Please turn with me to James 4.  This morning we’re moving into a new section of James’ letter.  In chapter one James focused on trials - the struggles and difficulties we go through in life.  The choice we have - in those trials - to seek God - to become more of who God has created us to be.  Chapters two and three focused on what faith looks like in action.  James gave us a series of teachings - with examples - to compare our lives to.  To ask the question - what do our actions tell us about our faith? 

Coming to chapter four, James is going to focus on what happens when faith fails.  What happens when we mess up.

Verse 1:  What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?

Isn’t that a great question?  Everyone one of us experiences this.  Quarrels and conflicts touches every human relationship - from nations down to communities - our neighbors - to relationships at work or school or in the church - to families and marriages - parents and kids.  Volumes have been written about how to resolve quarrels and conflicts.  Because we all struggle with this.

James goes for the bottom line.  What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?  Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?  James’ answer:  The source is within us.  “We have met the enemy and he is - who?  Us.”  The source is self.  Try that with me, “The source is self.”  Our own self-serving attitudes and desires.

Verse 2 - Three examples of what James is talking about - how we focus on ourselves - verse 2:  You lust and do not have; so you commit murder.  You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel.  You do not have because you do not ask.  You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

First example:  Lust - unfulfilled - insatiable desire.

Some of you read the article by Skye Jethani.  He makes a great point about how advertisements have changed.  Ads were originally designed to inform people with needs of the availability of a product.  Now ads are designed to convince people that they need what’s being sold.  Every day we’re exposed to 3,500 desire-inducing advertisements promising us that satisfaction is just one more purchase away.

Jethani writes, “This constant manufacturing of desires has created a culture of overindulgence.  Obesity, sexual promiscuity, and skyrocketing credit card debt are just a few signs.  Although lack of self-control has always plagued humanity, for the first time in history, an economic system has been created that relies on it.” (1)

That’s kind of a scary thought.  Our entire economic system is based on lust - the insatiable self-serving desire for more.

Would you agree with this?  Having stuff is not necessarily wrong or bad.   Stuff is not bad.  But when we lust - James writes - and we become frustrated in our attempts to obtain what we insatiably lust after - we commit murder.  We’ll mortgage the kids future with credit card debt - fudge on our stewardship - we don’t care what our self-gratification is costing others - we’ll ignore the needs of others - climb over anyone to get what we want.

Second example:  Envy - keeping up with the Jones.  Present company excluded.  Wanting what others have.

Do you remember Jacob and Esau?  The brothers ben Isaac.  The conflict between these two is legendary.

Esau - who brought tremendous grief to his parents and got himself into a lot of trouble because he only cared about fulfilling his own selfish desires.  And Jacob - whose name means “supplanter” or “one who takes the place of another by force of treachery” - who would name their kid something like that? 

Esau - the oldest is due to receive the greater portion of his father’s riches and God’s promises.  Jacob was the younger.  Esau comes home from hunting and Jacob is cooking soup.  Esau, who’s famished, begs him for some soup.  Jacob - looking out only for himself - says, “First, sell me your birthright.”  Esau sells his future riches and blessing for a bowl of soup - immediate gratification of desire.

Another time, when Isaac, their father, was old - blind - near death - he called for Esau.  Isaac sends Esau out to hunt for fresh game and to prepare a special meal that was Isaac’s favorite.  Its a nice scene.  The eldest son is going to prepare a meal for his father and then the Isaac is going to give his blessing to Esau.   But, while Esau’s out hunting Jacob puts on a costume - brings in Isaac’s favorite meal - pretends to be Esau and gets the blessing Isaac intends for Esau.

This goes on and on - intrigue and deception - conflict and quarrels.  Their lives are full of this.  The source is their own selfish desires - envy - wanting what rightfully belong to the other.  James says we struggle with this - the illegitimate desire for what others have.  (Genesis 25:19-34; 27:1-46)

Third example:  Prayer.  Prayer focused on self - not God.

Jesus was teaching about prayer.  He said this about God.  “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:11)  Remember that?

