Submission To God

Sermon for March 1, 2020: James 4:1-12 - Submission to God

1. We’ve been looking at the letter of James, the brother of Jesus. He was the pastor of the church in Jerusalem and he loved and cared deeply for his congregation.

In his day-to-day life he observed the congregation struggling with many of the same things that we struggle with today.

And God placed a burden on James to express God’s heart toward the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem. And God speaks to us today.

4. Today’s passage covers a few things. He talks about:

1. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?

Christians not getting along, fighting amongst ourselves

That those disagreements with others stem from internal battles.

5. When we are at peace with God in our own hearts, we don’t fight with others. We seek dialogue and understanding.

We are willing to have conversations to deal with different viewpoints. We seek to be reasonable and kind.

We give each other the benefit of the doubt and do not assume evil motives of each other.

Near the end of our passage today James says more about how we relate to each other.

11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges… But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

Bottom line: let’s not judge each other. If we’re in conflict, let’s talk it through.

If you’re in the church, or part of any human gathering, guess what.

At some point someone is going to say or do something that you don’t like or don’t understand.

And you may be tempted to gossip about them. You may be tempted to talk to everyone else but not the person who you’re mad at.

Don’t do that. Give yourself time to cool down. Mind your tongue, don’t slander anyone or gossip about what you’re annoyed about.

And as soon as you possibly can, talk to the person that you’re mad at. Talk it through. Find that courage and maturity to talk it through.

99% of the time you’ll figure out that it was a misunderstanding or a miscommunication. You'll find out it was nothing like the big deal you’ve made it in your head.

And when you talk it out and you really listen to each other, you’ll realize that you misjudged. Or one of both of you will realize that you hurt the other person without knowing it.

And you apologize. And you move on.

Thanks James, for reminding us to not judge each other.

6. James talks about a reason our prayers don’t seem to get answered. He says:

2b. You do not have because you do not ask God.

Sometimes we don’t ask God in faith.

We ask God in our complaint. So our prayers are bitter and resentful, and...boom. They don’t get answered.

7. OR we ask with wrong motives. Ever done that? I have.

3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

In John 14:14, Jesus says: “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

Here, Jesus does not promise His disciples anything and everything they want; rather, He instructs them to ask “in my name.”

To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray on the basis of Jesus’ authority, but it also involves praying according to the will of God, for the will of God is what Jesus always did (John 6:38).

This truth is stated explicitly in 1 John 5:14, “If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” Our requests must line up with the will of God.

Matthew 6:33 helps us to see what our focus needs to be in order for us to be aligned with God’s will: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

8. This can be hard to hear: 4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

If in my life, all my actions and opinions are popular and make me super cosy in the world, if I’m a friend of the world, I’m not God’s friend.

In fact it says that would make me God’s enemy. Wow.

James the pastor of the young church in Jerusalem wants us to examine our hearts. God wants us to examine our hearts.

And anything we find that we can see doesn’t please God...I’ve gotta repent. We’ve gotta turn from it.

9. But the next part is really important in understanding all this and not getting too freaked out: