotous living.

And then the Bible says that when he was sitting in a pigpen, he had lost it all. The Bible says he came to his senses.

And it says when he came to his senses, he said, "I will go to my father and I will say this:

'I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

Make me a hired servant.'"

And then the Bible says he went to his father, and when his father saw the sincerity of the contrite heart, and he said those words, you know what the father said?

He said to his slaves, "Go get the best robe and put it on him. Go get the ring and put it on his finger. Put sandals on his feet. Kill the fatted calf. Let's celebrate, for my son was dead and now he's alive. He was lost and now he's found."

Now there's debate whether that's talking about a man getting saved or whether it's talking about revival. I think the first two parables in Luke 15 are about people getting saved. And I think this one is about a wayward one returning home to his father's love — because he's a son, he's returning to his father.

That story talks about what Jimmy and Joanna sang about: the grace of God.

Grace that is greater than all our sin.

The Bible says, "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." That's every one of us.

And He has provided forgiveness through the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross.

And you may be here today and you may not need revival. You may need Jesus to be your Savior — to respond to the call of salvation,

to turn from sin and trust Christ. But I know most of us here are believers in Christ. The call for you and me may be a call to reaffirm our submission to the Lord, or a time to do business with the Lord and deal with our sin both thoroughly and seriously.

And that's when the joy comes back. That's when it's happy time. That's when it's dancing time. All right, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank You that You are a God of grace. Without it we would be lost, we wouldn't know our way.

We thank You, Lord, not only that You save us but that You keep us. And Lord, You restore us. Give us the wisdom to heed Your Word. And Lord, wherever we are right now in our spiritual walk, we pray that we would respond to the leading of Your Spirit. We ask all of this in Jesus' name. Amen.