A Way Back Series

James: Practical Faith 

James 4:7-10

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

Chenoa Baptist Church 

11-17–2024

Intro

When I was a youth pastor in Mississippi, a girl brought her new boyfriend to youth group. She was 13 years old and he was about to be 18 years old. I made an offhand comment about the age difference that set her and her parents off.

They demanded a meeting with the senior pastor and me. They also were very vocal in the church about my “disrespect” of their daughter. They wanted my head on a silver platter.

Truthfully, I was hurt and then mad. It was an offhand comment but I meant it. I didn’t think it was a good idea for this junior high girl to be dating a senior in high school. I wanted to go into the meeting guns blazing.

I called a very wise friend of ours and asked her what I should do.

She told me to look up every reference in the Bible about making peace and then kneel and read each one out loud in my office. After reading the verse out loud, I was to make a decision to obey that Scripture completely, regardless of what her parents throw at me.

I did as she directed. When it came time for the meeting, I was no longer mad and had a peace that passes all understanding.

I asked to be the first to speak. I apologized for the way I said what I said and asked the student’s forgiveness. I did this sincerely, with a joy that I couldn’t manufacture on my own.

My quiet, peaceful and kind demeanor defused the situation. But that only happened because I made a choice to submit myself under God’s Word and be obedient to it.

Review

James is a practical book and he is most interested in our spiritual maturity.

Warren Wiersbe didn’t hold back when he wrote:

“Spiritual maturity is one of the greatest needs of churches today. Too many churches are playpens for babies instead of workshops for adults.”

So far, we’ve seen the test of trials, temptations, how we handle the Word, how we handle other people, how our faith results in good fruit, how our words can glorify God, and how Godly wisdom can be shown by a godly life.

Two weeks ago, we began studying chapter four, where James addresses why there are conflicts and fights among the people of God.

James begins with two questions:

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 

Those of us who are born again have a new nature and are filled with the Holy Spirit who is making us more and more into the image of Jesus.

But that doesn’t mean our old nature disappeared. The old nature, our fleshy, selfish, prideful side of us wages war against the new nature. We have all felt that conflict when we are faced with a temptation or with an opportunity to lie to get out of trouble.

You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.

We murder people with our words and assassinate their character on social media.

We also covet, hotly desire, [bitterly envy], but we can’t ever attain what we want, and that leads to conflict with others.

Chuck Swindoll pointedly states,

“If a disagreement should be resolved and could be resolved, but is not, then our stubbornness and selfishness are at the core of the failure.”

James then writes that selfish living leads to selfish praying.

You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

He writes that when we do pray, we see God as a holy vending machine in the sky.

We ask with wrong motives - “gimme gimme prayers.” Prayer is not about getting things from God but about aligning our will to His will.

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. 

When James writes about the “world,” he means the system in our culture that is hostile toward God.

John defined it this way:

“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” (I John 2:15-17)

This doesn’t have to be outright rebellion. Sometimes it's the little compromises with the world that can suck the life from our souls.