SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's good to see you all here in one place at one time.
SPEAKER_00: First time we're all together in worship together.
SPEAKER_00: There's something about having everybody together at once that I just personally really enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: I served a church a number of years ago where we had one service and we grew to the point of two services, and I'm not so sure it was actually so good.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, we're glad that you're here with us this morning, and I would invite you to turn, please, to James chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: With today's section, which really is James 4, 1 through 10 or 1 through 12, depending on how you divide it up.
SPEAKER_00: We're only going to be dealing with the first few verses.
SPEAKER_00: Frank, by the way, mentioned this morning, Walt, I noticed there's only a couple of verses.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Frank, you know me well enough to know that doesn't mean it's going to be a shorter sermon.
SPEAKER_00: And Frank said, Yes, I know Walt.
SPEAKER_00: With this new subject or with this new section in the book of James, the Apostle begins and he gives us a practical and pointed word.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, that's what he does throughout this epistle.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of those, if you really don't just read it, but allow it to penetrate your heart, it is pointed and practical, and sometimes it's really pointed.
SPEAKER_00: So much so that it hurts a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And we often need that, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: We often need to be pushed just a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what James is doing.
SPEAKER_00: James addresses here a problem that was prevalent, problematic, and pernicious.
SPEAKER_00: And if I could come up with another P, I would.
SPEAKER_00: It was a problem that was prevalent, problematic and pernicious.
SPEAKER_00: Pernicious means insidiously damaging and destructive.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about, excuse me, he's talking about broken relationships between believers, the struggles that we have, and yes, we all have them, you have them, I have them, with believers.
SPEAKER_00: And he deals with this in a very practical way.
SPEAKER_00: Christians, obviously, we don't know completely how to live out the exhortation to be diligent to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
SPEAKER_00: It's just not that simple, is it?
SPEAKER_00: It's not that simple for you, it's not that simple for me.
SPEAKER_00: If you think it's simple, talk to somebody else and see how they feel about you.
SPEAKER_00: Because not everybody thinks that you're the best thing since sliced bread.
SPEAKER_00: We struggle with each other.
SPEAKER_00: We do.
SPEAKER_00: We just have problems with each other.
SPEAKER_00: It's a present, prevalent, and insidiously destructive or pernicious problem.
SPEAKER_00: In the verses that before us, James will talk about this problem in military terms, battles, struggles that we have.
SPEAKER_00: In this passage, we are confronted with the fact that there is a war going on.
SPEAKER_00: A war that shouldn't be taking place, but a war that exists and a war that is.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Ray.
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that a lot.
SPEAKER_00: It's the wrong war.
SPEAKER_00: When we're battling with each other, we're distracted by the enemy from the real war.
SPEAKER_00: There is a war that is going on.
SPEAKER_00: There is an enemy of God and the things of God, and there's a battle that we're to be involved in, but it not it ought not to be here and among us and with us.
SPEAKER_00: And yet it is.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what uh that's what James talks about.
SPEAKER_00: Um this was true in the first century, it was true in the second century, it was true in the third century, it was true in the fourth century, all the way up to the 21st century.
SPEAKER_00: And what James said to a group of largely Jewish churches or churches with Jewish believers, what he said to them in the first century was not only his words, but it was through this miracle of inspiration what God was saying to them.
SPEAKER_00: And we believe that what he is saying is just as applicable today as it was to them, and the words that I am speaking are my words, and they'll likely only mess up what God is really saying.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I pray for all the time.
SPEAKER_00: God, God help me from getting in the way, because it's not my words, it's your word.
SPEAKER_00: And what what James, what God through James is saying to us, we need to hear.
SPEAKER_00: You need to hear it, I need to hear it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Commander Oliver Perry was a famous naval officer during the War of 1812.
SPEAKER_00: Now, to me, the War of 1812 is not famous.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but he in his day was a very significant and famous person.
SPEAKER_00: He was responsible for building up a fleet of ships in the Great Lakes to defend itself against the invading uh the evading British Navy.
