WEBVTT 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:01.040 Good morning. 00:00:01.600 --> 00:00:04.959 There's a lot of things I would like to say this morning. 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:11.519 The first and perhaps the most significant thing that I could say, you're already familiar with. 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:21.359 Today is Sunday, the 5th of June 2016, and God is still on the throne. 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:23.760 He was all week long. 00:00:24.559 --> 00:00:27.600 He is today, and he will be in the week to come. 00:00:27.679 --> 00:00:29.839 I have no idea what your week was like. 00:00:30.079 --> 00:00:32.399 I barely know what my week was like. 00:00:33.280 --> 00:00:36.399 But I know that God is on the throne. 00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:37.119 He is good. 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:38.320 He is faithful. 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:43.600 He's trustworthy, and he's involved in our lives, even when we don't sense it or feel it. 00:00:43.920 --> 00:00:50.960 Today, he reigns, he rules, he's gracious, he's kind, he's patient, he's trustworthy. 00:00:51.119 --> 00:00:55.359 The week ahead, we have no idea what this week will bring, and we don't need to know. 00:00:55.520 --> 00:01:02.960 All we really need to know is who God is and his goodness and his sufficiency for you and me. 00:01:03.679 --> 00:01:08.159 Nothing I enjoy sharing more than that thought. 00:01:08.239 --> 00:01:10.079 Let's pray together, shall we? 00:01:11.680 --> 00:01:14.319 Heavenly Father, we are a needy people. 00:01:14.959 --> 00:01:26.000 Whether we realize it or not, whether we feel like our life is out of control or under control, we need you. 00:01:26.799 --> 00:01:31.840 And when it's out of control, we're more aware of the fact that we need you. 00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:46.480 When we're keenly aware of brokenness on the inside, our inability, our messing things up, our utter weakness, then we are more aware of our need for you. 00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:49.840 But we're also aware of who you are. 00:01:50.239 --> 00:02:17.280 Father, as we turn to a passage of Scripture that is a difficult one, that speaks clearly, does not stutter in analyzing who we are, I pray that we would flee to our Savior, that we would find in you that which we need, that we would humble ourselves, that we would be small, vulnerable, and open to what you're saying. 00:02:17.439 --> 00:02:24.400 Father, I pray, give us hearts that will respond, not to my words, but to your word. 00:02:25.439 --> 00:02:28.800 We pray for this in Jesus' name. 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:29.759 Amen. 00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:35.520 Turn with me, please, to James chapter 4. 00:02:35.759 --> 00:02:41.599 We are ever so slowly working our way through verse by verse the book of James. 00:02:42.479 --> 00:02:49.520 And we are in the middle of a passage that, well, in many ways it's like the whole rest of the book. 00:02:49.919 --> 00:03:01.039 It's pointed, it's practical, it pushes in on us, it causes us, if we will listen, to ask ourselves some pretty serious questions. 00:03:02.479 --> 00:03:06.000 Much of James, I would like to keep at a distance. 00:03:06.240 --> 00:03:12.639 That's why I refuse to read it in the first few years I was a believer in all my great maturity and wisdom. 00:03:13.439 --> 00:03:15.280 Because I didn't like what it said. 00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:19.759 And yet we so desperately need it. 00:03:20.879 --> 00:03:24.240 Our goal is to understand what God has said. 00:03:24.719 --> 00:03:32.479 It's really simple, to understand what God has said, and to do something with it. 00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:36.800 There is no point in hearing without doing. 00:03:36.879 --> 00:03:38.319 That's clear in the book of James. 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:39.919 That's almost the way he began. 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:43.599 Don't just be hearers only of the word, but be doers. 00:03:44.560 --> 00:04:04.000 So if you come this morning and sit under the teaching of God's Word, and the Holy Spirit is in our midst and is working, and if if we don't go away changed in some meaningful way, the problem is not with God. 00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:19.360 Now, it may not be visible, it may be a hard attitude, but what we really desire is to hear from God and to do something real with what he says to us. 00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:26.959 I'm gonna begin in a way that's a little bit different from how I usually begin. 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:29.040 I want to begin with a couple of cartoons. 00:04:29.279 --> 00:04:33.279 Now that's not my normal pattern, I realize, but there is a point with this. 00:04:33.519 --> 00:04:36.639 I'm a calendar uh word-a-day guy. 00:04:37.040 --> 00:04:41.759 I'm a do you like do you like these tear-off calendars that has a page for every day? 00:04:41.920 --> 00:04:42.240 I do. 00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:44.000 I usually have word-a-day calendars. 