Last week we looked at the difference
between worldly wisdom and true wisdom, which comes from above.
And true wisdom comes from our King, our great God. Worldly
wisdom is full of bitterness, envy, strife, quarreling. And
that wisdom we learned is not from above, but it's earthly,
fleshy, fleshy wisdom. Sensual, devilish, the scripture
says. Now let's read verses 17 and
18 from John chapter 3, because they tie into what we're going
to look at today. And then we'll continue to read
in chapter 4, we'll read verses 1 to 7, which is what we, Lord
willing, now that I chewed up some time, I don't know if we're
going to be able to get through it all, but we'll see. We'll see.
Let's look at verse 17 and 18 of James chapter 3. But the wisdom that is from above
is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated,
full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without
hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness
is so in peace of them that make peace." Now chapter 4, we'll
read verses 1 to 7. From whence come wars and fightings
among you? Come they not hence, even of
your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not. Ye kill,
and desire to have. and cannot obtain. Ye fight and
war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive
not, because ye ask amiss, that it may consume upon your lusts.
Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that friendship of
the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a
friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do you think that the
scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth
to envy? But he giveth more grace. All
praise God that he gives us more grace, beloved. He giveth more
grace, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but gives
grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to
God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. So we see
in verses 17 and 18 of James chapter 3, that true wisdom is a gift from
God. It's pure without any mixture
that would debase it. It's holiness. It has holiness
both in heart and life. The believer desires to live
a life to honor God now, where he used to live a life to please
the flesh. He or she now would desire to
honor God in our life and in our walk. And then this true
wisdom is peaceable. It loves peace. It loves peace. It does not like strife at all.
It does not like quarrelsome times. It loves peace. And it seeks peace. And those
who are truly wise, they do what they can do to preserve peace.
They do what they can do to preserve peace. And this wisdom is gentle.
It's easy to be entreated. It's not overbearing or rude.
It's not harsh or cruel in temper. It seeks to do good. It's easy
to be entreated. It's persuadable. It's persuadable. And it desires to stay away from
evil. It doesn't desire the things
that the flesh once wanted. Now the new man desires to stay
away from evil and desires the things of God. It's full of mercy. It seeks mercy. It wants to give
mercy. It desires to give mercy, this
true wisdom. And it's full of good fruits,
which come from the Lord. The only way we bear fruit is
the Lord working in us. It's nothing that we do in our
flesh. It's the Lord working in us, and we give Him the glory.
It's without partiality. It doesn't wrangle or censor
people. It's without hypocrisy. It's sincere and open. It's vulnerable. It's vulnerable. True wisdom
will go on to sow the fruit of righteousness and peace, making
peace in the world. And that which is sown in peace
will produce a harvest of joy. So, this being produced in us
by the Holy Spirit of God will produce joy in us, right? A peace that passes all understanding,
that keeps your hearts and minds set upon Christ, set upon our
Savior. And in the midst of a turmoil
or a storm, we can have peace. And the world looks at us and
go, how can you be peaceful in that situation? Well, I know
God's on the throne. I know he's sovereign. I don't
understand why the situation happened, but I know that he's
sovereign. And I know that he's going to
work it out for my good and for his glory. I don't know how.
I don't see it now. But he tells me that's what's
going to happen. And I trust him. I trust what his word says. And a true wisdom works that
way. And of course, wisdom in the scriptures is Christ, right?
So the true wisdom which came from above is the Lord Jesus
Christ. And what James is talking about here is wisdom that God
gives us in circumstances. And these are traits of it. It's
peaceable. It's easily entreated. It's without
partiality. It's without hypocrisy. Now,
the flesh and the spirit are in a constant state of disagreement.
Every believer will say that, right? We know that. We understand
when Paul says, O wretched man that I am, who can deliver me
from this body of death? We live there, don't we? We understand
that constant battle between spirit and flesh. We understand
that. Unbelievers, they have struggle
of conscience and often battle within themselves, but these
are conflicts that fall under the pale of the law. intend towards
establishing personal merit. Religion knows nothing of what
James addresses here. Religion knows nothing of what
James addresses here, because he speaks to those who are being
regenerated. He's speaking to those who have
been born again by the Holy Spirit of God. God's done a mighty work. So that's who he's writing to,
we who are born again, blood-washed believers. We struggle. We struggle every
single day. And our struggles are not of
the conscience and the law, but of the flesh and the spirit.
