All right, would you open your
Bibles to the book of James chapter 4. James chapter 4. We'll read the first 10 verses.
James chapter 4. 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. One does not have to read the
scriptures very much in order to realize that not all of them
are as easy to understand as other parts. Some seem quite
easy to grasp the meaning of it and how to apply it. And others, well, there may be
parts of it we never do come to understand. The Apostle Peter,
and we must assume that the Apostle Peter had as much grace as anybody
in that day. and as much understanding of
the things of God as did anybody in that day, and yet he speaks
of the beloved brother Paul in whose writings there was a
good deal that was difficult to understand. So if the Apostle
Peter found it difficult to understand
some things that Paul wrote, we should not be surprised if
we find places in the scriptures, in particular writers, which
are difficult for us to understand. But you know, sometimes the problem
is not in the difficulty of the passage, it's this. Not all scriptures
are equally easy to receive. Do you know what is the reason
that people twist the scriptures to their own condemnation? And
that's what Peter said. That's what he said about Paul's
writings. He says that there's a lot in there that's hard to
understand, and the unlearned, the untrained, they twist these
scriptures to their own destruction. And here's another reason that
people twist them. Not because they don't understand
them, but because what the Scripture says to them is distasteful to
them. So they twist them until the
Scripture says something they can live with. Now this is a
principle that all of us are going to struggle with. You see,
we must always keep in mind that while we've been born again in
the spiritual man, And that part of us which is able to know God
and believe God and love God, that part, there's not a problem
there. That's a new creation, been born
again, it is part of the new creation, there's nothing wrong
with it. However, this flesh that we were born with did not
disappear when we were born again by the Spirit of God. Now we've got to be careful when
we try to define the experience of salvation, and act as though
God treats all of his people the same in their salvation experience. He doesn't. Now there are some
whom God saves them spiritually, and they become believers. That
is essential spiritual salvation, to be given spiritual life so
that you'd believe and call upon the name of the Lord. Now that's
the very core and essence of the new birth. But there are
some who, before the Lord confronted them, were bound up in horrible
and destructive sin. And I mean that which is horrible
and destructive even on the common human level. Drug addicts, the
promiscuous, Chained in bondage, addicted to this and to that.
And the Lord has, according to His own sovereign will, released
some of His people from that bondage the moment He saved them. But not all of them. You see, what God does with our
flesh in this life, He's made no promises about it. Did you
know that? There is nothing in the declaration
of the gospel, nothing at least that I can find, that says in
this life your flesh is going to get better. That your desire
for sin is going to be less. That your struggle with sin is
going to get easier. Nothing in the scriptures like
that. And there are many who live under a certain kind of
bondage that religious people put on them because they say
such things as, well, if you know God, you won't do such and
such. Well, brethren, it is a shame
that we do such and such. But we do. Isn't that right? I don't see anywhere in the scriptures
that it names any sin that a believer cannot be found guilty of with this exception. He can never
be made to not believe. He can never be made to blaspheme
the spirit of God and the rejection of the gospel. Though at times
he himself may wonder whether he believes, He does. But you name any other sin, and
a believer may be found in it. Or maybe more rightly put, it
may be found in a believer. We like to have our sins lined
up in a hierarchy. And then we'll say, a Christian
can't go beyond this level of sin. And here's the interesting
thing, when men say that, you'll always find that that level of
sin is right where they stop. In other words, they say, well,
you can't be saved unless you're as good as me. That's what they're
saying. And there are some, and maybe
they've just been led astray, just one of the errors that some
of God's people still cling to, But when God saved them, He did
release them from certain kinds of sinful bondage. And they went
out to assume that God does that with all of His people. Well,
it's just not so. God gives grace in the measure
He determines to give it. And we may ask, we may cry out
for deliverance from this or that temptation. And the answer
may be from the Lord, not that we would hear it, it's just our
life experience would bear this out. That His answer would be,
no, I'm going to let you struggle with that for the rest of your
life for my glory. My grace is sufficient. You say, but doesn't God want
us to live perfectly? Well, He commands us to, that's
for sure. And someday we will. But not right now. Not right
now. Therefore, there are things in
the scriptures which are a rebuke to our flesh. And James here, most of what
he writes falls into that category. If our flesh is still what it
was before God saved us, then it is as much in need of rebuke
as it was back then, as much in need of restraint as it was
back then. Now, the believer's reason for
restraining himself is different than before, but the need for
restraint of our flesh is just as much as it ever was. This
morning, as I was walking around the building and thinking about
this portion of Scripture, and thinking about James' letter,
you know, James' letter is so different in tone from the rest
of the New Testament Scriptures, that there are some who believe
it's not Scripture at all. Martin Luther was very doubtful
as to whether this book actually belonged in the Bible. I don't
know that he ever, you know, actually said, okay, James, no. But he had a hard time with it.
