And turn to James, we return to James this morning. This morning, James chapter four, reading the first 12 verses, James chapter four, verses one to 12. Before we go to the Lord, hear from him, let’s ask his blessing once more upon the preaching of his word. Let’s pray together. Dear Lord, our Heavenly Father, what a privilege we have in being in your presence again this morning on this, your day, your gift to us. Lord, we do pray that you would give us ears to hear and eyes to see and open hearts to receive what you have for us. Now, Lord, we pray that you would arrest our attentions and remove all those distractions that swirl around in our minds and our hearts. Help us, Lord, to hear and to receive from you. Help us, indeed, to bend our lives and our wills towards you as you give us strength and as you give us grace. Lord, we pray, indeed, that the instrument of your word this morning now in the meditations of all of our hearts would be acceptable and pleasing in your sight. And so we ask this all in Christ’s name, and all of God’s people said, Amen. Amen. James chapter 4, verses 1 to 12. Please give now your full attention. This is the word of our God. James chapter 4, beginning of verse 1. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and you 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. You ask and you do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. 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. 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, but he gives more grace? And therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves to the Lord, therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. 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. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? So far the reading of God’s word, may he indeed add his blessing upon it. One of the things that I found out when I was in discussion with the Pastoral Search Committee before we came here was that Fort Wayne is one of those places that’s designated as a city of churches. I’m sure you’re all aware of this because of the number of churches in town here. And I passed many of them on the way here from my house to Providence. And several months ago, I remember seeing a sign out front one of these churches that said, Wise Men Still Seek Him. You’ve probably heard this or seen something like this on Christmas cards or otherwise. Of course, speaking of Jesus, wise men still seek him. And while this is clever on the surface, it’s not true. It’s not true. Wise men do not seek Jesus, nor do unwise men seek Jesus. Indeed, no one seeks him until God draws them. And so it’s a misguided sentiment at base. And often we see this kind of thing, right? We see this kind of thing where ideas are born out of verses that are taken out of context. Often we hear, as an evangelistic verse, one of the verses from our text this morning, James 4, verse 8, that says, “‘Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you,’ as an evangelistic kind of a verse. But this is not an evangelism verse. We must understand the context of the book to understand the verses that James gives us. Context is king. This passage that we see this morning warns us of a worldly posture and attitude, and it instructs us to seek God’s grace as promised in the person of Jesus Christ. And so we’ve taken a little time away from James just to reset and to review what’s going on here. We have to remember, again, context is king. We have to understand verses in light of paragraphs and chapters and books and the canon, right? And so we must always be aware of context to rightly understand God’s Word. It’s imperative that we do so. And we know from the instructions and the exhortations that James has given in the first three chapters, we know some of the issues and problems that are going on there to the congregation that he writes. And we know that professing Christians were favoring the rich and discriminating against the poor. James explains the destructive nature of the tongue and therefore the necessity of taming the tongue. He tells us that we must seek wisdom that is from above, right? Not the wisdom of this age, the wisdom of this world, but the wisdom that is from above. And he’s just cautioned against the danger that worldliness brings, right? Non-Christian mindset and behavior, like those who are attacking the church. He’s warned against these things and cautioned the congregation. And he picks up on the same idea in chapter four and this flow of his thought, this flow of his argument. And he lays out there the conflict or the strife that’s going on among the people in the church to whom he’s writing, right? There’s this strife. in conflict, this result of worldly thinking and unbiblical, unchristian posture and attitude of heart, right, this fighting and quarreling and warring and strife and conflict. It doesn’t take a great deal of contemplation for us or searching to acknowledge that we too have these problems and this proclivity, right, of worldliness or worldly heart posture towards one another. And we see in this text that because of our identity in Christ, we are new creations, we are united to Jesus. Our life is not our own. We were bought with a price, the price of his precious blood. We’re free from sin. We are free to live a life that we live, and we do so to our glorious Savior, not to ourselves. And because of that identity, We are free from the bondage of the pride that he talks about and the worldliness, and therefore, we ought not to live like that because of the destructive nature of that very thing. And so, what does James tell us here about this worldliness and strife, right? What does he tell us about this conflict? Well, he tells us the source of the strife in verses 1 to 3, and then the sinfulness of that strife. in verses 4 to 10, along with a call to repentance, and then the solution to strife in verses 11 to 12, right? The