See the difference? It's of the flesh and the spirit. Now, folks usually are repentant
in religion because they get caught doing something. We're repentant in our closets,
aren't we? Lord, forgive me for that. No, I shouldn't have done
that. No, I shouldn't have said that.
Forgive me. No, I shouldn't have thought
that. When nobody's around, we're talking to the Lord, aren't we?
And we're always repenting as God's people. We're always coming
before the Lord saying, even though our sins are forgiven,
we still confess our sins to him, don't we? But we know, praise
God, that he's washed them clean in his precious blood. God doesn't
count them against us. He doesn't count them against
us. So religious conflicts leave a man feeling better about themselves. And they play to his pride and
self-righteousness. The conflicts of the spirit and
the flesh leave a man or a woman humble, defeated, And what do they do? They drive us to the feet of
Christ. Drive us to the feet of Christ.
Look at verse one of James chapter four here. James opens with two
questions which we see in verse one of chapter four. From whence
come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence even
of your lusts that war in your members? So he's asking here,
where does strife come from? And remember, this is within
the church. This is within the church. I don't think there's
one of us here that haven't seen in our lives some kind of strife
and conflict within the church. And so knowing that the Holy
Spirit inspired James to write this, we can rest assured that
God is in full control and that he's going to work things out
for his glory and according to his will. So he's asking here,
though, where does strife come from? Where does strife within
the church, and I believe strife within the world, too, where
does it come from? And we see James gives the real
cause for this. It's not doctrine. It's not doctrine. For every split over doctrine,
there's 1,000 splits that have nothing to do with doctrine. And rarely do you ever see a
church split over the glory of God. You don't see that happen. Well, what did you split for?
Well, because of the glory of God. You don't ever hear that. You
don't ever hear that. And we can go over our own strifes
and quarrels and see if the glory of God had anything to do with
it, and we know the answer is no, it didn't have anything to
do with it. So why then does strife occur? Well, look at verse
2. You lust, and have not. You kill, and desire to have.
and cannot obtain, you fight in war, yet you have not, because
ye ask not." Now lust there isn't sexual lust. That's not what the word means.
We see that word and we think, oh, that means sexual lust. It
doesn't mean that. We're going to find out that
the Holy Spirit has these men use three different Greek words
for lust in our text. Three different Greek words. So he brings forth here that
the root cause, the root cause of contentions within the body
of Christ is because we lust, we kill, we desire to have. Somebody's
seeking to stand in. Now James has been dealing with
that, hasn't he, in chapter three, in verse one. He dealt with that. And our lusts are cords that
bind us to this world. Our desires for worldly things
are things that bind us to this world. And God often sends fiery
trials our way to deliver us from those cords of lust, to
deliver us from those cords that are keeping us entangled in this
world. And sometimes a violent wind will come our way, shake
those cords. So the humble soul is freed from
the world of temptation, and proud souls are torn to pieces
by it. But God watches over His people. You know the lowest shrubs
are freed from, the lowest shrubs, when you see some shrubs, the
lowest shrubs closest to the ground are more freed from the
violent winds that come their way than the ones that are higher.
Those shrubs that are low, They don't get shook as much as those
shrubs that are high. No. No, not at all. God keeps us low, beloved. He
keeps us at His feet. Keeps us at His feet. By various
trials which we go through and temptations, He keeps us low.
Keeps us clinging to Him. And we see clearly, let's read
verses two and three, what the root cause of strife is within
the body. Ye lust and have not, ye kill
and desire to have. And remember, killing people
can be angry with people, right? Because when the Lord spiritualized
the law, we're all in trouble. He said, you're angry with your
brother? You just killed him. Well, that's convicting, isn't it?
Oh, my. Ye lust and ye have not, ye kill
and desire to have. and cannot obtain. You fight
and war, yet you have not, because you ask not. You ask and receive
not, because you ask amiss. Why do we not always get what
we ask for? Well, because we're asking amiss. Think back to some things that
you prayed for, and you thank God that he didn't answer those
prayers. I have many of those. I'm not kidding you. You look
back and go, oh Lord, thank you for not answering that prayer.
