James - James 4:1-5

I am engaged to be married to Jesus Christ and He is jealously watching over me and He says don't get involved in the world. Selfishness, prayerlessness, worldliness—these are the causes of wars among God's people.

James 4:1-5. Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the scripture says in vain the Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?

It's unfortunate but it's true, the Bible and church history bear witness to the fact that God's people have not always gotten along in unity and in harmony. There have been arguments and disputes and sometimes there has been outright war. When you read the Bible, you find that Abraham and Lot didn't get along with each other. Esau wanted to kill Jacob. Joseph's brothers hated him, sold him for a slave, would have killed him. Even the apostles had their disagreements, fighting over which of them was the greatest. And of course, when you read the church epistles, you discover that from Corinth to Philippi to Ephesus to Colossae, you did not have unity among God's people. 

The Corinthian church was divided four ways. The Galatians were biting and devouring one another. Even in Philippi, which I think was probably Paul's favorite church, even in Philippi, there were two church members who couldn't get along with each other. And Paul had to name them in the letter that he wrote to them, and he told Euodia and Syntyche to start getting along in the Lord. Now you would think that we as God's people would get along with one another in love. After all, we share the same life. We have eternal life, the gift of God through faith in Christ. We pray to the same Father—Our Father who art in heaven, not my Father, our Father. We have the same Holy Spirit who lives within us and has sealed us to the day of redemption. We are sent on the same mission—go into all the world and preach the gospel. We have so much in common.

And yet, history and the Bible and present-day experience indicate the saints don't always get along with each other. To live above with saints we love will certainly be glory; to live below with saints we know, well, that's another story. In James 4, these first five verses, James explains why the saints don't get along with each other. And he focuses on three basic causes: selfishness, verses 1 and 2; prayerlessness, verse 3; and worldliness, verses 4 and 5. Now, wherever you find selfishness, prayerlessness, and worldliness, you're going to find dissension, division, and strife.

Selfishness. Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? Now here we have two wars going on. They're at war with each other because they're at war with themselves. There's a war on the inside, and when you are having a war on the inside, you won't get along with anybody on the outside. So many times, people who create problems in families, in churches, in offices—these people have problems on the inside. They are at war with themselves and therefore they end up at war with each other.

Now there's a third war that he's going to talk about and that's down in verse 4. They are at war with themselves because they are at war with God. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? So if I'm at war with God, I'll be at war with myself. There'll be no peace on the inside. And if I'm at war with myself and at war with God, I'll be at war with you. I won't be able to get along with you because I am not walking with the Lord.

Well, these people were at war with each other. As you read James's letter, he points out some of the things that are going on. James 1:19: Therefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to get angry, for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. They must have had some interesting board meetings, some interesting business meetings. They wouldn't listen to each other, they wouldn't wait, they all interrupted one another. Then they got angry about it, and there was war and division.

James 4:11: Criticism. Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law. They were going around criticizing one another. James 3:1 indicates they all wanted to have special positions in the church. My brethren, let not many of you become teachers. They all wanted to be somebody important in the church. And of course, when you read James 2 and James 5, you discover that the rich and the poor were at war with one another. Well, they were at war with each other because they were at war with themselves. The real problem was on the inside. It's a thing Peter talked about in 1 Peter 2:11: Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. There's a war going on down inside because of the pleasures, the desires that we have. And these of course are selfish desires. He's talking about the work of the flesh in the heart of the believer.

He hints at this in James 3:14: But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. That's quite a collection of sin, isn't it? Envy, bitterness, self-seeking—which means really selfish ambition—boasting, lying, and where's it come from? The heart. Here were Christians who had a desire to please themselves. Now the essence of selfishness is not to get what you want; it's to want other people to want what you want. They have to like the kind of music you like. They have to like the kind of church that you like. The essence of selfishness is saying that the whole world must have my desires and satisfy my pleasures. And this is exactly what was happening in this particular assembly. They were not concerned about building character; they were concerned about satisfying their own selfish pleasure.

Now when life is motivated by pleasure, then we are in trouble. Then we start envying other people, we start coveting what they have, we start criticizing them to make them look bad so that we look good. We start to get selfish even in our praying. You do not have because you do not ask, and you ask and do not receive because you ask amiss. Only the Lord knows how much selfish praying is going on in His church. Selfish living, selfish desiring, selfish praying—James 4:1-2, here's the first cause for trouble in the church: selfishness. Somebody on the board has to have his own way. Somebody on the committee, somebody in the congregation has to have it the way he wants it, she wants it. And if we don't do what they want us to do, they'll take all their friends and go someplace else and start another church.

The second cause for war among God's people is prayerlessness. Verse 2: Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. Their selfishness even invaded their prayer life. Prayerlessness. Now God tells us: ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you—Matthew 7:7. We should ask because God gives. God is the giver of every good and perfect gift. Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above from the Father of lights—James 1:17. Therefore, since God is a giving God, we should be a praying people.

The purpose of prayer is not to get man's will done in heaven; the purpose of prayer is to get God's will done on earth. And if I pray selfishly, there's just the chance God might answer my prayer and I'll wish he had not. In whatever man does without God, said George MacDonald, in whatever man does without God, he must fail miserably or succeed more miserably. And we ask for things selfishly in our praying and the Father may just give those things to us just to teach us a lesson. Psalm 106:15, speaking about Israel: God gave them their request and he sent leanness to their soul. I'd rather not have my request; I would rather have fullness in my soul.

