James 4:1-12 | Can’t straddle fence

Intro

Hey y’all how is it going?

Everyone good? Good.

SO tonight we are gonna be in James chapter 4, verse 1-12, we won’t get in to every single detail of that passage,

for what we are doing tonight I want to key in on verse 4-7

So If you have a bible, flip over over to James 4, if you need one they are floating there next to the row, throw a hand up, they’ll pass you one down.

So James 4, put a finger there and hold on, we’ll read it in a second.

But here is my question.

What side are you on?

In our culture today, the question of sides has become a massive question.

On Saturday when you’re watching football, you’re gonna see a million political ads, and they’re not asking you to pick a person, they’re asking you to pick a side, which team, which view of the future do you want.

So our text tonight is going to ask us the question what side are we on? Not in a political sense, but in spiritual sense.

Because as we will see in a second, you can’t be on both.

Not possible.

So if you have been rolling with us for a while you probably will have noticed a theme in what we have been doing, and it is spiritual formation.

My goal is for you to see following jesus as not just a mental thing but a physical thing, that there is so me life change that happens as you know Christ deeper.

We want you to be formed in to a specific something, and thats a person who is like Christ.

SO this question can be answered, of whose side are you on, by answering the question, who are you becoming?

Here is the truth you are all becoming someone. No one in here is just being neutral to all things. You are being influenced more than you can imagine.

So, who are you becoming?

All of you know yourself pretty well, you can look at your life right now and think, what sort of person am I?

Do i have an anger problem, do i actually like drama, am I busy, am i a people pleaser, do i stress about small things, what ever else.

what person are you becoming?

That will tell you what side you are on.

Context

So James chapter 4, we are going to be looking the first 12 verses, but keying in on verse 4-7, there is a lot in this passage,

But as we read it, remember the question,

Whose side are you on?

So let’s read this together, but before we do that, let’s pray for our time in the word.

pray

Okay read this with me.

James 4:1–12 ESV

1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. 11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Okay, so James in the section before has just finished talking about wisdom, where wisdom comes from. Offers to competing views of the world, one with a right view of God and one with an inflated view of self.

Then here is feels like he is shifting gears, but not really.

James here is moving to what is on the inside, asking you, what causes you to live like the world?

P1 - The Battle Rages

There is a battle that rages in you,

this goes back to the question I asked you earlier.

Who’s side are you on?

Look what he says in verse 1,

“What causes fights among you? is it not that your passions are at war with you?”

He’s telling them, here is what happens on the inside

your desires are out of order.

That’s what it means for your passions to be at war with you, it means they are out of order.

Think about the discipline it takes to restrain your desires.

Think about that for a second.

We live in a world where we want it now, you can get it now.

Think of the crazy thing door dash is,

When I was growing up there were two types of restaurants that would deliver

Anyone want to take a guess, i bet you can guess one of them.

Pizza, and …… Chinese food. Which is dangerous

Now, what ever you want, you can get it for a small mortgage.

Amazon, and i’m an unabashed amazon prime user, we can get it free delivery in two days, my brother has same day delivery of amazon, which is wild.

We want our problems fixed quickly.

So back that up, what ever you want, you desire, so you get.

Look at the laws enacted.

Look at the language surrounding abortion, no limit, right up to birth.

You desire and do not have, so you kill.

Our society is built on this.

This book isn’t prophecy literature, but man James is hitting at something just really hits in our world today.

So this is the setup James gives for the verses that I want to key in on.

He is painting a picture of two worlds.

This seems to be a theme in his letter, showing two worlds, with two very different outcomes.

But this is the battle we fight inside ourselves.

We are at war without desires and passions, we want.

Want is a pit, that steals joy from life.

P2 - our world plays the short game, we must play the long game.

So James gives a look at this, and a solution.

I’m gonna read 4-7 real quick

James 4:4–7 ESV

4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Okay, so 4 things really quick, and we’ll talk about them.

We can’t live in both worlds.

God sits with the humble, the proud sit with no one.

Humility brings grace

Submit to God. Resists the Devil.

First one, we can’t live in both world.

This is a massive temptation for us, we have a drive in us that wants to be liked by society around us. We can understand that.

Think about it, it is easier to live if everyone around you likes you.

We are a societal group, we want their to be commonalities in our group. And the disruption comes when that commonality is disrupted.

So this is a massive temptation in the church to want to be seen as relevant or cool, or trendy or what ever.

Noting wrong with wanting to be like that,

but what happens is we will let that become our worship instead of Jesus as our worship.

James is saying, you can’t serve worldly passions and desires, and God at the same time.

It is not possible.

Here is what happens when we try to do that,

Where are my drivers at? Who can drive?

What is one of the key elements of driving effectively? Keeping your eyes on the road.

Okay, glad we established that fact,

So who has ever sent a text while driving, show of hands? might be some liars, but if you’re not raising your hands cause a parent of sibling is in the room and you want to plead the 5th, i understand.

But ill confess I’ve done it before.

Just a little quick response.