That would have ruined me. My, oh, my! Ye ask, and ye receive
not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
So James brings forth that we lust. Now the word lust in verse
2 and the word lust in verse 3 are two different Greek words. Now keep in mind, again, that
this does not refer to sexual lust, but it refers to lust for
power. Lust for power. status and recognition. That's what James has been dealing
with in this book. So, wisdom from above doesn't
seek power. Now God may put the believer
in a place of, it's like I'm called to preach,
but I'm no more better than any of you. Right? But he's called me to preach
and to lead. I didn't seek that. God's people
don't seek that. Now there's others who seek standing,
seek power. Those are the ones who James
has told us, watch out for them. Watch out for them. I had a young
man one time, I was asking him, I said, I'd like to, you know,
and I still meet with him too, and he's a wonderful brother.
And I said, you know, I'd like to have you do some lessons and
then eventually maybe bring a lesson here. It's Brother Marcus. And
he said to me, he said, I don't know enough about the Bible to bring a lesson. I said, that's
a perfect answer. That's a perfect answer. Because
none of us know enough about the Bible. Paul said, who's sufficient
for these things? Who's sufficient? No. None of
us. Ask any of us preachers. We'll
tell you we're not sufficient for this. It's God who equips. It's God who builds up. It's
God who is the one who makes you what you are. So the word,
again, this lust doesn't have to do with sexual lust. It refers
to lust for power, status, recognition that's achieved. And this power
and this recognition is often achieved at the expense of brothers
and sisters. There's damage left behind. There's
damage left behind. You might not have ever known
it happened, but you start to find out there's damage left behind.
Oh my. The first word for lust in verse
two is defined as this, to have affections directed towards something,
to lust or desire, to long after. So it's longing after, you know,
someone may long after a position. or someone made long after status
or recognition. That's what's being bought out
here. And that's what causes strife within the body. That's what James is telling
us. Watch out for this stuff. Be aware of this stuff. The second
word for lust in verse 3 is defined as delight, enjoyment, to have
sensual pleasure. but it's more to delight and
enjoy in something. So these people crave that position
to delight and enjoy that position. Where's the glory of God in that?
You see, it's not normal in the Christian life anyways. It's
normal in the world, but it's not normal in the Christian. Now, if lust reigns uncontrolled,
there's no end to it. You can give that person power,
and they still want more. They want more. I have a brother
in Canada, he's a millionaire. He just wants more and more and
more. We told him, you can rest a little bit now. He's going
to work himself until he dies. But he doesn't have to. But I'll
tell you what. He just works so hard, and working
hard is a good thing, isn't it? But he wants more and more and
more. And I've talked to him, like I've talked to several brothers
about, just being content with what you have. But you see, the
world's never content. So this person that James is
speaking of, even though they may have power, they want more.
They're never satisfied. Never satisfied. You give them
the world, and they'd want another world. My, oh, my. Because they're never satisfied.
James is bringing forth that this is why there's strife in
the church. See, contentment is a gift from God. Just to be
content where you're at. Just to be content in the station
of life where God's put you. And if you have contentment,
I'll tell you what, you're gonna have peace. And you know what else
you're gonna have? Joy. You're gonna have peace
and joy. It comes naturally. So James
is bringing forth again, this is why there's strife in the
church. And you know, there's no greater torment than envy.
Joshua and Vicki were talking this week, and I didn't know
until I was talking to Vicki about what we're looking at today,
that here they were talking all week about envy Western society
is, there's a lot of envy in Western society, wanting more,
wanting, you know, never satisfied. And I guess Josh was saying some
of the third world countries, people are content. I've heard
of some of the villages in Africa where there's such a community
aspect, and they're content with what they have. See, I've only
ever lived in Canada and the US, so I can't speak of that. But, There's a contentment there,
and that's what happens in the body of Christ. When God saves
us, we don't seek station. Now God may put us in that station,
and it's incredible when he does, but we don't seek it, we don't
go out looking for it. Promotion comes from the Lord,
the scripture says, right? And that's even our promotion
to go home, isn't it? He promotes us to glory when
we die. Man, that's the ultimate promotion, isn't it? That's the
ultimate promotion. You know that, again, no torment
is greater than envy. Envy's ruined many lives, many
lives. It can be little by little, small
evils, and then it can just overpower you. So we have to be on guard
for that. I like this saying, those who
are murdered by slow-acting poison die just as surely as those who
drink fast-acting poison. Careful little sins. Be careful. Both are poison. Both are poison. It says here you kill. The meaning here is that envy
is hatred and is the root of murder. And envy is murder in
the sight of God. Then it says you fight. Now this
does not mean actual war. This means wrangle and quarrel.
