READING: James 4
TEXT: “From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” (James 4:1)
Sunshine - Not a cloud in the sky! That was, in itself, an unusual event for a Saturday afternoon in the valleys of South Wales. Most of the players found it strange to be playing rugby in the sun with no mud to be seen! Five minutes remaining and everyone looked as clean as when the first whistle had been blown. After all, it was a beautiful day.
A cynic might consider it a complete waste of time, this game where people chase and pass about a bladder filled with air. On the other hand, one can talk of teamwork, goals and objectives, strategy and mutual co-operation – all of which display a good model for Christians working together for God’s kingdom. When viewed in this light, tackling, barging, obstruction and the like become the efforts of a frustrated opposition endeavouring to thwart a winning team.
Perhaps then, even a game of rugby can illustrate the progress of the Church of God as she enters these last moments of the millennium, and as she fights the last match against the forces of Satan. Satan knows he can never win, because victory over him was assured in this contest two millennia ago by a crucified saviour hanging on a cross.
So how then can we possibly lose?
It was a long high ball curling in from the wing. For a moment, it hung suspended in the air, seeming as if it would never fall. Then it dropped - suddenly it was right at his feet. For one brief moment he stood on the centre line amazed at his good fortune and then as the ball threatened to bounce away he brought it swiftly under control. Grabbing the ball and gathering his thoughts, he swiftly began to accelerate. He dodged past one man, sped by another. He knew he mustn’t lose control. A shoulder swerve, gentle flick, dummy to the left and then his speed took him past the last defending back. Now only an empty try line was before him.
No one left to beat - he was going to do it! Surely, his team will win! As he approached the line, he prepared himself to translate this thought into action when he suddenly crashed to the ground. Pain ran up his side as the ball bounced aimlessly over the touchline. A certain winning try and he had been tackled. Brought down at the last minute, but by whom? The answer was somehow inevitable – within a metre of the try line, he had been tackled by one of his own side! We live in a time where it is popular to criticise other believers, even from our pulpits. Even when we give praise, we qualify it by adding that little damaging word “but” and adding a list of what we believe they are doing which is wrong. What lies behind this attitude? Is it jealousy, pride or a sense of undue competition? Is it self-centredness on our part? Why is it that we are reluctant to rejoice in other’s success? You know, such attitudes are totally against the biblical injunction of 1 Corinthians 12, verse 26, which says, “If whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.” We have got so used to tackling each other that we fail to notice the negative attitudes that eat us up, let alone the game itself being played in a different part of the field. No wonder then that we so often fail, no wonder then that we lack God’s blessing. Not content with fighting the enemy, it often seems that we want to destroy our own team as well.
In the fourth chapter of the epistle of James we have the root of our problem exposed and a remedy suggested. Anyone even vaguely familiar with the New Testament will know the general line of this epistle. Primarily, it is a PRACTICAL book and its greatest value is its blending of truth and life.
It is precisely because of this unity of truth and life that this epistle so relevant to us today. The reason for its relevance is that even as believers, we have an incurable tendency to become unbalanced. We either concentrate on doctrine at the expense of enthusiastic action, or we dash around in a mad whirl of activity, to the neglect of faith and truth. To this problem, James provides the required balance that we all need. I once heard of a bible college student who was asked by his friend to name his favourite translation of the scriptures. He replied, “My Mum’s”. “Is it a translation into English?” his friend asked. “No”, he replied, “it is a translation into action!” This surely has to be the main thrust of the epistle of James. Therefore, I would like to look and share with you some thoughts on this first verse of chapter 4. It is my hope that as we consider it together, that our Lord will help us to obey His clear injunction to be “…doers of the word, and NOT HEARERS ONLY!”
The great reformer Martin Luther wrote in his “Preface to the New Testament”, that he considered the Epistle of James as “an epistle of straw”. He was wrong, of course, for there is nothing “strawy” about it. To be fair to him he did claim to be comparing it with “books that show you Christ”. He was naturally fascinated by the wonderful teaching of the epistles to the Romans and Galatians, and was therefore disappointed when he turned to James looking for a similar exposition. However, a closer look at this epistle reveals that it does indeed reveal to us Christ. It reveals to us Jesus the great teacher, and is full of fascinating allusions to his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere. How then can it possibly be “an epistle of straw” when its message is of such supreme importance to men and women today? No, what we have before us is spiritual food, and not straw. As even those with only a little understanding of the Bible will realise, its division into chapters and verses that we see before us in our bibles are not part of its original format. These were added many years after even the last of the New Testament books was written.
