James 4:1-12 April 2018
THE BELIEVER’S REAL ENEMY
A number of years ago a man was found guilty of the gruesome murder of a young woman and when he was asked in court why he did it, he answered, “The Devil made me do it.”
It’s interesting today how people are unwilling to take responsibility for their own actions. They call it extenuating circumstances. They blame their circumstances, their upbringing, their parents, their husbands or wives, the devil and goodness knows what else.
A man who became a heavy drinker and was regularly drunk confided in a friend, “My wife drove me to drink.” “You mean she dragged you into the car, drove to the pub, forced open your mouth and poured the stuff down your throat.”
Ill. In the 1970s, the police went on strike in NY city and hundreds of people went on a crime spree, breaking into department stores and taking everything they could lay their hands on. Jimmy Carter who was the president at the time, said the cause of the crime was poverty and unemployment. But after an extensive investigation they found that the vast majority of the looters were employed and didn’t even the need the stuff they took. It was nothing to do with poverty or unemployment. It was, as James says here, human greed and selfishness expressing itself.
Looking back over my Christian life I would have to say that the greatest problem I have had to deal was not Satan, it wasn’t trying and painful circumstances, it wasn’t even difficult people. It was me. My greatest enemy has always been the selfish, sinful weaknesses and desires in my fallen human nature.
And this is what James is talking about here. The cause of so much of our suffering and conflict is not out there, it’s in here.
He highlights 4 internal enemies that are fighting within to control us and express themselves through power over us. Selfishness, worldliness, pride and self-righteousness.
SELFISHNESS v1-3
What causes quarrels and fights among you? Most people would say, “It’s what she or he or they said or did.” Very few would give the reason James gave, which is basically, “I can’t get what I want, I can’t get my own way.” So when someone prevents us from getting what we want we get angry and retaliate.
I would venture to say that 80% of all conflict in relationships is caused by basic selfishness: people not getting what they want or not getting their own way. In fact, when you think about it, it’s the main reason children get angry.
I have often heard people say when their marriages have broken up, “He or she did not meet my expectations, they didn’t fulfil my needs.”
This just doesn’t happen in marriages, it happens in churches where certain people have their own agendas, their own ideas about how things should be done and when others disagree they become very difficult and cause problems.
Ill. I know of a church where one man had for years exercised considerable power and control and every time a Pastor would disagree with him or challenge him he would make life so unbearable that the Pastor eventually had to leave. There was never unity in the church, new people seldom ever stayed, it never grew and all because one man would not give up his own personal ambition to get his own way.
This may not sound politically correct, but I don’t fully agree with the UN Bill of Human Rights because it is so focussed on me and my rights, what I should be getting, what I deserve. It is creating a very self-centred, self-focussed generation. It’s all about me, my wants, my desires, my plans, my dreams and we believe it is our right to have them.
I see people demonstrating, demanding more and bigger and better chanting, “What do we want? Blah blah blah” When do we want it, “Now.”
I feel sad that they didn’t call it the bill of human responsibilities because the focus would be on me ensuring that others are getting fair deal.
I wonder how many people in NZ think in terms of, “What is my responsibility to others.”
James says here, “If you want something, instead of fighting and pushing for it, ask God for it and if God wants you to have it, He will let you have it.
If He doesn’t let you have it, then He has a good reason for not letting you have it. It may that your motives for wanting it are selfish and if you did get what you asked for you would use it for the wrong purposes.
How can we deal with these selfish desires that cause so much distress and conflict?
We need to pray what Jesus prayed, “Not what I want but what you want. Father if this is what you want for me that’s fine, if it is not I am prepared to surrender it to you.”
Ill. I have spoken to a number of Pastors who resigned from their churches. And some of them told me that they had visions and plans that they wanted to implement in the church but others didn’t feel the same and it created ongoing tension and conflict. The Pastor became frustrated, angry, resentful and resigned. I realised that could have been me, so I determined that whenever I had a plan, an idea or a project I would like to see put in place I would hold it with an open hand and say, “Lord, if this is what you want then let it come about but if it is not I accept that. I am not going to push or fight for it. I release it to you.” In that there is peace.
We need to do that in our relationships.
WORLDLINESS v4-5
Worldliness describes someone who behaves like the unbelieving people of this world. In Ephesians 2:1-3 Paul says this is the way we used to live and behave before we came to Christ. “In the past you were spiritually dead because of your sins and the things you did against God. Yes, in the past you lived the way the world lives, following the ruler of the evil powers that are over the earth. That same spirit is now working in those who refuse to obey God. In the past all of us lived like them, trying to please our sinful selves and doing all the things our bodies and minds wanted.”
James says here that if we want to behave like the unbelieving people of this world, if we want to live by their standards and values, if we want their recognition and approval, we can’t be a friend of God.
It was Jesus plan that we Christians would be like salt and light in this world and that our lives, attitudes and behaviour would so influence the people of this our godless culture that would they become open and receptive to the message of Christ.
But it seems to me that in this day and age our godless culture is having a far greater influence on Christians than we have on it.
So many Christians are more obsessed and more devoted to the things of this world than they are to the things of God. No wonder James called them adulterers, no wonder he says that the Spirit of God within us is jealous.
Every time we pursue the things of this world to gratify our selfish desires, every time we look to the people of this world for recognition and approval, every time we act and speak like unbelievers in order to get them to accept us and like us, we behave like an adulterous spouse, turning away from the only One who can satisfy our deepest needs, the only One who can give us unconditional love, acceptance and approval. No wonder the Spirit of God within is offended and is jealous.
In the OT God said He was jealous because His own people kept turning away from Him and seeking their fulfilment, their happiness in other gods.
