Faith In Motion- James 4

The Read

The Read

2a (ESV)

Warning Against Worldliness

4 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.

This is a little bit of a reality check if you ask me. When we get into feuds or arguments, what are we thinking? “If they would just look at things from my point of view, this conversation wouldn’t even be happening.” Or, “If they weren’t such and idiot, we wouldn’t even be fighting right now.”

We typically want to think its the other person’s fault that the fight is happening. But James looks at it differently. He says our passions are at war within us, we desire but don’t have, we covent but can’t obtain. James says the reason we fight doesn’t have to do with the other person at all. Its internal. We have our own junk and we’re taking it out on the other person.

So maybe when we are in an argument and we think, “When will that other person just figure it out.” Maybe we need to take a step back and say, “What’s going on in my hear right now? What do I need to fix within myself so that I won’t act this way?”

James keeps on.

(ESV)

2b 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.

This is one of most often misquoted verses in the Bible. Because it sounds really good when you only look at the first part.

“You have not because you ask not.”

People quote that as if to say, “Anything you want, just pray and ask for it.” This is pretty common amongst tv preachers. Those wealth, health, and prosperity type preachers who say that if you ask and don’t receive you just didn’t have enough faith.

What’s the problem with that though? The problem is that there are some people who have a really good faith, but their request goes unmet. That can cause a lot of people to question their faith and to question God.

If you read the second part it brings it all back in to context. James, in sticking with the theme from the first couple of verses points to the selfish nature in which we tend to leave.

He says, “You’re asking out of selfish motive.”

We

Typically when we ask for something in prayer it isn’t with pure motives. So what is a pure motive? A pure motive is that whatever God does for us, it glorifies him. Usually when we ask, even for good things, we are seeking glory for ourselves or are looking to satisfy our own selfish desires.

James says that when we come with request, our motives need to be for his glory and to make his name famous.

(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”?

James uses language here that is found all throughout scripture. As the church, we’re called the bride of Christ. James says when when we try to live to please the world, we’re committing adultery. The bride is cheating on the groom.

I love the last part of verse 5. “He yearns jealously...” He cares so much for us. He wants us so much. The song, “How He Loves” starts out with this line. He is jealous for me. His jealousy for us is rooted in his love for us. And he knows that if we aren’t his, we are headed for turmoil. He doesn’t want that for any of us.

He so desperately wants us to be his, he jealously fights for our “spirit that he has made to dwell in us.” God created us to worship. The problem is that most of the time, we worship the creation rather than the creator.

This doesn’t measure up but I’m going to give it the best shot I can. As parents, spending time with Carter and Maya is one of the greatest joys for Bre and I. Doesn’t matter if we’re at the park, out riding bikes, or just sitting on the couch watching tv. We love it.

Now suppose that we get older and our kids suddenly don’t want anything to do with us anymore. They take all the benefits. The life we’ve given them. The money that we give them. They check in with us when they need something. Maybe ask for money, or food, or whatever. We have their best interest in mind. We don’t think they should be spending time with the people they are spending time with and doing the things they are doing. But we still care deeply for them and love them.

But they don’t want to spend anytime with us anymore. And this entire time, we are yearning to spend time with them and are jealous of all the people that they are rejecting us to be with.

God is far more jealous for us than Bre and I are in that scenario.

a (ESV)

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.

But we can be thankful. Because God’s jealousy leads to God’s grace and he gives grace freely to those who will humble themselves and submit to God.

(ESV)

7b 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.

How do we submit to God? James give 3 steps here.

First we need to resist the devil. Another translation says resist temptation.

This means that we need to remove ourselves from those situations that we may fall into something we don’t want to fall into.

Watch the people you spend time with. If you know that spending time with a certain person or group of people is going to lead to you sinning, don’t spend time with that person. If you know that going to a certain place is going to lead you to sinning, don’t go to that place. If having your cell phone in your bedroom while you are alone at night, maybe you should leave it in a different room when you go to bed.

Real life example: When Bre and I were dating, we didn’t lay on the bed together. Far too tempting.

Figure out what tempts you and resist it. Don’t put yourself in that situation.

The second thing that James says we need to do is, to Draw near to God, and in turn he’ll draw near to us.

We draw near to God when we read his word. We draw near to God when we set time apart specifically for prayer. We draw near to God when we make going to church a priority. We draw near to God when spend time who are also drawing hear to God.

The third thing that James tell us to do is to cleanse our hand and purify our hearts so that we aren’t double-minded.

How do we do that? We resist temptation and we draw near to God. The result is clean hands and a pure heart.

(ESV)

9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

I think that the overall theme of our lives as Christ followers is and should be joy. But there’s a place for us to mourn over the sin in our lives and in our world.

Jesus said the same thing in Matthew Chapter 5 when he said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Jesus was saying, and James is saying, that when we realize the sorrow that comes from our sin, we can truly find comfort in the cross!

(ESV)

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

James put a little bit of a play on words here. We work hard to get to the top. We work hard to make it happen for us. It in our music. It’s in our tv shows. People want to be at the top of their career. They want to be the ones in charge.