SPEAKER_00: And during an important battle, Battle of Lake Erie, he captured a group of enemy ships.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and then he declared victoriously in the following words, we have met the enemy and they are ours.
SPEAKER_00: Two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop.
SPEAKER_00: We have met the enemy and they are ours.
SPEAKER_00: In the 1960s, uh, during an era of great social upheaval, not unlike ours today, different focus, but also the tectonic plates of society were shifting.
SPEAKER_00: There was a cartoon, syndicated cartoon of Pogo.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you may be old enough to remember Pogo, Pogo of Oki Fanoki Swamp.
SPEAKER_00: And through Pogo's words, the the cartoonist was giving a caricature and a message about society.
SPEAKER_00: So he took the words of Commander Perry, I have met the enemy and they are ours.
SPEAKER_00: And what he said is, we have met the enemy and they is us.
SPEAKER_00: We've met the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: And they is us.
SPEAKER_00: That's what James is saying.
SPEAKER_00: That's the diagnosis that Dr.
SPEAKER_00: James here makes when he sees what's going on in our midst.
SPEAKER_00: And the basic question of this passage, as I understand it, particularly the first three verses, is are we content or malcontent?
SPEAKER_00: Are we content with what God gives us, with what God allows to come across our paths?
SPEAKER_00: Are we able to place the experiences of our life in the context of a sovereign and loving God who really is still on the throne?
SPEAKER_00: Where we then find contentment, or do we just want what we want when we want it, and we end up being malcontent.
SPEAKER_00: Malcontent with God and malcontent with one another.
SPEAKER_00: There's more to the issues of squabbles and quarrels and fighting, but there is no less than this.
SPEAKER_00: Content or malcontent?
SPEAKER_00: Let me read the first twelve verses.
SPEAKER_00: We're only going to look at the first three.
SPEAKER_00: James speaking.
SPEAKER_00: God speaking through James.
SPEAKER_00: A question.
SPEAKER_00: What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?
SPEAKER_00: Is it not this?
SPEAKER_00: That your passions or desires are at war within you?
SPEAKER_00: You desire and do not have, so you murder.
SPEAKER_00: You covet and could not obtain, so you fight and quarrel.
SPEAKER_00: You do not have, because you do not ask, you ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
SPEAKER_00: You adulterous people.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
SPEAKER_00: There who forever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God, or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us?
SPEAKER_00: But he gives us more grace.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore he says, God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.
SPEAKER_00: Submit yourselves, therefore, to God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
SPEAKER_00: Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
SPEAKER_00: Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your heart, you double-minded.
SPEAKER_00: Be wretched and mourn and weep.
SPEAKER_00: Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
SPEAKER_00: Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
SPEAKER_00: Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.
SPEAKER_00: The one who speaks evil against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law, but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.
SPEAKER_00: There is only one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy.
SPEAKER_00: But who are you to judge your neighbor?
SPEAKER_00: What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?
SPEAKER_00: James begins by describing the symptoms of the problem.
SPEAKER_00: And when he looks at this, he makes it very clear and he identifies the problem not being out there but being in here.
SPEAKER_00: Not being out there, but being in here, but also not being out there, but in here.
SPEAKER_00: As we go through this and as we think about the struggles, I would challenge you to look inside.
SPEAKER_00: Don't just look at that difficult person.
SPEAKER_00: Don't just look at the things that they have done.
SPEAKER_00: Look within, because James is saying the problem is at its core within.
SPEAKER_00: And we will be looking at that.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to the root issue.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 1, he identifies the root problem.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verses 2 and 3, he gives a diagnosis.
SPEAKER_00: He sends the lab or the report out for analysis and brings it back.
SPEAKER_00: But first, the symptoms.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the symptoms he describes as quarrels and fights among us.
SPEAKER_00: It's very interesting.
SPEAKER_00: The word he uses here is a military term.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't just, you know, we're not quite getting along.
SPEAKER_00: This is a military term.
SPEAKER_00: Fights with one another.
SPEAKER_00: Wars and battles.
SPEAKER_00: It's a term that was very common in Greek literature, and it's a general term for armed warfare.
