Christianity For Dummies: How to Start & Stop Wars
James 4:1-10
I. Introduction
A. Have you ever heard of the "War of the Whiskers" or the "War of the Oaken Bucket" or the "War of Jenkins' Ear"? These were actual wars fought between nations! War is a fact of life. Not only are there wars between nations, but there are wars of one kind or another on almost every level of life - tragically and embarrassingly enough, even in God's house.
B. Take Johnny for instance. His mother looked out the window and noticed him "playing church" with their cat. He had the cat sitting quietly and he was preaching to it. She smiled and went about her work. A while later she heard loud meowing and hissing and ran back to the open window to see Johnny baptizing the cat in a tub of water. She called out, "Johnny, stop that! The cat is afraid of water!" Johnny looked up at her and said, "He should have thought about that before he joined my church."
C. You know the sad truth about that joke? That is EXACTLY how a lot of people in a lot of churches treat each other - they war against each other with loud meowing and hissing, biting and scratching and all the while not caring one iota about the harm we are inflicting on the other party in the process.
D. Think about some of the "wars" you've seen waged in churches during your life. The colors of carpets, positions of coat hooks, finances, and the BIGGIE right now, worship wars!
E. James discussed this important theme of war within the church in the 4th Chapter of the Book of James. He points out that they start because we are At War with Each Other, At War with Ourselves, and At War with God. Like any good physician, James first diagnoses the problem and then follows his diagnosis with an eight-fold Rx on how these wars can be stopped.
II. Scripture Reading & Prayer
A. Read James 4:1-10.
B. Pray - Father, it deeply saddens us that we taint your glory and offend the blood of your Son Jesus Christ that was shed to purchase the church by fighting like cats and dogs with each other, ourselves and you. Forgive us, help us to stop such foolishness in your house.
III. We Are At War With Each Other (Read and explain 4:1a)
A. James asserts that fighting is going on in the church. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Who is you? Christians! Psalm 133:1 says "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." SURELY, of all people, brethren ought to be able to live together in love and harmony, yet often they don't. Scripture is replete:
- OT: Cain & Abel, Lot & Abraham, Absalom & David.
- Jesus: Disciples = who is greatest.
- 1st century churches: Corinthians = competing in worship, suing each other in court; Galatians = biting & devouring each other; Ephesians = Paul had to admonish to spiritual unity; Philippians = two women couldn't get along. James = Class Wars (rich & poor), Employment Wars, Personal Wars (speaking evil of/judging each other), Church Wars (tongue, selfish ambitions).
- 21st century churches = Communion Day Catfight (New Salem MB Church, Memphis), Killer Church Fight (Calvary Baptist, Fair Oaks, KY)
B. James asserts that fighting is going on in the church. But notice James does NOT...
1) Tell us what over! Why do you think that is? Oversight on the Holy Spirit's part? God forgot to put that in the Bible? No! IT AIN'T IMPORTANT!!! Outside of a major doctrinal dispute and even then it needs to be with love, gentleness and mutual respect! Are we ridiculous enough to think that on Judgment Day Jesus is going to reprimand the guy in the pew beside us for voting against the color of carpet WE wanted or for music type X, Y, Z? "James seems to be bothered more by the selfish spirit and bitterness of the quarrels than by the rights and wrongs of the various viewpoints." (Moo)
Application: Think about how all this foolish mess must grieve Christ's heart to see! Read John 13:34-35. My goal for Crossway = Love God, Love People...we can't claim to love God and love people and then disobey Christ's command by fighting each other. How is the Mt Carmel community, Tipton County, the world going to know that Crossway truly loves and belongs to Jesus? Not by us warring! If we have love for one another! 17th century Jewish philosopher Spinoza: "I have often wondered that persons who make boast of professing the Christian religion - namely love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to all men - should quarrel with such rancorous animosity, and display daily towards one another such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the virtues which they profess, is the readiest criteria for their faith."
For this very reason James secondly does NOT...
2) Let us off the hook! Think about how we respond when fights and wars break out in the church. BLAME GAME! Satan, unbelievers, heretics, idiots, antichrists. Gateway pastor quote. NO! Why are we at war with each other? We belong to the same family, we trust the same Savior, we are indwelt by the same Holy Spirit - and yet we fight like cats and dogs! No wonder Jesus prayed - read John 17:21. Why are we not one as Jesus prayed, why are we at war with each other? Because as James points out, there is another war going on!
