Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

If we keep one foot on one side of a fence and the other on another side, we will never go anywhere or do anything.

We will be hung up and of no use to anything.

We must make a decision and move forward.

If we stay hung up and do not move, that bull may very well put on one side or another.

He will hook you one way or another but you will be moved from the fence.

Or you may be like the person trying to get out of a boat trying and failing miserably.

We have all seen the videos of a person stepping from the boat to a dock and what happens when someone attempts to keep one foot on the dock and one foot on the boat, which is drifting.

Eventually, the splits just don’t cover the distance.

And splat, they go into the water.

So too, there is peril with trying to find sure footing both in the Lord and in the world, for there is no common ground between the two.

(Samra, Jim.

James, 1 & 2 Peter, and Jude p. 55).

If we straddle the fence, we will flop and splat.

Maybe it will be soft like water, or it will be hard like a bull hooking, but sure as the world we will flop and splat.

We what James has to say about trying to straddle the fence in James 4:1-5

Straddling the fence leads to us trying to appease our personal passions rather than please the Lord.

When we do this our Personal Passions will ignite hatred, misdirect us, and cause us to scorn God’s desire.

We wonder why there is so much fighting and bitterness in the world, well James tells us exactly why that is in these five short verses.

There is so much because we have not been slow to anger.

We desire and we want so we become violent and brutal.

We see right here that our...

Personal Passions Ignite Hatred (1-3)

Oh to understand why we fight and struggle would be wonderful.

This is a common sentiment that may be worded differently, but still is common.

Many people want to know why there is so much fighting and quarreling amongst people.

Why do we fight and quarrel?

This is the question James begins with.

He leaves it out there for a second because people will respond with many comments like:

So and so took this.

So and so hit me.

So and so said bad things.

So and so disrespected me.

These and many other things are what people will say.

Basically, it boils down to, “Someone did something to me that I did not like and now I am fighting against them.”

That is why he answers like he does, “Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?”

It is us, my evil sinful heart, that causes fights and quarrels.

It is not the other person but my inner desires.

Paul Tripp makes a great point when writing about children, “We all, including our children, want our own way.

We all, including our children, set our minds on what we think will make us happy and get angry at anyone who stands in our way” (Paul David Tripp, Parenting: The 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 107.)

It is our passions and nothing more.

It is what we want that causes us to fight and quarrel.

Our passions when ignited cause us to do four different things.

The first is,

We Fight Among Selves: We take up war against another over something trivial and then get mad when someone does this to us.

We need to see things like this little girl of professional hockey star Stan Mikita, who used to get into a lot of fights during games.

She asked a very grown-up question when she was eight: "How can you score goals when you're always in the penalty box, Daddy?” (Bits & Pieces, July, 1990, p. 19.) Are we being any good when we fight over our passions?

Are we honoring God and serving others?

Are we scoring any goals?

the next thing we do is,

We Hate Others: Here James says when we desire and do not get we murder.

We do whatever it takes to get what we want.

We do not let anyone stand in our way.

We slay anything and everything that is in front of us.

This is not loving or caring for our neighbor but makes everyone an enemy.

Like this quote, “If a man is forever concerned first and foremost with his own interests then he is bound to collide with others.

If for any man life is a competition…then he will always think of other human beings as enemies, or at least as opponents who must be pushed out of the way…and the object of life becomes not to help others but to push them down.”

(William Barclay).

We hat others and attack them rather than help them because of our passions.

This leads to the third point,

We Pray Wrongly and do not receive: We tend to pray like the young boy who took a cigar from his father and was in an alley smoking it.

Then his father came along so the boy tried to hide it behind his back and divert attention by pointing to a sign advertising the circus.

"Can I go, Dad? Please, let's go when it comes to town."

His father's reply was quiet but firm, "Son, never make a petition while at the same time trying to hide a smoldering disobedience."

We not only pray this way but we are also like the man who had slipped while hiking and was hanging on to a small ledge.

He was yelling out loud to the Lord to help him.

He said, “is there not anyone up there who can help me?”

He hears a voice from above, “Let go and I will catch you.”

He then hollers out, “Is there anyone else up there who can help me?”

Or we pray like the one who asks and hear wait.

They then say no I want another to help because I want it now.

Or we do the name it and claim it prayer seeking worldly desires.

We do not want to let it go and allow God to be in control.

We do not want to wait we want it now so we pray the name it and claim it prayer and become bitter towards God and others when it does not happen.

That is how it is when we pray for our passions.

When we pray for what we desire while doing what we desire, we receive nothing but maybe a stern rebuke.

We then become angry because God has not answered us.

We are straddling the fence doing what we want while asking for God to give.

We hang out waiting to see which side wins so we are on the right one.

But what we do not realize is we miss much because we are not genuinely seeking God and asking for what we need but only for what we want.

This may be hard to hear but when we pray for healing of a loved one, especially if they are a believer, we need to be ready for the ultimate healing when they are called up to God.

We become upset when prayers are not answered how we want them to be because they sometimes go against what we want.

We pray for what we want and not so much what God desires.

This again points back to Jas. 1:5 and asking God for wisdom.

Paul said that when we pray that the Spirit helps us and intercedes for us when we do not know how to pray as we ought.

But this is giving ourselves fully over to God and seeking Him completely.

It is not straddling the fence and seeking what we want only and making it sound like it is pious and holy.

When we do this we demonstrate that we are not faithful to God but adulterous people.

We are this because we desire the things of the world because our…

Personal Passions Will Misdirect Us (4)

You adulterous people!

Such a forceful statement.

It hits with a punch that makes Rocky Balboa look like a sissy.

It takes the wind right out of our sails.

It knocks us flat because no one wants to be called an adulterer.

We all know what that means.

It means one who has not been faithful to the one they are committed to.

It means we have adulterated the bond between us and that other person by introducing something of a poorer quality.

Think of it like this.

God has called us to be holy and live set apart.