William Muir, a biologist at Purdue University studied chickens to determine what could make the egg layers more productive. Chickens live in groups, so first, he selected just an average flock, and he let it alone for six generations. He also created a second group of the individually most productive chickens – you could call them superchickens – and he put them together in a superflock. Then with each generation, he selected only the most productive for breeding.
After six generations had passed, what did he find? Well, the first group, the average group, was doing just fine. They were all plump and fully feathered and egg production had increased dramatically. What about the second group? Well, all but three were dead. They'd pecked the rest to death. (Margaret Heffernan, "Forget the Pecking Order at Work," TED Talk, May 2015; www.PreachingToday.com)
Sad to say, that’s what happens when you get a bunch of super-achievers together. Instead of achieving something even greater together, they often end up pecking each other to death.
For example: Two “good” people get married; but instead of marital bliss, they experience a marital brawl. Good people start a church together with great ambition to reach the lost for Christ; but instead of making disciples, they all too often generate disputes.
Why is that? Why do “good” people so often fight each other? And how can we keep that from happening around here? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to James 4, James 4, where James talks about dealing with anger in the midst of trying times.
James 4:1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? (ESV)
Literally, your pleasures are at war within your members. Your desires are like rebel soldiers within, demanding satisfaction. And when they don’t get that satisfaction, they go to war. Conflict starts with unmet expectations and desires.
James 4:2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. (ESV)
God is the only one who can meet our real needs; but instead of asking Him, people make demands of each other. Husbands demand respect from their wives. Wives demand romance from their husbands. Employees demand higher wages and better benefits from their employers. Employers demand longer hours and more work from their employees. And even in the church, members want their needs met while pastors want greater commitment from the members.
When people look to one another to get their needs met, they are disappointed, because only God can meet their needs. Then their disappointment leads to disagreements and disputes.
Historian Daniel Boorstin suggests that Americans suffer from all-too-extravagant expectations. In his book, The Image, Boorstin makes this observation of Americans:
We expect anything and everything. We expect the contradictory and the impossible. We expect compact cars which are spacious; luxurious cars which are economical. We expect to be rich and charitable, powerful and merciful, active and reflective, kind and competitive… We expect to eat and stay thin, to be constantly on the move and ever more neighborly, to go to a "church of our choice" and yet feel its guiding power over us, to revere God and to be God. Never have people been more the masters of their environment. Yet never has a people felt more deceived and disappointed. For never has a people expected so much more than the world could offer. (Barry Morrow, Yearning for More, IVP Books, 2013, pp. 19-20; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s why there is so much conflict in our world today. People’s desires are at war within, demanding satisfaction from others that only God can provide.
So if you want to resolve conflict in YOUR world, stop making demands from the people in your life. Don’t look to others to get your needs met; look to God! Ask the Lord for what only He can provide.
But even then, don’t be selfish in your prayers. Don’t ask for things just so you can satisfy your own pleasures.
James 4:3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. (ESV)
Better: to SQUANDER it on your own passions. God does not answer selfish prayers. God is not some kind of Cosmic Genie, who exists only to make you happy. In fact, God is more concerned about making you holy than making you happy. God is more concerned about making you righteous than making you rich. God is more concerned about sanctifying you than satisfying your passions.
So don’t be selfish in your prayers. Don’t adopt the attitude of some Christians who say…
Name it and claim it, that’s what faith’s about!
You can have what you want if you don’t doubt.
So make out your “wish list” and keep on believin’
And you will find yourself perpetually receivin’.
(R. Kent Hughes, Mark: Jesus, Servant and Savior, p.16)
Nothing could be further from the truth, and verse 3 makes that very clear! God does not answer selfish prayers. He does not honor greed or envy in any form, even if it gets on its knees and bows its head.
Greed and envy were walking along when they were overtaken by a stranger who got to know them. After a bit, the stranger promised to give each of them a gift before he left them. Whoever made a wish first would get what she wanted, and the other would get twice as much as what the first asked for.
