JUST CUT IT OUT!
James 4:1-10
INTRODUCTION:
Good morning!
I’m sure you’ve probably heard of the Hatfields and McCoys-those two famous feuding families from the hills of Kentucky. What you may NOT know is that their decades-long feud began in the early 1870’s with a dispute over a pig. These two families must have been serious about their pork because words and blows were exchanged and battle lines were drawn. Then a court battle over timber rights escalated the tension between the two clans and by 1888 — bullets were flying. 12 people were dead.
More often than we would like to admit, we face struggles, issues, and quarrels within our lives. Sometimes they are found within the relationships we have at home or work, but at times that can even be found within our relationships in the church. Where ever they show up in our lives they cause strife. They never help — but most always hurt. For this reason, James talks straight to us about the problem and the solution for overcoming conflict, so we can move forward in our faith and our friendships with others.
MESSAGE:
Today’s text comes from the first part of chapter 4. So, if you have your Bible, turn their with me.
James 4 — and we’ll begin in verse 1. Here James writes,
1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
James 4:1-10 (NIV)
Alright, once again we’ve come to discover a very challenging and direct section of scripture. James just doesn’t hold back. Last week he challenged us to watch our mouths — and this week he tells us to “CUT IT OUT!”
I want to just say, the reason I gather with you each and every week is to discover more about God and more about myself. I come in to study God’s Word so that my life and my heart look more like God desires them to be. So, while this may be some pretty tough stuff — let’s be open to hear all that God would say to us today. Amen?
Well, James begins by pointing out that we all face a problem in this life — and it’s not relegated just to those far from Jesus, but it also tends to affect those who know and serve Him.
And he says . . .
OUR PROBLEM: WE HAVE CONFLICT IN LIFE (WITH GOD AND OTHERS).
Do you have conflict in your life? Of course, you do. We all do. Life is full of conflicts.
But the question is — what causes the conflicts in your life?
James says, many times — the conflicts in your life arise from you trying to get your own way. He says, too often — the conflicts in your life are because you did not get what you wanted, or because of your selfish tendencies.
Look with me again at verse 4. James asks and answers the question . . . when he writes,
4 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?
James is saying that one of the primary reasons we have issues and struggles and fights with others is not because of others — but rather, because of us. It’s not so much what is going around us — but rather what is going on within us that causes us the greatest problems. And so, he then identifies three primary causes for the conflict we face. Now, I admit — I don’t like to hear this anymore than the rest of you, but James says, my greatest proponent to the conflict in my life is ME! It’s not someone else, it’s ME!
So, I’m going to ask you to do as I’ve had to do ALL WEEK LONG as I’ve prepared for this message, and lower your guard, and settle down, and be open to listen to the voice of the Lord as He speaks to us today through this most challenging and direct passage.
As James writes, the problem of conflict that we face in this life with God and others really hinges on three things. And the first is this:
1. WE HAVE A PROPENSITY FOR SELF-CENTEREDNESS.
2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
James’ point is, don’t look elsewhere for the source of your conflicts. Look within! The source is selfishness! Two selfish people dig in their heels and accuse each other as being the cause of the problems. Often, others take sides, until an all-out war results. But James takes it back to the root cause: selfishness!
James says that we have a deep propensity for self-centeredness.
— Sometimes its seen in our: Self-sufficiency —which says we don’t need God or anyone else. We are the answer to our problems and we everyone would just get out of our way, the world would be a better place.
But this self-reliance is incredibly harmful to our friendships and our faith.
James says that one of the worst consequences for Christians who embrace this selfish attitude is that it brings our spiritual growth to a standstill by polluting our prayer life.
Your prayer life (or lack thereof) reveals the focus of your heart. And as James says In verse 2,
…You do not have because you do not ask God.
James tells us that if we aren’t praying its because we’ve be deceived into thinking that we are the solution to our problems. And so, in a sense we shift from worshipping God to worshipping ourselves. A prayer-less life is a reflection of our independence. It’s a declaration that we don’t think we need God or anyone else. And this idea of independence — or self-sufficiency leads to another issue within our prayer lives. James says — sometimes we do pray, but when we do, we do so with wrong motives. Listen again to verse 3. He says,
3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
That’s selfish praying! This kind of praying views prayer as a tool to try and force God to do what we want for our benefit and fails to consider His will.It views prayer as an Aladdin’s lamp, that we can pull of the shelf, rub the right way, and then demand our desires from Him.
But Jesus clearly taught that prayer is not to get our will done on earth, but to get God’s will done:
“Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”.
Matt. 6:10
Don’t miss this — PRAYER is not something to allow us to use God; it is something that allows God to use us.
We must refuse the temptation to allow Self-centeredness to direct our lives. It will only lead us into conflict and eventually force us to waste the blessings of God solely on ourselves.
So, as James writes, the problem of conflict that we face in this life with God and others really hinges on OUR DEEP PROPENSITY FOR SELF-CENTEREDNESS.
But he continues by saying, another contributing factor to our personal conflicts is:
2. WE STRUGGLE TO COMMIT.
4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
James is pointing to our struggle to commit our lives fully to serving God.
— Spiritual unfaithfulness drives us to become dissatisfied with what we have and leads us to search for something more beyond what has been given to us. (4)
James says we should turn away from the world and turn to God.
As so, James tells us so bluntly, the problem of conflict that we face in this life with God and others first hinges on OUR PROPENSITY FOR SELF-CENTEREDNESS. And the second contributor is OUR LACK OF COMMITMENT.
But he continues by saying, the third contributing factor to our personal conflicts is:
3. WE OFTEN STRUGGLE WITH PRIDE.
5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”
James says that we have an obvious struggle with the issue of pride.