00:04:44.160 --> 00:04:52.079 In fact, Jane and I have uh wherever we are, uh in our apartment here in town, we've got prominently placed next to the coffee pot. 00:04:52.160 --> 00:04:56.240 So we see it first thing in the morning is a word-of-the-day calendar. 00:04:56.399 --> 00:05:02.160 I used to get the word-a-day calendar not only there in front of me, I used to get it emailed to me. 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:04.800 So the first thing, wow, a new word today. 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:13.519 Just kind of shows I'm a little weird, but uh uh someone gave me a church chuckle calendar. 00:05:13.839 --> 00:05:17.600 And uh so I have gone through this and enjoyed it. 00:05:17.759 --> 00:05:25.920 Uh this, you're not gonna be able to read probably the uh thing that goes with it, but this one says, now for crying out loud, Harry, relax. 00:05:26.480 --> 00:05:29.279 Uh here's a pastor who doesn't know how to relax. 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:35.439 He goes on the beach, and instead of making a sand castle, he makes a sand pulpit and is obsessive compulsive. 00:05:35.759 --> 00:05:41.360 Many, many of us uh in this room are obsessive-compulsive. 00:05:41.439 --> 00:05:42.639 We just can't stop. 00:05:42.879 --> 00:05:47.759 Uh somehow or another, we're driven to do and do and do, and pastors are among the worst. 00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:53.199 Uh, maybe because the things we care about most are intangible and it's never done. 00:05:53.439 --> 00:05:55.199 Never ever done. 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:59.519 So that was just to speak to me more than anybody else. 00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:00.560 I like this one. 00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:11.519 Here's a young gal obviously helping out uh doing the cleaning in the office, and and she's on the phone and she says, it was awesome, Pastor Bob, right after you left. 00:06:11.680 --> 00:06:16.399 You know, everyone else on staff came down with this really gnarly kind of flu. 00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:22.240 So anyway, that left me to MC the Crankshaw funeral last Saturday. 00:06:22.560 --> 00:06:23.680 Pastor Bob. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:25.120 Pastor Bob. 00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:31.040 Um, this is one of my favorites. 00:06:31.439 --> 00:06:35.040 Uh, the youth pastor's greatest nightmare. 00:06:35.360 --> 00:06:37.759 Hello, we're the Martins. 00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:42.160 We left our son Nick here at a pizza party a few years ago. 00:06:47.680 --> 00:06:52.720 How many of you would long to have the opportunity to leave your kid for a few years? 00:06:53.120 --> 00:06:57.920 Um how many of you kids would be long to be left for a few years? 00:06:58.560 --> 00:07:12.959 Uh here's the one, however, that struck me, and that as I got meditating on today's passage, uh I somehow or another spoke to me, and it may seem strange at the beginning, and I hope if we persevere to the end, we'll understand. 00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:24.160 But this is a rather dour, surly, um, difficult pastor who is deeply concerned that people might take God frivolously. 00:07:24.319 --> 00:07:30.720 Uh, and so um he says, God loves you, but don't let it go to your head. 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:36.720 God loves you, but don't let it go to your head. 00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:39.360 And I got thinking about that. 00:07:39.519 --> 00:07:46.160 I wonder why the person who drew this cartoon, why he approached it that way and and what he was saying. 00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:51.600 At first I chuckled, and then I said, I'm not sure, that's so funny. 00:07:51.839 --> 00:07:57.759 And then I was reflecting, I wonder how God would feel about a statement like that. 00:07:57.920 --> 00:07:58.879 God loves you. 00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:00.319 Matt, God loves you. 00:08:00.399 --> 00:08:02.079 Just don't let it go to your head. 00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:04.079 But thank you for sharing. 00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:12.399 Um, I want to just hold that aside and we're going to come back to that. 00:08:13.439 --> 00:08:18.480 Uh the focus of this passage is on spiritual adultery. 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:28.160 Uh, verses four through six, we'll probably only get to verses four and five, and six is kind of a transition to the rest of it, so you know, whatever. 00:08:28.720 --> 00:08:34.799 But let me read the context, and that is James chapter four, verses one through ten. 00:08:35.679 --> 00:08:37.840 We saw the first part last week. 