James 5: Wisdom in Conflict
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: James 4:1-10
N:
Opening
Opening
Welcome to standard time! It’s great to see so many of you here in the room this morning, and I’m thankful for those of you who are joining us online—either through our live stream or watching or listening to the recording later. I’m Bill Connors, and I have the distinct privilege of being the senior pastor here at Eastern Hills, and I want to welcome you to our Family Worship service this morning. I also want to take a second a give a shout out of thanks to those who serve on our welcome ministry team. Thanks for being out there and making people feel welcome as they come in the front door.
Announcements
Announcements
MNM final total $11,737.75!
Budget discussion immediately after Family Worship today, and right before we fill boxes for OCC.
Business meeting next Sunday night at 5:30. We have a lot of important things to discuss and make decisions on at that business meeting, so please plan to be there to be sure that at least 50 church members are present. If we don’t make a quorum, we’ll have to have a special called business meeting on the budget before we eat our Thanksgiving meal on 11/21.
Speaking of that Thanksgiving meal, we need volunteers to serve it! Sign up lists are on the Get Connected Table in the foyer.
I just wanted to remind everyone that we have a weekly prayer meeting Wednesday evenings from 5:45 to 6:30 in room 101. You can come in the north door. We are currently looking at Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17, and we strive to spend at least half of our time in actual prayer each week. Come and be a part of this prayer time with your brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s been a huge blessing for me, personally.
Intro
Intro
We are in the last two weeks of our six-week study in the book of James, considering what it means to have wisdom: knowing how to live a life that brings glory to God—having a faith that actually works. Throughout this series, we’ve been hitting some of the great truth that James gives in this little book, and this morning we’re in chapter 4, looking at what it means to have wisdom in conflict. So let’s turn our attention to the Word of God and stand as we read our focal passage today, James 4:1-10
1 What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions that wage war within you? 2 You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God. 5 Or do you think it’s without reason that the Scripture says: The spirit he made to dwell in us envies intensely? 6 But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says: God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. 7 Therefore, submit 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, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable 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.
PRAYER
There’s an old saying that says that if you put two people in an enclosed space for long enough, trouble is going to start. This is because each person has their own desires, their own passions, their own needs that they would like to have met. I suppose that there is nowhere that this is more true than in marriage. Yes, the two become one. But sometimes, we still act like two. And that’s where trouble can find its start. Little things: the setting on a thermostat, what movie or show to watch, taking out the trash, or where to go for dinner, can become breeding grounds for conflict and division. And bigger things: how to raise the kids, how to manage money, jobs, sex, and medical issues, can become things that drive a wedge between husband and wife.
James addresses this issue here in chapter 4. And we have a tendency to see this passage in light of relationships like marriage. And while that’s a very valid place to apply this passage of Scripture, James isn’t really talking to spouses. He’s talking to the church: every reference to “you” here is plural. Those of you from Texas would say “Y’all.” By extension, he’s writing to us as well—Christians who necessarily live in the world, but are not of the world. And guess what? Here we are, a bunch of people with our passions and desires, all in an enclosed space. That’s a recipe for trouble.
I mean, we’re BAPTISTS… we’re actually kind of notorious for fighting in church over things like the color of the carpet or paint on the walls. Now, to be fair, Eastern Hills hasn’t been that kind of church in a LONG time. I mean, we haven’t been completely without conflict, little skirmishes here and there, but we haven’t had a true church-wide row in nearly 30 years, praise God. But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen, especially in light of the times that we find ourselves living in today, where passions are running high and we have this virtual “enclosed space” called social media to do battle in.
