Submit Yourselves to God

Good morning everyone, today we are continuing in our study of the book of James. It’s been a while since I have mentioned this, so I just wanted to once again bring it to our minds. James gives us practical ways to live out the Christian life. We have seen this throughout the first three chapters, pursue heavenly wisdom, watch your tongue, the words you say, don’t just listen to the word, do what it says. A lot of very practical things as you can see. It is possible to take this and develop a bit of a legalistic approach to following Jesus. Do these things, earn God’s love. But remember, that is why we spent two years in the book of John. We do all of these things, we have a desire to follow Jesus, not to earn his love, because we could never do enough, but because of the great love that he has already demonstrated to us. We love him because of his love for us. Hopefully that is just a good reminder for all of us as we continue this morning and see how this passage ties directly in with the passage we read last week.

Prayer

Engage / Tension

As we study this passage, it is good to remind ourselves that the chapters and verses that our bible provides for us were added to the letters to help navigate scripture. This tends to create breaks when there really isn’t meant to be a break. Chapter 4 is one of those. James continues in chapter 4 by expounding upon what he talked about at the end of chapter 3. There we learned about the problem of worldly wisdom. Wisdom that tells us to watch out only for ourselves, to get ahead in life, wisdom that is full of jealousy, envy, and selfish ambition. James also gave us a warning, telling us that if we follow that kind of wisdom, disorder and evil will follow us.

Now, James wants to point out that this doesn’t just apply to our personal lives. Following the wisdom of the world can also be a problem for the church. This leads to fighting within churches, divisions, and tension that can even be felt by people who just visit for one Sunday.

One illustration I came across mentioned a church where the pastor begin a new tradition of passing the peace. This is where you greet one another, shake hands, and tell one another, “peace be with you” and the other responds with “peace be with you.” So, let’s try that together as a church. Let’s have a moment of passing the peace.

(Passing the Peace)

So this new pastor started doing this at his church, but the people didn’t like it. They could not bare shaking hands with certain people in church because they disliked each other so much. So they fired the pastor and hired someone else that would not make them pass the peace.

It’s a bit of an absurd, humorous story, but it is rooted in a a lot of truth. A nineteenth century Scottish theologian, James Johnstone said this about church conflict...

James—Faith That Works Troubles’ Source ( James 4:1-3 )

Men and women who on the Sabbath have sat side by side at the Lord’s table and drunk of the common cup of love, will scowl at and calumniate and thwart each other all the week. And the feeling between congregations or denominations, which are but different companies or brigades in the army of the Captain of salvation, is not unfrequently such as to remind one of the host of Midian in the night of Gideon’s victory, when “every man’s sword was turned against his fellow, throughout all the host.”

This issue of conflict within the church is also nothing new as we can see in James. In chapter three James tells the church and us to consider what kind of wisdom we are following, and he immediately follows that by essentially telling the church that they are following earthly wisdom.

James 4:1–6 NIV

1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but 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. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 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. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

James is specifically addressing the problems within the local church. Notice he says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you?” James isn’t addressing an argument the church is having with outsiders, he is talking about fights and quarrels that are happening within the church. James then asks a rhetorical question as an answer to his first question. Where do these fights come from? Well, don’t that come from your own desires? James’ answer is not the answer that we would give if someone asked us where our arguments come from. If someone asked us why we were fighting with someone, our response is likely, “They said this and that about me, this person did this, they didn’t do this…ect.” We would never say that an argument started because of selfish desires within us, but James points out to the church that that is actually what is causing arguments among them. Instead of blaming others, James says that the problem is actually us. So many of these argument and fights that come up are because of our selfish desires.

In the summer of 1986, two ships collided in the Black Sea off the coast of Russia. Hundreds of passengers died as they were hurled into the icy waters below. News of the disaster was further darkened when an investigation revealed the cause of the accident. It wasn't a technology problem like radar malfunction--or even thick fog. The cause was human stubbornness. Each captain was aware of the other ship's presence nearby. Both could have steered clear, but according to news reports, neither captain wanted to give way to the other. Each was too proud to yield first. By the time they came to their senses, it was too late.

