James 2026

The reading for this evening is James chapter four, verses one to 16.

Hannah is going to come and read that for us. And then Pete, one of our pastors, is going to come and open up God's word for us this evening. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but you do not have, so you kill.

You covet but you cannot get what you want, so 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. Pleasures? You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God?

Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think that scripture says without reason that his jealousy longs for the spirit he has he has caused to dwell in us, but he gives us more grace? That is why scripture says, God opposes the proud, but shows favor 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.

Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting on judge... In judgment on it. There is only one lawyer and judge, the one who's able to save and destroy.

But you, who are you to judge your neighbor? 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 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 are... As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.

It's probably worth worth reading the last verse as well. If anyone then knows the good they ought to do and does not do it, it is sin for them. That's the whole of chapter four. Sorry, it was probably my fault. I probably wrote 16 instead of 17.

My name is Pete Woodcock. I'm one of the pastors of the church. We're going through this remarkable book of James. Let's pray again. Father help us now.

As we look at this passage, there's some really powerful things in it. We want to hear it. We want to hear it not just with our ears. As James says, we don't want to just look in the mirror and then forget what we look like. We want it to touch our hearts and change our lives in Jesus name.

Amen. A ship, in water is good, but water in a ship is bad. A ship is actually designed, isn't it, to be in water. That's in one sense where it belongs, that's its purpose. But the moment sort of water starts getting in to the ship, something seriously goes wrong.

Now at first, maybe just a few drips and you may not worry about it and you think it doesn't really matter and you're assured that you won't sink, but after a while, the water keeps coming in drip by drip and you're gonna sink. You're going to be in trouble. A church in the world is meant to be, it's good, but the world in the church is bad. Church is meant to be in the world. It's a rescue ship.

It's supposed to be out there in the world, but it's no use to anyone if the world is in the church. You can't rescue a thing. A Christian in the world is good, but the world in a Christian is bad. We're called to be in the world. We're called to reach the world, love the world.

We're called to go out and bring salvation to the world. We're called to rescue the world, but if the world's in the rescue rescue ship, it's no good for anyone. So what happens when the values of the world begin to shape the Christian and begin We're to shape the church when the leaks start coming in? What happens when we're not just surrounded by the world, but the world starts filling the church up? What happens when jealousies and envies and lusts and sinful desires and selfish ambitions and pride and arguing and unforgiveness and worldly desires?

What happens when they dominate the Christian church? The very thing that we're to go out and to save people from, if they leak inside of us, what happens? Well, it's amazing the way James has been describing, if you just went right back to the beginning, the way James has been describing, what's going on in the church, church that writing to. It's very hard sometimes to wonder if he's actually describing a church or, you know, Friday night at the pub when, you know, it's turning out time. It's very hard.

Is it a church he's describing? Is it the church of the Lord Jesus Christ or is it actually a boxing match where people are just going at each other? From a distance as he describes it, maybe they look like a church, maybe, you know, they've got Bibles, they've got preachers, they've got worship songs, they've got Christian vocabulary going on, church programmes, but they're like a ghost ship. Doesn't seem to be anything really there. No substance.

They're like a they're like a boat made out of cardboard. Quickly. It won't resist the water for very long. Heads full of knowledge. Hearts full of pride.

Heads full of resentment and hearts full of selfishness and mouths that are pouring out salty water of curses to one another and singing lovely songs. So from a distance you hear the song, but as you come into the church, the cursing that goes on. The waves of the world, James seems to be saying, have breached the church. The water's coming in and he seems to be saying, you're sinking. Now that's his warning.

That's the warning he's given, giving us. He actually goes on to say, I'm not gonna really look at these verses, but he goes on to say in verses eleven and twelve, that actually you're living like non Christians because you are making your own judgments. You don't let God's word judge. And then in verses 13 to 16, you make plans without any reference to God. You're fools.

You're living like a fool as if there is no God. You're judging without the word of God. You become the God who judges and you're the ones that make plans to think you're in control even of your life. And so James is saying, you need to act before you sink. You need to act before it's too late.

Now what do you do when water's coming into the ship? When the ship is sinking, you don't rearrange the deck chairs. You know that, don't you? You don't polish the brass. You don't worry about curtains.