— God is jealous of us and will not allow anything to step in between his relationship with us. (5)
— Pride which would pull itself away from God and seek to only honor and please itself is destructive to our best, and disappointing to God.
— It was that sense of PRIDE that caused the heavens to be unsettled as Satan pulled away from God for the purpose of self-honor and self-centered pride.
That’s why James quotes Proverbs 3:34 to show his us God’s position against pride. As he says,
“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
The real question that James is getting at is who stands at the center of your life? Who is it that you consider to be the MVP of your world?
WHO’S REALLY SITTING ON THE THRONE OF YOUR LIFE?You know, the only one credentialed to rule your life is Jesus. And when you humble yourself before Him, He promises to exalt or lift you up. But when you stand your ground, fighting any and everyone who would challenge your interests and your desires, God tells us that He will humble you.
As James tells us so bluntly, the problem of conflict that we face in this life with God and others first hinges on OUR PROPENSITY FOR SELF-CENTEREDNESS. And the second contributor is OUR LACK OF COMMITMENT. And the third issue is OUR STRUGGLE WITH PRIDE:
So, where do we turn from here?
If we all struggle with conflict because of these things that are so deeply rooted WITHIN US, how do we overcome these tendencies and work to CEASE CONFLICT in our lives?
In the next verse, James points to the solution — when he tells us that:
THE SOLUTION: CONFLICT ENDS WHERE SUBMISSION BEGINS.
Most Christians have a good understanding of grace as it applies to salvation. They understand that God did something for them that they could never do for themselves. He erased their sin debt. He gave them a righteous standing before God. He made them spiritually alive so that they could enjoy intimate fellowship with the Father.
We tend to be less clear about what grace looks like within our lives after our salvation.
We often view grace as — God ability to cover up our failures, or helping us to do or endure difficult things. But we fail to recognize that grace in the Christian life still means God doing for us that which we could never do for ourselves – which is everything.
But to experience God’s grace — and His blessings in our lives, we first have to submit to our ways to His. Which is what James tells us in verse 7. Look at it with me. He says,
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to
God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
James 4:1-10 (NIV)
James exhorts us to take three life-changing steps to overcome conflict and experience God’s blessing:
He challenges us to SUBMIT TO GOD, TO REPENT OF SIN, and to HUMBLE OURSELVES BEFORE GOD.
- SUBMIT TO GOD
— Submitting to God keeps us close to Him.
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
God hates independent living but He honors and rewards those who will submit themselves to Him.
“Submitting” is a military term and it means give someone with superior rank the respect and authority that is due them. In this context James is saying we must treat God in a way that befits His rank as our superior Officer.
James tells us to resist the tendency to be self-seeking and instead, we submit our ways to Him — God will reward us with His presence and power. In fact, He comes along and helps us to resist the temptations of the devil and avoid the dangerous paths that he seeks to lead us down. Ultimately submitting to Jesus — will cause the enemy of our lives to flee from us.
So, James exhorts us to submit our lives to God. But not stopping there, he tells us to repent.
- REPENT OF SIN
— Repentance to God keeps us right with Him.
I think we need to remember — repentance isn’t just an act for the lost, it’s a discipline for the saved. That’s why James writes to the church and says,
8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.
This is a picture of true repentance. It’s leaving the pathways that turn us away from God, and choosing to turn back to Him.
It is abandoning our current paths and drawing near to God. To do so, we have to acknowledge our sin and leave it behind. But doing so ultimately brings us job and celebration rather than gloom and despair.
But I want you to notice another thing — in verse 8, James says when we draw close to God, He will draw close to us. This is a wonderful truth because it means we couldn’t possibly want to be close to God as much as He wants to be close to us. He yearns to come into our lives.
As Psalm 145:18 says,
“The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth.”
So, if you want to overcome conflict in your life — begin by submitting your way to God, repent of your selfishness, and lastly — humble yourself before Him. Because . . .
- HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE GOD
— Humility before God elevates us in Him.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
Those who humbly repent and change their ways will enjoy the God’s blessing and pardon from sin.
James reminds us that when we submit our ways to God, when we repent of our selfishness, and we humble ourselves before him — that His response is to act with GRACE!
God addresses our problem with His grace… amazing grace… great grace… grace upon grace… for you and me when we submit ourselves to Him.
As the old hymn reminds us:
Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin.
So, when you humble yourselves before God, you don’t have to lift yourselves up…God will give you grace in your humility, and He will raise you up. You need not to do that on your own!
CONCLUSION:
If we’re going to CUT IT OUT and live with peace in our lives — in our world, then we first have to experience peace within our hearts. As with everything else James is teaching in this letter, this issue of ceasing conflict isn’t for someone else — it’s for us! And our personal responses to God are paramount.
So, let’s end this message by heeding the words of James and once again, surrendering our hearts, lives, and desires completely to Jesus.
Let’s invite God’s grace to come and empower us to live at peace with Him and others. For those of you who have asked Christ to forgive you of your sin by applying the work of His sacrifice upon the cross to your life — then you are saved. So, this isn’t about getting saved again. It’s about living FULLY SURRENDERED unto Him.
So, stand with me and we will close in prayer together.
PRAYER:
Heavenly Father, thank you for your patience with us. While we want to live at peace with each other and with you — too often we undercut that possibility with our own selfish desires. But Lord we pause today to repent of our sin, to draw near to you, and to humble ourselves as you have taught us to do. Would you now honor your Word and give us the GRACE that you’ve promised and allow us to live our lives all them more, in submission to you! Thank you for your grace and unfailing love. We bless You — and determine to live our lives all the more in submission to you. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.