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:40.720 I'm surprised you came back this week. 00:08:42.480 --> 00:08:47.759 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? 00:08:48.399 --> 00:08:54.399 Is it not that your passions, your desires, are at war within you? 00:08:54.559 --> 00:08:59.679 You desire and do not have, so you murder, you covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. 00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:06.639 You do not have because you do not ask, you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly and spend it on your passions. 00:09:06.879 --> 00:09:09.840 Adulterous people! That's our passage this morning. 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:11.200 Aren't you glad you came to church? 00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:12.720 Adulterous people. 00:09:14.320 --> 00:09:21.440 Don't you know that friendship with the world is enity with God? 00:09:23.039 --> 00:09:29.519 Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:40.159 Or do you suppose that it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us? 00:09:40.399 --> 00:09:44.000 But he gives more grace. 00:09:44.639 --> 00:09:50.720 Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. 00:09:50.879 --> 00:09:54.000 Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. 00:09:54.159 --> 00:09:56.480 Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 00:09:56.639 --> 00:09:59.279 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. 00:09:59.440 --> 00:10:04.000 Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 00:10:04.159 --> 00:10:06.000 Be wretched and mourn and weep. 00:10:06.159 --> 00:10:09.279 Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:12.879 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:15.039 This is a difficult passage. 00:10:15.519 --> 00:10:17.600 This is James in our face. 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:26.960 This is James saying things that are not meant to be just casually heard, but are to cause us to go away and reflect. 00:10:27.600 --> 00:10:34.480 And it's really a passage that is calling God's people to confession and repentance. 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:40.000 It's not the kind of passage that you came to church for this morning. 00:10:40.799 --> 00:10:47.519 But maybe it's the passage that God intended for you and for me this morning. 00:10:51.200 --> 00:10:53.200 James is pretty severe. 00:10:53.600 --> 00:10:57.600 And he starts out in verse 4 in a really pleasant way. 00:10:57.840 --> 00:11:01.039 Adulterers! Yikes. 00:11:02.240 --> 00:11:04.080 He's addressing believers. 00:11:04.399 --> 00:11:20.399 This book was written to believers, believers with a from a Jewish background who had found their Messiah, Jesus Christ, a largely Jewish Christian series of churches scattered around parts of the Mediterranean. 00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:25.840 And he says to them, and he addresses them as adulterers. 00:11:29.600 --> 00:11:38.799 In our day, adultery is is really not all that big of a deal in our culture today. 00:11:39.039 --> 00:11:42.320 It was in James' day, and it is to God. 00:11:42.480 --> 00:11:44.159 Adultery, make no mistake about it. 00:11:44.320 --> 00:11:52.240 Adultery is very simply having sexual relations with someone who is not your covenant life partner in marriage. 00:11:53.200 --> 00:12:03.120 Sexual intimacy with someone who is not your life partner with whom you have made a covenant of commitments to death do us part. 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:06.320 So he's talking about adultery. 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:15.840 It says, you adulterous people. 00:12:17.360 --> 00:12:22.480 That actually is a little bit softer than the way it comes across in the original. 00:12:22.559 --> 00:12:31.279 It's a good translation, but basically the word is a pretty offensive one that would be equivalent to the old-fashioned word whoremongers. 00:12:31.519 --> 00:12:38.559 And it's not, he's not saying he's talking and he's in their face, he's in our face, and he says, whoremongers. 00:12:38.799 --> 00:12:45.360 Whoremongers are people who give themselves to prostitutes. 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:53.120 Who traffic in giving themselves to prostitution. 00:12:54.240 --> 00:13:00.000 And what he's talking about here is spiritual adultery. 00:13:00.799 --> 00:13:03.600 He's not talking in this passage. 00:13:05.279 --> 00:13:06.399 Excuse me. 00:13:11.200 --> 00:13:12.559 Thanks, Mike. 00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:15.919 Sorry, my throat is pretty dry. 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:18.799 He is not talking about physical adultery. 00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:24.159 He's taking that picture which is all throughout the Old Testament. 00:13:24.320 --> 00:13:26.480 And these people knew their Old Testament. 00:13:26.639 --> 00:13:29.519 And he says, You are spiritual whoremongers. 00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:36.720 This idea of spiritual adultery was very, very common. 