It won’t hurt,

don’t show your hands, but how many of you have almost hit something, or you go off the road a tad.

And it scares you, you turn the music down, cause that for some reason helps you see better?

but if you texted the whole time while driving, you might make it for a while, but eventually, that phone is gonna win the attention battle and you’re gonna lose it on the road.

You can’t do both. You might think you can have a foot in the world and foot following Jesus, but it doesn’t work like that.

you are either following Jesus or you’re not. No in between.

So, you can’t live in both worlds.

God sits with the humble, the proud sit with no one.

God has invited you to sit with him, to follow him. This requires humility, this requires you putting to death your pride.

Then Humility brings grace.

And James then says, do these two things.

Submit to God. Resist the Devil.

Which when you read this, you’re like man that is so simple, why didn’t I think of that?

Cause its super simple, Submit to God. Resist the devil.

Two things.

But there is some deceptiveness into how simple these two things are.

Remember our world is built on now, our world is built on the idea of life hacks, and optimization.

When you’re checking out at ingles, look at the magazines, they’re all, lose weight fast, 10 pounds in a week.

Or grow your money fast.

God is not calling us to the fast life.

God is calling us to the steadfast life.

This has been the theme from the very beginning of our look at the book of James.

Our world plays the short games, the here and the now, God is calling us to play the long game.

Think about the two commands James gives,

Submit to God, Resist the devil.

That is so incredibly simple it doesn’t make sense to our modern minds.

We want a laid out plan of attack, we want step by step, we want it all the youtube videos on how to do these things, effectively and quickly.

God is not calling us to fast, he is calling us to steady.

This is why I like bbq, think about how really good bbq is made. It takes some sort of meat, some spices, but the most important parts are time and steady heat.

It takes time to make a really good plate of bbq. Brisket, pork you name it. Any bbq dish is minimum 6 hour cook and that is cooking quick. but like a good brisket is about 16-20 hours.

Slowly cooking, tending the fire, making sure it doesn’t get too hot too quickly.

It takes time and steady heat.

This is the same with our walk with Jesus. It takes time and it takes a steadfastness.

Let’s say some one comes to faith on Sunday morning, honestly Monday morning their life may not look super different from Sunday morning, perspective on life may have changed, all that stuff, they may read a bible Monday morning where they didn’t on the week before.

But here is where the change happens, check back in with buddy in a year, a whole year of following Jesus. you tell me his life is not radically different from where he was the year before.

Jesus through the work of the holy spirit, through discipleship in the church, will slowly but powerfully transform your life to look like his.

You will have things in your life that are given and taken away.

You will be molded to be like christ, not over night, you aren’t going to wake up and be a fully sanctified saint, but 10 years go by and you will look back on who you were and they will be radically differnt from who you became.

God is calling us to play the long game.

P3 - how do we play the long game? be salt and be light

So how do we play it? How do we play the long game.

Submit to God. Resist the devil.

You do those two things everyday, God will transform you.

So how do you start?

In Matthew 5, Jesus tells his disciples to be salt and light in this world.

Go in to this broken world and heal it, enhance, preserve in this world.

and then drive out darkness.

Submit to God and resist the devil.

Here is a practical step you can take to submit to God and resist the devil.

when you wake up, don’t automatically reach for your phone.

starting place of steadfastness, open your bible, to matthew 5:13-16, read it and pray for 2 mins. if you want to do more, do it.

I’m setting the bar intentionally low. One, you gotta start somewhere, two the Lord will bless 2 mins way more than he blesses no mins.

Do that when you wake up. Every day,

think about that while you get ready, think about that when you do eventually grab that phone.

Do it for a week and see if you’re perspective on that week changes, it may not make your week better, but it may change your view of what is a good week and what is a bad week.

Timeless truth

So, here is the truth, this text is calling us, to faithfully follow Jesus. We cannot follow jesus while letting our out of order desires drive.

We have to play the long game of following jesus, the slow play of a life following after jesus.

Truth for our context

For us as we go we need to think about how we follow jesus, what desires do we need to hand over to him? what habits and routines to we need to cultivate to follow after him?

How can you cultivate steadfastness in your life.

P2Christ

Cause here is the invitation, Christ is inviting you in to a different life than you may have planned for yourself.

Christ is inviting you to a life walking in and towards the kingdom.

So if you are a follow of Christ, this text is calling you to cultivate that steadfastness

But if you are not a follower of Christ, this text is inviting you to a different life.

A life lived at the pace of Jesus.

We live in a world that wants to destroy you, the pace of this world is one that rips us apart.

We can keep up for a bit, but at the end of the day, it will overwhelm us, it will destroy us.

But here is the good news, the gospel.

Christ is inviting you to live at his pace, to become like him, he offers you life eternal. He offers Joy.

He offers forgiveness from our sins.

We all have a sin problem that only christ can fix.

So ask yourself, who are you becoming?

so if you have any questions about following jesus, come talk to me.

Come see Christ as lord, come see Christ as king.

Pray with me