Why Men Don’t Ask For Directions
—Part 1
James 4:1-10
Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO.
Our text connects these important themes. I want to set the stage for this study in this message and continue it next week. James is one of the most simple and practical books in the New Testament. He doesn’t pull any punches. You don’t have to guess what he is talking about. Often, James, like Proverbs in the Old Testament, is a spiritual 2x4 between the eyes. The grand theme of James is “true religion.” Or as he terms it in 1:27-- "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless.” In James such religion is not about ceremonies, rituals, and rules—like the Jewish religion tended to emphasize—but practical compassion toward the poor and disadvantage, self-control, especially of the tongue and temper, and a lifestyle and mindset that didn’t just go with the flow of the moral pollution of the surrounding culture. He explains these three principles over and over again.
The practical compassion and the self-control are fairly easy to put yours hands around. The unpolluted lifestyle is a bit tougher. This is what James 4 is about. The world acts this way; we shouldn’t. The prevailing non-Christian culture thinks this way; we must not. Specifically, most people think we should take care of ourselves and only ask for God’s help as a last resort. People who know the Living God think and act differently. And when we don’t, when we allow our lives to be polluted with the world’s way of thinking, that’s when we get into big trouble. Individually and as a church, we regularly face the struggle about whether we will be a worldly church or a praying church. Both styles pray; one prays as a last resort, the other as a first impulse.
I will call this choice—living by Plan A or Plan B. Plan A is the normal human pattern of independence and self-reliance. Plan B is a personal walk with a God who is intimately involved with the affairs of our lives and want to be in our decisions from the beginning. In our individual lives and as a church together, we either stop and ask for directions sooner or later. The difference is telling.
Note how James brackets this section (4:1-10) with a discussion of Plan A and Plan B.
Watch for the contrast. (James 3:13-18) "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. {14} But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. {15} Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. {16} For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. {17} But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. {18} Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness."
Shortly after our text, he writes: (James 4:13-17) "Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." {14} Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. {15} Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that." {16} As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. {17} Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins."
Our text explains where Plan A living leads and what we can do to prevent it. James starts with a discussion of the symptoms of Plan A living. There are two symptoms and they are related.
The first is conflicts. "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? What comes to your mind when you hear this question? Probably wars, international hostilities, and then may be a marriage squabble or an argument between friends. That is certainly part of it. He might specifically have in mind church fights. They do happen you know. As hard as it is to believe, Christian people sometimes don’t always agree and sometimes the disagreements actually end up in verbal combat and physical violence.
The phrase “among you” is a clue that he is not talking about wars between the Jews and Arabs or Greeks and Romans. If James is addressing church squabbles, he wouldn’t be the only New Testament writer to do so. (1 Cor 3:1-3) "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ. {2} I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. {3} You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?" Jesus addressed the theme more positively and in preventive manner when he prayed, “(John 17:20-21) ""My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, {21} that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me."
I have known a few church fights in my time. I remember a church dinner when I was a kid. After the meal, a number of the men retired upstairs for a board meeting. I have no idea what went on. I just remember one of the deacons storming down stairs, angrily telling his wife to her things and meet him at the car. He had gotten mad over something in the meeting upstairs, left and didn’t come back to church for a long time.
I have heard stories of people actually coming to blows in church meetings, of folk screaming and cursing at one another in church over disagreements. “Fights and quarrels among you” was probably not an overstatement.
When I think of church squabbles I always remember Cloyd and Laura. They were two older folk in one of the first churches I served. Fortunately they were not married to each other. Cloyd was an elder and had been for many years. Laura was the wife of another elder. They were both “mature” adults. They easily qualified for an AARP discount. Neither one of them had perfect eye sight. I never knew exactly what started it, but apparently there was one particular spotlight near the front of the church that always glared on Cloyd’s glasses when he sat in regular spot. The problem was that the same light was just right for Laura to read the hymnal when she sat in her regular spot. Cloyd got in the habit of turning that particular light off when he came into church. Laura got in the habit of turning the light on when she came in. More than once, I would watch first Cloyd turn the light off. A few minutes later, Laura would come through and turn the light on. Later Cloyd would walk back through, notice the light was back on. He would turn it off and walk away mumbling to himself. I lived in mortal fear of the Sunday the two would arrive at the same switch at the same time. To my knowledge that never happened. Nor did either ever think of sitting in a different spot. Such is the stuff of which church squabbles are made.
James explains that quarrels and fights are seldom caused by glaring lights or differences of opinion over the color of the new carpet for the foyer. They come from inner unmet desires. The problem is inside, not outside. Until we solve that problem, no compromise or mediation meetings will change the situation. “Desires that battle within you” is James’ explanation. This is only a slightly different twist on the same warning the Lord gave Cain when he became angry with his brother Abel just before that first murder: (Gen 4:6-7) "Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? {7} If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.""
We are at war with sin and desire, not our brothers or neighbors.
What is the solution? This is where James will turn to the theme of prayer. Living by Plan A where prayer is a last resort inevitably leads to quarrels and fights. Plan B—prayer as a first impulse yields something better.
(James 4:1-10) "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? {2} You 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. {3} When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. {4} You 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. {5} Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? {6} But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." {7} Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. {8} Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. {9} Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. {10} Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up."
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