IV. We Are At War With Ourselves (Read and explain 4:1b-3)
A. Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
- Passions is Greek "hedone" meaning pleasure, especially sensuous. Root from which we get English "hedonism." It always has a strong negative connotation in the NT - satiation of bodily lusts at expense of other things. S-I-N! Read quote on PowerPoint slide. And what is the essence of sin?
- Selfishness! Eve = ate fruit to become like God; Abraham = lied to Pharoah about Sarai save his hide; Achan = forbidden loot from Jericho. What about you, what about me? Isaiah 53:6 says "We all like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - everyone - to his own way."
B. What are the fruits of these passions, this sin, this selfishness?
- #1 Selfish Living:
You desire --> and don't have --> so you murder. Was this literal murder? Read Matthew 5:21-22 & 1 John 3:15. James was warning of that extreme to which frustrated desire if not checked may lead. Discuss physical fights in churches. The danger of actual violence then and now is real!
Application: How's your angry meter? Do you get so angry at fellow brothers and sisters in Christ that Jesus would say you're guilty of murder?
Application: Selfish Living = UNHAPPY people, never enjoy life. Instead of...being thankful - complain about blessings....getting along - envy others...contentment - "magic something." Any of those describe you?
You covet --> and cannot obtain --> so you fight and quarrel. Notice the power of covetousness here. It is the 10th of the 10 commandments. Yet, it has the power to break the other 9! Coveting will make you dishonor your parents, murder, commit adultery, steal, tell lies, have other gods, serve other gods, take the Lord's name in vain, and not keep the Sabbath.
Application: Are you guilty of covetousness? Do you respect it's power? Are you bearing the fruit of Selfish Living in your life?
- #2 Fruit of these passions, this sin is Selfish Praying:
You do not have, because you do not ask. Jesus promised "Ask and it will be give to you" (cf. Matt. 7:7) But He also said the focus and motive of this asking are God's name, God's kingdom, and God's will (cf. Matt. 6:9-10) 1 John 3:22 and 5:14 affirm this proper asking.
You ask --> and do not receive --> because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. Wrongly in Greek = "kakos," physically = ill, sick, diseased & morally = bad intent. James says our prayers are diseased, sick and full of bad intentions! I know this comes as a surprise but...God and Jesus are NOT genies in a bottle! This is not name it, claim it or gab it, grab it! "God bestows not gifts only, but the enjoyment of them: but the enjoyment which contributes to nothing beyond itself is not what He gives in answer to prayer; and petitions to Him which have no better end in view are not prayers." (Hort)
Application: Do you pray in accord with the pattern of the Lord's Prayer? Do you treat God and Jesus like a genie in a bottle? Would God say most of your prayers are spent on your own passions? Or do you pray J-O-Y (Jesus, Others, You)? How often do you experience answered prayer? Could it be because your prayers are diseased, sick, full of bad intentions?
Application: Selfish Praying = ANGRY people, "But I prayed about it!" Your idea of seeking God's will is telling Him what to do! Result = anger at God, spills over to anger at God's people. Does that describe you?
C. So we are at war with each other because we are at war with ourselves. But why are we at war with ourselves? Because as James points out, there is a third and final war going on.
V. We Are At War With God (Read and explain 4:4-6)
A. The root cause of every war (internal and external) is rebellion against God. Genesis 1 = world in perfect harmony; Genesis 3 = Fall, sin entered world, we've been at war with God ever since; Genesis 4 = That rebellion against God began to manifest itself as war with each other and there has been conflict ever since.
- You say, oh not me Dr. B, I'm not at war with God! Really?! Do you sin?! 1 John 3:4 says "Sin is lawlessness." Lawlessness = rebellion against God! Spiritual Geometry - Sin = war with God! So how do we as believers declare war against God? We get friendly with God's enemies! James names 3 enemies that we fraternize with:
š Public Enemy #1 = The World (v. 4) Conflict with the Father!
You adulterous people! James says that friendship with the world is spiritual adultery - cheating on God!! We see this imagery throughout Scripture:
OT: The Jewish Christians to whom James was writing would have understood this picture of spiritual adultery very well based on the OT teachings. The prophets Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Hosea all used this imagery of picturing Israel as a spiritual harlot. Read Jeremiah 3:20.
