Seek God

James 4:1–10 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.” 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Today, I am going to read through 3 verses of the Bible and every single time I say the word YOU, all of you in here have to stand up and sit back down.

Why is the word You repeated so much in this verses? honestly, the book of James wants to emphasize to all of us how much we think about ourselves.

I want all of you to think of your best friend, or the person you spend most of your time with. Someone you really like and appreciate. Have you ever argued with that person? I am almost certain you have had at least one argument with your best friend. Why is it, that we always have conflict with the people we love and are surrounded by?

The biggest answer is because we always bring something into our relationships that are bad for them. The Bible calls that sin:

2 Corinthians 5:15 NIV

15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

The Bible shows us in this verse, and this is something Mrs. Stephanie taught me this week:

The root of all sin, is selfishness.

The reason we struggle so much in our relationships with other, that may be your best friend, your co workers, your class mates and for the married people in here, with your spouse, is because we are selfish.

We recognize also that sin will be with us for the rest of our lives, so how do we move forward with our relationships now that we know that? It’s hard, it makes us want to quit. Why try, if my relationships will always be broken when sin gets involved?

James 4:1–3 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.

The Bible tells us all that we just talked about. But, it teaches us something very important:

James 4:4–6 NIV

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.”

If you want your relationships to work, if you want sin to be removed, You have to seek a relationship with God first.

God wants to be with you. He is jealous of your attention. But we feel like we have all things under control, we feel like we can fix all the things going on in our life, even if it’s hard so we go out of our way to say: “God I’ve got this”

Remember what the New Testament teaches us:

Matthew 6:33 NIV

33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

We need to learn to look for God before we look for solutions.

Are you having a hard time with someone you know? Seek God FIRST. are you struggling with work? Seek God First. Are you having a hard time with depression, or decision making, or do you feel alone? Seek God first. Sometimes we want other things. We want our screen time, more hours at work, more free time at school, a raise at work, but we need to seek God so that all of those things will come, If God desires for you to have them. Why? Because is pleased to give you the kingdom of heaven.

James 4:7–8 NIV

7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Submit yourselves to God, Resist the devil, and the devil will flee. Come near to God and He will come near to you.

It’s hard to seek God when you feel like you have the solution. It really is, but the truth is that our solution won’t always fix the problem. We need to rely on God for that.