source, the solution of the sinfulness, and then the solution of that strife. And so first, what is the source of this strife, this conflict, or this worldliness that James is talking about here? He begins this paragraph in chapter 4 with a question, right? And he says, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? And again, given the flow of James’ discussion so far, we know that this isn’t strictly about fistfights or geopolitical wars that he’s talking. And that word there for quarrels is the word for war in Greek. In fact, it’s the word from which we get our English word polemic. Right? Polemic. But it’s the word usually translated for war. But given James’ argument so far as we see this, we know he’s not referring to that physical nation, like geopolitical war. Right? It’s kind of like in verse 2 where it says, you desire and you do not have, so you murder. Right? This isn’t strictly talking about wrongly taking another person’s life. And remember in chapter 2, When James connects the sin of favoritism to a form of murder. And also remember too that certainly James, the brother of our Lord, was influenced by the teaching of Jesus, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount. And it’s there that Jesus taught that the sin of anger is also a form of what? Murder. Anger, hatred in your heart is murder. You’re guilty of murder, he says. And so we see concretely that James is not talking about literal wars or literal murder in verse 4 when he says, we see this in verse 4 when he says, you adulterous people, or just says, adulterers, right? And this is characteristically what? This phrase of adultery, this condemnation of adultery. It’s characteristically a biblical way of identifying the covenant people of God when they’re being spiritually unfaithful to their covenant Lord. And therefore, when James asks the question, what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? He’s asking what they are among believers in the church, right? And so, what is the source of conflict in the church? What is the source of church conflict? Again, James 1, he says, is it not this, that your passions or pleasures are at war within you? What does he mean by passions? They’re pleasures. Some English Bibles translate that. It’s the same word in verse three where it says, you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions, to spend it on your pleasures. And again, this is a word that we get our word hedonism from, hedonism. But it’s not just bodily pleasures that he’s talking about here. He’s referring to any and all sinful desire. Remember he said back in chapter one, He said, each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own sinful desire. And so what sort of sinful desire does James have in mind here? Well, again, in light of the context, right, what’s come just before this chapter three, the most likely answer, what he’s been talking about is selfish ambition, right? The selfish ambition of those who lust after positions of prominence and power and prestige. And how do these desires for these things lead to quarrels? James says in verse 2 of chapter 4 that sinful desires for power and prestige lead to quarrels because why? Because they desperately want these things, but when they don’t get them, they commit murder in their hearts towards one another, towards others. And they what? They use their tongues to spiritually and psychologically murder those whom they perceive to be rivals. He says, you desire and you have not, so you murder, right? Desire, lust, long for, it’s a strong word, you desire, you lust after, and you do not have, so you murder, he says. You covet and you cannot obtain, so you fight and you quarrel. Again, these are strong words that he used. Covet there is envious, right? It’s literally the verbal form of the word zeal that we see in 314 and 316. In other words, they’re engaging in this bitter rivalry and zealotry. And then he goes on in verse 3, and he says, you ask and you do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. Again, remember that James has been talking all along about the righteous life to which God has called us to. And he says that the fundamental paradigm for living has changed for you who are in Christ, right? For Christ’s people, that paradigm has changed. And no longer, as a child of God, is your life meant to be shaped by your wants and your needs and your feelings, but you’ve been called to have a life that is shaped by the righteous purposes of the kingdom of God, right? The paradigm has changed radically for those of us who belong to Christ. And James has been laying out so far in his discussion just what that looks like. And he’s using this, in this instance, this case study, if you will, of conflict, right? This is a thing that’s so familiar and present and evident in all of our lives. He’s been using this case study of this conflict as the ground for his instruction to those to whom he’s writing. And James is unpacking for us the difficulty that all of us have in actually living for this righteous life, leaning into and pursuing that life that God has called us to, right? The struggle of living for God’s kingdom. And conflict, you see, it reveals, it actually reveals how deep and abiding the struggle is when we encounter it, right? And I don’t think I’m alone when I confess that this is a very difficult passage. It’s not difficult because it’s unclear. It’s difficult because it is clear, right? And we don’t like it because it challenges us. And we don’t want to think that it characterizes my struggle, but it does. So he says, from where comes quarrels and from where comes fights among you? And that’s the case, right? When we’re aggravated or irritated, when we’re angry and impatient and having conflict with somebody, so often our reflexive response is usually to explain that conflict by looking away to other things and other people as the source of that conflict. If this