SPEAKER_00: And it could be at a broad level of global, a global offensive against your enemy or your enemy's global offensive against you, or it could be very personal, hand-to-hand contact and guerrilla warfare.
SPEAKER_00: It's this broad, general term, not just from we're struggling a little bit with each other, but we're at war with each other, is what he says.
SPEAKER_00: The fact of the matter is that we fail to live the way we've talked about in the last few weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what the preceding verse of this passage is.
SPEAKER_00: There is no chapter division in the manuscripts of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So he had just getting done, he had just finished talking about wisdom from above and wisdom from below.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 18, a harvest of chapter 3, a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
SPEAKER_00: And then without barely a breath, he says, What causes quarrels and struggles within us?
SPEAKER_00: And it's very clear that we're not able, not only to follow the admonition of Ephesians to be diligent to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, that we're not always and we're often not successful in living by wisdom from above, and we live instead by wisdom from below.
SPEAKER_00: And he has just gotten done saying, if you have bitter jealousy, this is verse 14 of the previous, if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambitions in your heart, don't boast.
SPEAKER_00: This is wisdom that comes, this is not the wisdom that comes from above.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 16, for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice.
SPEAKER_00: Now, he says, What causes the difficulties that we face?
SPEAKER_00: And he ultimately says the problems are within.
SPEAKER_00: This is a sad commentary on the Church of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This has been true from the very beginning, and it is true today.
SPEAKER_00: The church at large as well as the local church.
SPEAKER_00: We are so often characterized, at least by outside observers, with things that are quite at contrast to the things we espouse.
SPEAKER_00: One person said it this way, a commentator on the church, looking through history, and he says, I have often wondered that persons who make such a boast of professing the Christian religion, namely love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to all men, that they should quarrel with such rancorous animosity and display daily towards one another such bitter hatred that this, rather than the virtues which they profess, is the most prevalent characteristic of their faith.
SPEAKER_00: That was said by a German secular Jewish philosopher Spinoza, talking about the church 300 years ago, 400 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we think, well, we just need to get back to the early church, to the good old days.
SPEAKER_00: We have a tendency with that ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We may look back 10 years, 20 years, and wish for the good old days of faith evangelical free church.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, the good old days were not as good, in fact, as they are in our memories.
SPEAKER_00: They really aren't.
SPEAKER_00: But clearly, a lot of people say, well, let's just get back to the early church.
SPEAKER_00: Well, be careful what you wish for.
SPEAKER_00: The early church was far from glorious.
SPEAKER_00: In Acts chapter 6, I'm not going to turn to these.
SPEAKER_00: Just a few days after Pentecost, when there was this miraculous outpouring of God's Holy Spirit, you want a charismatic experience, go to the day of Pentecost, but then hang around for a few weeks.
SPEAKER_00: And what happened?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Greek-speaking and the Hebrew-speaking believers weren't able to get along.
SPEAKER_00: The one felt that they had been mistreated by the other just a few days after Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: And so the apostles had to step in and find ways.
SPEAKER_00: There were reasons for it, of course.
SPEAKER_00: There's always reasons.
SPEAKER_00: There's an occasion for it.
SPEAKER_00: But the root is ultimately within.
SPEAKER_00: God-given, powerful manifestations of the Holy Spirit was also the church, the church in the New Testament, according to the records that we have, that had the bitterest internal arguments and disputes and the bitterest carnality.
SPEAKER_00: You see, this is just the nature of our heart, your heart, my heart.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 12, 20.
SPEAKER_00: Paul was anticipating a little bit later a visit that he had to make to Corinth.
SPEAKER_00: And quite frankly, read that in its context.
SPEAKER_00: Paul didn't want to go visit the church in Corinth.
SPEAKER_00: He really didn't.
SPEAKER_00: He had had enough of that.
SPEAKER_00: He had been there, and it had been one of the most difficult times in his whole ministry.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't even want to go there because he knew there was going to be conflict.
SPEAKER_00: He was going to have to say some difficult things, and they probably wouldn't like him the way he was, and he didn't like them the way they were.
