Sermon Tone Analysis

Big Idea: James attacks our propensity for self-gratification above all else.

Because of our desires to fulfill our pleasures at all costs, we set ourselves up in opposition to God as we choose align ourselves with the world.

James is calling for humility and repentance for the sake of revival.

We will look back at James’ words in chapter two as just one example of this idea played out.

We treat people differently based off of what we stand to gain from the relationship.

Our evaluation of that is consistent with how the world thinks and yet God values all people not based on what He stands to gain but purely off of who they are…His creation that He dearly loves.

Deep down, this section is about the way we mend our fractured selves.

Even after choosing to follow Jesus, we still live fractured lives where we choose friendship with the world over friendship with God.

Repentance rooted in humility is the key.

Welcome to week five of our James study.

Briefly outline where we’ve been.

James wants us to be perfect and complete.

We need a few things if we are going to attain that:

Trials, Wisdom, and genuine faith.

He then goes on to explain some ways in which we live fractured lives.

Last week, we talked about our tongues…or the ways in which we communicate and how our language is the litmus test for what is happening deep inside our souls.

This week, we are going to continue looking at another thing that James calls into the light about how we live fractured lives, but perhaps most importantly, this week, James is going to give us the tools we need to fix the fractures between our faith and works.

James is going to point out another area of fracture that we all share and he is going to use that as his illustration and example of why we need the right tools to fix the fracture.

I used to work with Aircraft maintenance in the military.

It would terrify you if you knew how much of an aircraft was held together with tape and glue…Do sheet metal having to go get the right tools bit…

They understood a very simple truth:

The right tool for the right job makes all the difference.

I heard a good quote this week about this: If you don’t think that the right tool for the right job matters, try eating a steak with a spoon and a straw.

Explain that James used the tongue last week to take us on a deep dive into the root of our problem and yet he didn’t really give us the solution to fixing the problem…I gave a brief synopsis of how to fix the saltwater spring but if you remember, I had to go outside of the book of James to do that.

James sort of left it hanging but I couldn’t do that.

This week, however, James is going to give us the solution to fixing the fractured areas in our life.

Do the clay jar with a fracture in the side and the right tool bit...

First, let’s look at the area of fracture that James is going to use as his context for the conversation around the right tool.

The Greek word for pleasures here is the same word we get our word ‘hedonism’ from.

I want to use the phrase “Self-gratification” because it gets us closer to James’ intent.

Self-gratification is a closer translation in our modern language.

It isn’t that James is wrong in using the word pleasures here, its just that our minds only typically go to like one of three or four places when we hear that word pleasure.

Its usually about either sex, money, status, or feeling for us when we hear that word.

James doesn’t specify because, for him, that word incorporated a lot more.

Let’s look at the rest of that verse and you’ll see what I mean.

James says that our pleasures wage war in our members…weird.

James is setting up a metaphor for us here.

Do the horse being deficient in minerals and eating the barn wood bit...

The idea is that God has wired us, much like that horse, with specific needs and desires.

In its proper environment, an open pasture with a diversity of plant life to eat from, that need for the minerals would have been fulfilled.

But we apparently weren’t giving it everything it needed through its feed and so it went on a path of destruction to meet that need.

Let me give you an example of one need that God has created in us and we’ll look at an example James has already given us of how we self-gratify that need in a wrong way.

God has created in us all the need for prosperity.

Now, I don’t mean the need for health, wealth, and prosperity.

I also don’t mean the need for us to be super wealthy or live with excess.

But if you look back at God’s plan for creation from the beginning, it was a garden overflowing with abundance where everyone would have been taken care of without need or want.

Look at God’s directions to Israel about caring for the poor, widows, orphans, and foreigners.

The design of God’s kingdom is such that all are taken care of and all prosper.

Question…are we ever tempted to gratify that need in ways that harm others just for the sake of our own prosperity?

Look at this passage from James chapter 2 that we skipped over.

Explain how we will posture ourselves around people of power and wealth that we stand to gain something from.

Look at how James concluded that passage:

We will do well…that is to say: we will prosper in the way that matters most and in turn fulfill the God given desire for prosperity as we love our neighbor.

Second question… is it ever damaging when we gratify our own desires at the expense of others?

Absolutely!

Look at what James says comes from that!

The result is murder, envy, some translations say strive, fights, quarrels and war.

It even taints our prayers because we will even look to God to satisfy our desires selfishly.

We don’t ever do this though do we?

Sure we do.

Sometimes its easy to see…like Pornography:

Porn = need for intimacy - proper avenue is through a committed relationship with your spouse - short circuit that by self-gratifying sexual fantasies that objectify others for our own consumption.

The damage may not be murder…although it wouldn’t surprise me if that has happened.

No, the damage is broken trust, a dulled conscience, it rewires your brain in some messed up ways, damages true intimacy and even ends in divorce.

Substance abuse = need for feeling good.

God didn’t create us to live in perpetual pain and lack of sensation.

God gave us pain and pleasure receptors for very specific purposes, and yet we can easily short-circuit his design for them.

Maybe that’s hardcore narcotics but perhaps its alcohol.

Has the self-gratification through substance abuse ever left a trail of destruction behind it?

Its easy to see how adultery and theft and slandering others fits this category of destructive self-gratification as well…but how about the things that aren’t quite as obvious?

Attitude of self-righteousness - nobody wants to be seen as morally deficient and yet to gratify that by putting others down or elevating yourself through pride is destructive.

Little lies and the carefully curated image of ourselves we portray through social media - We were created to be loved and receive affection...

Tight fist around our money and a scarcity mindset...

The propensity to shelter ourselves and our children from the world.

This is a tough one because it has biblical backing…we should not be stained by the world…James says that by the way.

And yet…do the show car in the garage and not getting it dirty…

We are meant to take the gospel into the world (drive the car) just don’t get it dirty.

We can’t leave it in the garage.

And yet, in a move to honor one part of God’s command, we will fail to balance it with an equally important command to take the gospel into our neighborhoods and cities.

Has that ever caused a trail of destruction?

I would argue that this is perhaps the most destructive thing on this list.

Christians who have sidelined themselves in the fight God intends them to be engaged in not only leaves a trail of destruction here and now by allowing the darkness to spread unchecked, but it leaves a trail of eternal destruction.

And here is where James begins to drive at the root of the problem.

Behavior modification and moralistic therapeutic deism falls short…

Here is what I mean… these are the tenets of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism:

A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth to some undefined extent.

God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other as taught in the bible and by most world religions.

The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about ones self.

God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.

Good people go to heaven when they die…so be good.

Out of this comes behavior modification.

Let’s just take last weeks sermon about the tongue.

Good people don’t curse.

Cursing is bad.

The goal is to not curse so let’s put a dollar in the swear jar to discourage cursing and therefore modify our behavior over time.

James says no that the problem is much more serious than that.

When we seek pleasure and the gratification of real God-given needs apart from God’s design, we have aligned ourselves with the rest of the world who has rejected God.

Listen to Grant Osborne’s commentary on this verse:

In Hellenism the idea of “friendship” connoted a very serious relationship with political and social allegiance and a harmony of outlook, sharing the same standards and seeking the same pleasures.

James’s readers have chosen the world rather than Christ for that unity of perspective and so stand in “enmity against God.”