And I know some sovereign grace Baptists, find them on the internet,
and they make a bold claim, James is not the scriptures. Now, I
think this mostly arises from misunderstanding. And they misunderstand
him because he speaks in a tone that they're not familiar with.
He doesn't use the same, shall we say, tone of voice that Paul
does, or quite frankly, anybody else in the New Testament Scriptures. He speaks more like one of the
Old Testament prophets. But remember, James was a Jew. Born and raised a Jew. And his
letter is written specifically to Jews who had been scattered
in the persecution. They professed faith in Christ,
but persecution in Jerusalem drove them out. And he's writing
to them. And he writes to them, shall
we say, in their language. I don't mean in Hebrew. But he
writes to them in the way that they're accustomed to hearing
truth told. And as I was thinking about this
scripture, I thought, it reminds me of that teacher that we all
had, maybe more than one. We didn't particularly care for
her. She wasn't very affectionate. She was hard. But what she did got us through
the class. She didn't allow us to be lazy.
insisted we get our work done, wouldn't accept close answers,
only the right one. And as much as we may have grumbled
and complained our way through that class, when we were done,
we understood what was being taught. And once we grew up,
we look back and say, you know, that was one of the best teachers
I had. That's what the book of James is. That teacher nobody
likes until they grow up. Say, I'm glad I had that teacher.
It was good for me. David says the same thing regarding
God's harsh instruction through affliction. He said, it's good
for me that I've been afflicted, for thereby have I learned to
keep your statutes. And so, that's what James is
to us. In fact, hold your finger right
here, turn back just a few pages to Hebrews chapter 12, verse
11. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 11. Now, here the apostle, or whoever
wrote the book, is talking about the difficulties that Jewish
believers were facing as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
they were complaining about it, and even wavering. and say, maybe
if we just go back to Judaism, people would quit bothering us. We could secretly believe Christ,
but just go ahead and observe the feast and do all this so
that everybody would leave us alone. Well, the writer calls
that discipline from God, that hardship, and he says in verse
11, no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, It produces
a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been
trained by it. And I read the book of James
and I think, here is a written discipline from the Lord. And
it seems harsh. And yet if we're trained by it,
we'll find that it has been good for us. Now, I've entitled this
message, He Gives More Grace. You find down here in verse 6,
the very first line, he gives more grace. Now, I point that
part of it out right at the very beginning for this very simple
reason. That we might be assured through
all that James has to say, that he is a firm believer in the
grace of God and a faithful preacher of the grace of God. For when
all his rebukes are done, and when all his correction has been
laid out there, he puts on it, as it were, a bandage. You know,
like when you imagine the surgeon, you've got some kind of growth,
and he gets out the knife. And unfortunately for us, when
we're going through some spiritual surgery, there is no anesthetic.
And he cuts it out, and oh, it hurts. And now we've got an open
wound. Well, what does a good doctor
do? Well, he puts some medicine in
the wound that's been left behind, he bandages it up, covers it
up. And such it is that James wounds. James confronts and rebukes
and corrects and then he says, but he gives more grace. He gives
more grace. So understand this, and I'm going
to get to that part of it just as quick as I can, but it doesn't
mean anything unless we see first what rebuke James has given us. So understand that in the next
few minutes as I speak about these things that James confronts
bona fide Christians with, people like you and me, that the answer
to all of it is grace. Now there's a stern rebuke against
a worldly attitude. He speaks of divisions among
the people of God, quarreling and fighting. And he says, doesn't
this come from your desires that battle within you? Now, we have desires, fleshly
ones. And different people have different
fleshly desires and different attitudes about how things ought
to be. Or they may desire the same thing,
but only one of them can have it. And what arises, particularly
among natural men, what arises? A fight. All warfare that goes on comes
exactly from this. Somebody marks out a piece of
land and says, this is our land. And somebody else says, no, it's
our land. And they go after it and they kill, they destroy. All of this from fights or from
the desires that battle within us, that rise up within us. And
this is true even in the church. This is true among brothers and
sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ who fall out with one another
because in their flesh they have competing interests. And he goes
on to say this, you want something and don't get it. Well, that's true, isn't it?