SPEAKER_00: This is Paul, this is the New Testament church.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't so glorious, and it wasn't so different.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians chapter 4, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: Right after this beautiful expression of the humility of Christ, who didn't regard a display of equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself.
SPEAKER_00: Shortly after that, Paul speaks to two women in the Philippian church, Euodia and Cintici, and he said, Look at ladies, would you please start talking to each other?
SPEAKER_00: That's what he was saying.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: Paul and Barnabas had a bitter argument with one another over John Mark.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the translations describe it as a sharp disagreement.
SPEAKER_00: That's politically correct.
SPEAKER_00: It was a bitter separation between apostles.
SPEAKER_00: The old days were not all that good.
SPEAKER_00: Human nature has not changed.
SPEAKER_00: So James says, okay, what causes this?
SPEAKER_00: And he goes into this.
SPEAKER_00: And he he points out what the source is.
SPEAKER_00: It's very clear.
SPEAKER_00: What he says to us is that the problem is we have certain desires within us that don't get met, and so we we tend to, instead of trusting God to have good purposes in the situations in which we find ourselves, that our our our desires cause us then to react and respond in ways that are simply wrong.
SPEAKER_00: The term he uses here for desires is that of evil desires.
SPEAKER_00: It's a word that is actually a very strong word, typically evil, typically selfish, sometimes translated as one of the common ways of translating into English this translation lusts.
SPEAKER_00: So these are not just, you know, I'd really like something, but inappropriate and inappropriately held and inappropriately expressed desires.
SPEAKER_00: He says that is what is the problem within.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, second half of the verse.
SPEAKER_00: What is the cause?
SPEAKER_00: Is it not this that your passions, your desires, are at war within you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we need to be careful.
SPEAKER_00: Desires and needs are not inherently wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we think the problem is that we have desires, and so if we could only just stifle all of our desires and forget about our needs, we would be fine.
SPEAKER_00: That just isn't the way we were made.
SPEAKER_00: God has planted within us desires, and those are not inherently wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Just go back to Adam and Eve in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: They had desires, they had needs.
SPEAKER_00: They got hungry.
SPEAKER_00: It was not wrong to want something to eat.
SPEAKER_00: The cause of sin was not that they were hungry.
SPEAKER_00: The cause of what caused the fall was that they dealt with that need on the inside in ways that were out of line with what God wanted and were inappropriate.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is not needs and desires.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to go further into that, but won't do that today.
SPEAKER_00: But your needs and wants, some of them, because of our twisted world and our broken hearts, what we see is the evil side of those, but I would just challenge you to think of every desire that there is.
SPEAKER_00: Within you that may be evil, I honestly believe, and again, we can't go into it, that has, that reflects something right and good, but has become twisted.
SPEAKER_00: So the problem is not the desires, but that our desires war within us.
SPEAKER_00: We foolishly and sinfully and arrogantly think that we know how to meet our needs and fulfill our desires, and then we go about it in all of the wrong ways.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what verses two, uh the desires themselves are not wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Verses two and three, he takes these symptoms, he's got a little bit of tissue, as it were, and he sends it out to the lab, and now he brings back the laboratory, the pathology report.
SPEAKER_00: And at its core, verses two through three says we are not content with how our needs are being met, or how we are fulfilling, or our desires are fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just that we have needs and desires, but we're not content with the way things are.
SPEAKER_00: We can't come to peace with a God who knows what he's doing and does what he will, and what he wills is always and only good.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we think we know better than God.
SPEAKER_00: That's where this is coming from.
SPEAKER_00: We arrogantly assume that we know what we need.
SPEAKER_00: You probably don't really know what you need.
SPEAKER_00: Do you need anything other than what God has given you?
SPEAKER_00: Well, much within me cries out and says, I need this, and you're not giving me this, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You see, it's it has to do with our understanding of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: We assume that we know what we need and what we want, and then we demand how our need should be met, and when it doesn't matter, when it doesn't happen that way, then we begin to take things into our own hands.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is described then, second half of verse 2 through verse 3, a series of statements.