Don't You see the leaking water in your life. What do what do you do? Well, you actually need to get the buckets out. You need to get the water pump working. You need to get the water out.

But James' answer to worldliness that seeping into the church, James's answer to this spiritual conflict that's going on this compromised Christians, life that people are living. It is not actually self confidence. It's not, you need to get the buckets out, although you do, but actually it's just, it's not more religious activities really talking about. It's not a whole load of performance to try to get better. It's a wholehearted submission to God.

That's what you do if you're leaking. And that's my first point. Submit to God. See verse seven? Submit yourselves then to God.

Submit. It's just not a popular word, is it? Today, people don't like it. We don't like that word submit. We live in a culture that tells us, you know, don't submit, you know, stand up for yourself, assert yourself, find out your rights, go to a church that's going to promote you and help you and all about you and believe in yourself and have pride in yourself and all this sort of stuff.

And certainly don't let anyone tell you what to do. That's not what we want to live in. And so the people of God, the church today, we're being called to sail upon an ocean of me. There's this great Leviathan of me underneath the waters that we're supposed to sail on. There's this behemoth monster that is me, myself and I and it's thrashing around in the water of the ocean that we're supposed to be a church on and it wants to crash into us and destroy us.

Everything revolves around me, how I feel, my rights, my opinions, my ambitions, my feelings, my future, my happiness. No one's telling me what to do. And James says, in this culture, on the ship, and now for something completely different. Submit. Submit yourselves to God.

When you see how bad things are, submit to God. When you see, and he's trying to point this out, when you see that water's coming in the ship and you're sinking, throw up the rescue flare. Let it set off. Let it flash out. Shout out, Mayday.

Mayday. Send out an SOS. SOS, save our souls. We're sinking. There's nowhere else to turn.

We can't go it alone. The waves of the world are just too strong. The behemoth, the Leviathan is just too strong for us. We're like Peter, if you know the story in the gospels when Jesus called Peter to walk on the water towards him and Peter gets out the boat and starts walking. But when he takes his eyes and his hearts off Jesus, he starts sinking.

If you see water in your ship, if you're sinking, then you need to cry out, Mayday. And then look at verse six. He gives us more grace. That is why scripture says God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. If you humble yourself when you see water in the ship and cry out Mayday he comes.

There's grace for the struggling Christian, there's grace for the struggling church, there's grace for the compromised Christian, there's grace for the proud Christian when you finally bowed your knee and say I need help. You've set the flare off. You've asked for salvation of your soul. And he gives us more grace and he shows favor to the humble. Look at verse eight, beautiful verse.

Come near to God and he'll come near to you. When Peter started sinking, when he took his eyes off Jesus, Jesus came and pulled him out. He came near. Come near to God and God will come near to you. Submit yourselves then to God, verse seven.

It's bringing your whole life under the authority of God. It's really trusting him. See there is a massive difference between knowing about God and believing in God and surrendering to him. Your life, surrendering to him. Someone, all the blessings of God, but they don't want to surrender to him.

They're treating him like a sort of Father Christmas, give us a present, but I don't really care about you. Go go back up the chimney. Your prayer should be, Lord, you are God. I am not. You are my authority.

You are my direction. You know better about my life than I do. And submission is not a sort of grudging obedience. It's not like Islamic submission, you know, where you just knuckle under to this Allah God who doesn't really care for you. Look at verse five, it's a very amazing verse.

Verse five of chapter four. Or do you think scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? You see that? Scripture is saying that he, who's he? God, jealously.

God jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us. God wants the grace to grow in us. He doesn't just want us to submit, he comes into us. He wants us to grow. He's jealous for the spirit he's placed in us that we would grow in him.

Let's just do some bible turning. Turning. Turn to one Corinthians chapter six, put your finger in that and then turn to two Corinthians chapter six. One Corinthians chapter six, two Corinthians chapter six. If you're not sure where it is and you can't find it, then just listen more carefully.

One Corinthians chapter six verse nineteen and twenty. Just listen to these words. Paul is writing to a church in Corinth and he's writing to Christians and he says, do you not know that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit? He's put the spirit in us. You're a temple and the Holy Spirit's in you.