But even with this understanding that James is really speaking to the church about conflict, the ultimate ground of this passage is still one level deeper. It’s not just about interpersonal conflict, whether in marriages or the church, but about the spiritual conflict that we find within each of us because of our fallenness, and how that conflict spills out and creates conflict with others. So we are going to look at James 4 in that light this morning, and spiritual conflict starts with conflicting priorities:
1) Conflicting priorities
1) Conflicting priorities
We all have a certain set of priorities that we live by. We probably would all like to say that they are kind of fixed, something like: God, spouse, kids (collectively “family” if you’re not married or don’t have kids), friends, church, job… You would likely say that you have a similar priority list, if you were asked. But if you’re anything like me, while I always have that list fixed theoretically, from a practical standpoint it can depend on the moment you catch me. My priorities can flex depending on my desires in the moment. Like on Friday evening: I got home from work, and we discovered that we didn’t have an ingredient for dinner. I didn’t want to go to the store. I wanted to put on my pajamas and my robe. So my priorities came into conflict: what I wanted vs. what was best for my family. (You’ll be glad to know that I went to the store without complaint.) Anyone else experience a momentary conflict of priorities sometimes? And it’s in that place of conflicting priorities that spiritual conflict begins.
James opens this section by asking a question, and then he gives us the answer and the result of our conflicting priorities:
1 What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions that wage war within you? 2 You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
So the answer to why conflict exists in the church? It’s what’s happening on the inside. It’s our own conflicting priorities. Specifically, James says that these things come from our “passions” that wage war within us. The Greek word for “passions” here is the word hedone, from which we get our modern word hedonism, which is: “the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life.”
Now, I doubt that many of us would actually say out loud that our own personal happiness or pleasure is the chief good of life, but I don’t think we have to say it out loud. Don’t we live like this sometimes, especially when it comes to our perspective on church life? We act as if the church exists for us, for our enjoyment and blessing. We pay our dues and expect a service from the “club,” or feel like we’re doing the church a favor just by showing up. And while that is one of the benefits of being a part of the church, the church exists for her Husband, her Lord Jesus Christ. And that includes each of us. If you’re a believer, you are the church, and the church isn’t to worship you or me or anyone other than our Lord. If in our hearts it’s about us, then we’re sitting on a throne that doesn’t belong to us.
That’s going to cause conflict. Our priorities are messed up: we want what we want: we “desire and do not have”, and we’re willing to go after it, even if it’s not something that God wants us to have. The problem is that we’re sitting on the throne of our hearts at that moment, so instead of going after the things that God wants for us, and going about things in God’s way, we go after what we want in the world’s way. James says that we “murder and covet and cannot obtain,” we “fight and wage war.” We talked about both the Sixth Commandment and the Tenth Commandment in our study at the end of summer on the Ten Commandments and how much broader those can be applied than what we might think at first blush. Murderous and covetous hearts, needless battles and pointless wars with others over our own selfish desires are the opposite of wisdom. In fact, those things are worse than mere foolishness, according to James.
Right before our focal passage, in between what we looked at last week and this week, James said this:
14 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t boast and deny the truth. 15 Such wisdom does not come down from above but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there is disorder and every evil practice.
Selfish ambition isn’t just foolish: it’s earthly, unspiritual, and demonic, according to James. Selfish ambition is a form of idolatry, because it’s a form of self-worship. And just as we see that selfish ambition leads to evil practice, remember that our own flesh, our sinful natures, want to deceive us as well. They work together: the spiritual realm of darkness and the world through our flesh.. Remember from chapter 1:
14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.
This selfish ambition, this idolatry, gives birth to death. Not necessarily physical death, but death of our fellowship, death of our reputations, death of our peace. Look at our focal passage today: murder and covetousness, fighting and waging war? These aren’t words of peace: they’re words of conflict. And the root of those things is focusing on ourselves first and foremost: being hedonists in the body of Christ.
James goes on to say that we don’t get what we want because we don’t ask. Why don’t we ask? I think we don’t ask for one of two reasons. First, we don’t ask because we don’t trust God. We think He’s going to say “no.” He might. If we ask for things that aren’t pleasing to God, it’s actually loving for Him to say “no” to us. James has already said to us back in chapter 1 that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights...” (v 17).
