Why do Christians feel so distant from God?
James 4:8 (NIV) begs a question of us. "Come near to God and he will come near to you."
It's been the experience of Christians down through the ages to feel a certain distance from God. It was the experience of Adam and Eve in the garden as they hid among the trees while God called out to them, "Where are you?"in Genesis 3:9 (NIV). It was the experience of King David in Psalm 22:1-2 (NIV) when he cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent."
It was the experience of the nation of Israel in Malachi 2:13 (NIV). "Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands." It was true of the Christians to whom the apostle James writes, "Come near to God and he will come near to you."
I’d suspect this describes any number of us here this morning. God feels far away from us. This explains much of the discontentment among Christians these days. In our worship services we so badly want to feel the presence of God. In our prayers we want assurance that God is listening and actively working. In our acts of service we want to sense the pleasure of God.
Has God turned his back on us?
Yet mysteriously, God feels absent. And when we pray, his silence is deafening. What are we to make of this distance between us and God? What are to make of the fact that we don’t feel close to God? Has God turned away from us? Has he chosen to hide himself from us? Is he displeased? Is he angry? Is he punishing us? Has he rejected us?
Or is it us who have turned away? Is it us who are hiding ourselves in darkness? Is it us who are angry? Is it us who have rejected God? Is it us who have pushed him away?
As I read through James4 I jotted down a number of questions the text seems to raise. Perhaps it’s not so much God who is creating the distance in our relationship with him as it is us. In James 4:8 (NIV) the apostle James clearly puts the responsibility on our backs. "Come near to God and he will come near to you."
When we don’t feel close to God our tendency is to project blame on things outside ourselves. But everything James mentions in James4 is inward-looking. James beckons us to ask ourselves several questions. What am I doing to create the distance between me and God? How are my actions, my thoughts, my behaviors, or my lack of faith destroying intimacy with God?"
It’s easy to blame other things, other people, or even God. It’s difficult to face the truth. And so this morning we will consider a series of questions from James 4 to stimulate our thinking.
What do you treasure more than anything else?
It is conceivable that we don’t feel close to God because we value something else more than we value God. In Matthew 6:21 (NIV) Jesus says, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Deuteronomy 6:13-15 (NIV) says, "Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land."
We have this tendency to devalue God. Instead of worshiping God and serving him only, we set our affections on other things we desire more. What or who do you desire more than anything else? You want to please your spouse, your children, and your friends. Your affections are set on attaining that one thing. That one thing that if only you could have it, your life would be complete. It consumes you! It’s a false god.
Are you putting your full heart into your relationship with God? Do you value Christ more than any other thing or any other person or any other pursuit in your life? We are so easily distracted away from our relationship with God by things and by earthly pleasures. Often we treat God as a means to some other end, instead of as an end in himself. God is not the means to some other treasure. He is our treasure! God doesn’t exist for us, but we exist for the praise of his glory. We exist to serve him and to ascribe him worth!
We feel distant from God when we set our affections on other things.
The believers to whom James wrote felt distant from God because they had set their affections and deepest desires on other things. This was reflected in their relationships with each other and in their prayer lives. They were more focused on satisfying their desires than on loving people and loving God.
James 4:1-3 (NIV) says, "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."
They didn’t feel close to God because their focus was on other things. Their prayers went unanswered because their prayers were self-centered instead of Christ-centered. This self-centeredness bled over into their relationships with one another.
Who or what do you treasure more than anything else? Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Who is your friendship with? Is it with the world or with God?
James 4:4-5 (NIV) says, "You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?"
James’ assertion in these verses is that instead of being faithful to God, the believers were committing adultery with the world. Adultery is a horrible evil. An adulterous person lives a lie. On the one hand, she maintains the appearance of faithfulness to her spouse. She does the wife thing. She does the mom routine. She wears her wedding ring, she attends family gatherings, and the wedding picture is on her dresser. But all of it is just a lie. Her true devotion lies somewhere else with another person. A man or woman who commits adultery withdraws from their respective spouses, first emotionally, then physically. They lose all sense of closeness. And they provoke their spouses to jealousy and envy as they head off with another who is not their own.