SPEAKER_00: Uh actually three uh parallel statements.
SPEAKER_00: This is actually a difficult section for translators.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we have any of the SIL people with us yet.
SPEAKER_00: I know uh they supposedly are moving in, but um the the Greek manuscripts do not have punctuation in them.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we translate, we have to figure out what goes together and where the pauses are, and where's what we want are periods and uh commas and semicolons.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you look in different translations of these verses, they are done in all different kinds of way.
SPEAKER_00: I want to say that the ESV does an outstanding job with it, as far as I can tell, as far as I understand the text.
SPEAKER_00: There are three parallel statements.
SPEAKER_00: Um He says, You want something, you don't get it, and so you commit murder.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that sounds a little extreme, except Jesus said on the Sermon of the Mount that harboring anger and bitterness against a brother is an infringement on the command, thou shalt not murder.
SPEAKER_00: We've learned to often cover it up and not express it in its most violent forms, and not expressing it in its violent, most violent forms is a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Far worse than feeling anger and bitterness against someone would be taking out your gun and shooting them.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus made it very clear that when we have anger and bitterness in our hearts, it's just like murdering them.
SPEAKER_00: The consequences for the other person are not as bad.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, um, you desire and you don't have, so you take matters into your own hands and you murder.
SPEAKER_00: A parallel thought.
SPEAKER_00: You covet, you want something, you desire something, and you can't obtain it, so you fight and quarrel.
SPEAKER_00: See, at the root of the fights and the quarrels among us, James is saying it has to do with us, with us, and how we handle our desires and our perceived needs.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, are we able to be content with the God who is, or do we feel we have to replace him and figure out how we can rule the world ourselves?
SPEAKER_00: Because he's obviously not doing a very good job with the world or with my life.
SPEAKER_00: Now we never say it that way, but that's what he's getting it to.
SPEAKER_00: Um the common denominator in all of this is that we want something, we don't get it, and so we take action.
SPEAKER_00: And that's at the core of the wars and the quarrels among us.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this is so familiar and so childish, and it's so familiar because we are all little kids at heart.
SPEAKER_00: But let's just pick on little ones who aren't with us in the service this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, what about a toddler in the nursery playing with a toy?
SPEAKER_00: Um, another little toddler comes up, rips it out of his hands or her hands, and walks away.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the chances are pretty good that that little toddler who's just had this thing taken from him or her is going to go or, depending on his personality, budding as it is, still growing, but probably developing that way, uh, he might just take another block and go over and hit the person over the head.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's just what kids do because they don't know how to deal with their unfulfilled desires and their perceived needs.
SPEAKER_00: I need this block, I need this teddy bear, this is what I want.
SPEAKER_00: It's all that's just the way we are.
SPEAKER_00: Um I rarely go in the grocery store or big box stores.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jane, for loving me enough to be so patient with me.
SPEAKER_00: But you walk into Walmart and my heart goes out to young mothers with two or three kids, little kids in a shopping cart, and they go by and they see something they want and they say, Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they do that for three aisles.
SPEAKER_00: Mommy, mommy, mommy, I want.
SPEAKER_00: It's just the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: I want it, it looks desirable.
SPEAKER_00: I think I need it, I need it.
SPEAKER_00: And wise is the parent, and boy, we didn't always get this straight with our kids, but wise is the parent that says, when they're a little older, need.
SPEAKER_00: I need the car tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Need?
SPEAKER_00: Um, our kids learn not to pose the question that way.
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: You need that?
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so, son.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we get our needs uh all mixed up.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not just children, not just children.
SPEAKER_00: Um you're in traffic.
SPEAKER_00: You're in one of these major Grand Forks traffic jams at the end of the days.
SPEAKER_00: Coming from Indianapolis and the Chicago area, when I heard on the uh the news that there was a traffic jam tonight and I was in the middle of it, I thought, wow, this is a different world.
SPEAKER_00: But fair enough.
SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
SPEAKER_00: It's all relative, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: So you've had a lousy day at work.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you're tired, you just want to get home, you want a little bit of peace.