While the choice of numbering and division at times has a wonderful sense of ’rightness’ about it, we must not treat it as infallible, or allow it to interrupt the flow of the writer’s original argument. The end of James 3 and the beginning of James 4 may perhaps provide us with a good example of what I mean. While our anonymous editor has suggested that we should break the chapter after the words “them that make peace...” (James 3:18), there is a direct link between those words and the opening words of James 4. This important link is surely an obvious one of contrast. Chapter 3 ends with the words “And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace...” and chapter 4 begins with the words “From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” In other words, James is contrasting the ideal - the practice of peace, with the actual - a state of war. He sets before his readers the aim, attitude and approach that should characterise the Christian, and then turns it round to demonstrate how far short they fall. It won’t take long to discover just how relevant his findings are to us in this closing year of the 20th Century! Two headings will sum up the contents of this verse. First, notice -
THE CONDITION HE DIAGNOSED - “From whence come wars and fightings among you?” This is the condition that James diagnosed as he looked at the world of his day and in particular at the lives of his readers- “wars and fightings among YOU?” Far from being peacemakers, working together in a spirit of peace, and producing a harvest of righteousness in their own lives and the lives of others, these people were warring and fighting on every hand. In this little phrase, James is pointing out to us three important factors. First, we see that it has a general application for us -
“From whence come wars...” That word ’wars’ comes from the Greek word ’stratos’, meaning ’an encamped army’. It is a phrase used to describe a continuous state of war.
Now as soon as we grasp that, the word begins to have an obvious relevance to the Christian. What James is saying right at the beginning of this part of his letter is this - ’Don’t you know there’s a war on? Just look around you! We live in a continuous state of war’.
The obvious question to ask ourselves therefore, is this – is James diagnosis of our situation correct?
Now most of the commentators agree that the author of this letter was the half-brother of Jesus. If this is true, then this epistle was probably written in Jerusalem between AD 45 and AD 62. James lived there from the time of the resurrection of Jesus until he was martyred some 30 years later. The name ’Jerusalem’ means ’the city of peace’. However, that is only its name, not its experience. Quite apart from its long and bloody Old Testament history, it was invaded by Antiochus IV in 168 BC. Judas the Maccabee led a revolt there a few years later. Roman forces overthrew it in 63 BC and again in 54 BC. The Parthians plundered it in 40 BC and Herod the Great fought a fierce battle for its possession in 37 BC. Now, the most recent of these battles would have been fought while the parents of James’s readers were still alive. It was also written at a time when a Jewish revolt was fermenting, which lead to an invasion by the Roman Emperor Titus in the year AD 70. In that particular invasion, 1,100,000 people were killed and the Temple and fortifications destroyed once more. Therefore, that is the background against which James wrote of ’wars’ - a continuous state of unrest. However, was that just a word for those days? Did the running centuries after those days bring any change in the state of the world? Today, during these last days of the 20th Century, we find ourselves again involved in a conflict in the Balkans. Although the so-called ’cold war’ has ended, we still live in a continuous state of international tension. Two thousand years ago, Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24:6 that there would be “wars and rumours of wars”.
If there ever was such a time, it is now, and it makes James’s words very relevant for Christians in today’s world. However, James wasn’t only speaking of a general application, because he also draws our attention to another factor, namely that our problem is also -
INDIVIDUAL IN NATURE - He speaks not only of ’wars’ but also of ’wars and fightings’. It may be that the original language of this verse should literally have been translated as a rather more extended phrase, or even as two separate questions, so that it would have read something like this - “From whence come wars? And from whence come fightings among you?” At least the word ’fightings’ is quite different in meaning from the word ’wars’. It means individual conflicts rather than a general, continuous state of warfare. The New International Version translates it “fights and quarrels.” It may be that in adding this phrase, James is narrowing the issue down from the international level or even national level and bringing it home to the lives of those whom read his epistle. One thing is certain: even the greatest of wars in the history of the world began with individuals. What is more, the longest wars in the world have all begun with a single battle. Therefore, we have before us a deeply personal application that we dare not ignore!
If the fiercest, the bloodiest, the costliest wars have begun with one man’s festered heart and if the longest wars have begun with a single battle, how can we behave in a manner that causes conflict and tribulation? There is some thing individual here; James is not indulging in idle theory or speculation. We have a general and individual application here. However, notice a third factor – that it’s something -
SHAMEFUL - “From whence come wars and fightings among YOU?” You see, James was writing to Christians, to those who claimed to have found what the Bible calls in Luke 1:79, “the way of peace...” - yet they were obviously fighting and squabbling and in a state of unrest. Surely, this is a shameful thing, for Christian people to tear themselves apart. However, that did happen from time to time in the early church.