00:13:36.879 --> 00:13:43.919 These people knew their Old Testament far better than we know our Old Testament. 00:13:44.480 --> 00:14:03.759 And for example, in Isaiah 54, verse 5, God speaking to his chosen people, the people on whom he has placed his affection and his love, and has promised faithfulness to them and brought them into an intimate relationship. 00:14:04.799 --> 00:14:10.960 He says to Israel, his bride, Your Maker is your husband. 00:14:11.279 --> 00:14:15.120 I, God, your maker, am your husband. 00:14:15.360 --> 00:14:18.639 The Lord of hosts is his name. 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:23.120 Now that really is the theme behind it. 00:14:23.279 --> 00:14:36.159 What we have is a picture of God who has chosen a bride and set his affections and his love on his bride, and his bride has gone a whorring. 00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:41.759 That's really what it's talking about, chasing after other lovers. 00:14:43.279 --> 00:14:47.360 Whereas he himself is the lover of their soul. 00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:50.639 That's the picture behind all of this. 00:14:50.879 --> 00:14:51.840 Thank you, Mike. 00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:55.279 Gentleman and a scholar, or just a gentleman? 00:15:01.759 --> 00:15:05.679 This thought we find uh throughout the Old Testament. 00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:08.399 I'll just take some examples from Jeremiah. 00:15:08.480 --> 00:15:14.320 You might want to turn to Jeremiah chapter 3 and kind of follow along to get a flavor of what was behind this. 00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:16.159 This is a foreign thought to us. 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:19.919 We think of God as our friend, we think of God as our helper. 00:15:20.159 --> 00:15:25.279 Um we rarely think of him as our husband or our spouse. 00:15:26.240 --> 00:15:28.240 But that's what this is talking about. 00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:33.039 So Jeremiah chapter 3, verses 1 and 2. 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:45.519 This is in the beginning of the book of Jeremiah, where Jeremiah is the weeping prophet, he's saying things that are so hard, and he does it with deep concern, but great clarity. 00:15:45.679 --> 00:15:54.879 He says, If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's wife, will he return to her? 00:15:55.519 --> 00:15:58.320 Would not that land be greatly polluted? 00:15:58.639 --> 00:16:02.639 You have played the whore with many lovers. 00:16:03.600 --> 00:16:11.039 So we have a picture here of a relationship of intimacy and trust and faithfulness. 00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:15.039 And God's people have been playing the whore. 00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:17.600 They've been chasing after other lovers. 00:16:18.720 --> 00:16:20.080 Go to verse 6. 00:16:20.320 --> 00:16:28.320 The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah, have you seen what she did, that faithless one, faithless one, Israel? 00:16:28.559 --> 00:16:36.000 How she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore. 00:16:36.480 --> 00:16:45.759 Verses eight and nine, she saw that for all of the adulteries of that faithfulness, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. 00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:47.759 Parenthetically, God is divorced. 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:49.200 He divorced Israel. 00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:50.480 That's what it says. 00:16:50.639 --> 00:16:52.720 It doesn't fit our theology very well. 00:16:52.799 --> 00:16:55.039 It just happens to be what he says. 00:16:55.360 --> 00:16:58.879 I divorced Israel because of unfaithfulness. 00:16:59.039 --> 00:17:04.559 You treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. 00:17:04.880 --> 00:17:12.160 Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. 00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:30.799 So the picture is of a faithless woman out in the open, and in another place it talks about under the trees and under the threshing floors, out in the fields, giving herself to someone other than her spouse. 00:17:31.119 --> 00:17:32.400 That's the picture here. 00:17:32.559 --> 00:17:37.440 It's an offensive, hard kind of way to speak. 00:17:37.759 --> 00:17:41.279 And this didn't just happen at one point in Israel's history. 00:17:41.519 --> 00:17:45.279 This happened all along, before they even went into the promised land. 00:17:46.720 --> 00:18:01.920 Just after they got into the promised land and before the law was given in Deuteronomy 31, 5, it says, These people, God telling to Moses, will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. 00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:05.279 They will forsake me and break their promise. 00:18:05.519 --> 00:18:12.000 Now we could go on and on and on and on because this image is repeated time and time and time again. 00:18:12.160 --> 00:18:13.759 But you get the picture. 