SECRETS TO VICTORIOUS LIVING
Text: James 4:1-10
Introduction
1. Read James 4:1-10
2. There are no victories at discount prices.
General Dwight Eisenhower.
3. In order to have victory in our lives we have to do what it takes to obtain them.
Proposition: If we want to live a victorious Christian life we must submit to God.
Transition: James gives us three secrets to victorious living. First...
I. Pray According to God’s Will (1-3)
A. Because You Ask Amiss
1. James asks "From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?"
a. The word wars refers to fighting without weapons, as in personal conflicts. These conflicts have nothing to do with quarrels with the pagan world; these are quarrels within the church, among believers.
b. The word fights refers to battles with weapons, an armed conflict. It was used figuratively to indicate the struggle between powers, both earthly and spiritual.
2. Obviously, disagreements will occur in every church. But when they happen, are we wise enough to understand why? Do we know their source?
3. Fights and quarrels are being caused, not by some external source, but by the people’s evil desires.
a. When everyone seeks his or her own pleasure, only strife, hatred, and division can result.
b. At war in your members suggests a raging battle fought between the desire to do good and the desire to do evil.
4. In verse 2, James gets to the real heart of the matter. He says "Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not."
a. The craving described here becomes so strong that the people scheme and kill to get it.
b. The word kill can be taken as a figure of speech for bitter hatred.
c. Instead of rethinking their desires, the people being described by James resort to jealousy, fights, quarrels, and worse.
5. In summary, James’s message is: The reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. In other words, "You don’t have what you desire because you don’t desire God."
6. James says that even when you do ask, you do not receive because "you ask amiss."
a. The word "amiss" pertains to being incorrect or inaccurate, with the possible implication of also being reprehensible —Louw & Nida: NT Greek-English Lexicon
b. People should not be surprised when their prayers go unanswered because often their whole motive is wrong. They were going to spend what they received on their pleasures.
c. Our prayers may not get answered because what we are seeking is our will and not God’s will.
d. 1 Jn. 5:14 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
B. God’s Will Must Always Come First
1. Illustration: Do not hastily ascribe things to God. Do not easily suppose dreams, voices, impressions, visions or revelations to be from God. They may be from Him. They may be from nature. They may be from the Devil. J.K. Johnston
2. We always get ourselves into trouble when we seek our own will over God’s.
3. Seeking our own will leads to:
a. Quarrels
b. Strife
c. Heartache
d. Financial trouble
4. When God bolts the door, don’t try to get in through the window. The will of God never will lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you.
5. If it’s not God’s will, you don’t want it anyway!
Transition: If we look after God’s will it always leads us in the right direction.
II. Love God More Than the World (4-5)
A. Friendship with the World
1. James wants to shock these people into reality when he says, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."
a. The shocking words adulterers and adulteresses graphically describes the spiritual unfaithfulness of the people and intends to jar them into facing their true spiritual condition.
b. These believers were trying to love God and have an affair with the world.
c. James is doing exactly what God did with Israel in the book of Hosea, when He instructs Hosea to marry the prostitute Gomer as an illustration of the peoples unfaithfulness.
2. The problem is that some people try and live in two worlds. They want to be a Christian and live according to the ways of the world too.
a. But it won’t work, because friendship with this world makes a person an enemy of God.
b. For believers, the world and God are two distinct objects of affection, but they are direct opposites.
c. The world is the system of evil under Satan’s control, all that is opposed to God. To be friendly with the world, then, is to adopt its values and desires.
3. You cannot live in two worlds. You can’t have one foot in the kingdom and one in the world.
a. 1 Jn. 2:15-17 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 all that is in the world--the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life--is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
b. 2 Cor. 6:17 Therefore "Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you."
4. In verse 5, James says "Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?"
a. The word "spirit" here is referring to the Holy Spirit (Calvin’s Commentaries, vol. 22, 332).
b. James was saying that God, who caused his Spirit to dwell in the believers, is jealous for their friendship.
c. Ex. 20:5 For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God
d. God will not accept second place to you or anyone else.
B. Love God Above All Else
1. Illustration: Two friends went camping out in the woods. They woke up the first morning and were standing by their tent having their first cup of coffee for the day when they suddenly spotted a grizzly bear heading for them at full speed. Quickly, the one man reached down and grabbed his tennies and started putting them on. The other man looked at him and said, ’What are you doing? Do you think you can outrun that grizzly bear?’ And the first man said, ’No, and I don’t need to. All I need to do is to outrun you!’ With friends like that who needs enemies?
2. Do you ever wonder if God says that about us? When he sees:
a. Sin in our lives
b. How little priority we give him in our lives
c. Us loving the world more than him
3. Col. 1:18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything (NASB).
4. Jesus has got to have first place in our lives. Not:
a. Second Place
b. Third Place
c. Fourth Place
5. If he is not first place then there is something seriously wrong in our spiritual lives. Unless Jesus is first in our lives we will never have victory!
Transition: If Jesus isn’t Lord of all, then he isn’t Lord at all!
III. Humble Yourself Before God (6-10)
A. He Gives Grace to the Humble
1. In verse 6, James says "But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble."
a. Aren’t you glad God gives more grace?
b. A greater benefit, than all the goods that the world can bestow; for he gives genuine happiness, and this the world cannot confer. —Adam Clarke’s Commentary
2. God sets himself against the proud because pride makes us self-centered and leads us to conclude that we deserve all we can see, touch, or imagine.
a. It creates greedy appetites for far more than we need.
b. Pride can subtly cause us to no longer see our sins or our need for forgiveness.
3. But humility opens the way for God’s grace to flow into our lives; thus, God shows favor to the humble.
a. Humility is not weakness; instead, it is the only place that believers gain courage to face all their temptations and sins with God’s strength.
b. As God gives us more grace, we realize that this world’s seductive attractions are only cheap substitutes for what God has to offer.
c. It is our choice--we can humble ourselves and receive God’s grace, or we can continue in our pride and self-sufficiency and experience his anger.
4. A part of humbling ourselves before God is to rely on his strength and not our own. In verse 7, James says "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
a. “Submit” is a military term “to be subordinated” or “to render obedience.”
b. “Resist” (antistçte) means “take a stand against.” Take a stand against the devil, and he will flee.—Bible Knowledge Commentary
c. What a great promise! However, make sure you don’t separate it. Submit to God first and then resist the devil.
d. Illustration: Just try and resist the devil without submitting to God, and the devil will swat you like a fly!
5. But how do we submit to God? James tells us in verse 8: "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded."
a. We can draw close to God, and God will draw close to us.
b. The command to wash your hands means to purify our actions and change our external behavior.
c. The way we live matters to God. As we draw near to God, we will become aware of habits and actions in our lives that are not pleasing to him.
d. Washing our hands pictures the removal of these things from the way we live.
B. Submit to God
1. The closer we draw to God and humbly submit to his authority in our lives, the closer he comes to us.
2. The closer he comes to us, the more abundant His power is in our lives.
3. Once his abundant power is at work in our lives, the devil doesn’t stand a chance.
4. Ps. 145:18 The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.
Transition: The devil is no match for a child of God who is submitted and humble.
Conclusion
1. If we want to live a victorious Christian life we must submit to God.
2. We submit to God by:
a. Praying according to His will
b. Loving Him above all else
c. Humbling ourselves before Him
3. Who are you submitted to today?