But James, in sticking with this same idea and theme of asking for things to glorify God and not ourselves, says, “Realize your place in relation to God. Realize that you can’t make it on your own. When you look at yourself with true humility and humble yourself before the Lord, then he can lift you up and exalt you and bring you to a place of excellence.”

You don’t need to have everything figured out all the time. You just need to be humble before the Lord.

(ESV)

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?

People get lost on this one just like they get lost on Jesus similar words in .

(ESV)

Judging Others

1 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

It is clear what Jesus and James are both saying here. They are saying don’t be judgmental. Where I think people get sideways on this is with their understanding of what it means to be judgmental.

(Bring two people up as examples. Speak to one of them being judgmental. Speak to the other with a pure motivation of love.)

Everyone agrees that we should speak to each other hatefully like I did with the first person. But a lot of people also say that the way you speak to the second person is judgmental even though it was a pure motivation and came from a place of love.

In our society people think that if you disagree with any aspect of someones lifestyle you are judgmental. In our society people think that we should just let everything fly and never say anything or think anything is wrong with a person’s lifestyle.

Here’s the deal. As Christians, we have an obligation to tell unbelievers about the goodness of God and about the need for a savior. As Christians we have an obligation to talk to our fellow Christians when we see them going down a bad path. But it all has to be out of love with a motivation of that person being brought closer to the Lord and not with a motivation of feeling better about ourselves.

So do what James and Jesus say. Don’t judge others. But also get a good grasp on what is being judgmental and what is fulfilling your obligation of spreading the gospel and helping people grow closer to the Lord.

6 (ESV)

Boasting About Tomorrow

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

This is another scripture that can be easy to read and misunderstand if it is take out of context.

Because out of context it sounds like James is saying don’t make plans. Don’t have a goal. Don’t try to have a vision for the future. Just live your life one day at a time and just wing it.

But I’ve told you guys before to have a plan. To have a goal. To envision your future. So which is it? Should we have a 10 year plan? Should we have goals?

There is a specific phrase in this that points to the context. So there are these merchants who have begun making a profit on the things they sale and they’ve began ignoring what God is calling them to do and are only seeking out the plan that they can make a profit.

Now listen, sometimes the plan that God has for you will allow you to make lots of money. I hope that happens and when it does I hope that you remember your church and your youth ministry that helped to shape you. I hope you’ll remember the missionaries who are risking their lives in far places overseas.

But that may not be God’s plan for you. And I’d rather you seek out God’s will for your life and just make enough to survive. The truth is, that you will be much happier not making much doing God’s will than you would ever be making a lot of money but living outside of his will.

That’s the only reason I decided not to be a male model. I knew the Lord was calling me into the ministry and I didn’t want to ignore that.

So you should have goals and its great to have a plan. But it needs to line up with God’s will for your life and it needs flexibility because like James said, you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

When I was in Woodward, I didn’t have much interest in leaving there. I like the church, I liked the town. I was in God’s will while I was there. But then I had the opportunity to come to Locust Grove. It was also God’s will for me to leave there and come here. We had to have incredible flexibility in our plan to uproot and come here but it was one to the greatest blessing for our family to come here and I’m glad that we were willing to go with the flow of God’s plan even if we didn’t necessarily see it coming.

Seek His will, not your own.

(ESV)

17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

James is talking here about these people who know that God is calling them a specific thing but are ignoring it to do their own thing. He says this a sin because of their disobedience.

There are two types of sin.

Sins of commission: the bible says don’t have sex before marriage, you do it anyways. You’ve commited that sin. The Bible says don’t murder, you do it anyways. You’ve committed that sin.

Then there are sins of omission: God is asking you to go to be a missionary but you don’t. God has put it on your heart to sit with that kid at lunch who no one talks to and you don’t. God’s word tells you to care for those who need to be cared for and you don’t.

When an urging from the holy spirit or an command from God’s word goes unmet, that is the sin of omission.

When you know God is asking you to do a specific right thing and you are disobedient and fail to do it, , it is sin.

The Ready

Chapter 4 is the shortest chapter in James but if feels like there’s a lot of information there. So I’m gonna throw the high points back at you and thinking about what you need to work on.

When you are in an argument, take a step back and see what may be going on within you that is causing the fight.

When you ask for something, take a step back and see if you are asking for God’s glory or for your own selfish motivation.

Remember that God jealously loves and pursues you and don’t just remember it but let it affect you in a way that leads to action.

Humble yourself, submit to God, and receive his Grace.

Don’t put yourself in tempting situation.

Draw near to God.

Seek to have clean hands and a pure heart.

Be upset at the sin in your life.

Seek God in humility so that he can lift you up.

Don’t judge people, but do understand what is and isn’t judging.

Seek the Lords will in all you do and don’t stray from it for any reason.

Do what God is calling you to do, even if it doesn’t mix with what you had in mind. Don’t commit the sin of omission.

Let’s pray.