Greed knew what he wanted, but she didn’t want to make her wish, because she wanted the double portion for herself and didn’t want envy to get it. Envy felt the same way, not willing to make the first wish.
After a while, the stronger of the two grabbed the other by the throat and threatened to choke her to death unless she made her wish. “Very well,” the other said. “I make my wish: I wish to be made blind in one eye.”
Immediately, she lost the sight of one eye, and her companion went blind in both. (Bible Illustrator #4070, 1/1988.24)
That’s where greed and envy leads every single time. There is always a fight, in which nobody wins in the end. So, if you want to resolve conflict in your world…
DON’T BE ENVIOUS.
Don’t be selfish. Don’t demand that people satisfy you. Furthermore, if you want peace in your trouble…
DON’T BE AN ENEMY OF GOD.
Don’t oppose the Lord. Don’t fight against Him.
James 4:4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (ESV)
When you pursue this world’s pleasures, you oppose God! When you demand your own way, you are fighting the Lord! Please don’t do it, because God is like a jealous lover.
James 4:5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? (ESV)
God jealously desires us! He is passionate about a relationship with you and me! That’s why He sent His Son to die on a cross for our sins. He paid a high price so we could be reconciled with Him. That’s why it hurts Him so much when we pursue our own pleasures rather than Him, when we go after this world’s goods rather than His grace.
One of my favorite spy films is the 2008 film Taken. In it, Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a former CIA operative, whose daughter has been kidnapped by human traffickers while on a trip with a girlfriend in France. He determines to track her kidnappers down and save his daughter, so he flies to France and examines the crime scene. There, he finds a cell phone that has been left behind and uses it to contact his daughter’s kidnapper. Listen, as he tells the kidnapper exactly what he plans to do (show Taken – Phone Scene):
“I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want… I can tell you I don't have money; but, what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills that I've acquired over a very long career, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that will be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you.”
The abductor coolly replies: “Good luck.”
The rest of the movie is the father’s unrelenting pursuit of his daughter. He urgently and skillfully weaves his way through language barriers, governmental red tape, and crime lords' elaborate hierarchies to find her. He dispatches numerous thugs and villains, and finally finds his daughter on a yacht, sold as a prostitute for a wealthy Arab businessman. She collapses into her father's arms as she says, “Daddy, you came for me!” Bloody, beaten, but ultimately triumphant, Neeson’s character holds his daughter as he quietly says, “I told you I would.” (Taken, Directed by Pierre Morel, Paris, France: EuoraCorp, 2008, DVD; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s a picture of God’s jealous love for you! He takes on the “thugs” and “kidnappers” that would steal your heart, relentlessly pursuing you until He finds you. And there he is, bloody and beaten on the cross, but victorious over the enemy of your soul, the god of this world.
How then do you think He feels when you push Him away to pursue what the enemy offers, to pursue the things of this world that will only hurt you in the end? Please, don’t do it! Don’t become an enemy of God by pursuing this world’s pleasures, because what God gives is so much greater! Verse 6: But He gives more grace – more than what the world offers you.
James 4:6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (ESV)
God grants His unmerited favor to those who trust Him with their lives. But if you choose to run your own life, God opposes you.
In 1875, a British poet named William Ernest Henley published a short poem that expressed one way to cope with life's pain. The poem, called “Invictus,” ended with these famous lines: “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.” In defiance upon God, the poem expresses a proud man’s determination to conquer evil and injustice without God.
And for over a hundred years, Henley’s poem has influenced many people. In the 1980s, the poem encouraged former South African president Nelson Mandala throughout the dark days of his imprisonment. Years later, Clint Eastwood used it as the title for his popular film about the South African rugby team.
Sadly, it was also a great influence on Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who was responsible for the deaths of 168 men, women, and children, and the injuries of 800 more. He scribbled out the words of “Invictus” and handed it to authorities as his last words before his execution.