Prayerlessness. In 1 John 5 beginning at verse 14, the apostle says this: Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. Now the key thing here is "according to His will." Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. We ask for that before we ever ask for anything else—bread or forgiveness or guidance. We should ask because our God is the giving God. We should ask in the will of God. But these people were praying selfishly. And really it's interesting how many times we pray and we think we're praying so spiritually, but actually we're praying selfishly. We're like the prodigal son: "Father, give me." When he came home, he had a different prayer, didn't he? "Father, make me." You see, prayer is not just to get things from God; prayer is to make us more like God. And if my praying is selfish, then my praying is making me less and less like the Lord Jesus Christ.

I have noticed that churches that really pray, that really pray—they encourage home prayer groups, they encourage prayer meetings—churches that really pray experience harmony and unity. Yes, the devil fights them. Yes, there are worldly people who get in and try to disrupt all of this, but prayer brings unity. I notice in the Book of Acts that when the church prayed, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they were all of one mind and one heart and they had the experience of the power of the Lord.

James 4:1-2, selfishness will bring war in the church. Verse 3, prayerlessness will bring war in the church. And verses 4 and 5, worldliness will bring war in the church. Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world—notice the will is involved there—wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the scripture says in vain the Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?

James compares their sin of worldliness to adultery. Now the Old Testament Jew knew all about that. The nation of Israel was married to Jehovah God. Isaiah 54:5: For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name. At Mount Sinai, the nation of Israel was wedded to God, married to Jehovah. Alas, the nation went off into idolatry and sin. You have statements like this—Jeremiah 31:32: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. Jeremiah says now remember you were married to Jehovah. Now in Jeremiah 3, Jehovah tells the nation they are like an adulteress who leaves her husband and goes off into sin. The same chapter tells us in verse 20: Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so have you dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, says the Lord.

Now we as God's people are engaged to be married to the Lord Jesus Christ. The church is a bride and Christ is the bridegroom. And God is jealous over us. That's the meaning of verse 5. There is no specific scripture that James quotes here; Genesis 6:5 comes close to it. All he's saying is that our God is a jealous God. Now jealous does not mean envious. I am jealous over my wife. I am jealous over my children and my grandchildren. Somebody comes along and starts laying hands on them, I'll do something. I want them to be faithful. They are jealous over me as a husband and father and grandfather. There's nothing wrong with this. Where there is love, there must be a jealous care and a yearning for loyalty and love. The tragedy is too many times the church has gone into sin and not been faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Paul talks about that in 2 Corinthians 11:1-3. He says I have engaged you to Christ and like a jealous father I'm watching over you. Paul said I am like a father who has a daughter who's engaged and I'm watching over her lest someone come and seduce her. What a tragedy it is that many of the members of false cults started out in evangelical churches and claimed to know the Lord. 

Now here are God's three enemies: the world, verse 4; the flesh, verse 1; and the devil, verse 7—resist the devil and he will flee from you. Worldliness is a dangerous thing. It makes the church unfaithful. When the church gets into the world and wants to please the world—of course first there's friendship with the world, verse 4, that makes us the enemy of God; then there's being spotted by the world, that is in James 1:27; then we start loving the world, 1 John 2:15; and before long we are conformed to the world, Romans 12:2.

The Holy Spirit of God is the earnest, the down payment. He lives within us. He says the wedding is soon going to take place. Now be faithful. Be faithful to your bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ. By the way, if you were in the country of Greece and you went into a jewelry store to buy an engagement ring, the very word that is used for engagement ring is used in the Bible for the earnest of the Holy Spirit, the down payment. And He is the engagement ring. I am engaged to be married to Jesus Christ and He is jealously watching over me and He says don't get involved in the world. Therefore, if I'm going to be a peacemaker and not a troublemaker, I must avoid selfishness. I must live to please the Lord and to serve others. I must avoid prayerlessness. I must pray and ask God to make me a peacemaker. And I certainly must avoid worldliness because if I'm the friend of the world, I'm going to be the enemy of God. Selfishness, prayerlessness, worldliness—these are the causes of wars among God's people.

[Interview]
You're listening to a study on the book of James with Bible teacher Warren Wiersbe. Up next, Warren talks with Arnie Cole, CEO of Back to the Bible International.

Warren, in your book Be Mature, you say that the secret to a happy life is to delight in duty. What do you mean by that?

Well, I'll just tell you another story. They discovered some years ago that I was diabetic. Not radically so, but just enough I better be careful. So the doctor is telling me about testing your blood and all this sort of thing. And he said learn to like the things you should eat and to hate the things you shouldn't eat. Now I'm Swedish in background. The Swedes love sweets. My mother baked all kinds of wonderful sweets. And he says to me no more. So I had to learn to hate things that were bad and like things that were good. And you know what? It worked. If we look at obedience to the Lord as a burden, the Christian life is not going to be the Christian life. My Bible says that His commandments are not grievous. They're not a burden; they're a blessing. The purpose of life is not to enjoy what I enjoy but to enjoy what God enjoys. And what a difference it makes. So when I say that, I'm saying simply obedience is the key to blessing. Jesus said my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work—John 4:34. Most people don't think that the commandments of God are nourishment; it's punishment. "Oh, God may send me to lower Slobovia!" Ridiculous. 

One day when I was discouraged, I opened my New Testament and I have the Psalms in the back of it and I was reading Psalm 33. Now you've had this experience: you hit a verse and you say, "How long has that been there?" And the verse was Psalm 33:11: The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations. And I said to myself, "What am I griping about?" God's will comes from God's heart. It doesn't come from a computer. God's will comes from God's heart. He has willed this because He loves you. Oh, what a difference that makes.