The Epistle of James: Chapter 4

Lift a praise right now. Thanksgiving unto the Lord. I thank you, Jesus. I thank you, Jesus. Every good gift, every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. God is good. And I miss Sister Peggy Barnes because she always says all the time. All the time, hallelujah. He cannot be other than good. And so everything that God does is good. He takes bad situations and makes them good. He takes brokenness and makes something good of it. He takes tragedy. He takes poverty.

He takes all of that and he somehow twists it around so that the outcome for the child of God is always good. It's good. Yeah. Go ahead. Hallelujah. We we quote that scripture often about we know that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord. And uh even though we know that and we do know it, we get into situations that kind of presses that out of us and and causes us to doubt that it can possibly be good. I don't like where I am right now, God.

Sometimes I honestly I wish there was a trinity so I could talk to one of the other guys about what's going on in life. But he always has good in mind. He said his intents toward us are good. They're all his thoughts toward us are good. They're always good. Amen. I am so thankful for the goodness of God. I have lived in it for many years now. The goodness of God, the faithfulness of God, and I have no complaints about my savior, no complaints. Amen.

God bless you tonight for your faithfulness to the house of the Lord. Um, and as you can see, we are, as far as speakers tonight, we're at the bottom of the barrel. They have all forsaken me. and uh left the inmate to run the asylum. So, we're going to continue with this James chapter 4. And uh I know pastor last week was he was throwing out some trivia questions. Um I'm I'm just going to give you a bit of trivia here, okay? Because that's the way my mind works. I have a very trivial mind.

Um just the fact that the writer of this book, his name was not James. Okay. Can you imagine Mary naming her children? This is my son Joseph. This is my daughter Miriam. This is my daughter Anna. This is slow-mo here and Jimmy. No, his name wasn't James. His name was Jacob.

And uh because James was a name that developed in about the 13th 14th century and uh it came from a Latin term that was a translation of Yak uh Jacob and you can you can see it in history even the the followers of James Scotland and when they were having the wars they were called Jacobites u because his name was Jacob not James And another bit of trivia here, he was known, there was a writer named Hesipus in the in the second century that wrote about James.

And uh it he said this, he was frequently found upon his knees begging forgiveness for the people so that his knees became hard like those of a camel in consequence of his constantly bending them in his worship of God and asking forgiveness for the people. He became known as old camel knees. James old camel knees. And so when we read this book from somebody who has this kind of testimony, we should pay attention. A person of prayer.

One writer said of him that he prayed so much that he wore ruts in the place where he prayed. When somebody like that speaks or writes, you want to make sure that you pay attention to what they have to say. He made no claim to apostilhip, but Paul in Galatians called him an apostle. He said that uh he he didn't see any of the apostles save James. And so he included him as apostle. I think it was more of a general term that that he was using there. And and he never boasted about his relationship to his brother Jesus.

Can you imagine living in the shadow of Jesus? I can't. Yet he had brothers and sisters. But he never boasted about his relationship to Jesus. It was just as he wrote James, a servant of God. What greater name? What greater accolade could be bestowed upon anybody than to be called the servant of God? The servant of God. And so we're going to launch into this chapter 4 and uh we're going to start from the top verse one. The closing remarks as we heard from pastor last week was about peace.

It was uh we would call it a paragraph because these were after all letters. There were no chapter and verse divisions. They were just letters that were written. So the close of the last paragraph uh provided a segue for this this chapter 4. He ended with talk of peace with peace talk that those whose actions are peaceable are entitled to the righteousness that grows in peace. He he ended that paragraph by talking about peace and then in an immediate about face he launched into war talk.

He starts talking about war and in after the the the Socratic school, the Socratic method of teaching, he rattles off a rapidfire bunch of questions to his audience. And he asks these questions and they're somewhat rhetorical, but it's intended to make them think about some things. He said, "From whence comes wars and fightings among you?

Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members." So he launches immediately into war talk and he as as was stated last week he builds a lot on what Jesus taught on the sermon on the mount and and so he does this he develops this idea and he says uh rhetorically I want you to think about where wars and fightings come from among you. And he knew as well as they knew that they were outer campaigns generally developed from inner conflicts.

Things going on inside of us have a way of working themselves outwardly. And so James indicates as did Jesus in Matthew 5 through7 in his sermon on the mount that your outward behavior springs from your inner beliefs. You can deny it if you like, but what you believe is showing up on your actions. It will always come out that way. the comparison. He says uh uh they they he called them murderers. He said he said you kill and and you do all of this stuff.

And the comparison to the this murder idea doesn't imply that what happens in the heart is the same as and and you go back to the sermon on the mount and Jesus did the same thing. He said, "If you hate someone in your heart, you've committed murder in your heart." He's not establishing equivalency. He's say he's not saying it's the same thing, right? You can think about burning somebody's house down, but don't go do it because once you've done it, you can't take that back.

So you get these thoughts and it there there is not an equivalency with the action but there is a correspondence to what is going on in the heart. Jesus said everything that you do originates in your heart. it and your activities of your uh that are being manifest are because you have thought them. They have a correspondence to what's going on in your heart. And so what goes on in your innermost being is a cause of your actions. Right? And so this this faith this faith I I want to lay this foundation for a minute.

So when we read through the book of James, he talks about faith in and and there's several aspects of this faith. This kind of faith that we're going to talk about and he's spoken about previously is that of doctrine. We talk about faith of, you know, and he he'll talk about it later, laying on hands on the sick and and they recover. That kind of faith, that that kind of dunamis, that kind of that kind of powerful faith. But he also the other aspect of that is is a body of doctrine.

Your beliefs not just faith to for miracles or faith to get things done but faith as the body of beliefs that you hold. So in verse two he continues this thought. Anybody here just yell at me if you know this. the most the biggest hit that the Rolling Stones ever had. It's a song called I can't get no satisfaction. I can't get no They're still touring sometimes. We call them the strolling bones now instead of the Rolling Stones. Uh they they had this song about I can't get no satisfaction.

And James said it's the same with you guys. You lust and you don't have. You kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. You fight and war yet you have not because you ask not. They could not satisfy these these desires inside of them. And he said, 'N no matter what extreme attempts you go to to satisfy the intense desires of the pleasure center of your of your innermost being, you can't get no satisfaction. You just can't be satisfied.

Fighting and waring and killing, that's what the world does, right? join the corporate world and find out how it goes. It's what they do. It's a part of the world culture. They have and if we're not careful, we got to guard against this. We can become sycopants of success, worshippers of the successful rather than seekers of excellence. They're not always equate with each other. They're not always the same. We put high value. The world culture puts a lot of value on success.

That's not even a biblical idea or concept. It's excellence that we should seek after. But the the voice of excellence gets drowned many times by the voices of success. They fight, they war, they kill. Gotta make it to the top of the heap. Whatever it takes. I I I give myself to this. There is something that's called the crab bucket effect. You ever hear of it? A crab put into a bucket by himself can climb out and you have to put a lid on it. But if you put many crabs in a bucket, none of them get out.

They don't even put a lid on the bucket. Because when several crabs are placed together, they instinctively grab at one another, trying to climb over or cling to others. In doing so, they pull each other down. Welcome to the world culture, the crab bucket. You try to get ahead and there's always somebody, especially in the world culture, somebody who is trying to climb over you to make their way to the top. And nobody gets out of that bucket.

And still in spite of all that, James said, in spite of all that seeking, you don't get what you need. And that is what he referred to at the last line of the paragraph or chapter three. And that is the peace of God. Listen, the world wants peace. The world needs peace. People need peace. It's the greatest commodity and the most lacking one in our world culture today. People need peace. What drives them? It's a turmoil. They're in a hurry to get somewhere and they don't even know where they're going. Peace.