00:18:14.880 --> 00:18:29.359 It's so offensive, so sad, that a chosen beloved people would go and give themselves to foreign gods. 00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:36.240 This is what underlies all of what James is saying here. 00:18:39.039 --> 00:18:47.519 Someone said, and I think it's true, when we sin, it breaks God's heart. 00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:57.200 It breaks God's heart as one partner in a marriage may be broken by the unfaithfulness and betrayal of the other. 00:19:00.400 --> 00:19:02.160 Some of you have experienced that. 00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:05.759 You have been sinned against by the unfaithfulness of a partner. 00:19:05.839 --> 00:19:06.799 You know what that feels like. 00:19:06.960 --> 00:19:09.920 Some of you have been the partner who has been unfaithful. 00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:21.839 And if it hasn't been physical and active in our hearts, we find times that we go chasing after partners that are not our own. 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:30.240 And what James is saying is that that's what we do with God. 00:19:31.440 --> 00:19:33.519 And we need to see it that way. 00:19:33.759 --> 00:19:38.079 And when we sin, it breaks God's heart. 00:19:41.599 --> 00:19:43.759 And so a simple question. 00:19:45.039 --> 00:19:46.720 Am I cheating on God? 00:19:49.599 --> 00:19:56.640 That's really a question that forces itself into our consciousness if we will just listen to what God is saying. 00:19:56.960 --> 00:19:58.960 Are we cheating on God? 00:19:59.599 --> 00:20:01.839 Are we breaking his heart? 00:20:02.559 --> 00:20:07.200 It's a call to reflection, confession, and repentance. 00:20:07.839 --> 00:20:10.319 That's what this passage is all about. 00:20:11.119 --> 00:20:20.640 The second half of the verse, James changes the imagery a little bit from adultery to being an enemy of God. 00:20:21.680 --> 00:20:26.799 Let's read that, James 4, verse 4, the second half. 00:20:29.359 --> 00:20:36.079 Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? 00:20:36.240 --> 00:20:41.599 Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:51.119 So first we prostitute ourselves, and now a different image of we make ourselves enemies of God. 00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:59.680 Spiritual adultery is cast now in terms of friendship with the world. 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.480 And friendship with the world is hostility towards God. 00:21:06.640 --> 00:21:08.319 You have to choose. 00:21:08.640 --> 00:21:09.839 You really have to choose. 00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:13.359 You can't be a friend of God and a friend of the world. 00:21:13.599 --> 00:21:17.279 You can't be a friend of the world and a friend of God all at the same time. 00:21:17.440 --> 00:21:22.480 Now we have both tendencies within us, and we find ourselves pulled in both directions. 00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:28.000 But James in the scripture causes us to choose who this day shall we serve? 00:21:28.240 --> 00:21:29.759 Who is your lover? 00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:32.640 Who loves you, honey? 00:21:32.880 --> 00:21:34.720 Who loves you, baby? 00:21:35.599 --> 00:21:38.000 And do you love him in return? 00:21:38.559 --> 00:21:41.440 And now he's talking about the world. 00:21:41.759 --> 00:21:54.160 And if our relationship with the world is of a certain kind, then it shows that we are have enmity or hostility between us and God. 00:21:55.039 --> 00:21:59.279 We need to pay a little bit of attention to this world word world. 00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:00.720 Cosmos? 00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:25.359 Sometimes it refers to the physical world around us, but perhaps the best simple, if four lines are simple, definition of cosmos is the present evil world system, the values, the behaviors, the inclinations that are under the enemy's control and hostile to God, to God's purposes and God's people. 00:22:25.599 --> 00:22:27.359 Those things within us. 00:22:27.839 --> 00:22:30.160 There is a world system out there. 00:22:30.319 --> 00:22:31.680 And this is worldliness. 00:22:31.920 --> 00:22:39.359 Worldliness is not just external behavior. 00:22:39.599 --> 00:22:44.240 It's not, you know, I don't smoke, drink, or chew, or go with girls who do. 00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:46.720 As though that's what worldliness is. 00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:50.799 Worldliness is not the behavioral things. 00:22:51.039 --> 00:23:10.000 Worldliness is the attitudes in our heart that follows after a world system that has values, that has inclinations and behaviors that go along with it, and we allow ourselves to be influenced by the world around us instead of influencing the world around us. 00:23:10.240 --> 00:23:11.920 That's worldliness. 00:23:12.400 --> 00:23:16.400 And it's far more profound than we think it is. 00:23:16.720 --> 00:23:42.559 It has to do with how we spend our time, has to do with how what we do with our mind, what images we bring across the screens of our mind, how we handle our finances, how we think about other people, how we respond to other people in all kinds of ways, what we value, do we chase after fame and big reputation and getting our way and being seen to be impressive kinds of people? 