If we want something that will hinder our relationship with God, we actually don’t want what God wants for us, because ultimately, we need to remember that what God wants to give us isn’t His stuff—it’s Himself. And if our focus is on Him instead of ourselves, and we want Him instead of stuff, then we can trust that He wants to and will give us more of Himself. He wants to say “yes“ to that request! We read during our reading plan this week:
4 Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.
So first, we don’t ask God for what we want because we don‘t want to hear “no.” But we also don’t ask God for what we want because we are pretty sure we can just get it ourselves. It’s our pride again. Why ask God for something if we are sure we don’t need Him to get it, especially if we know it’s not something God would want for us?
James then admits in verse 3 that sometimes we do ask, but we don’t receive. He says that we ask with wrong motives, looking to use whatever we get for only our own benefit and blessing. We treat God as a cosmic genie: “poof, what do you need?” And there’s that Greek word again “so that you may spend it on your pleasures:” hedone. Hedonism. Focusing on our own wants and desires as most important.
So our priorities are in conflict: what our sinful flesh wants vs. what God wants. But this conflict is more than about simple action choices. It’s about who we belong to: ourselves or the Lord. So we find that unchecked conflicting priorities lead to conflicted allegiance.
2) Conflicted allegiance
2) Conflicted allegiance
Back in Matthew 6, Jesus taught His disciples to pray in what we call “The Lord’s Prayer.” In it, Jesus taught who our allegiance should be to: only to God. We won’t put it on the screen, but Jesus showed what allegiance looks like: that the focus of our prayers are on God’s glory, God’s name, and God’s will: “Your kingdom come, Your will be done.” But worldly thinking focuses first on our will and our name. James has some really strong language about this:
4 You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.
“Adulterous people” is verse 4 is actually feminine in gender: “adulteresses”. Now before you think that James is only speaking to women, there’s a reason for this. We are not merely a bunch of individual people in this room. Those who belong to Christ, those who are saved, are collectively the bride of Christ according to Scripture. He is our husband. You can find this great imagery in Ephesians 5 and Revelation 19 through the end. And that’s not the first time God used this kind of imagery. He did with Israel did as well, and they deserved the same kind of word picture in Jeremiah 3:20.
20 However, as a woman may betray her lover, so you have betrayed me, house of Israel. This is the Lord’s declaration.
There’s no doubt about it: James is saying that living for our own pleasures as the world lives is cheating—adultery against God. This is a hard pill for us to swallow. I suppose the question is this: do we ever think about our relationship with God in these kinds of terms? I mean, these terms are decidedly personal, at least to God. It seems that maybe God takes our salvation way more seriously than we do. He went all in for us to be saved, giving the very best: His perfect, unblemished Son to take our place in death as punishment for our sins, so that if we will trust His work alone for our righteousness, turning away from living for ourselves and surrendering to God, then we will be forgiven. And because Jesus then overcame death and rose again, those who have trusted in His sacrifice also receive His eternal life.
Have we pledged ourselves as His bride to Him because of what He has done for us, and then turned our backs on Him and run back to the world? It’s a tragedy and a shame when that happens in a marriage—how much more so when we do it to the Lord? Are we adulteresses?
There’s also this whole picture of “friendship,” in these verses. James wrote that friendship with the world is hostility toward God, and that whoever wants to be the world’s friend stands against God, becoming His enemy. This recalls to mind what we saw about Abraham back in James 2:
23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend.
Remember that if our faith doesn’t work itself out in how we live, then can we really say that we have faith? Is there any evidence that we can give that our faith is real if we don’t live like those who believe? Abraham’s faith was shown in his actions, and He was called God’s friend. He was willing to lay down the life of Isaac in order to prove his love for God (God didn’t make him do so… look at the record of this in Genesis 22).
John brings out another strong perspective on our affection for the world in his first epistle:
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions—is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.
