Dear Brothers and Sisters,

You are invited to come to the Wednesday evening prayer meeting and pray. (7:00 PM LHF time, Wed., Jan. 24, 2001)

Text: James 4:1-10

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 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. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

"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. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'

"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up."

James asks us this question: "What causes fights and quarrels among us?" Then he asks us if they don't come from the desires that battle within us. The implied answer is, "Yes. Of course they do." Then he tells us that we don't get what we want so we covet and kill and still don't get it. This passage comes right on the heels of the last two verses of chapter 3 which say:

"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. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness."

What a contrast! When I read today's passage I thought that the words seemed awfully strong -- our desires battle within us and we kill and covet to try to get what we want. I thought, "We don't do these things, do we? Maybe I should skip this passage." But then I thought, "The Holy Spirit inspired James to write this and to preserve it for us to read almost 2000 years later, so I better not skip it." Then I remembered an incident that happened to me twenty-seven years ago. This is the story:

Twenty-seven years ago my job was to provide computer service to the people at the research lab where I worked. I got into a dispute with some of the people that I was supposed to be serving over a technical question and they complained about me to the director of the lab, who happened to be my immediate boss. Now the director of the lab was a nontechnical person and didn't know how to settle the dispute so he appointed someone else to supervise me. The message I got from this was that I wasn't trusted. This was a considerable blow to my pride. The person who was appointed to supervise me was extremely easy to get a long with and came up to me and said essentially, "I'm not going to tell you what to do. This arrangement is mostly for appearances." Nevertheless, in my heart I thought about this man, "He is overweight and smokes a lot. Maybe he'll die of a heart attack and I'll be rid of the problem." But, I quickly realized that that would not solve my problem, but still, that thought came into my heart. We can kill people in our hearts and be murderers. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and we know that no murderer has eternal life in him. (1 John 3:15)

James says that we don't have because we don't ask. And that if we ask we ask with wrong motives so that we can spend what we get on our pleasures. Twenty-seven years ago I didn't pray very much about anything and I'm sure I didn't pray about the management problem I had. If I had prayed, maybe God would have showed me where the real problem was. My attitude was what James calls 'friendship with the world.'

James says that friendship with the world is hatred toward God. People who are friends of the world are committing adultery against God. When you are a friend of the world, you seek to get what you want by whatever means sounds as though it might work. You no more ask God if it's OK to go after what you want than a man would ask his wife for permission to commit adultery. Have you ever wanted something -- even something small and trivial -- that you thought that there was a chance that God would not want you to have? Maybe it wasn't even something obviously sinful, but just -- well -- something where you might make better use of you time. Did you refuse to pray and ask God whether it was OK to do it and and for him to bless it, because you thought he might say no? I'm not talking about the situation where it didn't even occur to you to pray, but where you consciously refused to pray for fear that God would say, "No." Think about it.

Now let's look at verse 5. Verse 5 is grammatically ambiguous, but I think the context favors the alternate translations in the NIV footnote more than the main text. The first footnote translation says, "Or do you think Scripture says without reason that God jealously longs for the spirit that he made to live in us?" The second footnote translation says, "Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the Spirit (capital 'S', Holy Spirit) he caused to live in us longs jealously?" This verse describes God's feelings toward us rather than our own feelings. Our God is a jealous God. His name is jealous (Ex 34:14). He does not want us to commit adultery with the world.

If you happen to have been tested to see if you have any tendency toward being a friend of the world, James is going to tell you what to do in the rest of today's passage. Verse 6 says, "But he gives us more grace." and, "That is why Scripture says,

'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.' (If you're already humble, skip to the end.)

Everything you have is by God's grace. Everything nonbelievers have is also by God's grace. But you have the Holy Spirit and they don't. You have eternal life and they don't. You have Jesus Christ and they don't. If you think you can do anything by yourself, you are proud. God opposes you. If you know you are entirely dependent on God, he will give you grace -- grace to persevere when your faith is tested and to become mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Verse 7 says, "Submit yourself, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." The devil, or more likely some of the fallen angels he led into rebellion against God, are the ones who encourage the 'desires that battle within you.' Here is a promise; if you resist the devil, he will flee from you! The desires that battle within you will subside. How do you resist the devil? You resist the devil by submitting yourself to God. Verse 8a says, "Come near to God and he will come near to you."

The rest of verse 8 and verse 9 say, "Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom." This means repentance. Mourn over sin. Repent of every desire to have your own way rather than God's way. And don't just say that your way is God's way. It can only be God's way if you pray.

Pray every day to be humble -- to accept what God provides for you as good and perfect and accept it without complaining but with thanksgiving. And pray to not even remotely think that you can somehow get around God and make your own desires happen. Pray for others the same way. There will be revival.

"Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." He will exalt you (NASB).

Come and let's pray for each other as well as for the whole church. Come and encourage your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. Love them.

Love in Christ,
Dean

PS: If you absolutely can't make it to the prayer meeting, send your prayer requests back to me by e-mail and we'll pray for them.