I hate this world, by that I mean the culture, the system that man has created under the influence of Satan. A culture, society based on greed, pride, lust. A culture whose values, moral standards and behaviour is completely the opposite to everything Jesus taught and modelled.
And yet so many believers lower their moral standards, adopt its values, attitudes and behaviour in order to be accepted and embraced by the people of this culture. So many believers suck up to the people of this world because they want to be liked and included.
God says, “That is adultery. And when we do this we make ourselves enemies of God.”
This worldly culture with its godless values, standards and behaviour is doomed, there is no future in it. But God’s Kingdom will last forever.
PRIDE v6-10
What is the main characteristic of this godless world? Pride.
Pride was the cause of the first sin. The reason Adam and Eve disobeyed God was because they wanted to become gods themselves, having the same knowledge and power. To replace God with themselves, to live independently of God, to run their own lives, make their own rules, do their own thing and be answerable to no one but themselves.
That is what has happened in our culture. People have pushed God out and elevated themselves to the place of God.
In this culture man has become the supreme authority when it comes to knowledge, to what is right and wrong, what is acceptable and not acceptable. In this culture human beings have become gods in their own eyes and even in the eyes of others.
Look at how the culture goes over the top in elevating, exalting, praising, adoring and worshipping its idols from presidents to Popstars.
We see Vladimir Putun striding into the Kremlin with a proud conceited look on his face, the same with Kim Jong-Un of North Korea, and Xi Jinping of China and dare I say it, Donald Trump. So many world leaders are over-inflated with their own sense of power and authority that they act as though they are God.
But there is a more subtle form of pride and I believe we are all guilty of it, I know I am.
It happens when we want people to think more highly of us than they should. We want them to admire us, look up to us and so we talk about our accomplishments, our successes, how indispensable we are doing all this really important stuff and helping all these people.
Ill. I shared with you before that a couple of years ago I got an email from the Baptist Union office telling me that they wanted to give me an award for long service as a Baptist pastor. I was talking about this to Lois and I said, “I don’t want any recognition.” She turned to me and said, “Well how come you tell others that you are one of the longest serving Baptist pastors in NZ.”
Why did we do it? Its pride. We want people to think more highly of us than they should. It’s sinful because we are taking the credit, the praise and glory that belongs to God and giving it to ourselves.
Even when Paul spoke about his ministry he was careful to point out that it wasn’t Him who accomplished these things, but the grace of God working through Him.
You and I couldn’t even breathe let alone exist apart from God, every talent and ability we have was given by God. He alone deserves the credit and the praise. The only things we can take the credit for are our sins.
So James calls us to humble ourselves before God, confess our pride and express true repentance. And when we do, 2 wonderful things will happen.
We will have power over Satan. N.B. – That the humbling of ourselves must come first before we can have power over the Evil One. If you hold onto your pride, you give Satan a foothold.
God will honour us – Whenever you are tempted to promote yourself, exalt yourself in the eyes of others, tell yourself this, “I will leave it to God to that if He so desires.”
SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS v11-12
Why do we criticise and judge each other?
Mainly to divert attention from our own faults and failures. It’s all about trying to make ourselves look better that we really are in the eyes of others. Self-righteousness.
You will find that people who are critical and fault finding generally don’t like themselves and because they don’t like themselves they focus on the faults and failures of others thinking that it will make themselves look better. They think it will make them even feel better about themselves.
Ill. I know this from experience. When I was a child I was constantly criticised and belittled mainly by my father. Because of this I had a very low opinion of myself. By the time I was a teenager I actually hated myself and thought others felt the same and so in order to make myself look better in the eyes of others I became very critical of other people. I thought that by putting them down it would somehow make me look and feel better.
When I come across people who bully and put down others, I can be pretty sure that that person has a very low opinion of themselves. “You must hate yourself to feel you’ve got to behave like that.”
I have also discovered that the things we criticise in others are the very things we see in our lives. And yet somehow we think we are better than those people.
This is why Jesus was so hard on the religious leaders of His day. They criticised, judged and condemned others, and yet the very things they criticised in others were going on in their own lives.
Ill. When we were in Wellington there was a pastor who was in a homosexual relationship. One of his Elders found out about it and put pressure on the church to get rid of him. Years later I discovered that this very elder was himself a practicing homosexual and paedophile.
When Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinski came to light, Rev Jesse Jackson called on him to repent of his immoral behaviour and yet it was discovered that Jesse himself was sexually involved with a woman who wasn’t his wife and she was carrying his child.
Self-righteousness is really self-deception because we become so focussed on the faults in others that we deceive ourselves into thinking we don’t have any.
James says that when we criticise and judge each other we are criticising and judging God’s law. What law is that? The law to love one another as Christ has loved us.
We are saying in effect that God’s law of love doesn’t apply to us, we don’t have to keep that law.
James says, “God alone who gave the law is the judge.” Leave the judging to God.
When you think about it, only God has the ability to judge properly because He is in possession of all the facts. He knows the truth, He knows all the circumstances, he even knows the thoughts and motives behind and our words and actions. We don’t.
We are great at criticising and judging others, claiming that we know what they were thinking and what their motives were and what they really meant when they said this or did that. Those are things that only God knows and He alone has the right to make a true and correct judgement.
From this passage we have looked at 4 internal enemies that we Christians face on a daily basis:
Selfishness, worldliness, pride and self-righteousness.
James says these enemies are fighting within us. Wanting to control us and express themselves through us. How can we overcome them on a daily basis.
The key here is humility. Humble ourselves.
Confessing to God when we have given into them and asking for forgiveness and the power to change.
It may involve going to those you have criticised and judged and humbling yourselves before them and asking for their forgiveness.
When we do this we take away Satan’s foothold. In fact we have power to resist Him and send him packing and God will honour us in His way and in His time.