Who is in you? He says, whom you have received from God. You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Do you see that? The spirit of God is living in you. The spirit of God is taken up in you. He's taken residence in you. Don't mess with him.

Honour God with your bodies. Be filled with the spirit, not with the world. Look at two Corinthians chapter six then. There's quite a lot here, but it's fantastic. Verse 16, two Corinthians six sixteen.

What agreement is there between the temple of God, you're the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God, as God has said, I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you, and I will be a father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. They're amazing words.

But you see what submission is. You're not just sailing in a ship and there's the Admiral God sort of, you know, at home in the harbor or wherever admirals sit behind a desk shouting out orders and sending orders by his little minions. No, the Holy Spirit's on board the ship we're being told. God himself's on board. He's the best captain.

He's the one who's in you. He makes God your father. Be filled with him. We're supposed to be living out this new life, James is telling us. He's already told us in James, chapter one verse 18 that we've been given birth by God, by his spirit.

So if you're drowning and if worldly water has got into your lungs and is pushing out the breath of life, You need to shout out May Day. You need to shout out to God the Holy Spirit. I need mouth to mouth resuscitation. Breathe in me. Push out the water of the world from my drowning lungs.

Fill me with your word. Breathe the spirit into my very lungs. That's what it is to submit. It's to have the spirit on board. Not the world in you, but the spirit in you.

But be warned, be warned, God opposes the proud. Do you see that verse six, but he gives more grace. That is why the scripture says God opposes the proud, but shows favor to, to the humble. Humbly call out to God, you need help. Humbly call out to God, May Day.

But if you don't do that, God won't listen to you. He'll oppose you. Pride is one of the worst things in life. If you're a proud person, you need to work on it. You need to ask God to get rid of the pride.

Pride is a horrible thing. God opposes the proud. You won't pray if you're proud. You don't need God. You try and work it out yourself.

But when you realize the world is leaking in, you cry out to God. The wonderful parable that Jesus tells, you probably know it. The parable of the Pharisee, the very religious man and the tax collector, the man who's not so religious and they go up to the temple to pray and the Pharisee prays really about himself, how good he is. He lists out all the good things and thinks that God will be impressed with that. And the tax collector simply bows his head and says, God be, it's actually God be mercy seated for me if you're reading, Leviticus, but God be merciful to me, be mercy seated to me.

I am a sinner. I am unworthy. That's what you do when you see water in the boat. When water is in the boat, James is telling us, stop partying, shout out May Day. Look at verse nine.

We'll come back to this in a minute. But look at verse nine, grieve, mourn, wail. Change... Wail isn't the whale that's in the water. Grieve, mourn, wail.

Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. It's not, I'll sort this out. It's not, okay, I've gone a little bit off the rails Christian wise. It's not, I'll be able to pull myself back from this. It's help God, submit myself to God.

Please spirit come back in. Please fill me. Get rid of the water from my lungs. All the fitness that is required of you is that you know your need of him. That's all you need to, that's all the fitness you need.

One old Puritan, an old preacher from long ago in this country said, they that know God will be humble. They that know themselves cannot be proud. They that know God will be humble. They that know themselves cannot be proud. You can't be proud if you know yourself.

And when you know yourself, you submit to God. And the evidence that you've submitted to God is, you know grace of God in your life. And the evidence that you've submitted to God is your enemies with the world which is full of pride and self reliance. The evidence that you've submitted to God is I need grace and you give grace. I love, I've found this in an old commentary that I've got.

I love this. Really concentrate on this because it's a great line. I probably should have put it up, but have a listen to this. This lowliness of spirit is not some morbid feeling of uselessness or worthlessness, but a profound awareness of the majesty of God, of the glorious sufficiency of the redeeming love of Jesus Christ and a deep sense of readiness to be led by the indwelling spirit of God in simple obedience to the word of God. That's that's it.

That's what it is to submit. Anybody hear that? I'll read it again. This lowliness of spirit is not some morbid feeling of uselessness or worthlessness, but a profound awareness of the majesty of God, of the glorious sufficiency of the redeeming love of Jesus Christ and a deep sense of readiness to be led by the indwelling spirit of God in simple obedience to the word of God. Submit to God includes crying out for grace.