Wrangling with each other, quarreling with each other. You ever quarrel
with people? Oh my, it's not fun, is it? Someone always ends
up getting hurt. Usually it's both parties. So
don't quarrel with each other. Now let's read verses four and
five. Ye adulterers and adulterers, know ye not that friendship with
the world is enmity with God? Whosoever, therefore, will be
a friend of the world is an enemy of God. Do you think that the
scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth
to envy? Now James here is speaking of
spiritual adulterous, having idols in the world, making idols out of things in
the world, spiritual adultery. A man can have a good portion
of good things in this life and yet keep himself in the love
of God by God's grace and mercy, but it's treason to set the world
upon the throne of our hearts. There's only one throne in our
hearts, and there's only one who should be on that throne,
and that's God. That's God. I remember when I
was In Oregon, my daughter had come to visit me from Canada,
and she said to me, Dad, you say that you love God more than
me. How can you love God more than
me? And I said, well, I love God more than your mom, too,
and more than your brother. And she was perplexed. And I
said, listen, honey, my love for God is totally different
than my love for you. and totally different than my
love for your mom. And the believer in Christ loves
God first. She goes, oh, okay. You see,
God is in the throne of our heart, isn't he? He sits in the throne
of our hearts. That's where he should be. And he fills us with joy. He saved
us. Why should He not be on the throne
of our hearts? He saved us from all our sins.
He purchased our eternal souls with the shedding of His precious
blood. He, the sinless one, died for me, a sinner, and for you,
a sinner. If you're a believer, isn't that
marvelous? How can we not but yet love the Lord our God? How
can we not but put Him on the throne of our heart? He's in
there already. He comes in and puts himself
on the throne of our heart. But you know what I mean? How can
we not love him with all our heart, mind, and soul? Which
we don't do, unfortunately, but Christ did for us. But how can
we not love him? How can we not love him? If you
ever hear someone say they love God with all their heart, mind,
and soul, say, well, I'm sorry, but you're a liar. Because we
can only do that in Christ. I am not diminishing our love
for God. I'm not saying that at all. But the only one who
truly loved God with all his heart, mind, and soul is the
sinless one, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he did that as our substitute. Isn't that wonderful? He fulfilled
that law for us. It's wonderful. But we do love
God more than anyone else, don't we? And you know what's wild? Is
that when your spouse, she's a believer and she tells you
that, or he's a believer, it doesn't bother you. You're like,
yeah, I know. Because it's a different love
than what we have for one another. It's a different love than what
we have for one another. Oh, my. God honors the humble. He gives
grace to the humble. Why? Well, simply because we
need it. We need grace, don't we? We need
grace every single day. We pray for grace, and then we
are to be thankful for the grace that God's given us. My, oh my. Our God, he is so,
so amazing. So amazing to us. So amazing our great God is. And there's only one, again,
who should be on the throne of our heart. And so what peace,
what peace we have in Christ. Now, but can
we have peace if we have friendship with the world? No. No. No. We can't have peace if
we have friendship with the world. Because look what it says there
in verses 4 and 5. Ye adulterers and adulteresses,
know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?
Whosoever therefore be a friend of the world is an enemy of God.
Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that
dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? Oh, my. Again, there's only one who should
rule our heart, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. And where
he gives grace, he gives another spirit than the world. Where
he gives grace, he gives another spirit than the world. That's
the Holy Spirit of God. And the spirit of man being cancerous
always is infected with envy and will cause strife. So again,
the wisdom from man will cause quarrels and envy and strife. Look at verse 6, though, but
he giveth more grace. Wherefore, he saith, God resisteth
the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. That's what he does.
He says he resists the proud there, though. He resists the
proud. See the word lustus in verse
5? Again, it's the third different Greek word here than the other
two. This one is defined in the Greek
as to dote upon. To dote upon. That is, to intensely
crave possession. You see how these words are different?