00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:44.720 Do we chase after entertainment? 00:23:44.880 --> 00:23:48.000 We live in an entertainment-addicted society. 00:23:48.240 --> 00:24:06.240 We live in a society that is all about me and what I get and what I can do and my way and what I and the question is to what extent does that resonate so deeply within us that we begin to think that way and value things that way? 00:24:08.400 --> 00:24:09.920 It's frightening for me. 00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:27.440 How much of my longing and desires and how I spend my time and the things that I laugh about and the things that I enjoy, how much of those are as close to being like the world as I can get? 00:24:27.839 --> 00:24:36.079 Whereas God calls us not to get as close as we can get without quite going over the edge. 00:24:37.440 --> 00:24:40.559 No, he says we're that's what the Sermon on the Mount is all about. 00:24:40.720 --> 00:24:41.599 We're to be different. 00:24:41.759 --> 00:24:44.240 We're not to be like the world around us. 00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:51.519 And it's not just behavior, and it's not just the way we look, and it's not just how we dress or whatever. 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:53.759 It's the attitudes of our heart. 00:24:53.920 --> 00:24:55.359 What are we imbibing? 00:24:55.519 --> 00:24:58.720 What value system is really ours? 00:24:59.119 --> 00:25:02.160 How different from those around us are we? 00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:06.799 How different from those in the cubicle next to us are we really? 00:25:07.279 --> 00:25:15.920 What is there that is fundamentally different about us other than the fact that we have a Bible, we read it occasionally, we go to church and we sing praise hymns? 00:25:16.720 --> 00:25:17.759 Praise hymns? 00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:19.359 Praise songs. 00:25:19.599 --> 00:25:20.960 And hymns occasionally. 00:25:21.119 --> 00:25:22.480 Hymns and praises. 00:25:23.119 --> 00:25:24.960 Andy, forgive me. 00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:29.119 I want to talk with you afterwards, by the way. 00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:30.640 I really do. 00:25:32.079 --> 00:25:44.400 The question really is, are we as like the world as we can be and still be Christian, or are we as different from the world? 00:25:44.559 --> 00:25:53.119 Not just because we wear weird clothes, uh, black hats, don't have buttons, you know, the like the Amish or something. 00:25:53.599 --> 00:25:55.839 So they've separated themselves from the world. 00:25:56.079 --> 00:25:57.759 That's not what it's all about. 00:25:58.160 --> 00:25:59.839 It's hard attitudes. 00:26:01.119 --> 00:26:07.279 Um what he's saying is you can't fraternize with the enemy. 00:26:07.519 --> 00:26:19.039 The world is an enemy, and the forces of the world, the the the values of the world are not God focused, they're ultimately under the control of the enemy. 00:26:19.119 --> 00:26:20.160 And we have an enemy. 00:26:20.240 --> 00:26:23.119 And do we fraternize with the enemy? 00:26:23.359 --> 00:26:28.400 Um, I have a vivid picture, and I can't remember for sure what movie it was from. 00:26:28.880 --> 00:26:35.119 Uh, it had to do with post-World War II Europe, where the occupying forces had come in. 00:26:35.359 --> 00:26:40.000 It may have been Banda Brothers or something like that. 00:26:40.240 --> 00:26:45.440 But in Belgium and Holland, of course I'm partial to Belgium, that's a special spot in our hearts. 00:26:45.599 --> 00:26:55.039 But uh when the occupying forces took over, there were people, there were people in society who just kind of went along. 00:26:55.920 --> 00:27:06.079 And in particular, uh there were people who fraternized, who went along with and played with and gave themselves to the enemy. 00:27:06.319 --> 00:27:22.640 And as the the Allied forces came through and freed up that part of Europe, there was a strong reaction on the part of townspeople to those in their midst who had given themselves to the enemy. 00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:46.640 And there's a vivid picture, I think it's uh Banda Brothers, where in Holland, the southern part of Holland, there's a group of women who were being hounded by the mobs, their heads were being shaved, uh, they were being mocked, they were being abused, and they had prostituted themselves to the occupying forces. 00:27:46.799 --> 00:27:49.440 And there was a great antitophy towards that. 00:27:49.519 --> 00:27:52.480 There was a great emotional response. 00:27:52.960 --> 00:28:03.599 Well, that reflects in a small way God's response to us when we are fraternizing with the enemy. 00:28:06.400 --> 00:28:08.400 A question for this as well. 00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:12.319 In what friendship are you growing? 