SPEAKER_00: Um, your job is lousy, the person in the cubicle next to yours is a pain.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this job is going nowhere.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to get home and I want to veg.
SPEAKER_00: I want to put a DVD in and just kind of relax or pull up Netflix.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to relax.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm driving along and I'm stuck at the corner of 24th and uh Columbia, and that light never changes.
SPEAKER_00: But worse than the light is the person in front of me.
SPEAKER_00: This idiot, this person doesn't know how to drive.
SPEAKER_00: He's supposed to turn or she, but I'm not allowed to say that because I'm a man.
SPEAKER_00: This genderless driver in front of me uh does not turn when the signal is to turn.
SPEAKER_00: And so you begin to clamp the wheel even harder and tap your foot in a polite Christian way and mutter wonderful words of blessing under your breath.
SPEAKER_00: What's the difference between that and a toddler?
SPEAKER_00: There's no difference.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: Did that person make me mad?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: I made myself mad.
SPEAKER_00: That's another thing that our three children had the misfortune of growing up in our home.
SPEAKER_00: Uh they learned not to say, he, my twin brother, he made me mad.
SPEAKER_00: Well, not all the time, but pretty frequently we would try to sit down and say, Really, did he make you mad, or did you get mad because of what he did?
SPEAKER_00: Subtle difference, but huge difference.
SPEAKER_00: You see, there's desires within.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I won't even talk about when things happen in a church that aren't the way you want them.
SPEAKER_00: You you I guess I will.
SPEAKER_00: So you're in a life group.
SPEAKER_00: And the life group is going to have to decide now, okay, what are we going to do this next season?
SPEAKER_00: And some people want it to be a prayer meeting, others want it to be just a fellowship time, others want it to be a Bible study.
SPEAKER_00: Every uh life group pretty much does what it what it pleases.
SPEAKER_00: Uh not necessarily what they're asked to do, but that's not unusual.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so you get this you get this conversation going, and if you're not careful, it's not just, hey, let's think together about it, but I want this from this group.
SPEAKER_00: And he wants that from that group.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not careful, then there comes a division, and it may well be that you harbor bitterness about this or get upset about it long enough that when you see them out in the foyer, you tend to pass on the other side of the foyer.
SPEAKER_00: This is the stuff that marriages are shattered over, it's the kind of stuff that uh that friends separate over, it's the kind of stuff that churches uh split over.
SPEAKER_00: Um I have never seen a church split by a doctrinal dispute.
SPEAKER_00: It probably happens, but what normally happens is that people can't tolerate the way other people hold their understanding of truth, but of course, my understanding of truth is correct.
SPEAKER_00: We don't split churches over doctrine.
SPEAKER_00: We split churches by not knowing how to deal with the differences that there are among us.
SPEAKER_00: That's just the way it works.
SPEAKER_00: There is a deeper issue, and it relates to our relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Um I would suggest that the same kind of thing happens in our relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Go back to verse 3, the third of these three parallel statements.
SPEAKER_00: You ask and do not receive.
SPEAKER_00: And in the context, this is talking about asking of God in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: You ask of God and don't receive because you ask wrongly.
SPEAKER_00: Lots could be said about that, but if we're not careful, our prayers are a list of demands for God to do what we want.
SPEAKER_00: And when God says no, we get upset with God.
SPEAKER_00: What is it about no that you don't understand when it comes from the mouth of God?
SPEAKER_00: I understand that you have problems with it when it comes with Walt's mouth.
SPEAKER_00: But what is it about no that you don't understand?
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the question that we also tried to help our kids.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, our kids had a hard life.
SPEAKER_00: Son, what is it about no that you don't understand?
SPEAKER_00: I understand you disagree.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, dad could be wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I don't get it right all of the time.
SPEAKER_00: But what is it about no?
SPEAKER_00: Can you not take no?
SPEAKER_00: And spiritually, that certainly applies.
SPEAKER_00: You do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions, to spend what God is giving you, and it's not just money.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking in general about our relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: But you see, we want we want God to meet our desires.