We often make the mistake of thinking that the early church was a perfect model of Christian living. It wasn’t! They too argued and squabbled among themselves. Look at Philippians 4:2 “I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord...” These two Christians were obviously at loggerheads over something or other. In 1 Corinthians 1:11 Paul wrote, “it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.” Further on, in 1 Corinthians 6:1 he writes “Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?” What an awful catalogue of contention! Is it not disgraceful to find Christians behaving like this? Nevertheless, before we condemn the Corinthians, let us examine ourselves! Are we without sin in this area? I once heard a story that illustrates our weaknesses at this point, and although it was given to a group of children, I believe it will be helpful for us grasp its meaning! There was once trouble in the carpenter’s workshop, and the tools were having a row. One of then said, “It’s the hammer’s fault. He is much too noisy. He must go”. “No” said the hammer, “I think the blame lies with the saw. He keeps going backwards and forwards all the time”. The saw protested violently. “I’m not to blame. I think it’s the plane’s fault. His work is so shallow. Why, he just skims the surface all the time”. The plane objected. “I think the real trouble lies with the screwdriver. He is always going round in circles”. “Rubbish” retorted the screwdriver; “the trouble really began with the ruler because he is always measuring other people by his own standards”. “No way”, the ruler replied, “I think our real problem is the sandpaper. He is always rubbing up people the wrong way”. “Why pick on me?” said the sandpaper, “I think you ought to blame the drill, he is so boring”. Just as the drill was about to protest, the carpenter came in, took off his jacket, put on his overalls and began to work. He was building a pulpit and by the time he had finished, he had used every one of those tools to fashion something from which the gospel was eventually preached to thousands of people. That is just a fable, of course. However, do not miss the point it makes! The Lord can in His grace use imperfect instruments He has at His disposal. My friends, we all have a solemn responsibility to “Follow (or strive for) peace with all men.” (Hebrews 12:14), or, as the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:13 puts it, to “be at peace among yourselves.” So far, in this verse to James’s readers, we have been tracing the condition he diagnosed. Now we come to the second part of the verse -
THE CAUSES HE DISCOVERED - “…Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” James has already touched upon this by exposing two motives behind the false wisdom that tries to gain its own ends without God. Those two causes, which James dealt with in verses 14 and 16 of chapter 3, are envy and selfish ambition. First of all he wrote in verse 14 that, “if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.” He went on to tell us in verse 16 that, “where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.” In this further stage of his diagnostic examination, Doctor James plunges his knife even deeper and discovers another root of trouble. His report is amazingly concise - “come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” - yet in it he says four important things about the cause of our troubles. First of all,
IT IS PLEASURE-SEEKING – “YOUR lusts”. So that we begin to understand the meaning right away, let me say that I am using the word ’pleasure-seeking’ as an adjective and not a noun. The cause of the trouble James has diagnosed is a pleasure-seeking cause. The word “lusts” translated from Greek to English would read ’hedonon’, from which we get the words ’hedonism’ and ’hedonistic’.
It is a different word from the word ’lust’ used in James 1:14, where we are told that a man is “drawn away of his own lust, and enticed…” There the word means ’desire’. Here, it means ’the gratification of desire’. The spirit demands an immediate, selfish satisfaction. James is exposing the tyranny of self-satisfaction. It is a tyranny, because this is a cause of wars and fightings. Now how do we bring these two together? A pleasure-seeking, hedonistic spirit of life maintains that if a thing is enjoyable, it is good; if it is good I must have it, and I must have it now. However, why does that produce wars and fightings? The reason is this - that we can only ultimately please ourselves, satisfy all our desires, be completely hedonistic only at the expense of other people. One person’s freedom is another’s burden and somebody will have to pay for it! In the last analysis, we cannot cast off restraint, run riot, please ourselves and be completely hedonistic without a price having to be paid. The high price we pay is usually that of damaged and broken relationships with each other! This surely has to be one of the most astonishing evidences that God is God, that this is His world, that there are spiritual laws that mankind breaks at their peril. For all of our supposed progress, knowledge, success and sophistication, we cannot please himself without somebody paying a price. Isn’t that amazing? Here we have a man or a woman who says to themselves, “I am going to ignore God, the Bible and the church completely. I am going to live my life in my own way. I’m going to live an immoral life and indulge my every desire.” Now the terrifying thing is that when a person does that, there is a price to be paid – and it is almost inevitable that part of the price to be paid is broken personal relationships. However, there is more to it than that. If we follow this hedonistic, ’I will please myself’ line, we automatically move God from the centre of the stage, and dissipate the impact of His word. We can see this in the parable of the sower in Luke 8. We read that the seed that fell among thorns was compared with those who are “…choked with cares and riches and PLEASURES (the same word as ’lusts’ in the verse) of this life…” (Luke 8:14).