00:28:13.119 --> 00:28:18.400 Are you a better friend of God today than you were a year ago? 00:28:18.559 --> 00:28:25.839 I'm not even talking about 20 years ago when you came to faith or at some experience at a conference or a camp. 00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:37.200 I'm talking about just in daily life, over the last, let's just say the last year, are you increasingly a friend of God and decreasingly a friend of the world? 00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:45.279 And I don't know how you exactly evaluate that, but he's saying, look at folks, you've got to choose. 00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:50.319 And there is both within us, but what is gaining the ascendancy? 00:28:51.519 --> 00:28:59.599 Are we growing so that it would become evident that we are more and more friends of God? 00:28:59.839 --> 00:29:02.880 There's a chorus, I don't know if we've sung it in this church. 00:29:03.039 --> 00:29:07.759 I'm a friend of God, I'm a friend of God, I'm a friend of God, he calls me friend. 00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:11.519 It's a wonderful, perplexing kind of a chorus. 00:29:11.680 --> 00:29:17.279 The first time I heard it, I didn't know quite what to do about it because it sounded somehow a little bit arrogant. 00:29:17.759 --> 00:29:23.839 Well, I think the problem was me, not so much the concept, because he does call us friend. 00:29:23.920 --> 00:29:32.319 And the question, am I more of a friend of God now than I was 11 months ago when we came here to this church? 00:29:33.039 --> 00:29:34.400 That's a real question. 00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:35.759 What about you? 00:29:36.160 --> 00:29:39.839 See, that's what James wants us uh to wrestle with. 00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:41.440 One more thought here. 00:29:41.599 --> 00:30:04.000 Uh verse 5, I don't think we're even going to touch verse 6 this morning, um, where uh he says in the ESV, it's translated, or do you suppose that it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell within us? 00:30:04.240 --> 00:30:08.400 That is a strange sentence. 00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:15.920 This is actually, arguably, one of the more difficult verses in the New Testament to know how to translate. 00:30:16.079 --> 00:30:24.720 I don't know if we've got any of the SIL people here this morning, but uh this is really a challenge for various reasons to know how to translate it. 00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:41.599 Without giving you all of the gory details of my exegesis, I would simply say, I believe it says, and this is in effect what the New American Standard Bible says, the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us jealously desires us. 00:30:43.039 --> 00:30:47.519 The Spirit of God is jealous for you. 00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:49.519 Jealous. 00:30:50.079 --> 00:30:54.079 God, our God, is a jealous God. 00:30:55.599 --> 00:31:10.640 He begins with a question why do you suppose that God says to us, My the Spirit which I have made to dwell in you, jealously desires you. 00:31:10.799 --> 00:31:12.640 Why would God have said that? 00:31:15.519 --> 00:31:23.359 God loves us so much that he doesn't want to share us with other lovers. 00:31:24.720 --> 00:31:26.000 That's what that verse is saying. 00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:40.799 He is we are his chosen grace-blessed, love-drenched people, not because of who we are, but because of who God is. 00:31:41.359 --> 00:31:47.519 And he loves us so much, he doesn't want to share you with anyone else. 00:31:47.680 --> 00:31:49.839 He wants you to have no other lovers. 00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:52.880 Now, these aren't the ways we normally think. 00:31:52.960 --> 00:31:55.680 This is the way James talks and thinks. 00:32:06.480 --> 00:32:10.720 God says, My name is jealous. 00:32:11.759 --> 00:32:23.599 Now there's 625 different names that somebody found in the scriptures of God and alphabetized according to the English alphabet. 00:32:23.920 --> 00:32:26.880 Jealous is number 290. 00:32:27.359 --> 00:32:36.240 He says explicitly and clearly, I am Jehovah Jirah, I am Yahweh, I am El Shaddai, and I am jealous. 00:32:36.319 --> 00:32:37.680 That's my name. 00:32:39.440 --> 00:32:49.119 Are we able to embrace a God who loves us so much that he doesn't want to share us with anyone else? 00:32:49.359 --> 00:32:54.400 He doesn't want to have us going and giving ourselves to other gods and other values. 00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:56.880 Jealousy is a love word. 00:32:57.680 --> 00:33:00.559 In the scriptures, jealousy is a love word. 00:33:00.720 --> 00:33:13.759 It's talking about a love relationship, intimacy, and special, precious, intimate love, of which physical intimacy is but one expression. 00:33:15.680 --> 00:33:17.680 Jealousy is a love word. 00:33:18.160 --> 00:33:21.359 When we hear jealousy, we think of nothing but negative. 00:33:21.599 --> 00:33:26.319 In the scriptures, it has to do with God's awesome love for us. 00:33:26.640 --> 00:33:31.839 God loves us so much that he doesn't want to share us with others. 