God’s way or my way? (James 4:1-10)
Billy Milton - March 11, 2007
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On September 2, 1945 General Douglas MacArthur broadcast a message to the world from the deck of the Battleship Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. World War II had just ended. He said, “Today the guns are silent…the skies no longer rain death…the seas bear only commerce…men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world is quietly at peace….” That long war cost over sixty million lives, and an estimated $1 trillion. It came only one generation after what President Woodrow Wilson called, ‘the war to end all wars.’ It didn’t. Since World War II we have seen wars in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, The Falklands, Yugoslavia, not to mention all the African conflicts, political assassinations, personal revolts, rebellions and social revolutions. The history of our world is a war history. It’s really awful! We don’t seem able to stop fighting each other.
But James brings it uncomfortably closer to home when he makes it clear that our personal stories are war stories as well, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?” (v.1). What a penetrating question! Why can’t you get along? James is not writing to the Generals and the soldiers here he’s writing to Christians… you and me… and James asks, “Why are you fighting?” Now that’s not just awful that’s a disgrace.
Then James answers his own question. He lays the blame fairly and squarely on, ‘The desires that battle within you’! Does this phrase resonate with you? It does with me. My desires are constantly in conflict. However, the very fact that there is a battle going on is actually quite encouraging. If there was no battle then that would mean that I had just given in completely to this worlds temptations. There is a big part of me that longs for a closer walk with God; I want to pray more; I want to know God’s mind on matters of importance; I want to serve him with all of my heart and soul and mind and strength.
But…I also desire all the usual toys of this world. I recognise that within me, and I don’t think I’m unique, that there is a constant battle going on between my desire to serve God and my desire for recognition and reward. For me the battle rages constantly and, if I don’t consciously recognise that fact, then I’m in real danger as a Christian of becoming God’s enemy. The pleasures and rewards of this world are so subtle and so enticing and, in many cases, so innocuous looking that we can become ensnared without even being aware of it. How does it happen?
I. THE ROOT CAUSES OF OUR FIGHTS … vv. 1-5 The main reason that we get into so much trouble at times is Selfishness! Look at how often James uses the word ‘you’ in vv1-3. READ IT. Church? It sounds like a noisy Toddler‘s club, doesn’t it? Just grab what you can. We have problems with people and problems with God because so much of our thinking revolves around me and my family and my needs and my happiness and my comfort and my sensibilities. And God is saying here, “Stop! Stop thinking of how your needs will be met and start thinking of how you can better submit yourself to God.”
The second reason we get into fights and squabbles is that we pick the wrong friend. So often our best friend is not God but the world. So, what does it actually mean when James talks about ‘friendship with the world’? What is the ‘world’ that we are not supposed to be friendly with? Well, centuries ago John Wesley defined ‘the world’ quite simply as, “whatever cools my affection toward Christ.” Talking about the same theme, 1 John 2:16 tells us that, “the cravings of sinful man, the lust of the eyes and the boasting of what he has and does” are “from the world”, and I want to just spend a few minutes looking at these three things:-
The Makeup of the World - A Preoccupation with Pleasure
“The cravings of sinful man”. Don Fleming is a missionary who visited us here a few years ago. He spends a lot of time working with churches around the world many of which are seeing tremendous revival. When I asked him what in his opinion was the major reason that the churches in Britain were declining, he said, “The average churchgoer in Britain will not step outside of their comfort zones.” In other words, we are so concerned with our own well being, our own pleasures, our own right to be happy, our own desire to have an easy time, that whenever a request goes out for someone to do something that demands even a small amount of self sacrifice, the answer is often no. The result is that a few people do too much and the rest justify it by saying that they are just too busy, too tired, too stressed. But usually only too busy, tired and stressed for God’s work. Enjoying pleasurable things is not wrong but a preoccupation with pleasure is wrong.