Get the water out the boat. Start submitting to God. That's the first point. Here's the second point. Resist the devil.

Stop making room for the enemy. It's interesting here, isn't it? We're talking about really spiritual powers here. He's unafraid to talk about the devil. The devil.

Resist the devil and he'll flee from you. But do you see the order of this? Submit to God, resist the devil, here flee from you. Those two things go together. You you cannot live in rebellion to God.

You cannot not submit to him and then think that you can stand against the devil. Submit to God and submission as we've seen means I need you. I need your help. I can't actually get rid of the water myself. I need your grace and your spirit.

Submit to God then you'll be able to resist. You cannot have self reliance. You cannot have pride. You cannot be arrogant and think that you'll ever resist the devil. Submit to God, resist the devil.

And the word resist means stand against an enemy. It's a military word. It's it's not a passive word. It's an aggressive word. It's going out.

Submit. Take your stand. It's not sitting back and say, well, it will be alright. It will work out in the end. It always does.

If I just carry on and forget my sin and the leaking that's coming into my boat, I reckon I'll be alright. Everybody else has that stuff anyway. It's not even simply saying in this case, let go and let God. It's active submit to God. Active resist the devil.

It's not just floating through life thinking I'm a Christian now and I just carry on. There's a warfare going on. When you're with God, you're on a battleship as well as a rescue ship. There's war going on. There's war going on from the Leviathans and the behemoths that are in the ocean of...

That we are sailing on. The me waves are waking and breaking. Submit. It means deliberately taking your stand. It means that I'm going to do it in the grace of God, by the grace of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Peter says this in his letter in the New Testament to Christians, be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him standing firm in the faith. He's a real enemy. And if he can get you just to be blase about the sin that's leaking in your life, he's won.

He goes for the long term. Little drip after drip after drip, as we'll see in a minute, will sink you. Paul writes in Ephesians four, listen, therefore each of you must put off false hood, stop living falsely, speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we're all members of one body. In your anger, do not sin, do not let the sun go down when you're still angry, and do not listen, give the devil a foothold. Anyone who's been stealing must steal no longer, but must work doing something useful with their hands that they may have something to share with those in need.

As we saw this morning with John the Baptist, change your ways. If you're stealing, steal no longer. Start working, start giving, start being useful. But I like that phrase, don't give the devil a foothold. A foothold is just a foot, isn't it?

It's a bit like the foot in the door. You just put the foot in the crack of the door and you've got the door open. I mean, much power does it take for the for the devil and demons to break down your resistance? Just a foot in the door and he's got the door open, isn't it? I mean, that's how it works, isn't it?

It's not always massive temptations that we fall in. It's just the foot in the door. It's a little leak in the boat. It's drip by drip. I read a wonderful thing.

I can't even remember where I read it. Where it was saying about sin. I think it was Spurgeon actually, almost definitely was. That sin, you know, it's, you know, it's like rain. One little drop of water is nothing, is it?

Who cares? Another little drop of water, who cares? But those drops of waters all add up to a flood. I... I've just had some blokes looking at my roof, and we've had little leak, little drops of water, and then he showed me a picture of it.

All the wood is rotten up top. I'm assuming that was my roof and not some other roof that he created. So he could sell me a new roof. But just drip, drip over years. And now they have to have a new roof.

You see what happens? Doesn't have to be a big temptation, a little drop of resentment, a little drop of gossip, a drop of jealousy, a little drop of covetousness, a drop of immorality, not much. A drop of compromise. A little drop of bitterness. Suddenly you've got a flood.

It's out of control. You're sinking. That's when you need to shout out Mayday, Mayday. This is a battle we must fight. And the interesting thing is, if you don't fight that battle in church, if you're not fighting the right battle, which is to resist the devil, you start fighting the wrong battle.

We fight each other. We're made for fighting. And so if we don't fight the right enemy, we're fighting the wrong. I read this lovely thing about a missionary and his observations of missionary work, Christian missionary work. And his observation is that he realized that when someone had not learned to wrestle with the devil, they would end up wrestling with their fellow missionaries.

