James 4:1-10 – Winning the War, with Humility
‘Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it — his bottle, his mother’s attention, his playmate’s toy, his uncle’s watch. Deny him these once, and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He is dirty, he has no morals, no knowledge, no skills. This means that all children — not just certain children — are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in the self-centered world of his infancy, given free reign to his impulsive actions to satisfy his wants, every child would grow up a criminal — a thief, a killer, or a rapist.’
Scary stuff, that? How does it make you feel to listen to something like that? This report was produced in 1926 by The Minnesota Crime Commission. It reported on the growth of crime and reached a startling conclusion. Does it sound out of date to you? Is it totally wrong, off-base or biased? This was not a report produced by the church about ‘sinners’, it was written about every person. It was a conclusion on the human condition in a way, our condition of being sinners; sinners who are involved in a war within themselves. And so, with that in mind, I want us to take a look at the 4th chapter of the book of James where the author speaks to us about this battle, this war. Listen to what James has to say about winning this war:
Submit Yourselves to God
1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?[a] 6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
"God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble."[b]
7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (NIV)
Why do we fight? Why do we quarrel? Why do people steal, lie, cheat, beat up and even kill one another? Why do we do the things we know we really should not do? In Romans 7, Paul wrestles with this subject. Sin and the law and the sinful nature of man. He writes how it drives him crazy that the things he wants to he doesn’t do, and the things he does not want to do, he does. It’s this awful thing called SIN raging a battle with the nature of God that now dwells in his life, and in OUR lives as Christians. And we have to choose who we listen to…
We are in a battle, a war for our souls. It’s the eternal battle of good vs. evil. If you don’t believer there is such a thing, then just watch or listen to the news from around the world how people are doing awful things to one another.
These ‘battles within’ as James calls them, start in each one of us as individuals though. It’s the choices we make that cause these battles to wage on and on. It’s a circular problem. It starts with our desires. The things we want. Things like money, possessions, power or authority. We want more of this an more of that. We’re like kids in a sandbox, ‘Gimme that! I want it! That’s mine! You can’t play with that, it’s mine! I’ll get you for taking my truck! That’s my shovel! Mine, mine, mine! …MOMMY!...’
We desire what everybody else has. We’re not satisfied with what we have. And we HAVE so much! Compared to most of the rest of the world, we are RICH. If you’ve got a roof over your head, of any kind, you eat at least once a day, and have some change in your pocket, you are doing better than a lot of people in the world who have nothing to call their own.
But we see the things other people have, and we WANT it. That’s what coveting is, wanting what somebody else has. And people will sometimes do anything to get those things. We kill and covet, quarrel and fight, as James says, but still can’t have what we want. The circle goes on and on, over and over, round an round. We want, we covet, we quarrel, we fight, we’re not happy with what we get, so we want more, etc, etc, etc.
The problem is that our desires are messed up. We want what WE want, not what GOD wants. You may have heard people say something like, ‘become a Christian and God will grant you all the desires of your heart. You’ll have everything you ever wanted.’ And they’ll use the scripture found in Psalm 37. ‘Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.’ Problem is, that all they focus on is the desires of your heart. That’s not what it says though. It says FIRST to delight yourself in the Lord. The context of the verses around that verse clarifies things for us. We need to read the whole passage to get an idea of what is actually being said. Listen to these verses from Psalm 37.
3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. 4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:
You see, we must commit our lives to God, FIRST! We must trust Him. We must do good. We’ve got to live for Him. If we do that, then our desires will not be our own, they will be His. Our motives, our desires, will be the same as His. We won’t be selfish, coveting, cheating liars. We’ll be loving, humble, giving and generous. When we ask for something from God in those circumstances, then yes, we will have what we want because it will be what God wants. Do you see that logic?
James gives us another stern warning, in case we haven’t seen the point yet. He uses the term ‘adulterous people’. Adultery is when a married person goes outside of their marriage relationship to find gratification in any part of their life apart from their spouse. Marriage is the illustration that is often used in the Bible to describe our relationship to God. He is the bridegroom, we are the bride. It is to be a life-long commitment of one person to another. And James says that when we ‘marry’ ourselves with God, we are no longer to look to the world for gratification. To try and be with both is impossible. It’s another black and white issue, no grey area. To choose to be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God; it shows hatred toward God. We are on one side or another. We must choose which side we are on. Are we with God, or not? Are we with the world, or not? Am I a Christian, or not?