2. A Preoccupation with Possessions
The second element in the world is the ‘lust of the eyes’. Advertisers are past masters at feeding the ‘lust of the eyes’. We are constantly bombarded with the message that we need something else to make us happy…but trying to find happiness by getting the latest fashion or a bigger and better computer or whatever your own area of weakness is, is doomed to failure. This is an area that I suspect we will need to consciously battle with until the day we die.
3. A Preoccupation with Power.
The third and final ingredient in the world is, “boasting of what he has and does”. History is studded with successful people who have displayed this boastful attitude. Normally the desire for power comes after the desire for possessions has been tried and found wanting. My ex-chairman had a personal fortune in the high teens of millions but his consuming desire in life was to get a knighthood, and there is not a lot that he wouldn’t do to get it. This would give him a status that even his vast fortune could not buy. Whether it’s a desire for power and status in the world or power and status in the church, the result is the same. A focus on me instead of him.
The crafty thing about worldliness, whether it be a preoccupation with pleasure, possessions or power, is that it takes seed and grows in your heart, where no one can see it. You don’t have to do anything to be guilty of courting friendship with God’s enemy, worldliness. It’s simply a matter of “As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” Prov 23:7.
James 4:4 asks a good question about who we are friends with. It reminds us that a worldly outlook is like a spiritual cancer. It can grow inside us and take over our lives until, by the time we become aware of it, we are spiritually sick. Consider this question. One day we are all going to stand before God and he will ask us to give an account of our lives. What are you going to tell him?
II THE RIGHT WAY TO FREEDOM vv7-10
Are you conscious of these conflicting desires battling within you? You want to follow God but this world is soooh attractive and the job so demanding. Do you sometimes despair of your own spiritual shallowness? James gives a number of instructions to the struggling Christians of his day and they still make sense to me today. You can read them in vv7-10
1 – ‘Submit yourselves, then, to God.’ This is a voluntary act of placing yourself under God’s authority. This is what happens when we really pray, ‘Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Submit means much more than a passive acquiescence. It carries the idea of ‘signing up’ for service. It is a pledge of allegiance to a great Sovereign so that you can fight under his banner.
2- ‘Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.’ This is the other side of the same coin. You submit to God by resisting the devil and you resist the devil by submitting to God. Satan constantly seeks to lead people into self-centered and world-centered attitudes and activities. He wants to subvert our allegiance to God. We have a secured victory… but we must actively oppose God’s enemy. Indecision and doubt only makes him bold and aggressive in his attacks, but he flees like a coward when we confront him with a resolute will and firm confidence in God.
Three steps for resisting the devil are presented in verses 8 and 9.
1. ’Wash your hands, you sinners.’ This is an appeal to our outward lifestyle. Our hands represent our deeds. They must be cleansed as we withdraw them from evil deeds and from grasping for the world’s contaminating pleasures. Our conduct must be clean.
2. ‘Purify your hearts, you double-minded.’ Here is another reference to our motives. Our hearts become impure when we love the wrong things and give our allegiance to the wrong people on the throne of our heart. The heart is the place of our affections. Jesus must be Lord of our hearts or we are double-minded.
3. ‘Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.’ This is an obvious call for repentance. We must not only acknowledge the existence of our sins, but we must feel sorry that we have sinned against God. King David is a great example. He was no goody-two-shoes but when he sinned he repented with real honesty and sincerity. In fact in Psalm 6 we read, ‘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.
We cannot play games with the devil and with sin. We win the war with worldliness by ‘drawing near to God.’ God offers love, trust, grace, forgiveness, openness, and all the other marks of a loving relationship. But we must draw near to Him. Distance will separate us from God. Our flirtation with the world will estrange us. We must return to an intimate relationship with Him. He will never force His love upon us. He will not coerce or manipulate. He loves and invites and responds as we respond to Him. When you are genuinely humbled and submitted to God, the promise is ‘He will lift you up.’
God’s way or your way? Many years ago Joshua stood before the people of Israel at the beginning of their new life in Israel and issued them with a challenge, “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourself this day whom you will serve … the one true God or the gods in whose land you are living.” Josh 24:15
God’s way or my way? It’s without doubt the single most important question you will ever answer.