That's what happens. That's what's happening in the church. If we don't wrestle the devil, we've got enough energy so I need to wrestle you. Resist. He is the ultimate source of pride and worldliness, but he's not omnipotent.

He can be resisted and we need to start a resistance movement. Submit to God and join the war. And James gives us this wonderful promise. It is wonderful, isn't it? Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

The devil will flee from you. He won't have the final authority over you. And how do we bring that promise into action? Well, verse eight. Come near to God and he'll come near to you.

It's one of the most beautiful promises is in scripture, isn't it? It's an invitation. Come near to God. Submit to God. Come near to God.

We'll be able to resist the evil one that wants to destroy us. And that leads me to my third point then. How do we come near to God? How do we come near to God? Well, he tells us verse eight.

Wash your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double minded. Hands represent what we do or don't do. Hearts represent what we are inside. It's our actions and our affections or our affections and our actions, the outward behaviour and the inward desire. Wash your hands you sinners and purify your hearts.

I'm pretty sure James is getting us to think here about the Lord Jesus. Psalm 24, brilliant Psalm, it asks the question, can draw near to God? Who can draw near to God? How do we draw near to God? And the Psalm answers it, who may ascend the mountain of the Lord?

Who may stand in his holy place? Listen, the one who has clean hands and a pure heart. Who does not trust in an idol or swear by false gods. Now there's only one person who's ever had clean hands and a pure heart, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. Come near to God.

Yeah, but how do I come near to God? I come near to God. I wash my hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, double minded. James is clearly reminding us of the Lord Jesus Christ that he's the only one in whom we can come near to God. We come near to God in him.

He's the one who whose actions of his hands were the salvation of people, were following the Lord God, were submitting to his plans. His hands had nails through them. He's the one who was pure in heart, loving God. And when we're in him, he's our champion, you see. He's our champion.

He is the ship, in fact, we need to be in. He's the one that can bring us to God. So we're never just coming near to God on our own. We're sailing into the ship of Christ. He's our champion.

So says James, if the Lord Jesus Christ did all that for us, if the Lord Jesus used his hands and his heart to bring us to God, then don't belittle him by having dirty little hands. And don't belittle him by having impure hearts and worldly desires filling up the heart. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit that's in your heart. Paul says again in two Corinthians seven this time, he says, let us purify ourselves from everything contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence. See the danger is that sin can become a norm in you.

You get used to paddling around in the water. You get used to... Think it's not, I'm not sinking yet. When it gets a bit worse up to my knees perhaps, but we get used to it and the things that once troubled us and troubled our consciences, We don't care about and that's a very dangerous place. Purify your hearts, you double minded.

Don't be double minded. Jesus says, no one can serve two masters. Either they will hate the one and love the other or they'll be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. And what he means by money there is the world's powers and the world's influence.

The question is who do you love really? Submit to God. Come to Christ who can draw you near to God because he has clean hands and a pure heart And pray the prayer that David prayed after he sinned. Cleanse me with hyssop, a picture of the blood. Cleanse me with hyssop that I may be clean.

Wash me that I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Listen, hide your face from my sins and brought out my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit in me.

That's the prayer. That's the prayer. Which leads me to my fourth point. Grieve over sin and humble yourself. They all fudge together, don't they?

Look at verses nine. I mean, are amazing verses. Just look at these verses. Yeah? You ready?

Grieve, mourn, wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. I was thinking about those words. Imagine using those words as an advert for coming to Cornerstone Church.

Yeah. No one does that, do they? If you look at the adverts and I did, I went through some adverts and everybody's happy, aren't they, when they come to church? Whenever you look at anything like, you know, church camps or youth group camps or... Everybody's having fun.

The word fun is the is the big word, isn't it? They're all laughing and playing and there's no... There's... I mean, but he says, look, you want to advertise your church? We should have an advert here.

You come to this church, grieve, mourn, wail. What are laughing about? Change your laughing into gloom. Yeah. And the word grieve does mean to suffer distress, to be miserable and the word mourn means to lament over something lost.