or that scenario was different, it wasn’t in my life plaguing me, dot, dot, dot, right, I wouldn’t have this conflict, or I wouldn’t be upset, or if this person wasn’t in my life afflicting me, right, or if they didn’t do this to me or say this to me. What does James do? What does he do? He says, here’s what’s going on inside of you, right, on the inside of you. There is a war being fought inside of you, in all of the scenarios, in all the places, in all the relationships of everyday life. We can all relate to that, I think. Is there a place or a part of your life that is free of conflict? What places in your life are conflict-free? Think of the relationships in your life, at work, or your friends, or your families, or your marriage. Are those relationships entirely conflict-free for you? Or your community, or state, et cetera, are these conflict-free? James says that conflict, it is everywhere. And it has as its roots this war that’s going on in our hearts, right? And this is the challenge of that battle and of that war that goes on in pursuit of living the life that God has called us to, right? We’ve talked much about this, but this battle for our hearts, right? In our hearts, War against us, right? And the world wars against us, and the enemy wars against us, right? What will have our affection? What is it that will have our affection in our love? What is that deep root, ultimate thing that pleases and satisfies me? That thing that brings me a life-shaping pleasure, right, as has been said. What is that thing, right? Do I get my fullest, deepest pleasure from my wants and my needs, my desires being fulfilled? or is my life shaped by a higher, a greater and more glorious pleasure? By an abiding, life-driving, life-shaping pleasure in doing God’s will and pursuing that life and in being part of His righteous cause on the earth. And where is it that we do this, pursue this, abide this? You do it where you live every moment of every day, right? That’s the call on our lives. You belong to Christ, this is the call on your life. And when we pursue that life, living for Jesus, the war rages, it rages. You’ve chosen a side, you have an enemy. There’s a fight and a war for your heart’s affection. There’s a war of rulership of your heart. And that war will continue to rage until that final enemy is defeated once and for all, and we are ushered in to the final kingdom. There is a war. And because you are a worshiper, you are a warrior. No one can escape this. We’re always living in pursuit of something. Our heart is always being ruled by something, right? Our heart is always being ruled by something, right? Paul in Romans 1 explains this very clearly, and he says that we live in service and worship to the Creator, or we live in service and worship to the creation in some aspect, right? It’s one or the other. And brothers and sisters, we can allow no competitors to Jesus for our affection. for our all, for our everything, no competitors, no competition, he must win. He must be the ground and the expression of all of our lives, our love for Jesus. Is he your heart’s affection, the greatest affection of your life, of your heart? Does that love affect all that you do? Does it affect all of your life? Is he truly the satisfaction and the satiation of all of your heart? We are to go to Jesus, go to him again and again, go to him. If this is not the case, and we are all deficient in this, we go to him and plead with him to increase our faith, to increase your love and your focus and your trust in him. Trust that he is all that his word says that he is. Trust it. It is true that he’s altogether lovely and tender and powerful to save and to heal and to restore. That’s a prayer. that he’ll answer. It’s a prayer that he’ll answer, because that’s his desire for you as his people. Make that the desire of your heart, and he will give you that desire, and he’ll grow you. Avail yourself, dear Christian, to the ministry of the word, and to the supper, and to prayer. May your hearts be warmed. and our Savior be praised evermore.” Right? So the source of the conflict is within our heart, right? It’s that sin nature and that draw on our heart. It’s living like the world, right? Living world-hearted, right? A posture of unbelief or of unbelievers. Right? Conflict is our idle factory heart, has been said, right? Our heart is an idle factory, just longing to worship something. It’s Christ that we must worship. The source is the un-Christlike hearts and actions and behavior. And then next, the sinfulness of strife, right? It’s spiritual adultery, the sinfulness of strife. This is verses 4 to 10. We won’t get through all of it this morning, but look at verse 4. James chapter 4, he says, 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 to God. And here’s the heart of the passage. This is the heart of this passage, really. Sinful human conflict is rooted in spiritual adultery. And this, of course, is a fleshing out of the source, is this influence of it. It’s spiritual adultery. Our problem with one another, we have to understand, is not primarily that we don’t love one another enough. Our problem is that we don’t love God enough. That’s primarily our problem. And think about this, what he’s saying. What is adultery? This, of course, is a common Old Testament descriptor. It’s a metaphor used often of the unfaithful covenant people of God. But what is adultery? It’s when I give the love that I promised to one away to another. It’s when I give a promised love away to another. We’ve been brought, brothers and sisters, into a relationship with Jesus Christ. And the Bible uses, he talks about, the Bible describes this as being marital, right? The bride of Christ, right? It’s his church, right? The wedding feast of the Lamb, right? This is what marriage is a picture of. God owns our love, right? He owns the deepest, fullest love of our hearts. But we struggle with one another because we