Thank God that that there is a shelter and a sanctuary in the spirit of God for the child of God that there is a righteousness uh that is rooted in peace. You can have peace but you're not going to find it in the world. I don't care how much you accumulate, how much wealth you accumulate, how successful you may be in this world. Without Jesus, without God in your life, you will never have the peace that you seek. It just will not happen. And so they fight, they war, they strive.

Verse three says, "You ask and receive not because you ask a miss that you may consume it upon your lust." We develop an appetite for junk food. James says, "That's what you've done. You you you've become consumers. You've got a consumer mentality that when you pray, you want things to get for God to give you the things that you can consume on your own fleshly appetites and not spiritual. Quit praying to win the lottery. Quit praying for your horse to come in first.

Quit praying for things to be consumed upon your own fleshly appetites. This is what the writer is telling us. Because when you ask badly, and that's what he said, you ask badly, no matter how fervently you pray, it's not going to change God's mind about junk food. You just want to consume it on your own. appetite in in there's a town called B. I've never been there. I think brother Reaver had gone there in the Canadian Rockies. There's a national park there in the town of B on Sulfur Mountain.

There was a tea house up there and had a herd of about 30 mountain sheep. The sheep were actually starving to death on a diet of potato chips, popcorn, peanuts, hamburgers, candy because the tourists thought it was a good idea to feed the sheep. And they had forsaken their normal healthy diets of foraging for their food. And as a consequence, they were losing weight. The females could no longer nourish their lambs. These sheep had become junk food junkies.

We got to be careful, folks, about what we put into our or try to drag into our spirits and satisfy something spiritual with something that is nothing more than cotton candy for the soul, fluff, spun sugar. You'll die from that kind of appetite. you we and the flesh craves it. The flesh cries out for it. You want something to appease that pleasure center of flesh. And no matter, I'm telling you, James verified this.

It doesn't matter how much you cry, kick, and scream, God is not going to supply your junk food for you to consume on your own fleshly appetites. And so then in verse four, he says, "These guys were were tough. They they spoke in what we would consider not very politically correct terms. You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. You want to know why your prayers don't have punch?

Why your prayers don't have the effect that they are intended to have that God has put into prayers? It's because it's because we sometimes don't not even to the point of loving the world. He said don't get friendly with the world. Don't become friends with the world. Later on, later on the writer would write that Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. But this writer says, don't even become friendly with the world.

And there's a there's something to this dynamic that we I really don't have a good handle on it yet. How do you love the clowns and hate the circus? And yet that's what God expects us to do. Love the love the clowns but hate the culture of the circus that that they're in. I don't know a good way to do that except just love the clowns, love people, hate the culture. But but James puts it in in a very different light here. He says he says don't don't even become friendly with them. What do you mean?

Listen people, we live in a generation that knows no boundaries, right? They push the envelope on everything. In some senses, it's been good. I have watched a as as some of the musicians, the younger musicians, they have eclipsed anything that I've ever seen. Amazing stuff. I I watched athletes do things that were unheard of. We've watched this generation puts push the envelope of everything. Boundaries. Nah, no boundaries. There's no boundaries to what can be done.

And they have they have accepted the idea that that you can do anything that you put your mind to. I would to God that that would get a hold of the people of God as it has the culture of the world. That there is nothing not in the flesh but nothing in the spirit that you cannot accomplish when God is on your side and when God is in it. They they have continually pushed the envelopes and and now we see that some have applied this philosophy of life in the spirit and think that we can have it all.

I can have the world and I can have Jesus too. And and Not only has James stated that you can't, but Jesus himself stated you cannot serve two masters. You've got to make up your mind what you are going to set your affections upon. Is it the world and friendship with the world? We got to be careful. I I I know I'm well past the the child raising years, but some of you are not. And you have to be careful about what you introduce your children to. Do not think that you can have it all.