If someone were to step back for a moment and take a look at your life, at my life, at our lives church… would they be able to tell that we are friends of God, or would they accuse us of loving the world, adulterous enemies of the One we claim to love?
Can you see how giving in to the spiritual conflict in our priorities sets us on a path of conflicted allegiances? It doesn’t matter what it’s in. When we compromise our priorities, moving God down the list and moving ourselves up it, we place ourselves in a position of having to choose between allegiance to God or allegiance to someone or something else. It could even be to something “good” that doesn’t reach the level of God’s “best.” James isn’t saying that everything material is bad. He’s saying that allowing anything to take God’s place is idolatry, adultery, and enmity against the Lord. (We’re going to talk more about the issue of following Jesus but being in the world this week at prayer meeting, just so you know)
Fortunately, God is unwilling to leave things like this. Verse 5 says:
5 Or do you think it’s without reason that the Scripture says: The spirit he made to dwell in us envies intensely?
This verse is notoriously difficult to translate, but keeping with the image of the husband/bride picture is best, I think. “The Spirit He made to dwell in us envies intensely.” When we come to faith in Christ, God gives to us His Holy Spirit to live in us, a down payment on our inheritance according to Ephesians 1:13-14. And He, the Holy Spirit, is God. And God, the model good husband, is jealous for His bride with a righteous jealousy: not to control, but to bless, because He knows that nothing and no one is better than Him. Remember: what God wants to give us is Himself, because there is nothing we need more than Him. So anything else that attempts to take His place is less than, false, and ultimately useless to meet our true need. Everything else: people, things, money, entertainment, recreation, sports, substances, porn… even church activities… it doesn’t matter: it all falls short. If it’s got the throne, it will let you down, because only God deserves to be there.
So what does God do with this jealousy? How does He address our conflicted allegiances?
3) God’s response
3) God’s response
The King knows that our priorities wax and wane in relation to His desires for our lives. He knows that we have conflicted allegiances, and that we often try to supplant His place on the throne with something or someone else, including ourselves. So how does He respond? Verse 6:
6 But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says: God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
He gives greater grace. As a husband calling back His wayward wife, Isaiah wrote that God said: Isaiah 65:2 “2 I spread out my hands all day long to a rebellious people who walk in the path that is not good, following their own thoughts.”
In his commentary on James, Kurt Richardson said this about verse 6:
“God wills the correction of His people through the continuing application of His favor.”
— Kurt A. Richardson, New American Commentary: James
But that doesn’t mean that His grace should be assumed upon, a license for us to remain in our adulterous allegiances, pursuing the usurpers of the thrones of our hearts. No, as Paul said in Romans:
1 What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.
We’re called to live lives of humble submission to the one we call our Lord, which is the point of this series: wisdom… knowing how to live a life that glorifies God. Humility is a critical part of wisdom.
St. Augustine’s declaration sums up well the response of the humble heart to the grace of God:
“Give me the grace to do as you command, and command me to do what you will.”
— Augustine, Confessions
So what then is our response to this beautiful grace of God?
4) Our response: returning to wisdom through repentance
4) Our response: returning to wisdom through repentance
The rest of our focal passage this morning tells us how we are to respond in wisdom to the lovingkindness of our gracious Lord. Remember that the issue that James is addressing now is one of conflicting priorities leading to conflicted allegiances. In rapid-fire succession, James instructs us on how to return to wisdom. It’s through repentance:
7 Therefore, submit 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, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable 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.
I want to show you something from my Bible study software for just a second. SLIDE
What you see here is our focal passage in ancient Greek. The circled part is verses 7-10. The green highlighted words—there are 10 of them in these four verses—are imperatives, or commands. Nearly every phrase in this passage is commanded of us: Submit to God. Resist the devil. Draw near to God. Cleanse your hands. Purify your hearts. Be miserable. Mourn. Weep. Turn laughter to mourning and joy to gloom. Humble yourself before the Lord.