There’s a story about a man who stood up in a prayer meeting to pray one of those long, windy, theological prayers.  He introduced it with, “Oh, Thou great God who sittest on  the circle of the earth, before Whom the inhabitants are like grasshoppers.”  A lady seated behind him began to tug on the back of his jacket and said, “Just call Him ‘Father” and ask Him for something.” (2)

God is the Father who wants to give us stuff - to meet our needs - to bless us tremendously.  He wants us to ask Him.

James says - you don’t have what you need because you’re not asking God for it.  You’re so self-focused that you’re trying to do life on your own.  And if you do ask God - you’re only asking for what you want and not for what He wants.

Remember Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane?  That’s the example.  “Father, this is what I want.  But, not my will.  May your will be done.”  (Matthew 26:39). 

If we’re focused on ourselves in prayer then we’re going to be frustrated in our desires.  That frustration is going to lead us to seek our own solutions - which brings us back to lust and envy.

Verse 4 - This is where James shows us that we have a choice to make.  Verse 4:  You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?  Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose:  “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”?  But He gives a greater grace.

Can you imagine if your wife went to the man next door for advice - or they went off together for a weekend at the coast.  Or, if your husband bought a $10,000 diamond necklace and gave it to the woman next door - or spent hours listening to her pour out her heart.  Wouldn’t you wonder just a tad about their commitment to your marriage?

James says, when we go to the world for our needs - rather than our Heavenly Father - we’re being adulterers - we’re being unfaithful to God.

Not to long ago Burger King had the slogan, “Have it your way.”  Remember that?  A man walks into Burger King and orders a whopper with no bun.  The lady behind the counter complains.  “You can’t have a whopper without a bun.”  He says, “The sign says I can have it my way and my way is whopper sans bun.”  So she goes and gets him the bunless whopper.  “Anything else?”  She asks.  “Yes,” he says.  “Milkshake.  No cup.”

That’s the world.  “I did it my way.”  Sing that with me, “I did it my way.”  Can’t remember the rest of the words.  But the message is clear.

I gotta be me.  You deserve a break today.  I love what you do for me.   Because you’re worth it.  You only go around once in life.  Grab what you can for as long as you can while you claw and scratch your way towards the top of the heap.  Behind all that - the world is being manipulated by Satan to lure us in - to trap us - to move us away from God - to destroy us.  The bait is anything that we think will satisfy self.  The hook is the lie that we should obtain it by our own efforts.

The world system - under the control of Satan - is at war with God and His children.  When we ally our selves with the world - when we flirt and fornicate with the world - going to the world for our needs - with its focus on self - we become the enemy of God - we’ve allied ourselves with the wrong side in the war.

In contrast James writes that God is jealous.  God desires the fidelity of His children - the Bride of Christ - the one’s in whom He - God - has made His spirit to dwell.

Verse 6 begins with a tremendous truth.  God’s desire is to give us greater grace.  Even when we’re unfaithful - God is what? faithful.  Whatever the measure of our infidelity - when we turn to Him - because He is gracious - He stands ready to give us an even greater measure of His blessing.  Our heavenly Father - desires to bless us - to meet our needs - to bring peace and end conflict in our lives.

All this is more than just lust and envy and misguided prayer.  Adultery is a choice - meeting legitimate needs by illegitimate means - in this case the world.  Grab onto this:  We have a - at the core of who we are - we have a choice as to where we go to have our needs met - self or God.

Going on in verse 6.  James is very practical.  He’s going to give us three specific things that we can do that will help us - as we make that choice - to help us go from self-focus to God-focus.

Verse 6:  Therefore - because God is gracious - therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”  Submit therefore to God.  Resist the devil and he will flee from you.  Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.  Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

Three things we can do that will help us go from self-focus to God-focus.

First:  Submission.  Say that together, “Submission.”  “Submit therefore to God.”

Are we willing to let God be God?  He’s the potter.  We’re the what? clay.  (Romans 9:20,21)  Are we willing to be clay?  To stay on the wheel and let Him mold us.  For God to determine our economic level.  Our marriage state or unmarriaged state.  Our health.  Our job situation?  The path of our lives?

“Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”  Satan has no ultimate power over us.  Its a lie that we need to act like the world acts.  As tremendously powerful as Satan may seem - he can be resisted.  But we can’t resist Satan under our own power. 

So, James begins with submission.  God is graciously standing right there ready to empower us.  We’re His.  If we choose to give God free reign over our lives - if we choose to trust God - choose to go to God with our needs - to resist Satan and all His self-serving lies - Satan will flee from us because the power of God upon our lives is too much for him.

Submission.  Second:  Repentance.  Say that with me, “Repentance.”  Repentance is turning - what?  around.  Go in the opposite direction.  World’s there.  God’s there.  I’m going towards God.

Years ago there was a man by the name of Al Johnson who came to faith in Jesus Christ. What made his testimony so remarkable was not just his conversion - but the fact that as a result of his newfound faith in Jesus - he confessed to a bank robbery he’d participated in when he was nineteen years old.  The statute of limitations on the case had run out so Johnson couldn’t be prosecuted for his crime. But, because of his relationship with Jesus he believed that he need to confess.  Not only that - he voluntarily repaid his share of the stolen money!  (3)

We’ve got to choose to go in a different direction.

James writes, “Draw near to God.”  Stop drawing near to the world and start doing those things that move you closer to God.

Robert Sumner, in his book “The Wonders Of The Word Of God” tells about man who was severely injured in an explosion.  The man’s face was badly disfigured and he’d lost his eyesight as well as both hands.  He was a new Christian and one of his greatest disappointments was that he could no longer read the Bible.  Then he heard about a lady in England who read Braille with her lips.  Hoping to do the same, he sent for some books of the Bible in Braille.

When the books came he discovered - sadly - that the nerve endings in his lips had been too badly destroyed by the explosion.  He just couldn’t read that way.  But, one day as he brought one of the Braille pages to his lips, his tongue happened to touch a few of the raised characters and he could feel them.  He realized, “I can read the Bible using my tongue.”

At the time that Sumner wrote about this man he’d already read through the Bible four times using his tongue. (4)

Reading the Bible.  Prayer.  Worship.  Meditation.  Fellowship.  Service.  Passionately devoting ourselves to those things that move us closer to God.  As we draw near to God it is amazing how close He already is to us.

“Cleanse your hands” focuses on our actions.  “Purify your hearts” focuses on our thoughts and attitudes.  To repent means making choices -  to not go to where we once went - to let go of people we once hung out with - to not participate in things we once participated in - to change what we listen to and what we watch - to learn to think differently.

As we walk through our life - looking at the stuff we have - the way we spend our time - what we spend our money on - what we give our attention and focus to - we have to learn to ask, “Is this drawing me closer to God or drawing me away?”  There is no neutral ground.  If its moving us away from God - drop it like a hot rock.

“Be miserable, mourn, and weep - let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.” 

What James is talking about here is desperation.  As Christians living in America this is really hard.  We have so much its hard to understand how spiritually needy we really are.  We have everything we need to experience life together in Christ - to serve Him - to grow individually in our relationship with Him.  We have Bible Bookstores - mail order Christian catalogues - everything we want is available on the Internet.  We have Christian radio - television - magazines - even iPodcasts.  Think about that “I” Pod.  We have the freedom to worship God - to meet to study His word - to be together in fellowship. 

All the things that we do and have available to us can distract us.  We get caught up in doing the Christian life - and we forget our dependence - our desperate need for God.  Remember the song, “I’m lost without You.”  We miss the depth of that.

The kind of misery - mourning and weeping - James is writing about is like the Prodigal Son - who returns home - having wasted his inheritance - having done everything possible to grieve his father and earn his scorn - who returns destitute and begging for the smallest kindness to be shown to Him.

Instead of merrily going our way - with laughter and joy - we need to get a grip on our spiritual poverty - acknowledging our spiritual bankruptcy before God.  We’re destitute - condemned in sin - unworthy - utterly dependent on God’s greater grace and mercy.  Only He can rescue us.

Hear this:  We struggle with repentance because we struggle in acknowledging the depth of our desperation for God.