Stop laughing. There's an advert, isn't it? I mean, I was looking at, what's his name? Stephen Furtick. It's a great name, isn't it?

Furtick. And his church is elevation. Be elevated. Yeah. I mean, was interesting being at the, even the cluster group, on Wednesday.

I noticed that the in word, it's very interesting when you go to Christian events and you find out the new in word and the in word for every single church except Cornerstone actually, was super, which is really old fashioned, isn't it? Super. It's super exciting. It's super encouraging. I was super blessed, you know.

I mean, it's rather nice but James says grieve, mourn, wail. Jesus says blessed, you want to be super blessed? Blessed are those who mourn. Yeah. Interesting, isn't it?

Many years ago, I did a mission right up in Scotland in Fraserburgh. It's an area called the Broch. You can't understand a word they're saying. And and that's like, I love you with all my heart. So aggressive.

It's the... Pardon? Oh, do you want a cheese sandwich? Yes, please. It's extraordinary.

And on the mission, they asked me to do an open air. And I said, yeah. But I had to do it with the local undertaker. And his face, it it was basically, we're doomed. We're doomed.

And I said that to him and he was wearing this black tie and black stuff and and it it was... He played a hyena be doomed. I was doomed. And then it was over to me. And I was trying to say, well, come to Christ and you might know joy.

No. We're doomed. You know? We saw this with John the Baptist, didn't we? This morning, blasting away, isn't he?

You know, you brood of vipers. We need to know this. Now James is not trying to make Christians miserable. That is not what he's trying to do, but he is trying to wake Christians up to sin. He wants to show you how much water is in the boat.

Don't be comfortable with sin, he's saying. Why are you laughing at things that break the Saviour's heart? Why aren't you grieving? Why are you treating light things that cause Jesus to go on cross for? Get the pump working.

Get the spirit in your life. Pushing out of your lungs, grieve, mourn, wail, change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. But mourning comes first.

Come to the father saying, Lord, I've sinned against you. I have grieved you. I've let water into my life and into my lungs. He's not saying we can't laugh. Of course we can.

We just have. But we mustn't confuse genuine Christian joy with superficial happiness. It's not super, it's deeper. It's a brokenness. It's pulling up the rocks.

It's getting rid of the weeds so that the roots can go deep and the fruit can grow and joy comes. And all of this helps us doesn't it? To understand and love the Lord Jesus more. That actually our sin is so big it cost the Lord Jesus. It's free to us salvation.

It is an enormously costly to him. So let's finish. Get the water out the boat, brothers and sisters. Let's not it. Let it come into the boat here.

Back to where we started. A ship in the water is good, but water in the ship is bad. And James is asking us to recognize where the water has got in. Where's the leaking? Where's the tiny little holes?

Where's the thing that Satan is breaking up the planks from the ship to get the water in? Where's the pressure points that are going to blow on your ship and let the water in? Maybe it's pride you've got. Look, get rid of pride. Pride is such a stupid thing.

Maybe it's bitterness. Are you a bitter person or jealous? Don't let that rule. Don't splash around in that. Maybe it's worldly desires that you've got.

Maybe you've been trying to resist the devil on your own without submitting to God. Maybe you've turned to religion. You think religion is going to sort it out. Maybe you really know the language of Christianity, but you've lost the walking with Christ. You know it all, but you've lost the walking.

Maybe you've become comfortable with things that once hit your conscience. Have you? Then hear the word of the Lord. Director of you than you are. He can sail the ship better than you can.

You need him. Submit to him. Allow the spirit to blow your lungs out of the water. Stop sinking. Shout out Mayday.

Mayday. SOS, save our souls. Submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Let's pray.

Father, you know every single person in this room. You know how much we're leaking. You know the holes in the boat that let the water in. You know those little things that we like to hold onto? The gossip, the me centeredness, the laziness perhaps.

Father, help us by your gracious spirit that you give and you love to give. Help us to cry out to you. Help. Mayday. We may know your spirit in our lives.

We thank you that you're jealous for us, that the spirit may grow in us. The spirit of grace and love and kindness and power to resist the devil. So help us we pray in Jesus name. Amen.