Prayers That Miss James 4:1-3 (POTB)
Notes
Transcript
Read:James 4:1-3
Read:James 4:1-3
1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
Introduction:
Introduction:
Sometimes prayer is treated like the young man I read about recently. While we may not be as familiar with the custom, some Christians use a prayer book, and they read the prayers out to God. The early Methodists used this, I have a digital copy of Wesley’s compiled prayer book that was to be used by the Methodists.
But a mother had bought her Son a prayer book and each night he was to read one of the prayers to God. One night the boy turned off the lights and crawled into bed and had his covers all pulled around his neck and remembered he hadn’t read his prayer for the evening.
He looked up and said: “Father, you can see the prayer book in the dark, for tonight, why don’t you just read the prayer for Yourself?”
While that might be a little extreme, how often do we take prayer so lightly?
I think the young man missed the whole point of praying -
Often prayers today miss their mark just as much -
What are prayers that miss their mark? That fall short?
James talks about that in our passage - Now James is uniting two themes in this passage around one issue - Why divisions and strife occur in communities of believers and why prayers sometimes go unanswered.
Both of these have to deal with what the KJV calls “lust” We will deal with what that means shortly.
James gives us two specific reasons why prayers are sometimes unanswered - and he says it is because prayers miss the target.
James isn’t the only one to talk about this -
Many things make answered prayer impossible.
Sin shuts us out of His presence
Unbelief meets with a deaf ear
19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Unforgiveness hinders answers to prayer
23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; 24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Unstable minds cannot receive anything from God (James 1:7)
7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
A condemning conscience cuts the line of communication (I John 3:19-22)
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. 22 After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized.
Herbert Lockyer, All the Prayers of the Bible, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1959), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 266.
TWO REASONS PRAYERS MISS THE MARK ACCORDING TO JAMES...
1. Prayers Miss the Mark Because they are Unsaid - James 4:2
1. Prayers Miss the Mark Because they are Unsaid - James 4:2
2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
You don’t have what you want or need because you don’t ask.
Now this is an accusation - a strong accusation brought against his readers - but this isn’t the whole reason
He qualifies this accusation by his next statement that almost seems to contradict it… Notice what he says in James 4:3
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
You do not have because you do not ask - and/or you ask amiss or ask wrongly.
2. Prayers Miss the Mark because they are Misdirected -
2. Prayers Miss the Mark because they are Misdirected -
Now I am not the best shot in the world, I usually miss my target pretty good whether it be a gun, bow, or even a computer game.
But one of the basic principles of shooting is the aim -
If you don’t aim correctly - you miss the mark.
When you aim -you have to take in a lot of data -
things like...
How far is my target
Is my target moving
Is my target aggressive
Is there a wind factor
What about other objects, children, people, etc
Will it ricochet and will I be in danger if it does.
Now maybe you don’t ask yourself these questions every time, but these are valid and important things to think about before you ever pull the trigger.
But another important factor is the aim - am I using a scope, a sight, a laser?
If the bullet, arrow, or whatever I’m using doesn’t get the right start it can’t be expected to end up in the correct place.
James is saying this principle holds just as true with prayer
What is my motivation for praying for what I’m praying for?
Why do I want what I am wanting?
These are deal breakers with prayer - this can help you aim correctly or completely miss the mark.
James tells his readers that their prayers were missing the mark because they asked amiss or wrongly (James 4:3) They wanted their prayers answered so they could consume it on their own lust.
Now that word “lust” brings up all types of bad connotations - so I want to unpack that word just a little -
The word translated “lust” in the KJV is not an evil word. It really is more of desire or want or Michael J. Walters translates it literally as “pleasures” .
In the parable of the seed and the sower - Jesus uses this word to speak of the conditions that choke the seed and prevent it from bearing fruit.
These desires are not simply present within James’s readers, but are doing battle (Jas. 4:1)—literally “soldiering,” making war.
~J. Michael Walters, James: A Bible Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Indianapolis, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House, 1997), 140.
It means to “set the heart upon something” and can reflect good or evil desires.
The Jewish concept of “desire” is noteworthy -
…It comes from a Hebrew root meaning “to form inwardly” or “to fashion.” In Jewish thinking, every human person is born with a yetser, and the way that desire or inclination is shaped determines a person’s spiritual destiny. Shaping the inclinations—the yetser—toward God and His ways is choosing the way of wisdom and peace. Allowing the inclinations to be formed according to sinful desire is choosing the way of destruction and death.
The single most revealing use of the term in the Old Testament is likely in Genesis, which gives God’s reason for the destruction of mankind by the flood: “Every inclination [yetser] of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time” (Gen. 6:5b). This suggests that while God has created us with a yetser, it is something that is “formed” or “takes its shape” from us—for example, by our thoughts or willful acts. To the rabbis, the yetser is God’s creation, but we are responsible for the evil it produces in us. Its activity leads to such sins as sexual lust and indiscretion, anger and greed, and results in what the rabbis termed, significantly, “double-heartedness,” surely akin to what James terms “double-mindedness.”
The important truth for our purposes is that the desire—the yetser—is clearly the responsibility and liability of the individual person. Many of the Old Testament usages of the word affirm this idea of intention and the human role in forming and shaping our inclinations. Psalm 103:14 demonstrates this in the psalmist’s note that God “knows how we are formed [yetser], he remembers that we are dust.” Walters
So these people were asking with wrong motive - it wasn’t to bring glory to God it was to make life more pleasing to themselves.
That is a close cutting accusation -
Now to qualify - it isn’t wrong to pray for particular blessings, needs, or even wants - but our motivation should always be for the glory of God.
James is telling us - Aim your prayers correctly and they will hit the target - pray for selfish gain or desire - and you will miss the target.