Let’s put it another way. If self-satisfaction comes first, then God can only come second, and if God has only second place in a person’s life, they have serious problems! The late Malcolm Muggeridge once said, “The pursuit of happiness, however conceived, is the most foolish of all pursuits.” It is not only futile, but it is fatal too, because the parable about the seed closes up the verse from which we have quoted with the words “and bring no fruit to perfection.” In short, wherever you have seeking without finding you have the ingredients of unrest and turmoil, or what James calls “wars and fightings”.
This is the first thing James tells us about the cause of the trouble. THAT IT IS PLEASURE SEEKING. The second cause he brings to our attention is that it is - PERSISTENT - “Your lusts that war.” You will remember the difference we noticed earlier in the verse between ’wars’ and ’fightings’. The first was a continuous state of war, and the second an occasional specific skirmish or battle. Here, James goes back to the first word again - and it is exactly the right one to use. “Your lusts that WAR.”- That is, that carry on a continuous state of war. The fact of the matter is that each one of us has these lusts, these desires, this pleasure-seeking spirit of demanding instant satisfaction - and they never wholly leave us. The New International Version translates this phrase, “your desires that battle within you.” There is a continuous state of war going on in the heart and personality of every child of God. The Christian is a walking civil war. Professor R. V. G. Tasker says in the Tyndale New Testament Commentary, ’these pleasures are permanently on active service’. Our trouble is persistent! However, the sober truth is that they will never be permanently banished from our hearts this side of heaven. The enemy is entrenched within us and he will fight on to the last gasp. It is persistent! May I add one further comment on this. In our age, that makes such tremendous demands on our time, our skills and our nervous and physical energies, it is perhaps a natural to think that pleasure for pleasure’s sake is acceptable.
In terms of application, responsibility and pressure of many kinds, the demands made upon us today are perhaps greater than those made upon any previous generation. It is little wonder then that at the same time, we should have an explosion of the doctrine of pleasure for pleasure’s sake. So, let us be aware of the danger! Now James turns to a third point about the cause of our troubles, namely that they are –
PERSONAL IN NATURE - “…Your lusts that war in YOUR members?” James is not talking mere theory here. Nor is he contrasting the world with the church. Nor is he naming individual backsliders or pinpointing their particular trouble. No, he is identifying for us a factor common to all Christians. This is a personal issue - “…YOUR lusts that war in YOUR members?” As I look at it, this verse seems to me to be an inverted triangle. First, we have ’wars’, which is a continuous state of unrest. Then we have ’fightings’ which is a narrower thing, because it refers to individual skirmishes and battles. Then we have ’your lusts’ that brings the matter even closer to heart. Finally we get the one word ’your’, which brings me to the apex of the triangle, and that apex is like an arrow pointing straight at my heart, something from which I cannot escape. Let me put it another way. The world consists of nations, nations consist of communities, communities consist of families, and families consist of individuals. Now it is so easy to moralise, to discuss doctrine, to pass judgement generally on things, to read the word of God and draw the line of difference between good and evil, as general principles at large in the world. It is another thing to say those three little words; ’I have sinned’! When Nathan came to King David with the story of a rich man who stole a poor man’s lamb, David had no problem in assessing the moral issue and in dispensing verbal judgement. “As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die…” (2 Samuel 12:5). It was so simple! It was an open and shut case. However, when Nathan replied, “Thou art the man”, David was shaken to the depth of his being. You are the man. You are guilty of the very sin you have condemned.