If we are living in the wisdom of God, we should be full of mercy, peaceable, and gentle. If we are living with the wisdom of the world, there are going to be fights and quarrels! While James doesn’t specifically mention unity, that is one of the issues that comes up as a result of these selfish desires that the people had within the church. They had selfish desires which were leading them to create divisions and create disunity within the church. For us, it is good to remember this. Not because we are in a state of disunity, but we should always be thinking about the importance of unity. Unity should be a priority for us so it doesn’t become a problem for us. When we get upset with one another in church (It’s going to happen, we are sinful and mess up) we really need to first examine ourselves. Are we upset because we didn’t get our way? Because things didn’t go how we wanted them to? We need to see if we are upset over a valid reason or if we are just simply upset because of our selfish desires.

James points out that some of these selfish desires stem from jealousy. We see things we want and when we don’t get them we resort to fighting. We desire something, so we do whatever it takes to get it. James even says that we don’t get what we want because we do not ask God for it. And even when we do ask, we don’t get it because we are asking for the wrong reasons.

The first problem is that the church does not have simply because they do not ask God. The prayer life of the believers that James is writing to is almost completely gone. They don’t even ask God to provide for the things that they need. The second problem they had, was that even when they did ask God, they were asking for the wrong reasons. They were asking God to do things, give them things, not out of a desire for God, but out of a desire for pleasure. They were praying selfishly. The people were not praying that God’s will would be done, or what was best for them spiritually, they just prayed for whatever they wanted because they wanted it. (As a side note, it is not wrong to ask God to do things, to help you in life. But what James is describing here are Christians who have turned praying to God into rubbing a genie lamp. God is not our personal genie who pops out and grants us wishes.) Our prayers should come from a place of love for God, not out of selfish desires.

James continues by bringing up friendship with the world and the need to humble ourselves. Friendship with the world comes from the sinful desires within ourselves. Specifically here in James, he is talking about selfish gain, pleasure in the world, getting ahead in life. This is once again earthly wisdom. If earthly wisdom is your friend, if you are close with it, you will once again experience enmity with God. God doesn’t want churches to be filled with people following their selfish desires, people who focus on themselves rather than the poor.

God doesn’t want us to follow the thinking of the world because he is jealous for you. God doesn’t just want part of you, he wants every bit of you. He desires your entire self. We must then choose to serve God completely, instead of our own selfish desires.

Action

After crushing our hearts in an effort to see that our friendship with the world has separated us from God, James says something that gives us hope. "But he gives more grace." I needed to hear those words at that moment. We see that we have fallen well short of the relationship that God demands of us. We have been listening to the wisdom of the world and become friends with the world. But God gives more grace. God can overcome our sinfulness. There is always enough grace to redeem us from what we have done because of Jesus. It is not time to give up. It is time to seek grace.

This grace comes to those who humble themselves, not to the proud. There is no grace to the self-centered and those who act selfishly. There is no grace to those who continue to practice jealousy and envy. There is no grace for those who ignore his call and continue to be friends with the world. But those who humble themselves will find grace. Those who will admit that they have not been living in a way God demands and come to the Father seeking grace will find grace. God can and will overcome your sins if you will humble yourself before God. Stop being self-seeking and become God-seeking. God can fix this if you will seek him and give yourself to him.

Paul’s Humility

I am the least of the apostles. 1 Corinthians 15:9

I am the very least of all the saints. Ephesians 3:8

I am the foremost of sinners. 1 Timothy 1:15

Look at his three descriptions of himself quoted above, dating respectively from around A.D. 59, 63, and 64. As the years pass he goes lower; he grows downward! And as his self-esteem sinks, so his rapture of praise and adoration for the God who so wonderfully saved him rises.