We look at it and think, oh, it means lust. It means a sexual
lust. No, not one of those words meant
that. No. Intensely crave, lawfully or
wrongfully, to desire earnestly, greatly, to long after. So again, in the context, again,
James is telling us within the church, why does envy and strife
come? Because of these things right here. Because of fleshy
wisdom, people are longing for things. They're looking either
for status or position or recognition. And that's what they crave. And
again, even if they get that, they're never satisfied. They
always want more. They always want more. So James
is here telling us that our natural tendency of our flesh is to seek
the things of the world. That's our natural tendency.
And this is why we have such a battle going on every day within
our bodies, between our flesh and our spirit. The flesh seeks
the things which would please it, and the spirit seeks the
things of God. So there's this constant conflict.
Look at verse six again and rejoice that God gives grace to his people.
Poor, humble, bankrupt sinners. God gives grace. And it all comes
to we who are the born again, blood washed people of God in
and through the Lord Jesus Christ. All through him. but he giveth
more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth
the proud, look at that, but giveth grace unto the humble. What grace God gives to his people,
what grace. He gives us grace to overcome
strife and envy and quarrels. He gives us strength to overcome
all that. And who does he give this grace to? Well, he gives
it to those who are of a humble spirit, broken, contrite, bought
low, like those shrubs, bought low. And who does God resist? The
proud. He resists the proud. But hear this and tremble. God
resists the proud, and when He resists the soul, that soul is
destroyed. You can be certain that He will
fight, that He will fill with shame those who have filled their
hearts with pride, and there be disgraced. He honors the humble,
gives them more grace, again, simply because we need it. We
need it, don't we? We need it. We desperately, desperately
need it. Now let's look at verse seven.
Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and
he will flee from you. So we see an exhortation here
by the Holy Spirit of God for us to submit as believers ourselves
to God. Submit ourselves to God. Submission
is opposed by human nature. We have a natural tendency to
resist submission. We have a natural tendency to
that. But the key to all happiness in our walk as believers is to
submit ourselves to God, to humbly submit ourselves to the one who
loves us, who purchased our eternal soul, submit ourselves to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And we are to submit ourselves
to God voluntarily, freely. Not only in a way of obedience,
see, again, the Lord doesn't save us for us to go say, well,
I'm saved now, I can go do anything I want. No, the love of Christ
constrains us. We will not go out and live like
the world. Not if we're truly born again.
We won't. So what is chiefly meant here
is that we are to submit ourselves to God in a way of humility.
Humbly come before God and submit ourselves in a sense of our weakness
and our emptiness. We are empty, aren't we? We need
him. We need God. We need Christ.
We need his grace every single day. So all of the life of the believer
is built on submission to God. If we do that, things will fall
into place. Now, what is the opposite of
submitting? Resisting. Resisting. Well, it says here
we're to resist the devil. We're not to submit to the temptations
that come our way. We're not to submit to the flesh.
See what's being, this is practical Christianity being taught to
us right here, isn't it? I know some guys are afraid to
talk about practical Christianity. That's what we're seeing right
here. Submit and resist. Submit to God and resist the
devil. My, we're to resist the devil
in the power of Christ. That's the only way we're doing
it, is in the power of Christ. And he will be defeated. Christ
defeated him at Calvary's Cross. Now, this exhortation would not
be here if we didn't need to hear it. Right? We know we're saved, we know
we're born again, but we are to submit to God and resist the
devil. And our battle's not with our flesh and blood, for we wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but against princes and principalities,
powers against the rulers of darkness in the world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places. And Satan will continually
attack the believer. But when we resist, he always
leaves defeated. Again, if we submit to God in
all the areas of our life, we will gain victory over our enemy.
And our flesh is our enemy, isn't it? Satan's our enemy. The world's our enemy. Praise
be to God that we who are God's people are given grace and strength
by our great God to overcome the world, the flesh, and the
devil. May God continue to give us grace to resist, to resist
the devil. and to submit to our great God. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for allowing us to be able to gather together, for allowing
us to be able to come here and look into thy word. Oh, your
teachings are so clear to we who are born again, and yet they're
hidden from the world. And there was a time when they
were hidden from us, but we rejoice, Lord, that you teach us, that
you illuminate the scriptures and teach us the things of Christ.
And we praise you, Holy Spirit, for doing that. Thank you, Father,
for sending your Son to die for us. And thank you, Lord Jesus
Christ, for coming and shedding your precious blood for your
people, saving us from all our sins. Glory to the Father, glory
to the Son, and glory to the Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name,
amen.