Get Smart James 4 And 5

James 4 “Get Smart”--- Let's do this!

Summary of first three chapters of James.

Be a doer of the Word of God – we need to do this!

Ask God for wisdom!

Persevere through trials so that you may grow spiritually!

Don’t blame God for the trails you go through He does not tempt people with evil!

Don’t show favoritism to others!

Love all the same!

Control the wild thing in your mouth or your faith is worthless!

Listen to wisdom from above not wisdom from below!

James 1:22 key verse or main message for the book of James is “DO IT!”

22Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Read James chapter 4:1-12:

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?

6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

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.

11Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.

12There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

Video Clip: Get smart – paper jam and fight scene.

This scene is off course funny but it shows the reality of what happens when we allow ourselves to be influenced by the wisdom from below – it does not create a place of peace. It leads to stress, chaos, hurting of others and to ourselves.

Please hear my heart – anger is not funny – hurting others is not funny – it’s painful – it destroys lives. Fights and quarrels cause damaged emotions, and wounded hearts.

Introduction:

A Case in point --- Reflections from a young boys nightmare story: Listen to his story as told through his eyes and mind!

My home echoed from the words of “I hate you!” “You are worthless!” “You are stupid!” The walls repeated the sounds of rage and these words ripped through the air into the hearts of the young lives listening and watching the chaos. As a young toddler boy I have too many memories of violence and rage - I shuddered in horror as my father leaped out of the car to go drag a man out of car window to pound on him for cutting him off in traffic on our way to an amusement park. The rest of the day was not filled with laugher or joy but fear! My mom sat in silence all day afraid to speak for fear of retaliation from the anger seeping out of this man’s heart.

“Yes,” he would lose it like this over nothing and “yes” we would pay the price with his verbal abuse, physical abuse, -- mostly my mom -- but my brothers and I would look on in terror to see the constant insanity of anger and rage. We endured the verbal tongue lashings, the smacks, the thuds, the cries, the whimpering, the pain, the mental torment, the groans, the stress, the anguish from the blows of rage. What amazed us was no one stopped him even though most saw what he would do to the family and to our mom –over and over again. No one said anything to him when he unleashed his fists of fury on her or us. All remained silent and she would collapse into a corner bloody and emotionally raped. I would sit next to her or my brothers as young boys to comfort her but she would cry and hold us near. Me and my brothers would sit by her, holding each other, while the crazy maniac put holes in the walls, broke lamps, broke dishes, destroyed anything she loved or we loved. We all would endure this rage for years and years.