SPEAKER_00: You spend it on your passions, your desires.
SPEAKER_00: Um you you you you end up because God ultimately doesn't answer your prayers.
SPEAKER_00: You know what happens as a result of that?
SPEAKER_00: Prayerlessness.
SPEAKER_00: You get discouraged about praying.
SPEAKER_00: Not just that you fall asleep, you and I all do that, fall asleep, but sometimes we're just we're we're just because life is not working out the way we want it to.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't answer your prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Um conveniently ignoring that maybe God knows best and maybe he's got a different and a better plan for you.
SPEAKER_00: Hasn't God promised to meet all of your needs?
SPEAKER_00: Then how come you don't have a job?
SPEAKER_00: Did God let you down?
SPEAKER_00: Or does God have a better and different plan for you?
SPEAKER_00: Is it even conceivable that we would see the circumstances of our lives against the framework of the God who is and who is on the throne and rules and reigns and is sovereign and is involved in the details of your life and of mine and come to contentment with what God allows us to have?
SPEAKER_00: Is it impossible?
SPEAKER_00: No, that's actually the solution.
SPEAKER_00: Um why does he allow me to be in this situation?
SPEAKER_00: Why do I have this illness?
SPEAKER_00: And you get you get politely in a Christian way, if we're not careful, angry, frustrated, confused with God.
SPEAKER_00: Um other people have success in life and everything I do turns south?
SPEAKER_00: How come other people have a wonderful spouse and all I have is my dog?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wait, that didn't come out right.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not calling your spouse a dog, all right?
SPEAKER_00: But how come other people get what I don't get?
SPEAKER_00: How does that relate to God and who God is and what God is doing?
SPEAKER_00: That's what this passage forces us uh to understand.
SPEAKER_00: As though we know better than God what we need.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's at the core of so much.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's more complex than this, but it is no less complex than this.
SPEAKER_00: Do we believe that God knows what he's doing or not?
SPEAKER_00: And can we bring that to bear with our life situation and with the people in our lives?
SPEAKER_00: I want to just uh wrap this up with a couple of very simple thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: Um I doubt you like this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Many things about it I don't like.
SPEAKER_00: Oh well.
SPEAKER_00: So you know what God should have said to us better than he does.
SPEAKER_00: I would never say it that way, but I don't like this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Not at one level.
SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand, God is pointing us in the right direction.
SPEAKER_00: Just a couple of thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna duck.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, let's not kid ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is not them or out there, the problem at its core.
SPEAKER_00: There are problems out there, of course.
SPEAKER_00: But your reaction to it is your problem.
SPEAKER_00: It's a problem within.
SPEAKER_00: I quoted the uh uh cartoon character Pogo, we have met the enemy, and they is us.
SPEAKER_00: Um another uh kind of similar thing.
SPEAKER_00: Um, in the beginning of the 1900s, one of the major British newspapers, it was read widely uh across the country, uh, posed a serious question as the world was falling apart, what's wrong with our world?
SPEAKER_00: And invited the best thinkers of the day to respond.
SPEAKER_00: And they responded with lengthy philosophical explanations and so forth, except for G.K.
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton.
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton had a masterful response.
SPEAKER_00: Dear sirs, I am.
SPEAKER_00: Sincerely yours, G.K.
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton.
SPEAKER_00: What's wrong?
SPEAKER_00: Dear God.
SPEAKER_00: I am.
SPEAKER_00: I am God's solution is for us to be well content, not malcontent.
SPEAKER_00: Well content with God and his ways.
SPEAKER_00: And I would just encourage you to write down 2 Corinthians 12, 10 in its context and check it out.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, and it's in the context of Paul struggling with some situations in his life.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, what appears to have been one of the most difficult situations in his life, whatever the thorn in the flesh was.
SPEAKER_00: This is that passage talking about the thorn in the flesh, where he prayed and asked God to take it away and God said no.
SPEAKER_00: He prayed and asked God to take it away, and a second time God said no.
SPEAKER_00: He prayed yet again to take it away, and God said no.