There is such a thing as spiritual adultery. This explains our disconnectedness to God. Much of the religion we practice can become a lie. We maintain the appearance of faithfulness to Christ, especially on Sundays. We do the Christian thing, the communion thing, and the offering and song thing. We attend family gatherings with other believers. Yet James observes how our true devotion often lays in the world. Instead of humbly accepting God’s world, we become polluted by the world. We choose our sins.
In James 1:21 (NIV), James writes, "Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you." In James 1:27 (NIV) he writes, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
We cannot have intimacy with God if our true affections reside out in the world. 1 John 1:6-7 (NIV) says, "If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."
Again, James 4:4 (NIV) says, "You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God."
How are you responding to God’s grace?
James 4:6-10 (NIV) tells us, "But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.' Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up."
Our sense of intimacy and closeness with God has everything to do with God’s grace. Grace changes our posture before God from that of pride and arrogance to that of humility. Grace compels us to submit our lives to God, to resist the devil, and to draw near to God with complete confidence in Christ’s saving work.
Grace changes our attitude toward sin. Instead of being polluted by the world, we wash our hands and purify our hearts. Instead of being double-minded and living in spiritual adultery, we commit ourselves wholly and faithfully to Christ. Instead of laughing with the world, grace causes us to grieve, mourn, and wail. In every way, grace creates the connectedness and sense of intimacy for which we yearn. Instead of devaluing God, we recognize his infinite worth.
But how are you responding to God’s grace? The proud person doesn’t acknowledge his or her sins. The proud person flirts with the devil and pursues an adulterous relationship with the world. The proud person dirties his hands and allows his heart to become polluted by sin. The proud person dismisses his need for forgiveness with mocking laughter. Intimacy with God comes through humility. Have you been humbled by Christ’s sacrifice?
What is your relationship to God’s family?
James 4:11-12 (NIV), "Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?"
In these verses James is making a correlation between our relationship with God and our relationship with God’s family, the Church. One of the first signs that a person is falling out of relationship with God is thathe begins falling out of relationship with the Church. Brothers in the Lord begin slandering one another. Sisters in Christ begin to speak against one another. A condemning and judgmental spirit begins infecting relationships like a dangerous cancer.
What is happening? Instead of being judged by the law, we begin judging one another. Instead of embracing the deep changes that God’s calling on us to make, we make it our mission to change the people around us. Instead of submitting to God’s law, we sit in judgment on God’s law and justify ourselves. Instead of focusing on ourselves, we shift the focus and blame to those around us. Instead of taking the plank out of our own eye, we focus on the tiny speck in our brother’s eye.
A major factor in our loss of intimacy with God is this unwillingness to face the things God would have us face. Easier to point the finger at others than at ourselves. Do you find yourselves blaming others for what’s lacking in your relationship with God? It’s the preacher. It’s that teacher, that elder, that deacon. It’s the worship. It's this person. It's that person. It's this thing. It's that thing. How much closer would we feel to God if we personally spent as much time keeping the law as we do pointing out the Church’s and other people’s shortcomings and faults?
Are you in the business of doing good?
James 4:13-17 (NIV) says, "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins."
In these last verses James is reminding us of the importance of ordering our lives around the Lord’s business, around God’s will, and not just around our own will. For those of you who feel disconnected from God, I can promise this. One of the deepest connections you’ll ever feel with God comes when you serve and love people. The inverse is also true. You’ll never feel so estranged from God as when you fail to love others. The Lord’s business is that we continually do the good we know we ought to do.
1 John 4:7-8 (NIV) and 1 John 4:12 (NIV) say, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."
I believe that James 4 provides a nice five-point checklist for intimacy with God.
What do you treasure more than anything else?
Who is your friendship with? Is it with the world or with God?
How are you responding to and receiving God’s grace?
What is your relationship to God’s family?
Are you in the business of doing good andloving people?
James 4:8 (NIV) is a promise as much as it is anything. "Come near to God and he will come near to you." As we sing this next song, I want to give you an opportunity to respond.