Sixteen years after Henley first published “Invictus,” the world famous, British preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, offered another philosophy of life. On June 7, 1891, in the closing words of his final sermon, Spurgeon urged people to submit to a better “Captain” for your soul. Spurgeon said:
Every [person] must serve somebody: we have no choice as to that fact. Those who have no master are slaves to themselves. Depend upon it, you will either serve Satan or Christ. Either self or the Savior. You will find sin, self, Satan, and the world to be hard masters; but if you wear the uniform of Christ, you will find him so meek and lowly of heart that you will find rest unto your souls… If you could see our Captain, you would go down on your knees and beg him to let you enter the ranks of those who follow him. It is heaven to serve Jesus. (Ellen Vaughn, Come, Sit, Stay, Worthy, 2012, pp. 28-31; www.PreachingToday.com)
It is your choice this morning! You can serve this world, or you can serve Christ. You cannot do both. Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24).
Which will you choose today? Please, choose to serve the Lord. Choose to let Him be the “Captain of your soul.” If you want to resolve the conflicts in your world, if you want peace in your trouble, don’t be envious; and don’t be an enemy of God. Instead…
SUBMIT TO HIM.
Humble yourself before the Lord. Relinquish control of your life to God. In verses 7-10, there are 10 imperatives, 10 commands, which describe what this submission looks like.
James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God.
Literally, rank yourself under Him. Let God to be your Captain, and obey Him. That’s the summary command. First, submit to God.
Second, James 4:7, Resist the devil and he will flee from you. You don’t have to let Satan ruin your life anymore. Just submit to God and resist the devil. Now, it won’t work unless you submit to the Lord first, but when God’s soldiers obey God’s orders, they defeat the enemy. 1st, Submit to God. 2nd, Resist the devil.
3rd, James 4:8, Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Stop running away from God. Instead, turn around and take just one step towards Him; for when you do, He will take a thousand steps towards you.
Fourth, James 4:8, Cleanse your hands, you sinners.
And 5th, purify your hearts, you double-minded. Wash your hands and your hearts. Clean up your act and your attitude.
Then, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th, James 4:9, Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
You see, if the turmoil doesn’t move you to tears, then there can be no resolution of the conflict; there can be no peace. He’s talking about weeping over the selfish, self-centered attitudes and actions that created the conflict to begin with. It’s not about the joy of winning a fight and getting your way. It’s about the sorrow of being in the fight to begin with, because you demanded your way. Division and disunity is not something to relish or even ignore. It should move you to tears if you want to see real healing in your relationships.
To put it simply, imperative number 10 in James 4:10 says, “Humble yourself before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” Relinquish control of your life to the Lord. Stop trying to get YOUR way, and let God have HIS way in your life.
It won’t diminish you. On the contrary, it elevates you. Martin Luther put it this way: “God creates out of nothing. Therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him” (“Martin Luther--The Early Years,” Christian History, no. 34; www.PreachingToday.com).
In his memoir, Touching the Void, Joe Simpson talks about a mountain climbing incident that didn’t go well. He was thousands of feet up the side of the Siula Grande mountain in the Peruvian Andes when his safety line broke. It left Joe with a broken leg, sliding into a deep crevasse.
He made several desperate attempts to climb up and out of the crevasse, but he was faced with the fact that his injury made it impossible. So, against all survival instinct, he made the excruciating choice to lower himself deeper into the crevasse in the hope that there would be other exits farther down. All the time, he wondered, Am I lowering myself to freedom or deeper into the belly of the earth? Does a ray of sunlight await me in the pit, showing a way out into day, or is there only darkness and slow death? With every inch he lowered himself down, he edged farther from the obvious way to life – and there was no way back up. (Mandy Smith, The Vulnerable Pastor, IVP, 2015, pp. 52-53; www.PreachingToday.com)
Obviously, Simpson chose wisely, since he was able to write about the incident in his memoirs. He chose to lower himself in his trouble, and there he found life; there he found a way out of the turmoil.
It’s the way God works! When we lower ourselves, He lifts us up. When we humble ourselves, He exalts us. So do what seems counterintuitive in your trouble. Stop demanding your own way, and let God have His way in your life.
Don’t be envious, and don’t be an enemy of God. Instead, submit to Him, and watch Him bring peace to your turmoil.