Now I showed this for a few reasons. First, we need to understand that these four verses are essentially a “how-to” manual on repentance for the believer, since James is writing to the church.
Second, it’s important for us to grasp what an imperative tends to mean in Scripture. Since it is a command, there is a choice implied. Follow the command and be obedient, or do not follow the command and be disobedient. Remember the quote from Augustine. We have ten commands here that the Lord has seen fit to give us through His servant James. We are left with the choice. We can obey or not, and live out the consequences of our choice.
And third, we must see that resolving the spiritual conflict within us, both individually and collectively, is going to take action. It’s not just a passive “sit back and see what happens” kind of thing. Repenting of our sin is an active decision that we make. And the first decision that we must make when we repent is to submit to God.
Submitting to God is agreeing with Him about our sin. Not just agreeing that we shouldn’t do it, but that it is in direct contrast to His character. It’s evil. It’s also agreeing with God that what He wants to give us, namely Himself, is what is best, and that it is ultimately what we truly need.
Resisting the devil is related. Remember what Jesus said about the devil in John 8:
John 8:44 (CSB)
44 He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies.
Everything the devil tells us is a lie. We must not believe him. He can’t make us sin, as we said a couple of weeks ago, but he can certainly put temptation to sin in our path. And he whispers to us, “You need this. You must have that. You will be complete if you have those. Your life will have meaning and purpose if you do these things.” All lies. God says, “You need Me.” That’s the truth. Resisting the devil is choosing not to believe his lies.
Drawing near to God goes along with submission, turning back from our sin and turning to Him in faith. God is always ready to receive His child who turns from their sin and turns to Him. Remember that He gives more grace.
James refers to our hands and hearts much like he referred to the tongue in chapter 3: each represents some greater aspect of our lives. The tongue represented all of our speech, whether internal or external. Our hands represent what we do, so we are to “cleanse” them, washing them clean of those deeds that dirty them, namely sin. Our hearts represent what we have at the center of our lives, what is most important to us. Our hearts are pure when they are set upon God’s desires for us, not our own.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
It’s repenting of the spiritual conflict and surrendering the rebellion in our hearts. Notice that James says that the impure heart is the heart of the double-minded. James spoke about being double-minded in the context of wisdom back in chapter 1:
5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, 8 being double-minded and unstable in all his ways.
The double-minded want God, but want the world as well. We can’t have it both ways. We have to choose who we serve.
We read something like we find in verse 9, and if we take it out of its context in what James is talking about, it can be a really depressing verse. But James is talking to those who have conflicted priorities and thus conflicted allegiances, right? So he’s commanding them to be miserable over their sin instead of being excited about it, excusing it, justifying it, or ignoring it. To mourn over it to the point of sadness and weeping, instead of rejoicing in it with laughter. When was the last time we wept over our own sin? When was the last time we wept over the sins of the church?
And James ends this passage with a command and a promise: Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. It’s in laying ourselves down to God’s will and purposes that we are lifted up.
5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
We come to this and think it’s too hard a teaching. Personally, I’m standing here preaching it and I’m overwhelmed by it. John Piper once tweeted, “No pastor lives up to what he preaches. If he does, he is preaching too low.” (@JohnPiper, May 14, 2011) I’ve been wrestling with this all week. And it’s been a trial. Facing our sinfulness and confronting the conflict within our hearts can be difficult. But what do we do with trials? We go back to our thesis passage from chapter 1:
2 Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
No, today’s message isn’t easy to swallow. But this passage in James has a great purpose in giving us a trial: to make us more like Christ. And that is something to celebrate.
Closing
Closing
Call to repentance. Call to active repentance for the saved.
Call to surrendered repentance for the lost.
Invitation to join the church.
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Bible reading: Psalm 39
Instructions for guests
Benediction:
17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without pretense. 18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace.
