Today we take a step further in our faith and hopefully learn how to use our faith when confronted by our enemy. Do you know who or what I am referring to when I say “enemy?” Satan? Yes. Of course and the sin that he entices us into.
You notice each Sunday at the end of the children's sermon that the children are taken into their department for children's church. Our leaders in this department do far more than provide our children a safe place to play while we learn and worship.
They also teach our children that God created the world and is watching over them. They learn that God loves them and the church is a place where they are loved and cared for. They also learn the importance of good relationships.
One minute two children will be sitting next to each another happily playing with their toys. The next minute one of them will try to take the other one's toy away. If they don't get their way, they are fully prepared to turn this tug of war into an all out battle. Our teachers use that moment to teach important lesson about sharing, how to be kind to one another, and proper ways to resolve differences.
The children surely need to learn these lessons, but they're not alone. Adults could use the same lessons that our children's teachers are teaching every week. James shows us that fights and quarrels are deeply rooted in our sinful human nature. We will be using James 4 today for our text. Prayer.
Conflict is everywhere. Just turn on the news. It happens on a global, national, and local scale. We encounter conflict at work, in our communities, in our homes, and even in our churches.
Conflict in the church seems out of place. We expect believers to act in a Christ-like manner, but even those who read the Bible and sing worshipful songs can fall prey to conflict. The reason is because everyone--even every believer--has a sinful nature that he or she must battle every day.
Our sinful nature wants something someone else has that we don't have and it becomes covetousness. That desire to get what others have causes us frustration, dissatisfaction, and disappointment. This eventually turns into a conflict. We want more and when we don't get it, the inner turmoil increases and eventually there is conflict.
James 4:1-3 – “What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions that wage war within you? 2 You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.”
Can you see that the ultimate source of many of our struggles is neither our inner turmoil nor our visible conflict with others. The ultimate source of many of our struggles is the conflict we are having with God. If we trusted God, we would ask Him for what we really need and we would be happy to trust Him for what He provides.
But what happens is we don't come to God. And because we don't ask we have inner conflict that becomes conflict with others. So, James is telling us that to break this endless cycle, we must learn to trust God enough to ask Him for what we need. Take your needs and concerns to God in prayer. As Christians, we should have already learned that, right?
So we go to God in prayer, trusting Him to provide for our needs. But what we ask
God for should be based upon pure motives. In other words, God does not give us things simply because we want them. If we ask God for things that come from our self-centered, sinful nature, He says no. God will only answer in a way that honors Him. Jesus said so.
John 14:13 – “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”
We studied this verse in our Wednesday night Bible study and found that Jesus will do whatever we ask AS LONG AS IT HONORS AND GLORIFIES GOD.
James 4:4a – “You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God. . .?”
James is getting bold with us here and is telling us to check our heart. We need to monitor our heart for unhealthy desires. James didn't mince words . By him using the phrase “adulterous people,” he's showing us how severe this issue of covetousness is and was. We're being told that covetousness doesn't have any place within Godly boundaries. If you think about it, covetousness and adultery share something in common. They both impact the lives of innocent people. The conflicts caused by covetousness destroy others, just like adulterous affairs hurt innocent people.
Sin is what converts healthy drives into destructive passions. This desire for always wanting more or wanting what someone else has is a lot like cancer. Covetousness destroys what is good and healthy around it and does not stop until everything is gone. So, James is warning us to pay close attention to our desire to want more than what God has given us. And James was very serious in what he was saying. All along in this letter, he has been referring to us as brothers and sisters. To get his strong point across he is now referring to us as adulterous.
James 4:4b-5 – “So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God. 5 Or do you think it’s without reason that the Scripture says: The spirit he made to dwell in us envies intensely?”
James is saying that we need to refuse the temptation of worldly things that can pull our focus off of Christ. This aligns with what Jesus said when He told us that no one can serve two masters. If we are not careful, instead of depending on God and trusting Him for what we need, we are selling out to materialism. While some might believe that they can flirt with the world and still be faithful to God, James is saying that it's impossible to say that we are just friends with the world. We simply cannot love both worldly things and God.
James 4:6-7 – “But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says: God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. 7 Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
Let me say here that there is an interesting relationship between prayer and humility. God has called His people to humble themselves and pray. God told us this in:
2 Chronicles 7:14 – “ If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
God has called His people to humble themselves and pray. We often view those as 2 separate actions but they are inseparable. The very act of praying requires humility when we pray. We're expressing our dependence upon God Who is the only source for what we really need. Prayer is an admission that we can't provide for ourselves, that we require God's intervention.
So we humble ourselves and pray. And we repent of our sins. James reminds us that we can't doubt and be double-minded when we pray and expect to receive anything from the Lord. Now he refers to double mindedness in the sense of trying to live for both God and the things of the world. So, James tells us in verse 8:
James 4:8 – “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
This verse goes along with what David wrote in:
Psalm 24:3-4 – “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? 4 The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not appealed to what is false, and who has not sworn deceitfully.”
Satan is our enemy. He tempts us to sin. James is being very straightforward when he tells us that we need to acknowledge the seriousness of our sin and draw near to God.
James 4:9-10 – “Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”
James is telling us that we have hope. When we sin, we are an enemy of God. The solution to all this is to stop submitting to the appetite of our sin nature and begin submitting to God by depending on Him for our needs.
When we are tempted by Satan, we should resist the devil. It is then that we draw near to God with boldness. When we do, He will draw near to us. So, when Satan tempts us to be self-sufficient, arrogant, world-dependent, God resists us. But God is gracious and kind to those who humble themselves before Him in prayer.
Our biggest enemy is Satan and his tempting us to sin against our God. God wants us to acknowledge the seriousness of our sin and draw closer to Him. That is our faith showing through when we are confronted by our enemy. How do we stand strong and overcome all of this? Consider what the Bible tells us.
You might remember when David committed the sin of adultery with Bathsheba. The prophet Nathan confronted David over his sin against God and against Bathsheba's husband Uriah, the Hittite. David was convicted of his sin and he wrote Psalm 51.
Psalm 51:10-12 – “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.”
That is our blueprint of what we should do when we are confronted by our enemy - SIN. Just as David did, we need to do more than admit that. We have a sinful nature. We need to confess our sins before God. Then in full submission to God, we ask Him to cleanse us and purify our hearts.
David prayed this prayer with all humility. God is faithful to answer our humble prayer, even as He did for David.
So it is with clean hands and a pure heart that we can see our sinfulness clearly. If we come to God with a humble heart, we will then see how dark our hearts really are. If we are truly humble, we may begin to cry. But it is when we are truly humble and truly mourn our sinfulness, that we will experience God's comfort as He draws near to us. And God responds with His infinite grace. As James said:
James 4:10 – “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”
The Bible reminds us that we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Privately and personally identify an area of sin in your life. God pleads with us today to go to Him and ask for help as we look at our sin the same way God does. Then spend some private time mourning over that sin in your life.
It is then that you can take comfort in the truth that God is faithful to forgive your sins.
1 John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
And that my friends is confronting your enemy with your faith.