have other lovers that claim our affection. We entertain and we allow these very things. And James says, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God, right? Think about that for a moment. Consider what he’s saying, this illustration. When a man is in the midst of physical relationship with a woman other than his wife, He is an enemy of that marriage, and an enemy of that wife, and an enemy of that well-being of his wife, right? That’s the picture. And anytime I choose, right, over God’s will and way, to have my will and my way, how I want it, when I want it, in the manner that I want it, in that moment, I stand as an enemy of God, an enemy of the purposes of the kingdom of God. And this is difficult language, right? Hard language is extreme language. But you know, putting God second is extreme. It’s extreme betrayal. And then notice what comes next in verse five. He says, or do you suppose it to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us? Right, and listen to what James does. Rather than blasting them and saying, What are you doing? How dare you? Instead of that, he turns our hearts to this beautiful and glorious eternal love of God. And he says, don’t you know who you are? He says, see who you are? Don’t you know you are people who by God’s grace have been chosen as the objects of his eternal love? And true love, real love, is always rightfully jealous, right? It’s right for true love to crave exclusivity, right? It’s appropriate and right. Your Lord loves you, right? He loves you with a love that is so pure and faithful. It’s hard for us to describe it with human language, right? This love that he has for his people. And because of that love, there is no way that he could love you and stand for the capricious, unfaithful, self-pleasing, wandering hearts. And what comes next in the text, right? This is a hard word that he gives us. But what comes next is one of those verses that is so dear and precious to us. And it grows to be more so, more dear and more precious as we grow in the faith. It’s a verse that makes our weak hearts easier to hear the hard words of Scripture. Look at verse six. It says, but he gives more grace. He gives more grace. And hear this, brothers and sisters. In the war that you are in, you’re not alone. You’re not alone. You were not by yourself. Your Lord walked with his feet on this earth. He faced the temptations of the created world. He faced the temptations, he endured the range of those temptations that all of us endure. He knows the depth of our struggle. And his grace is not just the grace of past forgiveness. When we talk about, we don’t take the gospel as square one on the monopoly board and then leave it behind and move on in our lives. We take that with us everywhere we go, every step of the way, even to the end. His grace is not just the grace of past forgiveness. And it’s not just the grace of future, of a future in eternity. It is a grace for this war, right now that we are in, right now. Brothers and sisters, the Lord battles on your behalf, right? And what does Scripture say? He ever lives to intercede for you, right? He is your advocate in this war. And His grace is greater than the deepest, most ongoing war that any heart in this room has ever faced or faces or will face. It’s greater. His grace is greater. than that battle, that war. And so we praise him, brothers and sisters, we praise him. His grace is greater. His grace is greater. And that grace allows us to come out in boldness and confidence and say, yes, Lord, this describes me. More grace, he gives more grace. It allows us to say, yes, sometimes I do love your kingdom, and sometimes I do find my greatest pleasure in being part of what you are doing here on this earth, your kingdom work, the work of the gospel. And at those moments, because of that, I am truly giving, and I am kind, and I am patient. But Lord, so often I am not. So often, this is not describing me. I’m the opposite of these things. Sometimes I’m so self-oriented and self-focused Sometimes I’m full of anger and impatience, and sometimes small things make me upset, they annoy me, I’m aggravated. And so often I think and act and say things that have nothing at all to do with your kingdom. And Lord, in the comfort of your grace, what do we do? We run to him, right? We run to him, not away from him, but to him. You may think, well, pastor, okay, but what do I do? What do I do? When I feel like I’m losing the battle, when I feel like I’m weak and I’m struggling, or when I feel like I’m not struggling at all, which is worse yet, what do we do? Let me just read the next three verses and we’ll unpack the rest of this next week. But listen to what he says, and we’ll have to close for the day. Verses 6 to 10. It says, but he gives more grace, glorious, Therefore, it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. He will exalt you. Let us rejoice, brothers and sisters, in our King who gives grace, our grace-giving Lord. Let us love lives changed by this grace and let us love our lives that are charged with the glory of that grace and the joy of our salvation. And let us now and always take that joy and love and grace back into the world and be salt and light to that world. as He uses us as He pleases, and let us live lives that He’s called us to, by His power and for His glory. Amen. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we praise You and thank You for Your mercy towards us and the grace that You’ve shown us in Jesus Christ. We do ask, Lord, that You would continue to strengthen our hearts, Lord, grow our faith, help our unbelief, that we may indeed experience your love and your mercy towards us again and again as you refresh and restore us moment by moment in this life. And let us, Father, we pray as a result of this, live our lives for our King and our Savior in this dead and dying world in such need of the gospel. We ask this all in Christ’s name, amen.