Jesus: Talking to some of the scribes and Pharisees Jesus said "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign." (Matt. 12:39)
Paul: He pictured believers, you, me, us, as married to Christ - "For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ." (2 Cor. 11:2)
21st Century: We don't like being called prostitutes, do we?! It stings to say that we are cheating on God but when we make ourselves friends with the world we not only do just that (cheat on God) but we also make ourselves His enemy! "By drawing out the ultimate consequences of worldly behavior in this way, James seeks to prick the consciences of his readers and to stimulate their repentance. They need to recognize that their selfish, quarrelsome behavior is a serious matter indeed." (Moo) App: How might you be choosing the world over God? Are you seeking the things of this world more than the things of God?
š Public Enemy #2 = The Flesh (v. 1b,5) Fights Against the Holy Spirit!
Verse 1b - By the flesh is meant the old nature that we inherited from Adam. The flesh is NOT the body. We are not Gnostics, we as Christians do not view the body as sinful, matter as evil. The body is neutral - Holy Spirit can use the body to glorify God, flesh can use the body to serve sin. Read Galatians 5:17.
Verse 5 - So, we need to ask ourselves, are we living for the flesh and the old nature or living for a jealous God who has made his Holy Spirit to dwell within us? Living for the flesh means grieving that very Spirit which we are commanded NOT to do - "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit" (Eph. 4:30) Can't grieve someone who doesn't love you! Are you satisfying the passions of the flesh and thus grieving the Holy Spirit? Further living for the flesh means declaring war with God and losing fellowship with Him! Read Romans 8:6-7. Where is your mind set - the flesh, the Spirit? How does it make you feel to know that you have declared war against God? That you are grieving the Holy Spirit? Does it break your heart to break fellowship with God?
š Public Enemy #3 = The Devil (v. 6-7) Opposes the Son of God!
Pride is Satan's great sin, and it is one of his chief weapons in his war against the saint and the Savior. James quotes Prov. 3:34 here in pointing out that while Satan says be proud, God calls us to be humble. What did Satan say to Eve? You will be like him. PRIDE! God says depend on grace - I will give you plenty to accomplish anything and everything in my name and power; Satan says let's go Home Depot style - "You can do it. I, the devil, can help." Do It Yourself spiritual enterprises! What does Scripture say? Romans 7:18 says "For I know that nothing good dwells in me...For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out." No wonder Moo says "God's gift of sustaining grace can be received only by those willing to admit their need and accept the gift" and why Dr. Wiersbe says "One of the problems in our churches today is that we have too many celebrities and not enough servants."
VI. Prescription To Stop Wars (Read and explain 4:7-10)
A. As I've already alluded to, like any good physician, James follows his diagnosis of how church wars start with an eight-fold Rx on how these wars can be stopped. Notice first that each of these is an imperative! What we see in this 8 fold Rx is that the Rx is framed at the beginning and the end by submission to God and humbling ourselves before the Lord which match up with Prov. 3:34 - "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Stopping wars begins and ends with a healthy dose of humility before the Lord! In between these two commands are three couplets. Let's explore James' Rx for stopping wars.
B. Command #1 - Submit yourselves therefore to God
- Submit = "hupotasso," a military term meaning "to align oneself under authority." It was used of arranging soldiers in order/rank. As Dr. Wiersbe points out, "When a buck private acts like the general, there is going to be trouble! Unconditional surrender is the only way to complete victory."
- Submission is an act of the will. Think of the example of our Lord - "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10) Garden of Gethsemane - Read Matt. 26:39.
- Application: Who is the general in your life...you, God, an idol (spouse, money, popularity, sex)? What areas of your life are you keeping back from God, not giving him unconditional surrender? How often does your will align itself under the authority of God the Father and God the Son?
C. Commands #2, 3 - Resist the devil...Draw near to God
- Resist the Devil and he will flee from you. Lit. "take a stand against" Satan needs a foothold if he is going to fight against God and we often end up giving him just that, a foothold - some of us a whole shoe store of footholds! Discuss this as applies to youth. Ephesians 4:27 says "give no opportunity to the devil." Read 1 Peter 5:8-9. Ephesians 6:11 tells us to "Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to STAND AGAINST the schemes of the devil." Tell mountain lion story. When we take a stand against Satan, resist him, put on the whole armor of God, he WILL flee, maybe only for a season but he WILL flee. Recall what we said in our study in Sept - he is NOT all-powerful! Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world!
- Application: Are you giving opportunity to the devil? Are you being sober-minded, watchful? Are you taking a stand against him by putting on the whole armor of God?
- Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. What an amazing promise! Instead of succumbing to Satan's desire to separate us from God, we should draw near to God. God, James promises, graciously responds by drawing near to us in turn. This concept of drawing near to God was associated originally with the Levitical priests but eventually came to describe anyone's approach to God - read Psalm 73:28, Hebrews 10:22. Salvation is more than a fire insurance policy, more than submission to God, more than resisting the devil...a redeemed heart LONGS for communion with God! Jesus calls us to love the Lord our God with ALL our heart, soul, mind, strength!
- Application: Do you long for communion with God? If you love Him, you should be spending time with Him! Praying? Bible study? Quiet time?
D. Commands #4, 5 - Cleanse your hands...purify your hearts
- Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. James doesn't exactly mince words here does he? He very bluntly and in a strongly negative way addresses his readers: sinners, men of double mind. This is quite the contrast to the 14 times he addresses them tenderly and affectionately as brethren; we would say he's "put out" with their behavior and he wants to deeply impress on his readers the seriousness of the sins they are involved with! Further, they are double-minded; their faith is akin to a drunk man, marked by doubting and instability. "To allow 'the world' to entice us away from a total, single-minded allegiance to God is to become people who are divided in loyalties, 'double-minded' and spiritually unstable." James' readers are guilty of this double-minded attitude, are we?
- What is required of them, of us? A repentance from both this external behavior (cleanse your hands) and this internal attitude (purify your hearts). The Psalmist required "clean hands and a pure heart" for those who would stand before the Lord (Ps. 24:3-4); James asks the same of those who, then and today, would "draw near to God."
- Application: Discuss God pointing out in Africa 2012 some things I needed to clean up in my life before He called me to ministry. Read 2 Timothy 2:21. Are you a vessel for honorable use? Need an Extreme Makeover, clean up?
E. Commands #6, 7 - Be wretched and mourn and weep...Let your laughter be turned to mourning
- James isn't looking for some mamsy-pamsy lip service kind of repentance! These three in the Greek mean "to realize one's own misery," "to grieve," "to sob or wail aloud." He calls us to a deep heartfelt sorrow for sin that echoes the mournful language of the prophets! Read Joel 2:12.
- So, he's a killjoy who thinks there is no place for laughter and joy in the Christian life? NO! Laughter in the OT is often the scornful laughter of the fool, one who foolishly indulges in the world's pleasures and flippantly refuses to take sin seriously. "For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of fools." (Eccl. 7:6) For this reason Jesus warned: "Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep." (Luke 6:25b) Many people in our day live the hedonist philosophy, if it feels good do it, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die that ignores the terrifying reality of God's judgment. Even we as Christians can slip into a casual attitude towards sin, presuming too much on God's love and mercy, all the while ignoring his holiness and justice. Do you have a casual attitude toward sin? Young people are you living in a way that ignores the terrifying reality of God's judgment?
F. Command #8 - Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
- Humble, "tapeinoo" = to depress, make oneself low. In essence to recognize our own spiritual poverty, to acknowledge our desperate need of God's help, to submit to his will for our lives. Micah 6:8 calls us to walk humbly with God, Colossians 3:12 calls us to clothe ourselves with humility, Jesus tells us in Luke 14:10 when we are invited to a wedding feast to go and sit in the lowest place, Paul in Romans 12:3 challenges us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to! Discuss Billy Graham's grandson's comment - "most humble man I've ever known."
- Such humility is beautifully exemplified in the tax-collector of Jesus' parable - Read Luke 18:9-14. This saying "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted" was taken up as a popular motto in the early church. It would do well for us at Crossway to constantly bring it to our mind in all aspects of our ministry here...particularly in our dealings with each other.
VII. Conclusion
A. In eleven short days, six of us here at Crossway will board a plane headed for Africa. In preparation for that departure, this week I called in for each of us Lariam, a tablet for malaria prophylaxis or prevention. Let me ask you, what would happen if one of us chooses NOT to take that prescription? Mosquito will bite us and infect us with a parasite that will POISON our bodies, potentially killing us!
B. Spiritual App: James has given us a prescription to stop church wars before they start. What would happen if one of us chooses NOT to take that prescription? The world, the sinful passions of the flesh (our old nature), the devil is waiting to bite us here at Crossway and infect us with a parasite that will POISION our relationships with God and with each other, perhaps in effect "killing" the relationship. Is that what we want, is that the kind of Acts 1:8 witness we want to have? GOD FORBID! Let's pray.