There are some things that you are commanded to love in the world. It's okay to love your family. It's okay to love your your wife, your kids. It's okay as long as and this was the more than principle as long as you love Jesus more. It's okay to love those things. But there are some things that we are absolutely prohibited from loving. Jesus turned to a young man who wanted to follow him at one point and the man said, "I've kept all these commandments from my youth." Jesus said, "That's good.

Go sell everything you've got. Give it to the poor and follow me." And he touched a place in his heart, something that he loved and would not turn loose of. Jesus said you can't serve God and wealth mammon. It's very quiet in here tonight. But affection and this is what James says. Not this is not cardon 101 here. This is James the apostle. O camel the man who prayed much was the brother in close proximity to Jesus Christ and he said that friendship with the world is enmity with God. You can't separate that out.

And no matter how you translate that, affection with the world is a hostility toward God. Because the danger is that what starts as affection will end in love. And that's why John said, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world," You can't get more plain than that right there. And I know I'm being a big buzzkill tonight when I quote these things, but you cannot. It It is important, folks, that we get this right and that we cut it straight.

It is important because we are not going to miss heaven by a mile. Most are going to miss it by inches. Well, I thought that I could do this and that and still love God. Because in this culture, I'm telling you, in this culture, the idea is you can be anything that you want to be. You can have one foot in the world and one foot in the church. And it's impossible to do so according to what James and Jesus said. Affection to the world is a hostility toward God. Let's go on. This is part two verses 5-7.

Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lustth to envy? There there is an intense jealous craving of the spirit that dwells in you. Anybody got the Holy Ghost tonight? Then you've got a jealous spirit within you. And that is God. God is jealous. And it's the only good kind of jealousy that James is talking about here. It's rooted in righteousness.

It guards you instead of it is not a helicopter parent that is hovering over you keeping you from doing all all the things that you really want to do. It is a pro a protective shepherd that is shephering the sheep. He loves you. He is jealous for you and he wants to keep you in the palm of his hand. It's a good kind of jealousy. He wants to guard you against perils and he loves you and me enough to seek our good. This is how he can be a jealous God and yet remain a good God.

Because because His jealousy springs from purity when our jealousy springs from possessiveness. The desire to possess. Everybody with me. He loves you more than you can imagine. And we become like screaming kicking kids in Walmart when he pries our fingers off of something and puts it back on the shelf and said, "That's not for you." Oh, but I thought it was. I wanted that, but it's for our good. I We We sang those songs about the goodness of God.

Do we really believe what we sang tonight? that that God seeks the good for us and he's jealous over us and he's protective of us. A and so this section here talks about resistance and struggle, submission and victory. In verse in verse uh six he says, "But he giveth more grace." This is that adversative conjunction that puts you on another track and begins to make you think in a different direction. He gives more grace. How does he give more grace?

Wherefore he saith, God resists the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. He resists the proud. Matter of fact, he hates the proud. Look. That's what the Bible says. It's one of the things that God hates. He hates a proud look. And so he resists the proud, but to the humble he gives grace. We'll we'll get into this in just a few minutes, but but humility is not a very soughtafter quality in a world culture. It is not something that is desired by many in the world culture to be humble.

And yet the the thing that God is attracted to is the very opposite of what the world is attracted to. And that is when someone will humble himself. When someone will put himself in that in that poverty of spirit, this is what Jesus talked about. Blessed are the poor in spirit. When you put yourself in that position, there is something about that that is so attractive to God.

Even though it is rejected by the world, there's something about that humility that is so attractive that it draws God like a magnet and he extends his grace to that humble person. Submit in verse seven yourselves therefore to God. He gives you three things in this verse. Submit yourselves therefore to God. That means acquies. Bow down. Just give up yourself and submit yourself to God. When you do this, you will have the ability to resist the devil. Resist the devil. This is something that the devil hates.

He hates resistance. Hates it. And when he meets resistance, he'll just push on to somebody else. I I read this on this little blurb. It was It was directed at salespeople. Got to watch my time here. It was directed at salespeople. And this guy had had uh kind of an innovative idea. He said, "Quit selling to the nos. Sell to the yeses." They give you a bunch of nos. Just go on to somebody else and find somebody who will say yes to your sales. That's a That's a way to That's a way to build your sales.

Quit quit trying and spending all your time with the nose trying to convince them. Listen, this is this is the devil's playbook, too. When he encounters somebody who is submitted to God and resists his efforts, he'll move on. The Bible says he will flee. It causes him to flee. He is an opportunist. He's a manipulator. He wants to find a a path that's easy. And and when you in the spirit of God, submitted in humility to the power of God.

If you give him some resistance, I promise you by the word of God, he will flee from you. And don't go chasing after him. Once he flees, let him go. Amen. So God is drawn in verses 8. In verses 8 through 10, he gives us a prescription for victory. Verse eight says, "Draw nigh to God and he'll draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners." Man, if if a if a pastor got up and preached this stuff, he'd empty his church. seeker sensitive. No, James wouldn't be accused of that. Cleanse your hands, you sinners.

Purify your hearts, you double-minded. He He just keeps a machine gun, you know, METHOD JUST KEEPS FIRING AWAY. And just when you think it's over, here he comes again. And he unloads on you again. Cleanse your hearts, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you doubleminded. Listen, God is drawn to those who make an attempt, who will take the step. When you move, he'll move. He's not going to come and uproot you off of the pew or off of the seat that you're sitting on.

When we take the first step, God is going to be drawn. We take a step, he'll take two. He'll be drawn to the one who attempts to do something. We have got to understand something, folks. And that is disciplehip is not written in the passive voice. Disciplehip is not something that God does to us. It's something that we get up and we do. making these actions and activities toward God. God does what God can do and what only God can do.

But he also expects a response from us if we are going to be disciples of Jesus Christ. So he this this is a an audience participation exercise if we intend to be saved. And here's what's required. Cleanse your hands. We're going to we're going to bounce back and forth between activities and attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. He does this several times here. He says, "Cleanse your hands." That's that's your actions and your activities. Psalmist said, "Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord?

Or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart. who hath not lifted up his soul into vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. And so he says, "Cleanse your hands and then purify your heart." That's the intents and motives. You got to watch that stuff, right?

You got to watch your thoughts. whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever whatsoever things are of good report, if there being a virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. That's what we're supposed to be thinking, training our hearts and and correcting our intents and motives. He said, "Be afflicted and mourn." that represents actions rooted in repentance.

He said, "Turn laughter to mourning and joy to heaviness." It reflects the attitude of repentance. So, he's bouncing back and forth between actions and attitudes. And we as disciples of Jesus Christ must take care of both of them, actions and attitudes. He said, "Humble yourselves." I'll tell you, it's a it's a long hard lesson to learn to humble yourself because when God does it, it will be much more severe if he has to do it as opposed to when we do it ourselves to ourselves.

It's much better to humble yourself than to be humbled by God. Right? Because once you put yourself in that place of humility, the Bible says he will exalt you. He will elevate you. I hurry on. Part four verses 11 and 12. Speak not evil of one another. One of another brethren. He that speaketh evil uh speak evil of his brother and judgeth his brother speaketh evil of the law and judgeth the law. But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.

There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. Who art thou that judgest another? This was a this is an injunction. I think uh I I I think I wrote down one time that that all judgment has to start with introspection. Has to start with me. I have to look inside myself before I before as Jesus said before you try to cast the moat the speck out of somebody else's eye, you got to take care of what's in your own. It starts with introspection. This was another reference to Jesus sermon in Matthew 7.