The faithful and courageous Nathan then went on to bring God’s word of condemnation right home to the King’s heart, until David cried out “I have sinned against the Lord”. Only then was Nathan able to bring the precious word of cleansing. “The Lord also hath put away thy sin”. The lesson is surely clear. Beware of judging others and failing to recognise the subtle sin in your own heart. Also, remember that these ’lusts’ may not appear to be grossly sinful. They may even be camouflaged with the colours of legitimacy. Nevertheless, anything that comes before God is wrong. Now on to James’s final point about the cause of our troubles –
THEY ARE PERVASIVE – “… your lusts that war in your MEMBERS?” Now James is not speaking about the members of the church, but about the members’ members! – Or rather their bodies. Four centuries before Christ was born, the philosopher Plato said “The sole cause of wars, and revolutions, and battles, is nothing other than the body and its desires”. Although Plato was a wise man, he only knew what the Apostle Paul referred to in 1 Corinthians 1:19 as “the wisdom of the wise.” He was a long way from the truth when he perceived man’s troubles in “nothing other than the body and its desires”. He was making the mistake of saying that the body in itself was evil. That is not what the Bible teaches. Let us be quite clear about that. The Bible does not teach that the body is an evil thing. You may have heard of the man, who had engraved on his tombstone the words, “Here lies the part of Thomas Wood that kept his soul from doing good”! That is very witty, very appealing - but totally unbiblical. The Bible does not teach that the body is the part of us that prevents us from doing good. When Paul tells us in Galatians 5:17 that, “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh”, he is not teaching us that there is some kind of contest between the physical and the spiritual. What he is speaking of is the conflict between the Christian’s old nature and the Holy Spirit who now dwells within him. In other words, the Christian’s body is not so much an evil, defiled thing - it is occupied territory.
The cause of our trouble is not outward, external, or circumstantial. It is inward, personal and pervasive - ’in your members’. Knowing the state of war that exists within and without us, isn’t it time for us to turn around, to beg for forgiveness? Isn’t it time for us to have values by which we esteem others more than ourselves? Gloomy forecasts of the future, clichés excuses that this can only be a “day of small things”, mocking cynicism and idle grumbling, all these things have no place in the body of Christ. The challenge of the Lord is not to look downwards but rather to gaze upwards and catch the perspective of all that he can do. We must not argue that realism is always painted black. The future can be glorious, but first we must have anticipation and hope. CH Spurgeon once said that, “The fullness of Jesus is not changed, then why are our works so feebly done? The reforming days, are those to be memories only? I see no reason why we should not have a greater Pentecost than Peter saw, and a Reformation deeper in its foundations, and truer in its upbuildings than all the reforms which Luther and Calvin achieved. We have the same Christ, remember that. The times are altered, but Jesus is the Eternal, and time touches him not. Our laziness puts off the work of conquest, our self indulgence procrastinates, our cowardice and want of faith make us late in the millennium instead of hearing the Spirit’s voice today. Happy days would begin from this hour if the church would but awake and put on her strength, for in her Lord all fullness dwells.”
At the start of my message, I gave you a football illustration, one that showed us how we can so often bring each other down. I would like to end this morning with another, one that shows us what can happen to us when we apply the lessons we have learnt from James 4:1 to our lives:
"This evening at the stadium the night was stirring, peopled with ten thousand shadows. And when the floodlights had painted green the velvet of the great field, The night intoned a chorale, filled by ten thousand voices.
The master of ceremonies had given the signal to begin the service. The impressive liturgy moved forward smoothly. The ball flew from celebrant to celebrant as if everything had been minutely planned in advance.
It passed from foot to foot, slipped along the field, and flew away overhead. Each was at his post, taking the ball in turn, passing it to the next one who was there to receive and pass again.
And because each one did his part in the right place, because he put forth the effort required, because he knew he needed all the others, slowly but surely the ball gained ground and made the final goal!
While, at the end, the immense crowd flowed laboriously into the narrow streets, I reflected, Lord, that human history, for us a long game, is for you this great liturgy, A prodigious ceremony initiated at the dawn of time, which will end only when the last celebrant has completed his final rite.
In this world, Lord, we each have our place. You, the far-sighted coach, have planned it for us. You need us here, our brothers need us, and we need everyone. It isn’t the position I hold that is important, Lord, but the reality and strength of your presence. What difference whether I am forward or back, as long as I am fully what I should be?
Here, Lord, is my day before me... Did I sit too much on the sidelines, criticising the play of others, my hands in my pockets? Did I play my part well?
And when you were watching our side, did you see me there? Did I catch my teammate’s pass and that of the player at the end of the field?
Did I co-operate with my team without seeking the limelight? Did I pray the game to obtain the victory, so that each one should have a part in it? Did I battle to the end in spite of setbacks blows and bruises?
Was I troubled by the demonstrations of the crowd and of the team, discouraged by their lack of understanding and their criticisms, made proud by their applause? Did I think of praying my part, remembering that in the eyes of God this human game is the most religious of ceremonies?
I came in now to rest in the pavilion, Lord. Tomorrow, if you kick off, I’ll play a new position, And so each day... Grant that this game, played with all my brothers, may be the imposing liturgy that you expect of us, So that when your last whistle interrupts our lives, we shall be chosen for the championship of heaven."
Michelle Quoist - Football at night, Gill and Macmillan, 1963.
AMEN