00:33:38.559 --> 00:33:46.000 Do not treat lightly the love of God that he has for you. 00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:52.480 May I not treat it lightly, take it flippantly the love of God. 00:33:53.680 --> 00:34:07.440 God loves us so much, he doesn't want to share our affections with anyone else, with no other gods, with no other values. 00:34:08.800 --> 00:34:19.119 And all of the loving relationships in this life are but a foretaste and a poor expression of God's love for us and our love for God. 00:34:19.360 --> 00:34:40.960 As much as I love Jane and she loves me and is incredibly patient with me, that's but a tiny little fragment of the reality of God's love for me, and God's patience with me, and God's grace for me and for you. 00:34:41.360 --> 00:34:51.119 And so we have to ask ourselves: do I treat that so lightly that I provoke God to righteous jealousy against me? 00:34:51.360 --> 00:34:54.000 There is such a thing as righteous jealousy. 00:34:54.159 --> 00:34:57.920 All of the actions and emotions of God are righteous. 00:34:58.079 --> 00:34:59.599 There is a righteous anger. 00:34:59.760 --> 00:35:02.960 Sometimes we think we're righteously angry. 00:35:03.199 --> 00:35:08.159 And maybe sometimes, one-tenth of one percent, my anger is righteous. 00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:10.639 Mostly it's just unrighteous anger. 00:35:11.199 --> 00:35:14.559 But there is a righteous anger and there's a righteous jealousy. 00:35:14.719 --> 00:35:16.800 And God is jealous for you. 00:35:17.519 --> 00:35:19.440 He loves us. 00:35:25.280 --> 00:35:28.239 So we're gonna leave verse 6. 00:35:28.320 --> 00:35:32.079 So what does what do we say with this idea? 00:35:32.239 --> 00:35:33.920 God loves you, but don't let it go to your head. 00:35:34.079 --> 00:35:35.360 What would Jane say? 00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:38.079 Would he agree? 00:35:38.559 --> 00:35:39.440 Disagree. 00:35:39.599 --> 00:35:41.920 I don't have time to take a poll. 00:35:43.920 --> 00:35:51.920 I believe, based on what this passage is saying, is that that is an absolutely incorrect approach. 00:35:55.519 --> 00:36:01.920 How great is the love that the Father has lavished upon us that we are called children of God. 00:36:02.239 --> 00:36:06.320 We don't take God's love too too too seriously. 00:36:06.559 --> 00:36:08.639 We don't take it seriously enough. 00:36:10.400 --> 00:36:12.079 We don't take it seriously enough. 00:36:12.239 --> 00:36:19.280 If we had had to the extent that we have the slightest sense of God's love for us. 00:36:22.960 --> 00:36:24.320 There's three questions here. 00:36:24.400 --> 00:36:25.199 I've mentioned them. 00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:27.280 I'm not gonna go back over them, just mention them. 00:36:27.519 --> 00:36:29.760 Are we cheating on God and breaking his heart? 00:36:30.480 --> 00:36:31.280 Are you? 00:36:33.119 --> 00:36:35.760 I'm not asking you to look around, I'm asking you to look within. 00:36:36.639 --> 00:36:39.519 Cheating on God and breaking his heart. 00:36:40.800 --> 00:36:44.559 Whose friendships am I cultivating? 00:36:44.800 --> 00:36:46.000 The worlds or gods? 00:36:46.159 --> 00:36:50.000 Whose friendships are you cultivating? 00:36:50.400 --> 00:36:52.159 The worlds or gods? 00:36:53.119 --> 00:37:03.519 And then is there something in my life that would cause God to conclude that I expect him to share me with another lover? 00:37:05.599 --> 00:37:07.119 Let me say that again. 00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:19.039 Is there something in our lives, in my life, and in yours, that might cause God to conclude that we kind of think he'll be content to share us with another lover? 00:37:21.599 --> 00:37:23.679 This is hard stuff, my friends. 00:37:25.440 --> 00:37:26.719 All I can do is pray. 00:37:26.880 --> 00:37:27.920 Would you join me? 00:37:29.840 --> 00:37:35.679 Heavenly Father, I don't like confronting my own soul with this stuff. 00:37:35.840 --> 00:37:39.119 I would rather, I would rather avoid it. 00:37:39.840 --> 00:37:49.840 But I would rather have truth and build it into my life than foolishly push it aside. 00:37:51.119 --> 00:37:53.599 Father, I am prone to wander. 00:37:54.159 --> 00:37:57.039 Lord, I feel it. 00:37:57.519 --> 00:38:00.239 Prone to leave the God I love. 00:38:01.280 --> 00:38:04.400 Here's my heart, O take and seal it. 00:38:04.480 --> 00:38:08.000 Seal it for thy courts above. 00:38:09.280 --> 00:38:12.239 Oh, to grace, how great a debtor. 00:38:13.199 --> 00:38:15.440 Daily I'm constrained to be. 00:38:15.840 --> 00:38:22.800 May your goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee. 00:38:23.280 --> 00:38:32.719 Oh Father, help us not only sing this hymn as we shall do now, but help us have it be the attitude of our heart. 00:38:36.559 --> 00:38:37.199 Amen. 00:38:38.800 --> 00:38:41.519 We didn't get to the good part, which is grace. 00:38:42.639 --> 00:38:44.159 Come back next week. 00:38:44.719 --> 00:38:47.360 All right, we are gonna sing that uh hymn?