Now, it's hard for us to accept the fact that when we want something
and don't get it, one of the reasons we don't get it is our
Father in heaven says, it wouldn't be a good idea for you to have
that. You might think it would be good. You might think it would
help you, but I realize it will be a stumbling block to you,
and I am not going to let you have it. Now, we do that with
our children, don't we? I mean, if you left the menu
up to your children, it'd mostly be ice cream, wouldn't it? Syrupy stuff, sweet stuff. It certainly wouldn't involve
broccoli. But what do we say? No, you can't
have ice cream, it'll ruin your appetite. I remember one time
that I knew there was some dessert coming. And, uh, but dad was
insisting I clear my plate. And I came up with what I thought
was a perfectly good argument that he allowed me to set aside
what food was on my plate at that time and go to the dessert.
I said, dad, if I eat all this, there won't be room in my stomach
for the dessert. What he knew was that if I ate
the dessert, there wouldn't be room in my stomach for good food.
Interestingly enough, I found room for the dessert even after
I cleared my plate. But God, we don't want and we don't get
it. He says, you kill and covet.
That sounds pretty powerful. He's talking to believers. Would
they actually be involved in doing this? Well, David was.
David saw something he wanted, something he had no right to
have. But he reached out and took it and then killed a man
in order to cover his tracks. And he was called the man after
God's own heart. Now, am I making little of it?
That is, little of David's sin? No. What David did was absolutely
horrible. What I'm pointing out is, when
the Scriptures issue rebukes like this, you might think a
believer would never do that. Maybe you can't think of a set
of circumstances in which you would do that, but that's only
because you can't think of all the circumstances that can happen. All covetousness, the desire
for more, the continual dissatisfaction with that which God has put in
our hands by His grace, the reaching for more, and the
inability to be satisfied unless we get more. I'm reminded of
what, at least it was attributed to Henry Ford, the first Henry
Ford, fabulously wealthy man. And somebody, I guess, was kind
of chiding him about how much he had and he still wanted more.
And he said, well, I don't want all the land. I just want what's
next to mine. We can see how that goes. Doesn't
matter how much he gets, there's always some more next to his.
Isn't that us? I don't want everything, I just
want some more. And that is the continual passion that is in
us, because it doesn't matter how much we get, the flesh says,
I want more. is very few people who truly
are satisfied with what they have. I wish I was among them, but
I will confess that I am not. Of course, it's in degrees. Some
people are just mildly dissatisfied, some are really dissatisfied,
and everything in between. Covetousness. And covetousness
can get so powerful that we want something and place value on
what we want greater than the life of another person. We may withhold ourselves from
ever actually carrying out the deed. But I imagine that all of us
have at least had the thought about someone at some time, the
world would be a better place if they weren't in it. You know what that is? That's
murder. That's our murderous flesh giving
vent to itself. 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. That is, you have desires and
you are not willing to ask God for them. Because, you know,
when you ask God for something, that involves a willingness to
submit to His answer. If you say, Lord, I would like
such and such, for that prayer to be of any real value at all,
you have to have a heart submissive enough that if God says, no,
you would say, okay. And so we don't ask. We simply
say, I want, so I'm going to go out and get. And while I may
not say, I'm willing to kill somebody to get it, we may have
within us a similar passion that says, I will run over people
to get it. You know, every year you have
these stores that promise all these deals on what's called
Black Friday. And people are there sometimes
days ahead of time. Because they've got a big screen
TV that they're going to sell for $25. There's only three of
them. So everybody wants to be there to get them. And I'm always
so embarrassed for these people. Because I'm thinking if the two
or three days they spend out there waiting so they can be
first in line, if they just go out and get a job and work those
three days, they'd have enough money to go in there and pay
full price for the thing. But they'll sit out there in the
freezing weather, and when they open those doors, they don't care
who's in front of them. They shove them out of the way.