SPEAKER_00: And he says that my grace is going to be sufficient for you.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of answering your prayers, Paul, and I could, I could answer your prayers, I have something better for you.
SPEAKER_00: I have an opportunity for you to learn, to be content with that which I give, and my grace will be sufficient for you as you go about doing this.
SPEAKER_00: And he came to learning contentment.
SPEAKER_00: Strange formatting there on that slide, but uh what he says is, I have learned to be content.
SPEAKER_00: I am well content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, and persecution and difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: Ain't nothing easy about that.
SPEAKER_00: Lessons I don't like to learn, and you don't either.
SPEAKER_00: And yet when it came right down to it, he said, I have learned to be content in what you in your goodness and your grace allow to come across my path.
SPEAKER_00: He learned contentment, and he learned to limit his expectations, key thought, limit his expectations to what a good and sovereign and gracious and all-wise and all-loving and all-powerful involved God wants.
SPEAKER_00: Paul learned a different attitude from I want what I want when I want it.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't just, I can't fight against God, there's nothing else I can do about that.
SPEAKER_00: God, you win.
SPEAKER_00: God always wins the arguments.
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
SPEAKER_00: But when you read Paul, there's a different spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He's come to be able to come to peace with things in his life, people in his life, situations in his life that weren't good, he didn't like, and he wanted other ways.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted it differently.
SPEAKER_00: But I've learned to delight in, sometimes it's translated, hardships, trials, sufferings, persecution, etc.
SPEAKER_00: The fact of the matter is, so did Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's what part of the Garden of Gethsemane is all about.
SPEAKER_00: And he asked three times, Lord, if it be possible, come up with some other plan besides me experiencing the full fury of the wrath of an angry God.
SPEAKER_00: If it's possible, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Three times.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately he went as a lamb to the slaughter, not expressing bitterness and anger and railing at either the soldiers or at his heavenly father, but said, Not my will, but your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: Of all people, Jesus would have had a right to demand his rights.
SPEAKER_00: Of all people, and he didn't.
SPEAKER_00: Of all people, he would have had a right to expect that his name would be cleared, but he didn't go there.
SPEAKER_00: Of all people, Jesus could have demanded that people would understand him, but he didn't.
SPEAKER_00: Not my will, but but your will.
SPEAKER_00: May that be done.
SPEAKER_00: This is nothing more or less than learning to trust a father who knows best.
SPEAKER_00: And the question is, do we really believe God knows what he's doing, or do we have to help him out with the circumstances and the difficulties of our lives?
SPEAKER_00: And it's not a simple matter, folks.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't always get it straight, and you don't either.
SPEAKER_00: But the solution has to do with the fact that today is Sunday, the 29th of May, 2016, and God is still on the throne, and he's trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: He was on the throne all last week.
SPEAKER_00: He's on the throne today, and he's on the throne next week.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you think I keep saying that every week?
SPEAKER_00: Because I can't think of anything else to say?
SPEAKER_00: No! Because that's what I most need: a vision of God, a reality of God, not just theology, but brought into bear in the pains and the difficulties and the frustrations of my life.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what he's doing, and I'd like to correct him.
SPEAKER_00: And so we say, God is still on the throne.
SPEAKER_00: He's gracious, he's good, he's trustworthy, he's involved, he knows what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: And let's just let him be God.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, that's what James is saying in these three verses, as it relates to quarrels and fights among us.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, your word is true.
SPEAKER_00: Your word is convicting.
SPEAKER_00: Your word sometimes makes me want to argue with it.
SPEAKER_00: How foolish.
SPEAKER_00: How sinful.
SPEAKER_00: I want to look at the other people and what they've done and what they've said and why.
SPEAKER_00: And you want me to look within because the battle is in me.
SPEAKER_00: No one makes me angry.
SPEAKER_00: No one causes me to be bitter and combative.
SPEAKER_00: My sinful nature does that.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, by your grace, would you give us the heart and mindset of seeing you as the sovereign Lord who is good?
SPEAKER_00: And would you give us the grace to simply allow you to be God and for us to say, I don't know, Lord, but you.