And and so it's an injunction. Listen, when when I judge myself, if I'm going to be merciless, I ought to be merciless with myself. Be merciless with yourself and merciful to others because you never know where they've come from. You never know what they're going through. You don't know what their situations are, but when you're judging yourself, you know exactly what your situation is. So start judgment with yourself. I have to be careful to make good on this this scripture. Part five verses 13- 16 says this.

Go to now ye that say today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year. Buy and sell and get gain. Whereas you know not what shall be on the tomorrow? For what is your life? It's even a vapor that appearth for a little time that vanishth away. For that ye ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. But now you rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil. Well, I heard it said one time that if you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans.

If you if you want to bring a grin to God's face, just tell him what you plan to do. So often, and many of us have lived long enough to see this, we've seen it played out as people have planned their lives. I have watched people lose their fortune that quickly. everything they had worked for had to start all over again from scratch. Made their plans, put their money in investments, and and and built and amassed their fortunes and lost it all. Didn't plan on that.

Listen, all it takes is one catastrophic illness and your plans are messed up. James said, "It's not good to boast about the things that you're going to do and leave God out of that. But if God will," and we used to say this a lot, the Lord willing, I'll see you Sunday. Maybe it's a part of the vocabulary of the older set, but it would be good to integrate that into our conversation because anything that we do is contingent upon the Lord willing.

The bestlaid plans of man somehow bring a smile to God's face because of this. Ecclesiastes, the preacher, the wisest man supposedly who ever lived. I returned and saw unto the son, Ecclesiastes 9:11, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill. Got this? But time and chance happens to them all. time and chance happens to them all. For man also knoweth not his time.

As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time when it fall suddenly upon them. Life is a vapor. It really is. It's a short journey. One of the phenomena, the things, the most striking things about getting to be this age is that you realize how short the journey has been. You can't communicate that to somebody who is in their teen years or in their 20s. They're not even thinking in that direction.

But I can promise you when you get here, you begin to understand. It's a thing that we have that young people don't have. And it's perspective. Perspective. I wake up every day and see this old guy staring in the mirror. Looking at me. Who are you? Yeah. And I wonder how I got from there to here just that quickly and it's gone. Life is a vapor. Let's stand. It's a short journey from the cradle to the grave. It's just a wisp of smoke and uncertainties abound.

But the good thing is you can put your trust in one that never changes. Hold, as the songwriter said, to God's unchanging hand. I close with this. James said, therefore, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Superficially, you can almost gloss this scripture because you think you know what's going on here. But it's possible to know something and not believe it. It's possible to know something and not believe it. The word of God is true. Every word is true and we know that.

But if we don't act upon that, it means that we really don't believe it. Paul wrote to the Romans in the first chapter and he said, "You knew he was God." When they knew when they knew God, they didn't glorify him as God. And they changed the glory of that uncorruptible God into the image of birds and for-footed beasts, all kinds of unclean things. They knew, but they didn't believe. It is possible that we can know, but we don't live what we know because we don't believe what we know. Brother Kesler, it's true.

I can know what the word of God says, but James said here, "If you don't do it, you've thrown yourself into the camp of unbelievers, people who know and yet don't believe." When we pick up that book and we know what it says and we act otherwise, it's the sin of unbelief. It's a serious thing to know and not believe. The end result of that in the book of Romans chapter 1 was that God just gave them up. They knew. They didn't believe. They didn't act on it.

And it says that God just gave them up and they spiraled into this descent into all kinds of perversions and sin. I want to not only know, I want to live out I want to live out the word of God. How about you, Father? We thank you for your presence tonight. Thank you for your word. I pray that it takes root in our hearts that we would know you in the power of your spirit. Not just in in word, but in deed also that we would live as disciples of Jesus Christ. That we believe every word that you've spoken in your word.

God, I pray that you keep in the palm of your hand every believer in this building tonight. Guide our paths, direct our steps. Let it be done to your glory in the name of Jesus. Let the church say, "Amen."