Submission.  Repentance.  Third:  Humility.  Say that with me, “Humility.”  “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”

Winston Churchill was once asked, "Doesn't it thrill you to know that every time you make a speech, the hall is packed to overflowing?"

"It's quite flattering," replied Sir Winston. "But whenever I feel that way, I always remember that if instead of making a political speech I was being hanged, the crowd would be twice as big." (5) Have you heard that?

It is so easy for us to have illusions about our own self-importance as the center of the universe.

Humility.

Philippians 2 says that Jesus - God the Son - didn’t hold onto His prerogatives - His perks - as God.  But, He set all that aside - humbled Himself - took on human flesh - became one of us.  And died - for us - in our place - taking an unimaginable penalty upon Himself - that should have been ours.  Because Jesus did that God highly exalted Him.

That’s where we need to go.  To take all of our legitimate needs - our desires - what drives us - and let them die.  So that if anything is raised up - it is exalted by God.

Coming to verses 11 and 12 James takes what he’s been teaching and applies it to a real life situation.

Verse 11:  Do not speak against one another, brethren - stop slandering each other - stop tearing each other down - He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it.  There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?

The same self-serving - self-righteous - self-focused attitude that causes quarrels and conflicts is the source of slander and criticism and inappropriate judgment.  There isn’t any one of us that escapes this.  Little things we say to ourselves or out loud.  “I’m right.”  “I know better.”  “I’m more mature spiritually.”  “Those people are idiots.”  “I’m a better driver.”

In chapter two James wrote about partiality - when the basis of our relationships is what we get from others.  James wrote about indifference - our needs - ourselves - being more important than the needs and concerns of others.  When we judge others it becomes so easy to disrespect others - to disregard them - to be careless about their rights and feelings - to climb over them.

James has written about two different laws - both of which we’ve looked at previously.  The Royal Law - in chapter two - is the king - the law that governs over all laws concerning human relationships.  Remember what it is?  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (2:8).

The other law we’ve looked at is what James refers to as The Law of Liberty.  (1:25; 2:12)  The law of liberty is freedom.  Not the freedom to do what we want - follow our own selfish desires.  But, the freedom to choose to do what we should do - to live God’s way.

James may have both in mind here.  As those who have experienced God’s love - who have experienced freedom in Jesus Christ - who are set free from guilt and the expectation of God’s wrath - because of Jesus’ death on the cross - we should choose to love as God loves rather than slander - judge.

When we speak against each other - we place ourselves on the wrong side of the law as those who judge the law - like we know better than the law.  And we elevate ourselves to the role of God - like we’re better judges of people’s hearts than God.  All of which shows that something has gone terribly wrong with our faith.  Shows us that we’re focused on ourselves and not God.  Might even lead to quarrels and conflicts.

James reminds us that there is only one Lawgiver and Judge - the One - God.  That’s where our focus needs to be.

One thought of application.  Focus.

Charles Conn writes in “Making It Happen”:  When I lived in Atlanta, several years ago, I noticed in the Yellow Pages, in the listing of restaurants, an entry for a place called Church of God Grill.  The peculiar name aroused my curiosity and I dialed the number.  A man answered with a cheery, “Hello!  Church of God Grill!”

I asked how his restaurant had been given such an unusual name, and he told me:  “Well, we had a little mission down here, and we started selling chicken dinners after church on Sunday to help pay the bills.  Well, people liked the chicken, and we did such a good business, that eventually we cut back on the church service.  After a while we just closed down the church altogether and kept on serving the chicken dinners.  We kept the name that we started with, and that’s Church of God Grill.” (6)

It is so easy for us to get in trouble in our relationships with others because it is so easy for us to lose focus.

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1. Skye Jethani, “All We Like Sheep”, Leadership, Summer 2006
2. David Roper, “War And Peace” - sermon on James 4:1-10
3. Today in the Word, April, 1989
4. Quoted in The Temple News, August 2006
5. Norman McGowan, My Years With Winston Churchill, Souvenir Press, London
6. Quoted by Charles Swindoll, Swindoll’s Ultimate Book of Illustrations & Quotes

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible®, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation.  Used by permission.