Being a Christian is not a hat we wear, and then take off when it’s convenient or uncomfortable. It’s not going to church or Bible study or choir practice. It’s not a fake ID we show at the pearly gates of heaven or a ‘get out of hell free’ card. Being a Christian is a full-time, life time commitment to the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ. It’s being totally surrendered to God as the Lord of our lives and living for Him, 24/7. ‘In all I do, I honour You.’ we sing in Amazing Love. Not some of what I do, not in most areas of my life, but in ALL.
God doesn’t joke around when it comes to our relationship with Him. He is a jealous God. He doesn’t want to see us running around having an affair with the world. Do we think He’s not serious about it? He DIED for us! He paid the ultimate price for our salvation because He LOVES us, every one of us! And God offers eternal life to ANYONE who will simply admit that they are a sinner, that they fall short of God’s perfection, that they have made mistakes, that they have loved the world more than Him. He offers forgiveness and grace to anyone who will humble themselves and come to Him with a heart open for Him to fill.
So how do we overcome these worldly desires? How can we win this war that’s battling within us? James gives us the answers.
1) First, we must SUBMIT to God. We have to give up trying to live life our way, and start living it HIS way. Let Him be in charge of our lives. Let His Word be our guide to how we should conduct ourselves in every day life. Submit our time, our talents and abilities, our finances, our possessions, our goals and dreams, everything…to GOD.
2) Secondly we have to resist the Devil. If we don’t submit to God, then we’re submitting to the world. We have to resist the temptations we get from the world though. Say NO to all the influences that lead us away from God, that tempt us to ‘just do it’ or ‘ just this one time’, or ‘nobody will know’ or ‘no one really cares’. These are all lies, straight from the devil. God tells us in 1 John chapter 4 to ‘test the spirits, to see whether they are from God’ Don’t believe everything you hear, but be sure it lines up with God’s standards. Resisting takes effort. It’s not a passive thing but an active things. We are being pulled at from the devil who wants to drag us away from God. We have to dig our feet in and resist that pull.
3) And we do that by coming closer to God. The closer we are to Him, the more clearly we’ll understand His will for our life. If we’re far from Him, His voice will be almost inaudible, and we’ll be more easily enticed by the world
4) Wash our hands. What do all the health books say is the best way to avoid getting sick? It’s by washing our hands. You see it in restaurants and hospitals everywhere. Wash your hand, wash your hands…Why? To get rid of germs. Thos little things that make us sick. Hot running water and soap wash those little things down the drain. We need to do the same. Get rid of the little things that can infect us with a worldly life. Wash it away with the help of God. Ask Him to show us areas in our lives that we are not giving over to Him, and clean those areas up.
5) Purify our hearts. We have got to stop being double-minded; thinking we can fool anyone, especially God Himself, that we are truly devoted to Christ. If we are Christians, then we must live it out. It goes back again to faith and deeds. If God has made a difference in our lives than our lives need to be different than they were without Him.
6) Then comes this part of grieving, mourning and wailing. What’s James saying here? I think he wants us to have some sense of hurting God’s heart when we sin. David experienced godly sorrow for his sin of committing adultery with Bathsheba and having her husband killed when he prayed, “I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears” (Ps. 6:6). He was serious about his sin. How serious are we? Do we feel that we’ve hurt God or do we think that it’s okay to keep on messing up and that God doesn’t really care? How do we feel when someone hurts our feelings, when our children disobey us, when our friends betray us, when we’re lied to, cheated, ignored or slandered? Well how do we think God feels then?
It should break our hearts when we sin against God! I have seen it on my children’s faces when they know they’ve done wrong and hurt my feelings. When they say they are sorry for doing it, I see that they understand that their actions affect others, not just themselves. As Christians, we need to feel that way when we sin, when we disappoint God, when we hurt others, when we fall short.
But thanks to God for His grace and His mercy, for His love and for His compassion. Thank goodness we don’t get what we deserve every time we mess up. If we did, none of us would be here. But His grace does have limits. There is a day coming when God will say, ‘enough!’ and this world and all those who have not accepted His gift of eternal life will receive their due punishment. That day is Judgement Day. And we as a church have the command of God to go and tell the world about Him until that day comes.
We are to humble ourselves before God. We sang that song last week. Humble ourselves, and He will lift us up. We have to stop being so proud of who we are, because we are nothing without God. We need to accept that God is God, we are not. He is the final authourity. He is the giver of life. He is the beginning and He is the end. It’s not me, it’s not you, it’s not anyone but God. This battle within us, this battle against sin, is winnable, if only we will look to God for the victory!
