Pride Must Not Prevail

Good morning, Ambassadors! I’m grateful to once again be with you on the Lord’s Day, opening up the Scripture together, applying its truths and gleaning from it how we should order our affections before God.

We are closing out a 3 part series in James, where we are taking selected texts and themes from James and applying them into the context of moving to maturity in Christ. Two weeks ago, which was entitled “Morals that Move,” we saw how the morality that comes from the gospel should drive our ethics, and how doing what we have heard produces good things for the glory of God. Last Sunday, entitled “Faith that Works,” we wrestled with the idea of what role good works play in our salvation. We can see how James persisted quite strongly into the fact that a true faith, a faith that is good, does good, and is worth something produces good works. We can contrast that with the unbiblical idea that works produce our saving faith; we can see clearly from the whole picture of the New Testament that it is the saving faith that produces our good works.

Today, our text is James 4:1-12 and our title is “Pride Must Not Prevail.” Let’s read the whole text together and then we’ll jump in:

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?

What has the circumstance of the pandemic provided many of us that we did not have before? There are clearly many positives from different perspectives. Many thoroughly enjoyed the additional family time, others enjoyed the chance to learn new skills, gain new hobbies, and possibly just maybe grow in their relationship with God. There have, of course, been seemingly innumerable negatives. Millions have lost their lives across the world, causing their friends and families to deal with the grief that comes along with it. Many lost jobs, income, friendships, and connection to community - especially the church community. No matter the circumstances you have endured or the approach have taken to handling this as a person or family - we are all changed, one way or another.

One area that you could readily observe as likely having been a net negative is the increase in online presence. Perhaps you are like me and watched as opinions of experts, wanna be experts, and pot-stirrers flew back and forth across various internet platforms. What this amounts to, as a Christian, is a window into the world around us. We get to see what people really think and believe about themselves and the world around them; we see their thoughts about God and His Word. I confess at times I have to force myself to pull away from reading important conversations because I often come away feeling distraught or heartbroken that there are so many people who hate God and his Word, and on an even scarier level - people who profess to be Christians, but depart from orthodox belief and show a complete mistrust in historic, biblical faith.

I bring all this up to begin with our first question:

What is our biggest hurdle to moving to maturity in Christ?

James 4:1–4 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.

James here goes in on what the root causes of their problems lies in. He mentions here that it has more to do with what’s going on inside of the individual more than it is what is happening between individuals. How true is this and how often do we see this coming to fruition in our own world today? When we see someone lash out or express anger, how often is that reaction just an outward show of the inward turmoil? James is getting at this in a similar way, but from the angle of spiritual direction and discipline, and not so much in psychological terms. What are the passions at war within you, and how do they manifest in your daily lives? How has what has been at war within you affected your relationships? Your relationship with your church? Your spiritual walk or discipline?

James in verse 2 starts to talk in generalities how this happens - we desire and don’t have so we murder. you covet and can’t obtain so you fight and quarrel. You don’t have because you don’t ask. You ask and don’t receive because you ask to spend it on your passions. Does any of this sound familiar to you? It does to me! Not because I think we are filled with a room of murderers, but because we’re filled with the same sin nature that causes us to hate others who have what we don’t, which in the heart as Jesus tells us, is akin to murder.

This leads us to the first of 2 answers to the question, what is our biggest hurdle to maturity in Christ?

Pride produces passions, passions produce pain

Verse 1-3 show us that the reason we have problems is because we are selfish, and selfishness at its root is pride. It says I deserve or I want or I need XYZ. It’s a disingenuous position because it puts our passions ahead of God’s commands. These passions can seem innocuous at first, and not hurting anyone - but anything that goes against God’s order and Word ultimately produces pain through separation from Him. This rears its head on a various group of topics, but especially topics at the forefront of modern culture. We won’t dive into those specifically, as we do not have the time to adequately address them!

The second answer to our question lies in verse 4

James 4:4 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.

Wanting the world’s approval ignores the need for God’s.

So what do we do to avoid enmity with God?

A lot of our focus in this series and, admittedly, in the book of James is centered on our works, our activity, and our doing. We have looked at this to a great extent to this point, but the answer to this question is more about the depth of our faith and our commitment to God’s truths.

James 4:5–6 ESV

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.”

We receive God’s grace all the more

James 4:7 ESV

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Submit to God and Resist the Devil

The world would like us to “listen to your heart” when the Scriptures remind us in Jeremiah that the “heart is deceitful, above all things, desperately wicked.” The world wants you to find your truth and what makes you happy, and then formulate your choices around that. God’s calls us to formulate our choices based on His truths in Scripture where we will find our ultimate happiness and joy in Christ. The world wants you to believe that acceptance = love and that loving your fellow man means accepting their choices. God wants us to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth - an immutable, objective constant standard by which all is measured and compared.

These differences may not seem major, but in reality, they have eternal consequences. This entire section of James, entitled in my Bible “Warning against Worldliness” is pointing out the markers for how to keep it out of not only our churches, but our homes and our hearts. The root of worldliness is pride, and the root of obedience to God is humility.

Now What?

James 4:8–12 ESV

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?

These last 5 verses are crucial and practical steps that we can take. We can summarize them in this way

Verses 8-10 tell us:

Draw near to the heart of God

Verses 11-12 tell us

Withhold judgment of others to leave room for grace

Man, this is such a hard task to accomplish.