People get hurt. All for a big screen TV. Why? We value things more than
we value people. And that's bad. You say, well,
I'm not like that. Maybe it's never shown itself
in stark relief like it does on Black Friday in front of a
Walmart. But brethren, it's in us. And all that is required
for it to come out is for us to get desperate. What if you
were hungry and your neighbor had food and he would not freely
give it to you? What would you do? And then it says, verse 3, when
you do ask, you do not receive. Because you ask with the wrong
motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. Now
there are some who do this because there are false prophets out
there declaring that's exactly what we should do. That if we
want something fine, if we want a bigger house, go ask God for
it. And if we ask in faith, He will give it to us. No, He won't. Not necessarily. Now if you need
a bigger house than what you have, feel free to ask God for
it. But if the only reason you want
a bigger house, or a nicer car, or any of the many other things
we might ask for, The only reason is, is because you just want
to live higher on the hog than you're living right now. Don't
be surprised if God says, no, you're wanting this for the wrong
reason. You want this simply to fulfill your fleshly and worldly
desires. And I'm not going to let you
do that. And notice how serious he calls
this attitude. Verse 4, you adulterous people. See, James doesn't pull any punches.
And it was common for Jews to speak of unfaithfulness to God
in terms of adultery. Why? Well, to show just how bad
a thing it is. You see, when we become enamored
of the things of this world to the degree that we are willing
to cut God out of the equation, so to speak, in getting it, then
we are, as it were, carrying on an affair with the world,
even as we claim to be married to God through Christ. We have said, yes, I like God,
I like His provision, I like the house He gives me, but I
want more fun and I want more pleasure than He is willing to
hand me, so I'm going to go somewhere else and find my good times. And the Bible rightly calls that
adultery. It's an unfaithfulness to the
God of our creation and the God of our redemption. You see, for
the believer in particular, sin is not merely breaking a rule.
Sin is a personal affront to the one who loved us and gave
himself for us. It is an unfaithfulness. You adulterous people, don't
you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?
The Lord Jesus Christ put it this way, no man can serve two
masters. He did not say it's hard to serve
two masters, he says you just can't do it. You will love the
one and hate the other. And this we know, and James is
making it clear here, if you truly are friends with the world,
you are an enemy of God. Now like I said, we might be
prone to having a fling with the world. That's bad. But if we're married to it, we
are not married to God. Anyone who chooses to be a friend
of the world becomes an enemy of God, or do you think the Scriptures
say without reason, the spirit He caused to live in us envies
intensely? And there is some debate among
commentators exactly what that means. They all admit that it's
difficult. Some think that he means by this that the Spirit
of God that was put in us at the time of our conversion, that
one, either he works very powerfully in us to resist these urges,
or some say it really should be put in a question like this,
does the Spirit which God put in you lust with envy like this? In other words, are these attitudes,
if I've got to have, I've got to have, and I'm willing to do
whatever it takes to get it, did that come from the Spirit
of God that dwells in you? And you know, that's a legitimate
way, or it's a legitimate concept, but I don't believe that's what
James is saying. I take what other commentators
say, it's more in keeping with the context, and that is this,
that simply those inward thoughts that are part of Every person's
experience, our passions, our desires, this spirit within us,
it lusts to envy. It desires things so strongly
and with such passion that apart from grace, it would
make us slaves to this world and to the passions of the flesh. And you know something? Anybody
that has ever tried to do good knows that exactly. Paul put
it this way, when I would do good, evil's present with me. And don't you realize, folks,
as James is saying, that that is your natural spirit within
you that's lusting to envy, so filled with a passion for things
That you value them more than you value people. And the reason I take that particular
interpretation of it is because of the next words. But he gives
more grace. Because that's the proper response
to the declaration of the wretched fleshly nature that still is
so powerful within us. We'll get back to the grace in
a minute. He goes on and he describes this adultery as an act of rebellion,
an act of pride. He says in verse 7, submit yourselves
then. He wouldn't call on us to submit
if we were already submitting. When we become so taken up with
the things of this world, whether it be possessions, or status,
or whatever it is that the people of this world run after. When
that takes up our energies and our pursuit, we're not in submission
to God. So he says, submit yourselves.
Secondly, these attitudes are devilish, because he goes on
and says, resist the devil and he will flee from you. So understand
that these passions that rise within us are instruments of
Satan by which he interferes, as it were, with our relationship
to the Savior. And these things, this pursuit
of the world, separates us from God. Now, it doesn't separate
us in an eternal sense. It doesn't cut us off from His
care. doesn't disconnect us from His
promises. It's talking here about experience. It's talking about the actual
experience of being a child in the Father's house. We, like
prodigals, run out to get what we think is better than what's
in our Father's house, and we leave the Father's house. And the exhortation is this then,
come near to God and He will come near to you. Which simply
means quit chasing the world and seek after God. You will
find Him and He will embrace you and testify to you of His
love and His grace and His salvation. Now, but he gives more grace. I'm glad that all these rebukes
and corrections has that in it. Do you know why he gives more
grace? Because we always need more grace. He says, I'll be gracious to
whom I'll be gracious. And those to whom He will be
gracious, He is gracious to them in measure upon measure upon
measure. He giveth more grace. Grace is
a gift. It's not something we can earn.
If we do come near to Him and He comes near to us, it's not
because us drawing near to Him merited Him drawing near to us.
We already left. God has no obligation under any
circumstances to once again manifest His love to us. But He gives
more grace. And that one who comes to his
senses like the prodigal son and says, this is stupid, what
am I doing this for? And runs back to his father's
house, his father's there ready with a hug and a robe and a ring
and a pair of shoes. And every one of them is more
grace. More grace. He gives more grace. He gives more grace to protect
us even when we're playing the fool. He gives more grace to keep us
from going so far we never come back. He gives us more grace
to cover our sins, wicked though they may be. That's why Paul
said, where sin did increase, grace increased all the more.
Oh, I hate it, don't you? That I need God's grace more
and more, but in the need of it, I'm so thankful that it's
there in unlimited supply. Because I don't know about you,
but it seems like my sin is an unlimited source of need for
grace. Grace that does not increase
will not save me. Grace that does not flow like
a river and every day fresh supplies come, cannot take this sinner
into the presence of God, because I am continually playing the
prodigal in my flesh. Grace to forgive
our sins. Grace to come to our senses.
We want and we quarrel and we fight and we reach out and try
to grab that which God knows is not good for us. And we say,
I want it and I'm going to have it no matter what it takes to
get it. And I don't care who gets in my way, I'll roll over
them. If God tries to restrain me, I'll find a way around that.
And God gives more grace so that in all of that rebellion, His
Word comes through and says, it's time to come home. It's time to quit living on hog
food. It's time to remember where your
true joy is, and where your eternal pleasures are. I don't like straying, but I sure do love my Father's
embrace when I come home. I don't like it that I can be
such a fool, but I rejoice that He gives more grace so that fools
like me don't destroy themselves. He gives more grace. He gives more grace by giving
us scriptures like this to warn us. He gives us more grace by
sending preachers to tell us about grace. He gives us more
grace because His Spirit is within us and is like a well, the Lord
Jesus said, is like an artesian well just springing up within
us and no amount of our foolishness can cap the well and stop it
from flowing with grace upon grace. And He's going to keep giving
us grace and more grace. Until we stand in His presence,
stripped of this flesh that drags us down. Stripped of all the
foolishness and rebellion and polluted fleshly desires that
make us play the fool in this world. And then sin will no longer abound. Grace will have done its full
work. And we will stand before Him, not just as His sons by
adoption. That is, we've got His name,
but we don't act a whole lot like those born into His family. We will be like His only begotten
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. How much grace do you think it's
going to take for that to happen? A lot. And God's got plenty. So here's our rebuke and correction. Quit chasing the world. Quit
making it the goal of your life. Do you feel a constant conflict
within you, dissatisfaction and upset at people? You're probably
reaching for something that God says doesn't belong to you. So
come on back home. Father's got a fine house. He's
got a feast waiting and all that you could need and all the favor
that you could ever experience. Come home. There'll be more grace. There'll be grace enough to bring
you back in and call you His. There will be grace enough for
you to weep for your sins and then dry your tears with the
knowledge of His goodness and mercy. And someday there will be enough
grace that you'll be all together like His Son who never left home
for any reason other than this, to come get us. It's the only
time He ever left home. And He went back. And He's there. And He's not like in that parable
of the prodigal son. He's not like that other older
brother who was bitter when his younger foolish brother was accepted
back into the house, he rejoices at any of his brethren coming
home. Well, may the Lord add His blessing.